You might think that huge video game companies have it easy where social is concerned. After all, many of their users aren’t just customers — they’re fans. Whether they’re fans of the company, the game franchise, or individual developers, a game company’s fans can make for a dedicated customer base. Any company would be thrilled to have dedicated customers like that, but when we look at Blizzard Entertainment and Riot Games, we see that fostering those communities is a lofty task.
However, these dedicated fan bases require dedicated social attention, and large game companies — especially those who want to keep players around to pay subscription fees or buy digital goods well beyond an initial game purchase — devote plenty of attention to keeping those fans engaged and happy.
Not only will you see game companies announcing their latest product offerings on social channels, you’ll find a constant stream of news about product updates, new services, previews, and highlights from the fan community. Games with larger, more dedicated fan bases are likely to have followers that crave — and get — tons of social interaction, with the easy ability to chat with a game’s staff through social channels.
This is a large social undertaking, but it can produce some equally large results. Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft game, launched in 2004, has an active player base of over seven million subscribers — each paying around $15 a month to play. Looking at World of Warcraft‘s social profile, you’ll find 482,000 Twitter followers and 5.5 million Likes on Facebook.
Riot Games’ League of Legends has an even more impressive social footprint. Launched in 2009, this free to play game has 67 million people logging on monthly — and plenty of those players wind up spending on virtual items to enhance their gameplay. The …read more
Source: Sprout Social