Twitch VP on community and commerical success

Kathy Astromoff, VP of game developer success at Twitch, gave a talk this week highlighting the benefits of building a strong community around your game.

"I am here to encourage you to stay close to your community," she said during her lightning round talk at the GamesBeat Summit yesterday.

"The closer you are to your community the more commercial success you'll have and the more professional satisfaction you will have in your life and in your job.

"What's a community? People who play games, not a community. Twitch broadcasters, arguably a community. Speedrunning Twitch broadcasters, definitely a community. People who in the game industry, not a community. Game developers, arguably a community. Indie game developers, definitely a community."

She also noted that a lot of communities are formed by those who can be described as the underdogs, nerds working on computer mainframes that decided to use them for play instead of more practical simulations.

"So why should we care? The closer you are to your community the more likely you are to have commercial success," she said.

She cited her time at UBM, working with the game group and Black Hat hacker group and working with developers who are tight with their community.

She added that as well as leading to commercial success fostering a strong community was also highly personally satisfying.

"When you're an actual member of your community it's really rewarding to be not just at the table or listening to the conversation, watching it on Twitter, but actually participating in the conversation."

GamesIndustry.biz will be running a full interview with Astromoff next week.