VanCX: Vancouver Community Experience Group

VanCX #6 - Community is Everything with Josh Nilson & Cindy Chow of ESG

January 31 · 6:00 PM
Work [at] Play

Community is Everything.

We say this a lot at East Side Games. We live, breathe and think this. For our games we involve the community from the planning stages all the way to launch. After launch, we work with the community to drive features, content and engagement. Almost all of our Facebook users are word of mouth and because of that some of our core games have been going strong for over 3 years. I want to have a open discussion and share some of our learnings and learn from you as well.

Note: Unlike our previous meetups, this session will feature a shorter talk and longer Q&A period. Josh and Cindy would like their session to be focused on active discussion with more of an "Ask Me Anything" feel.

About our speakers

Josh Nilson

Josh Nilson has been working in Information Technology for over 10 years, at both enterprise and startup companies. For the last 3 years, he has been specializing in the mobile and social game space, his keen efforts integral to East Side Games becoming a profitable studio. Josh had previously worked at Relic Entertainment, where he contributed to critically and commercially acclaimed RTS games Dawn of War II and Company of Heroes.

As Chief Operating Officer, Josh has grown East Side Games from 14 to 50+ people while still maintaining the unique culture that makes East Side Games the best place to work and play. He has accomplished all of this with his chunky pug, Jabba, at his side.

Follow Josh on Twitter at @joshnilson.

Cindy Chow

Cindy Chow is Community Manager for East Side Games' number one underground farming game on Facebook, Pot Farm, by day, video gamer & dessert connoisseur by night.

Follow Cindy on Twitter at @Chibirella.

East Side Games Studio (www.eastsidegamestudio.com)

Our games have been played by over 7 million unique players, we have a fan base of over 1 Million likes on Facebook and 500,000 MAU players per month. We are fiercely independent and community driven.

Where & when

Local digital marketing agency Work [at] Play has once again graciously volunteered their space for this meetup. As always, there's free street parking in Railtown.

Here are the details (note the 6pm start time):

Date:
Thursday, January 31st, 2013 @ 6pm

Location:
Work [at] Play (map)
5th Floor - 329 Railway Street
Vancouver, B.C. V6A 1A4
tel: [masked]

Notes:
Attendees will need to buzz up at the front door downstairs, but there should always be someone available to let you up. Once you're in the building, take the main elevator to the 5th floor and the meetup space will be to your left as you exit the elevator.

Join or login to comment.

Shawn Mabey

Great insight into how East Side Games is fostering a hugely successful community! As someone outside of the gaming world (so far anyways), I also learned:
- Online game companies critically rely on a strong community nurtured by folks that passionately advocate for the user... Cindy appears to be doing a great job!
- Effective use of analytics data, without knee-jerk reactions to it, are crucial to success
- Participatory design can be implemented (albeit, very strategically) even within a community measured in millions of users

There were other gems for me as well, but these really stood out.

Thanks Josh and Cindy!

Cheers,

Shawn

1 · February 1
Fabiano P Soriani

awesome, very open down to earth and interesting

1 · January 31
Nick Bouton

Great speakers, super interesting talk. Thanks to Josh & Cindy of ESG for taking the time to join us!

0 · January 31
Karl Schmidt

Great talk, very interesting to hear about the inner workings of the community management of an unique Facebook game title.

1 · January 31
Jim Wagner

Not just Facebook, Pot Farm is the #1 Underground farming game in the WORLD!

1 · January 14