by Roald
Communities Aren’t A Marketing Tool
When I first got into gaming, community building wasn’t something anyone really talked about. It just happened, players naturally came together because there simply weren’t that many games around, and the ones that existed had a kind of gravitational pull. If you loved a game, you stayed, you made friends and you built memories.
Today things look very different. There are more games than ever before, countless new ones released each day (55 new games per day in 2025 so far). Players are spoiled for choice and a community doesn’t just form on its own anymore. You have to build it, nurture it and fight for it.
Yet too many studios still treat community as a marketing tool they can use right before launch. A button to push. Generally an afterthought. Dev teams build what they think players want, marketing teams try to manufacture excitement through incohesive campaigns and community teams (if they exist at all) are left scrambling.
And when that happens, even if you get a good launch, it’s an uphill battle to keep players around. Players can tell when they’re being marketed to versus when they’re genuinely being invited into something bigger.
A great example now of the power of building with your community is Schedule 1, a one-person studio outperforming everyone, building alongside his community in Discord, creating proper champions for his game who have a sense of ownership.
Studios that win long-term are the ones that align dev, marketing, and community from day one. They know the players aren’t just the audience, they’re your co-builders of the entire experience.
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