It’s a well-known fact that the schedules of many game industry professionals will be filled with conferences, expos, or conventions from August until the early months of the following year. Even in September, there were already 10 game events! This might sound overwhelming, especially for indie studios or solo devs who want to establish networks with important game industry figures. With CitizenCon 2023 around the corner, we’ll cover several tips on how to prepare for any game event so no one will feel lost when it's time to attend the event.
What is CitizenCon?
Organized by Cloud Imperium Games, CitizenCon is an event that acts as a major gathering for the community and the developers of Star Citizen, one of our client, Tobii Gaming’s partner titles. The event will be held on October 21-22, in Los Angeles Convention Center.
What to Expect Before You Go
As our client, Tobii Gaming has plenty of experience in participating in various game events. Thus, we've gathered valuable insights with them to help us prepare for future events. Generally, here are 5 things you can expect to find at a larger gaming event:
1. Studio Booths: Many game studios set up their booths to showcase their games. It's a chance for you to try out game demos, meet the team and even buy an exclusive souvenir from the event.
2. Exciting Game Announcements: Get ready for big game news! Events are where studios reveal updates or brand-new games, creating a buzz and getting players excited.
3. Community Engagement: Gamers often go all out with cosplay, dressing up as their favorite characters. It's a perfect opportunity to connect directly with your gaming community. It was brilliant to see a cosplayer on the booth for another of our games, Galactic Glitch, recently at Tokyo Game Show.
4. Exclusive Content: These events often feature limited-time exclusive goodies. Studios may release special merchandise or in-game items that you won't find anywhere else. It's a way to get fans hyped about playing their games.
5. Sneak Peek at Cutting-Edge Tech: For Tobii Gaming, these events serve as the perfect platform to showcase and promote their latest product, the Tobii Eye Tracker 5. You can typically experience live testing of the TET5, trying it out for free with a variety of games that support the device. Try this out while playing Star Citizen at CitizenCon!
Now that we've talked about what you might come across at game events, let's dive into what you should do on the actual event day.
What to Do On The Day Of The Event
As a social media marketing agency, we keep track of our client’s social media accounts, retweeting, reposting, or liking whatever is posted about them during the events. Here are some things we suggest you do:
Take LOTS of pictures: Use your social media accounts to gain your community’s attention that you’re attending the event! Take pictures of your team, lanyard, booth, the crowd, or anything you find interesting.
Shoot plenty of videos: Aside from pictures, you can also opt to use (preferably short) videos you can instantly upload to your game’s Instagram story or TikTok.
Network your studio: Take turns with your team to find various industry individuals to introduce your studio and your game. It’s a great way to expand your network and it might earn you some important asset in the future! Aim to set up meetings ahead of time and always be conscious of others’ time.
Have a social media team standing by: Since we’re mainly focused on social media, we’re always available whenever our client is attending game events. We also do some image editing to fit the different platforms better. Sometimes, clients also send us lengthy videos, so we’d cut them to a handful of 30-second videos for use as Reels, making sure that our client’s ambassadors or partners are tagged too! We regularly make super cuts of all of the footage taken at the event, combined with interviews and anecdotes to act as an aftermovie, usable on YouTube or Twitter. Also, it’s important to note that having a team standing by means you’re able to do a ‘live’ report of your studio booth, and able to respond to comments quickly.
Now that you’ve finished reading, are you thoroughly prepared for CitizenCon 2023, or any other similar events? Hopefully, this article can help you especially when it comes to managing social media accounts during an event.
Check out our packages here if you’re interested in having us help you with your game’s social media and community!