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“This job changed my life” with Dale Stiffell and Kallum Hoy

The Community Lounge Season 3 Episode 2

(You can also watch this episode on YouTube.)

Today’s guests are Dale Stiffell and Kallum Hoy, the dynamic community duo behind Transformers: Earth Wars at Yodo1 Games. The two met while working together at Space Ape Games and have since become inseparable collaborators—often joking that they’re a “package deal.” Between them, they bring years of experience in community management, player engagement, and storytelling through live service games.

Their journeys into the industry couldn’t be more different. Dale’s path began as a teenager running one of the internet’s biggest Habbo Hotel fan sites—an experience that taught him resilience and the foundations of modern community management. Kallum’s story started in the world of pensions and finance before a chance opportunity as a volunteer moderator opened the door to game communities like RuneScape and BattleBit Remastered.

We chat about the emotional rollercoaster of seeing Transformers: Earth Wars nearly shut down and how the team found a new home at Yodo1, the importance of mental health and burnout awareness in community roles, and why empathy, transparency, and humor are the best tools for managing passionate fanbases. Dale and Kallum also share powerful lessons about teamwork, trust, and building communities that feel seen and heard—even during studio transitions and major updates.

Games mentioned in this episode:

Find Dale and Kallum on LinkedIn:

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Transcription

Steve McLeod
We’re doing something different today. I’m interviewing two people at once. I had the pleasure of meeting both Dale and Kallum at Develop Brighton earlier this year, and the conversation just flows naturally with these guys. Dale, Kallum, welcome to the show.

Dale Stiffell
Thank you. This is where we get really quiet and really shy. We don’t say anything for the next hour.

Kallum Hoy
I’ve never, never heard anybody say that about us, ever.

Dale Stiffell
No. Thank you so much for bringing us on the show. Really appreciate it, and it’s a pleasure. Yeah, and Brighton was brilliant, but I keep saying to Kallum, was it because it was sunny? Did I really like Brighton because of the weather? Or was it because of…

Kallum Hoy
Sunny and the people.

Dale Stiffell
It was really nice.

Steve McLeod
It was the three days of sunshine, I think, you get it in English summer, right?

Dale Stiffell
Yeah, it was brilliant.

Steve McLeod
And we got them. So guys, you can probably explain better than me why I’m interviewing both of you at once and not one at a time. Would you like to tell our listeners why we’re doing this?

Kallum Hoy
I can probably summarize this better than Dale. We are a package deal. For whatever reason, it works for us. When I joined the previous studio we were working at, we just sort of bounced ideas off each other, and then a weird brotherly bond came to fruition. We physically became the meme where the CEO comes in and says it’s a one-person job. We’d prove him otherwise. Dale would sit on my knee and we’d press buttons together. And I think that’s probably the best way to describe how this relationship works—we are a package deal, and it works.

Dale Stiffell
I can’t add anything to that.

Steve McLeod
Let’s talk about community management. You’re both currently working at Yodo1 Games—Dale as Community Lead, Kallum as Senior Community Manager—and you’re both working on Transformers: Earth Wars, which my detailed Googling tells me has been going for about 10 years.

Dale Stiffell
Ten years for a mobile game! Wow. That’s a long time.

Steve McLeod
Yeah, it is. How long have you guys both been working there?

Dale Stiffell
I’ve been working on Transformers: Earth Wars for six years. Then, due to all the Supercell and Space Ape restructuring, we ended up at Yodo1. So I’ve been on the game six years, and Kallum…

Kallum Hoy
I’m coming up to my second year now, which is nice. One year with each studio.

Dale Stiffell
Which is your favourite then?

Kallum Hoy
Anyone that’s got you in it.

Dale Stiffell
Oh, thank you.

Steve McLeod
Do you want to describe briefly what happened? Why the game was at Supercell, but not Supercell? What happened there?

Dale Stiffell
Wow, I’ve gotta be very careful with what I say.

Steve McLeod
You’re being recorded.

Dale Stiffell
Let me choose my words carefully then. It’s not a Supercell game.
Transformers: Earth Wars is not a Supercell game. They came to the conclusion that we would have to kill the game if we did not find anywhere else to go.

Steve McLeod
When you say it’s not a Supercell game, you mean it’s not their style?

Dale Stiffell
It’s not their style. It doesn’t fit in their portfolio. Supercell love games with billions and billions of players. They’ve got a very, very high bar, and they make some amazing games. But our game was just not fitting that profile. I still remember the day we were told we were going to kill the game. We were absolutely distraught. I don’t think people realize how a team can feel when you’re told, “We’re going to kill your game.” It’s like I had a dementor sucking the soul out of me for the next three weeks. There were still things I wanted to do on this game that I hadn’t done yet. And I was thinking about the players as well—how do I even tell these people? They’ve spent a lot of money on this game. They’ve played for a long, long time—nearly 10 years, some of them. How do you tell them? Even now, I haven’t fully processed the moment we were told the game would be killed.

Steve McLeod
And this was still a profitable game at the time, right?

Dale Stiffell
Yeah, absolutely.

Steve McLeod
That’s crazy.

Dale Stiffell
Absolutely. But it didn’t fit into the Supercell portfolio. It’s funny because Hasbro released Transformers One as well. The movie must have driven the most plays we’ve ever had, because when there’s a movie release, people love the Transformers brand again—they go and play the game. The team was just… I can’t tell you how distraught we were. We’re a talkative bunch. I’m very talkative. You’ve probably seen Kallum now. We’re all talkative. We’re talking all the time and we must have just sat in the office and we just had no words left to say. It was terrible. Black Friday came, and it put us in a weird spot. Players didn’t know we were going to kill the game. We decided we didn’t want to take everybody’s money if we were going to kill it—we wanted to do it gracefully. But we couldn’t really tell them the game was shutting yet. Because of licensing, we had to tell Hasbro first. So we had a butchered Black Friday. Players asked, “Where are all the offers, guys? Why is this so bad?” From our side, we were trying to hide it and be respectful—not sell as much—because what’s the point if you’re closing? If we want to end the game, we want to end on a high want to go out in a blast. So that was a whole thing. But luckily, Supercell Dale
Supercell were really great in saying, look, we don’t want to, you know, if the team want to stay with the game, we’re quite happy for you to go out and find somebody. And luckily, Yodo1 published our Chinese Transformers, if it was game. So it was like a match made in heaven. You know, the band aid was ripped off. We’re all excited again. We get to move to a new company with the game who wants to invest in it, because over time, Space Ape were allocating resources to the newer games, which, you know, any company would.

But Yodo1 have got this like they want to put this game at the forefront. They want to keep pushing it on now for the next five to 10 years. I couldn’t be more excited to be part of the project. I’m not just saying that, you know, it’s just come into this whole new environment with a whole different perspective. And it’s I’m going to say it in very normal way. Bloody brilliant. So yeah, kudos to Supercell as well for letting it go through, you know.

Dale Stiffell
It’s another Chinese investor, another competitor. I’m sure it’s very complex. They could have just said, no, we’re not going to do it. You know, we’re going to make you all redundant, but they didn’t. Supercell were great through the process.

Steve McLeod
That’s so nice to hear at a time and it’s hard in the industry for a lot of people. So many negative stories. That’s nice. And you also touched on how involved emotionally and personally people in game studios, but particularly Community Managers get you to the game. You know, the community, right? You are representing them. It’s a part of you. And I think there’s many industries where it’s like that. Nobody likes losing the job, but you’re not just losing your job here. You’re losing something that you’re so emotionally connected to. I’m glad that was rescued. Kallum, do you have any anything you want to add to that?

Dale Stiffell
Yeah, I- I- I- No, no, no, I just want to add one last thing. Sorry, I know I’m a chatterbox, but it was more like, even at the time, I wasn’t even thinking about losing my job. It was more… How do I tell the players about this? This is just absolutely distraught.

Kallum Hoy
Yeah, I think the worry that they had initially is when I told them I was leaving, it was very sudden and I didn’t really give them time to process it themselves and I felt awful because I spend a lot of the time talking to physically anybody that will throw me any attention in the game, outside of the game, that just wants to learn more. A lot of the time they just don’t understand the process of how the game works and that’s fine, we can deal with that. But once I said that I was leaving and I’m going in two to three days, there was automatic concerns with what was happening behind the scenes.

Steve McLeod
So concern from the community.

Kallum Hoy
From the community, yeah, so they wanted to know, well, why am I being let go? Well, why am I leaving? Because I didn’t tell them that there was a restructure because I couldn’t, there was not something that I was allowed to say. Realistically, I didn’t want to put any pressure on the team. I didn’t want to worry the players at the time whilst I understood the perspective of the companies involved. I did get a lot of, you were the best thing to happen to us, which is kind of strange coming from, from players, but it’s a nice feeling to have. I, did the best I could at the time. And then obviously Dale and the team had to put up with a lot of uncertainty of what was going to happen. And I did keep in touch with, with the majority of the team, to be honest, because I put a lot of heart and soul into the role that I do. And I wanted to make sure that they were also supported in the ventures that they had because community management isn’t just community. It is also team management. And I think that’s probably the most overlooked aspect of the role. Personally, of course, I mean, every Community Manager is going to have a different aspect of that, but you do have to look after your team as well because a lot of the… We’re gamers, we don’t tend to look after ourselves. So it’s always nice once there’s somebody there to point them in the right direction, to make sure they’re okay because mental health in games is also something that’s very important. So yeah. That’s sort of my story there.

Dale Stiffell
And I think that was a massive point for the team as well. The mental aspects are just going through this whole turbulent time at the end of the last year was just like, just, I can’t evenm, I can’t even describe it. You know, the, you know, I can’t describe working on a game for six years and then being told it’s being coys, it’s just heartbreaking.

Steve McLeod
I was looking on, again, I was Googling for more information about Transformers: Earth Wars. And I found that there’s channels on YouTube of people who are just dedicated to talking about the game. And like, there’s the, like, there was a rebalance patch or update at some point.

Dale Stiffell
Not you as well! Not you as well!

Steve McLeod
He’s made this massive spreadsheet that he’s with all color code and stuff and talking about it at all. I, it shows like that is a level of attachment to a game that players have and these are the type of people you’re having to reach to. Tell me Dave, what do mean not you as well? What went on there?

Dale Stiffell
So funnily enough, our community department, because we’re a small, lean team, we have the, I don’t want to say power to do whatever we want, but if we’re like, “Let’s install Unity,” we can install Unity and play around with the game engine. Our team is really good like that. So we did the balance patch. We worked with the designers to do it.
I’ve been working in the game engine for two or three years on little projects. I wanted to clean up the game. After the “game’s getting killed” scare and the new path, I said, “Right, I’m doing it.” I’m gonna clean up lots of the engine and re-release this big balance patch. That’s why I said “not you”—it’s all we’ve been hearing about for three months.
Our content creators are brilliant. They go on every week, they are just amazing, and have great engagement with our players. We even took one of them to a Transformers con. We’re happy to buy tickets and take creators to venues and stuff, readlly just to get them more immersed with the brand. They put in so much time; we like to be on their side. They’re great people. But where did we go, Calum? It was TF Nation, wasn’t it? In Birmingham.

Kallum Hoy
It was in Birmingham, it was at Hilton Hotel in Birmingham, just north or west of the NEC. Could have been east to be honest, I don’t know, my directions are awful when I’m out there. But it was a really nice event, it was very, very well branded, there were a lot of fans, and thankfully, we were in a position where I just approached people and then asked them about certain aspects of the Transformers themselves to better understand what we could actually implement in the game. So these are people that haven’t even heard of the game. So it was a good sort of mini marketing exercise, so to speak. But it was also to understand the lore. I probably know more about Transformers than I ever thought I would ever learn about Transformers. And yeah, the lore.

Steve McLeod
That’s law L O R E. Okay. I heard L A W and I was a little bit puzzled.

Dale Stiffell
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kallum Hoy
No, no, the actual feeling and emotion and how it all started and there’s so much to unpack. And we were bringing out a new update. So we just went out and said, we’re going to bring this into a game. How would you as a brand new player feel that this should interact?

Steve McLeod
And this is a player who knows about Transformers, the standard universe, so to speak, but not the game. Die hard, yeah.

Dale Stiffell
The diehards. These are the diehardswho read the comics. They’ve read every comic. They could probably tell you what page number, you know, Optimus Prime has died.

Steve McLeod
Yeah. There’s so much to say about meeting in person, meeting the players or potential players in person.

Dale Stiffell
Yeah.

Steve McLeod
First of all, I think a lot of the antagonism that you can find online just disappears, right? Nobody’s going to do that sort of horrible trolling or flame baiting stuff with a beer talking to you in your personal space. Well, I hope not anyway.

Dale Stiffell
Well, it’s funny you say that because our content creator did come with us and we just placed him right next to our lead designer. And they just had this great conversation about the game, you know, and I think maybe it was a bit surprised because when he gets into Discord, he doesn’t want to really do that because the players are just like just bombarding with so many questions he can’t get his point across. They had a great discussion. It was respectful. Like you said, it just all goes away. It’s in a professional environment. And I think he learned a thing or two to be honest because it was just so insightful.

Steve McLeod
That’s fantastic. Hey, should we go back towards where it all began? How you got into community management, how it all started? You can tell in this little as much detail as you want. You can start back when you were or you can start when you left high school or whatever, whatever works for you. Who would like to go first?

Dale Stiffell
I’ll let Callum go first on this one.

Kallum Hoy
I think your story is more fun. Yeah, suppose realistically community management for me would have started back when I was working in pensions, which is a completely different aspect of life in itself. But I was dealing with people that didn’t understand certain tax brackets, didn’t understand pensions themselves. And there was an aspect of community management, which if we’re being realistically, is just customer service.

And I was just talking to people daily that were always angry when they started the call, but left feeling like they’ve accomplished something during that call. So there was always a reward of knowledge or of understanding. And then it was a weird moment where I was moderating a Discord and one of my fellow moderators got an invite for a, an interview at Space Ape, but he was comfortable in the position where he was. So he just passed it out to all the other moderators. So me being the happy go lucky guy, I reached out to the hiring manager at the time and said, I’m interested. Here’s what I do. Um, and a week later, he invited me to a call. We had a, it was supposed to be a 10 minute chat. Went on for an hour and 10 minutes, um, because we connected. It was good. Then he wanted me to meet the Community Managers at the time, which was Dale and another colleague of ours and me and Dale just argued about football for a good 10 to 15 minutes. Um, I said his team was terrible, which respectively they are. And we got on, we sort of understood each other. I did go through my whole phase of I manage these Discords. They’ve got X amount of people that I’ve done social media. I’ve done this, that, and the other. And the next thing I know, a week later, I’ve got an invite to the role in my inbox. And then I had to make a very stern and quick choice, whether I wanted to A, stay in pensions and do the things that I can do there with finance and tax and all the fun things that people don’t like to talk about. Or I can dive into the industry and say, let’s try and make a difference. It was a very hard conversation at one that lasted probably a week with my wife, with her not really giving any sort of things other than just do it, I’m sick of hearing about it, and then I did. I dived in.

Steve McLeod
That’s great. It’s great. She was supportive. I mean, some people might say, look, pensions and finance and tax. This is always going to be a stable good career, but it seems like she realized where your heart was. that’s nice having a supportive partner. I wanted to go back to the Discord thing. Were you spending a lot of time on the Discord server before?

Kallum Hoy
Yeah, so I’ve been moderating two Discords. One’s been Battle Bit Remastered, which is a first-person shooter game that got released in a couple of years ago, 2023, I believe. And I’ve also been moderating RuneScape’s Discords for the past seven years. So we implemented that Discord itself from scratch. They didn’t have one at the time. And then JageX, who owns RuneScape, decided to approach us and say, look, can we take more of ownership? And we said, that’s fine. We’re just here to moderate. That’s what we do. And it just went from there, really.

Steve McLeod
Okay. And the other Discord server, did you get invited to be a moderator or how did you become a moderator there?

Kallum Hoy
I knew one of the developers that was developing the game from other games that we’ve played and he said, look, we’re looking for people that know what they’re doing. And he said, would you be interested in doing this? Obviously we can’t pay you because it is a volunteer position and I’m more than happy to help, especially in Discord, because it doesn’t take too much of my time. Majority of it is auto moderated anyway. So I said, yeah, let’s do it. Let’s get a team structure set out and then we can go from there. So we did.

Steve McLeod
I want to make a mental note to come back to Discord in a moment later, but Dale, let’s hear your story, which, which I believe involves the police coming and visiting your, your parents at home and you’re a teenager, right?

Dale Stiffell
It does, but I actually have a follow- I will get on to that. I want to follow on with Kallum quickly because I’ve got some questions as well. I’m not stealing your job, Steve. Don’t worry.

Steve McLeod
Okay. Go for it. Please, you make my job easier. Ask away.

Dale Stiffell
I’m just more wondering, like, what made you leave pensions? Because this was an employment role. I remember at the time we offered you a contract position. So like, what made you give up employment to go, actually, I’m going to give up all my workers’ rights and I’m going to go for this contract position. And then I’ve also got a follow up question after that as well.

Kallum Hoy
So I’ll answer it in the simplest terms of possible. And I will say that my heart will go on. And what I mean by that is that this is an opportunity that I didn’t have previously. I’ve applied for jobs in community management, player support, and because I’ve got no experience in the industry, it was an automatic rejection straight up, not even looking at my CV.

Whereas this was an opportunity to say, “Hey, I can probably go somewhere else with this”, or I’ve learned invaluable skills in furthering my communication style, how I talk to people, how I interact with my team. And I can take that to pretty much any role anywhere. So it was either be stable or take the risk and just press, the big red button.

Dale Stiffell
I see. then after a year, you then get laid off. How does the wife react to that? Because you’ve got your family, you’ve taken this risk. What’s going through your mind in that time? I’m just intrigued because you didn’t know that at the time Transformers was going to live on. So you at this point in October, it’s the end, isn’t it, for this journey. What is actually going through your mind?

Kallum Hoy
Yeah. Yeah. It’s difficult. It’s the first time I’ve ever dealt with a layoff. that’s, that’s been myself. and I was very ill at the time that I got told, so it wasn’t at the forefront of my mind. I was lying in bed and said, okay, I would deal with that when I’m better. So when I did tell the wife, said, look, this is the end for me. She said, “Okay, well what other studios want you?” I’m like, “Okay”. So it’s not go back to what you’re comfortable with. It’s not go back and get the money started. It’s I’ve got enough or we’ve got enough. We are married so we can support each other. And she pretty much did that. She said, okay, you’ve got, we’ve got six months of savings. Use that, find somewhere. So I was relentless in my search. There was a few offers on the studio, a few studios, sorry. But Dale reached out in November time and said, look, can you hold on a little bit? I’m working some magic. And I trusted him. So the time that we worked together was short, but it was sweet. And there was a level of trust that we encapsulated together. And it was nice. So that was.Hopefully that’s a sufficient answer that sort of makes sense.

Dale Stiffell
No, I didn’t like that. Can you answer it again? No, sorry, Steve.

Steve McLeod
That’s a great answer. It’s a really, really, it’s a really good story. I liked that one. It looked like it was costing you a little bit to tell the story emotionally. Reliving, reliving some moments.

Kallum Hoy
Yeah, I relived a few moments where A, I was very ill when I got told I was made redundant and B, telling your wife that you’ve just lost the job that you wanted for so long that had a high risk. It was more of a I was expecting the “I told you so” and the pushback of “Okay, let’s go back to living a somewhat what people would call the normal life and go back to finance”. But thankfully that didn’t happen and I’m here now.

Steve McLeod
Did you ever thank her for that?

Kallum Hoy
That’s why we’re going on holiday at least twice a year. I will treat her to the best times that I can. yeah, we have an understanding of each other and I think it’s a monument to having the right person behind you.

Steve McLeod
Tell me about it. Dale, you’ve avoided telling your own story, but now it’s time.

Dale Stiffell
No, it is. So, yeah, mine is honestly not that fun. That was such a good story, Kallum. I guess mine started when I was about 10 years old. So maybe 20 years ago. Wow, I feel so old now. No, I don’t look very old.

Steve McLeod
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’d kill to be as young as you.

Kallum Hoy
Well, I used to be part of this game called Habbo Hotel. And I was just addicted to it, to be honest. Everybody was playing RuneScape at the time, but not me. I was playing Habbo Hotel and I wanted to make a fan site for it because I failed at making my own RuneScape fan sites in HTML and I was trying to code even at that age. So I made a site and this website grew to like 60,000 members across 10 years and it had like over 3 million people posting. It was a forum but I lived very quickly because I was like 16 at the time when I did this. I needed to be quite fast-paced in terms of technology. So we used MSN back in the day to chat to people because people would come onto my site and work on my site and they’d DJ, they’d do events, they’d be forums and all this is like people like teenagers just all coming onto this site. And we must have had maybe a thousand people daily coming onto this thing. So you could just imagine like how popular it was. And financially people would donate to the website as well to keep it running because we didn’t use adverts or anything. So the site actually looked really nice. And, yeah, I mean, over time, yeah, 60,000 people was an incredible achievement, but it had a lot of drawbacks as well. So yeah, we sat it on MSN. Then we had to transition to Skype because MSN closed and then I got into Discord really early. Remember when Discord launched, everybody was like in our community, we’re using Discord day one. And I’m like, “The hell is Discord?” So I got given Discord at beta, alpha, because all our community wanted to move to it. But these are some of the decisions I had to make. So we had to make updates to our design. So I was just in this world of technology already, but it had its risks because there was other people that also had their own fan sites, but also didn’t like mine. So what they would do is, you know, it’s a really bad time in my life, but it probably, I honestly wouldn’t change it, but I would have like maybe drugs and stuff turn up to my door or like pizzas and stuff when they would find out my address because it was their way of attacking me…

Steve McLeod
You mean people who ran competing fan sites for the same game?

Dale Stiffell
Competing fan sites for the same game, the way they would try and shut you down would be, right, I’m going to attack the dude, I’m going to attack the owner, I’m going to attack all these things. They found my home phone number, so I got like multiple calls. This is when you didn’t really have a mobile phone. So all the calls are going to my house phone, to my parents. And I obviously lived with my parents at the time. But this was like a whole good six, seven months of going on. And then one day the police just turned up and was just like, we’ve had a report, we’ve got to take all your things. And that must have been honestly the worst time in my life.

Steve McLeod
And for your parents too, probably.

Dale Stiffell
And for my parents too, know, all my stuff’s gone. I’m literally just… I was literally like 16, 17 at this time and all my PC and belongings have gone because apparently I’ve done some crazy crime that somebody has just gone onto Crimestoppers and reported me for. And at that point I’m like, “I’m not going to do it anymore. I’m just going to close this site down. Fine, they win” kind of a thing. But in that week, I just thought about it and like, nothing’s on my PC. I’m absolutely fine. I’m safe. I haven’t done anything dodgy or illegal. So when I get my PC back, I’m just going to give it another go and I’m just going to show that I’m not phased. And I think that just really showed me, like even now when I get comments or names or anything like that, I just think back to those times. I’m like, things can’t get worse than those times because those were, these were some real, real mental testing times. It was a really mental time for me where I had to go, “Damn, you need to be strong here because if I break, my parents are going to break”. They’re going to worry that I’ve actually done something. So I just had to stay strong. Was a horror. words can’t even describe how bad it was. But then I got my PC back and then kept the site open for another six, seven years. I actually met somebody on the site called Daisy. She used to work on the site with me as well and she deserves a lot of credit because it wasn’t all just me who made the site and made it really successful. Had a lot of people who worked voluntary who put that we had a whole community.

Steve McLeod
You had a community. You were a Community Manager.

Dale Stiffell
Do you know what? This thing was a 24 hour operation. You could log onto the website at 3 AM and there was about 120 people online and people doing events and stuff. There was times when they would hack my website or attack it and I would be up at 3 AM trying to fix it. So I was just immersed in everything. Like 18 year old me had gone through so much that I’d probably seen everything the internet had. And I’d spoken to people who probably needed help and things because when you’re running a site like that, you’ve got a lot of minors and teenagers and things. So it has to be a very serious operation you’re running. I had to grow up pretty quick. I had to really understand things very quick at a very young age because I was immersed into it very, very young.

But yeah, the reason why I brought Daisy into it is because when we went to Space Ape, she actually applied and I wasn’t even in the process and we hired her. So people from this site are actually coming into the gaming industry and Daisy’s successful in her own right. She works on many big games as well. So it’s just like, wow, this site, so many people are coming from it and actually coming into the games industry. So that is actually reassuring. I mean, the amount of people who have like met up, had kids from this website, got married. Seriously, this website has just changed people’s lives.

Steve McLeod
Your website and the New Zealand Air Force, both like led to a new generation.

Dale Stiffell
It’s changed things. And I look back at it and I know some people probably look back and then go, you know, what a waste of my time. But for me, I look back at it go, wow, that really, really did shape me in a way where I had to grow up quickly, I had to understand coding to the point where I’m building things in my current role because I’ve done it. I’ve done it before. I built our old Wiki because I did it when I used to a know, a fan site at 16 years old.

Dale Stiffell
So I brought those skills into what I’m doing now. But then I got to the point in my life where I’m thinking, I really can’t do this forever. You know, it’s a teenage thing. So I got to maybe 25, 26, you’re getting too old now. You you’re running a site and there’s like 14 year olds on this. So you need to cut this thing. you grow this attachment. Sorry, you grow this attachment that you’ve had something for so long, but you do need to grow up. So I worked in IT for four years. I was just the chirpy guy who would come and fix your PC. Big shout out to the data plan guys. I worked with two great people, John and Shane, they were brilliant. I’m giving them a shout out because they showed me that you need to be a hard worker in work because it was my first job. And I think I really did take what they did in IT into games. Their professionalism, how hard working they are. And when you’ve just got to do something, you just got to get on it. But what killed me in IT is I remember something called the coronavirus came in.

Steve McLeod
Huh. I think we’re all familiar with that.

Dale Stiffell
Yeah, and my CEO came in in December. It’s like something’s going on in China, but we need to prepare. And you just almost laughing at this point because it’s like, whatever, like so bizarre. We’re not going to shut the country down. But come March, I was doing like a thousand PCs configuring them to make sure people work from home. Had to do this in a week and it killed me. And I was like, look, I’m just going to have a look what’s out there. Let’s have a look. And I saw this job from Space Ape Games, Discord Community Manager job, and I thought, “What the hell?” I passed it the first time, I was like, “Yeah, not for me”. And I looked at it again, I said it was not for me, but it kept popping up. So I thought, it’s a sign. So I applied and that job changed my life.

Steve McLeod
And you got that job heavily based on your experience running your own fan site, I guess.

Dale Stiffell
Yeah, I absolutely blasted when I went into the interview because I couldn’t get into a Discord server because you had to spend like $500 to even be part of it. So I was just like, this is just crazy. So I kind of came in with this idea that we’re going to open it up, we’re going to grow the Discord server and we’re going to actually make the gamers feel heard again without spending $500. And they completely bought into it. So another shout out to Max and Raoul, who was the people who believed in me very early on. They were great.

Steve McLeod
Kallum, do you have any questions you want to ask Dale based on all that? Anything he glossed over that you want to know more about?

Kallum Hoy
Not particularly. I think he’s, he’s explained everything. I mean, I’ve, I’ve heard this story a thousand different times. And it’s still, it’s still amazes me how the level of hostility that some people can hold when they’re just a competitor of a fan site. I mean, as a Community Manager, we do go through some level of abuse because we are the front facing people. So we see, we see the internet in its rawest of forms. Thankfully I’ve not had something like that before. I will always remember some gifts that turn up at the office that we shouldn’t talk about. But yeah, it’s just interesting in how resilient that some people, or that we have to be, because some people don’t really have that concept of maybe this is too far. But we will always stay strong and just ensure that you’ve got that or some level of mental support behind you. And I will be a big advocate for that because it takes somebody saying the wrong thing at the right time to really hammer you down. And we don’t want that. Nobody ever wants you to feel that this is too much that you need to take a break. So yeah, I think he’s done well. I think we’re all better off that Dale did what he did and how he handled the situation

Dale Stiffell
It’s just crazy to me that if the coronavirus never happened, I would never be in games. If I didn’t randomly log on to LinkedIn at 3AM, I would have never applied. I just can’t believe it. Like, what a dream. Like, I just got lucky. Like, if anyone wants to ask how I got in games, just look. Sorry. It was just look. I logged on at 3AM. I saw the right job. I applied. I didn’t take the interview very seriously because I was just like battering them for what they were doing. I didn’t really care what they thought about me. I just wanted to get my opinions across and thankfully they liked it.

Steve McLeod
Wait, wait, you went through the job interview just so you could tell them what they should be doing?

Dale Stiffell
I didn’t think I’d get it. I didn’t think I’d get the job. I mean, why would they employ me? I mean, there’s probably many other people out there who could do it way better than me, potentially. I saw some of the applications. They should probably hire somebody else. But thankfully I got in there and I think I did an alright job.

Steve McLeod
I think they knew what they were doing wjen found you. So Dale, you ran this community, this fan site for about 10 years. Kallum, for many years, you were involved in being a volunteer moderator. Burnout: did you both or either of you experience burnout? What was that like? How do you fight against getting burnt out?

Kallum Hoy
Yes, I can recall a few times, well I say a few, it’s probably a couple of times where the RuneScape Discord got a bit over the top and it was certain parts of the year where the internet struggles with individuality, so it was during Pride Month where there was a bit more hostility than you would expect from people.

So it’s usually around the busy times where world events collide, if we will, where it can get a bit too much because there is a lot going on and there is a lot of abuse flying around that shouldn’t be flying around at all. And there was one year where there was a few issues personally that I was dealing with and it was that time of the year again, where it was pride and people were just being so incredibly toxic and hostile where I just couldn’t deal with it. It was too much to handle at the time. The best thing that you can ever do for yourself is just take time away. And that is turning off Discord or logging out and not being available because we’re, we are the generation that is chronically online. And I don’t think that’s going to change very soon. We can always take steps to prevent it as long as we’ve got the team to support it. But we are online a lot and we should take the time away, which is why I will advocate for they all going to football games, for example, just go and let, let your anger out, shout at some people, but don’t do anything that’s going to get you in trouble. But everyone’s got their own way of dealing with things. For me, it’s just turning off, picking up a book and losing myself in a different world or writing my own, for example. As long as we’ve got something where we can focus or refocus, you should be absolutely fine. Burnout is something that you can always avoid, but it can be hard to identify because we’re dealing with so much constantly. When that burnout is starting to show its head, we do push it back down because we think we’re better than that. Please for anybody listening, if you do experience burnout, reach out. I will have a 45 minute conversation with physically anybody about any topic. I can go, I can talk about dinosaurs. I can talk about pigeons if you really want to, you know, just let your mind go for at least 45 minutes and you will feel so much better because of it because you’re not focusing too hard on the task at hand and you won’t get burnt out and then you will be able to steamroll your way through and be happy about it. That’s the hope.

Steve McLeod
That’s the hope. When you say turn off, do you mean physically turn off devices?

Kallum Hoy
I would suggest doing it. I would say if you’re going to have time out for mental health or to combat burnout, make sure, for instance, if I was doing it, I’d let Dale know that saying, look, I’m taking this afternoon. I’m stepping away. I’m turning off and I’m not being involved in what’s going on because I feel X, Y and Z. Dale, the good egg he is, would tell me, okay, do it. I’ve got you covered. I’m sure not everybody’s going to have this in their work because everybody’s structured differently. But as long as you take time for yourself, the future you will be thankful for it. So it will be turn off the devices, go out for a walk. That was something that we used to do when we were allowed to during COVID that really did change the mental state of how people were feeling because they got to experience the outside world again. We got to touch grass. Regrettably, I touch grass and I’ve got hay fever so it’s the worst thing for me to do. But, as long as you’ve got that in place, you won’t burn out. But, you have to let yourself do it. That’s the main thing. You will constantly be fighting yourself, saying “No, I can do just another hour, but that one hour will turn into three hours and then you will get burnt out.” So listen to your inner self.

Steve McLeod
And maybe sometimes listen to the people around you. They also can probably sometimes see it coming before you do. Dale, Dale, were you feeling burnt out at time running the fan site for so long? And if so, how did you deal with that?

Dale Stiffell
The fan site for so long, not really, cause it was just kind of, well, it was draining. Honestly, it was, it was really draining. I guess more from work. I guess now I’m transitioning to be more of the lead at Yodo1. I’m trying to position myself where I can support Community Managers. For example, when Kallum says “I need to take some time”, I’m like, “Yeah, man, you know, you need to do you. I’ve got you covered”, and that’s how we work. And that’s how I want all our Community Managers to work in Yodo1. If anybody ever needs some time, they should just, in a respectful way, go away and take the time you need. You know, as a Community Manager, I don’t think people really understand. Like when I worked in IT, I go in at 9 AM Maybe I go at 8.59 AM as I start at nine. Sorry, you know, take my time walking upstairs. So I get into my desk at 9.01 and then I leave at 5 PM So I probably leave at 4.45 and then I forget about it. I just forget about it, you know, whatever happens, the office could blow up, whatever. I don’t even know, I’m at home. Whatever happens, I don’t care. In games? I you know, I log off at 6pm and then at half six someone goes, did Dale not work today? You cheeky little… So I just think that, yeah, the gamers don’t sleep, you know, especially games are 24-7. There’s a lot of demand on a Community Manager and I also feel that plays on the mental aspect as well. So yes, it can burn you out a lot.

Steve McLeod
Yeah, you’ve never caught up with Discord, right? This…

Dale Stiffell
And then you get this imposter syndrome as well because the players are saying, “Well, you’re not on” and it’s 8 PM. and you’ve just worked a full day. And then you’re like, “Wow, am I really doing a bad job?” I don’t think many leads really understand that, that players can really get in the mind of a CM. And that’s why I’m trying to position myself in a way where I can support my CMs and make sure that they don’t have this imposter syndrome. They are bloody good at what they do and they have got that time to go away. And if, if there’s a lead listening and they don’t do that, you need to be doing that and have check-ins with your CMs as well because they need it. They really do. Sometimes I’ll come to work and I’m just like, you know, I just need a holiday. It happens to us. It happens to us all. I don’t think anyone should be ashamed of it.

Steve McLeod
Let’s go into something more positive now. Do either of you have a story of a memorable positive moment as a Community Manager? Well, Kallum, I think you touched on a little bit at the Transformers event in Birmingham, but are there others you can think of?

Kallum Hoy
Weirdly enough, the positive one was when I actually left because people were saying that we need you back. because I, I pride myself on the interactions that I have with people. prefer them to leave feeling that they’ve gained something from me rather than them thinking that was a waste of my time. I could have had a five minute conversation with a barista at costa and would have got a better conversation from them. So I’ve always prided myself on that to make sure that people feel better in themselves once they’ve finished a conversation with me. But you could say, well, how can you do that to everybody? And it’s just, just be yourself, just be yourself. But the positive things really is I introduced a new system for the leaders in the Discord. So our Discord is very hierarched in a way where there’s channels that a lot of players won’t see. And then there’s obviously our playtesters which are fantastic in their own right, but I’ve introduced a leadership council because there’s Alliances within the game. I wanted to hear from the people that ran the alliances So they’re also dealing with 20 to 40 people that are hammering them for information, on how they should do things better, how their events, or how our events are run. So I introduced this new council that is just for the leaders and then I’m probably going to branch it out to players if I’m honest because I am a man of feedback. If you want me to tell the devs something respectfully then I will do that. If you say it in a way that’s very aggressive I will translate that but I will take all forms of feedback. And that has probably been the most positive thing for the Discord recently or semirecently because it’s bought more buzz. It’s bought people to actually start to speak respectfully to each other rather than just throwing insults. Because if I see that a leader is giving information or giving feedback in a way that’s more respectful than somebody who’s coming in just to tell Dale to quit, then it’s a much better way for me to get information to the developers, to the designers and to our LiveOps team. So I would say that is probably the most positive thing is find the niche and double down on it.

Steve McLeod
Nice, nice. Dale, what have you got for us? A story you’d like to share about a positive, memorable moment as a Community Manager?

Kallum Hoy
They hired me.

Dale Stiffell
No, that was the worst moment, bringing you back. Actually, one thing does stick out for me. I remember somebody sent a support ticket in maybe three years ago. So but this one just sticks out. And it was like this: We do community art in our newsletter and we post it every single week in our newsletter. And this little girl had her selfie with a Transformers picture and was like, “I’ve always wanted to be in the newsletter. Please put me in the newsletter.” And I wrote back, I was like, “Yes, I can, but you have to tell me who your favorite Transformers is.” And she came back and she actually held two Optimus Primes up in her hand with a selfie. And I was like, that is just so wholesome. I can’t post that picture, but I’m definitely going to post your art. And it was just like, even now, it’s just like, it’s just incredible. Like the people who were serving and the people who write into us is just like… It does make me smile. Of course, I read a support ticket now and again, which just it’s just you become immune to those ones. But there’s some other there’s some other tickets in there which are from players who are really respectful and they just love the product that you make. And it makes you proud to work on the Transformers brand. And there’s many of those people. It’s great. And even when we went to CF Nation, you see a bunch of them and you’re like, wow, this is a great brand to work on.

Steve McLeod
Fantastic. It’s nice to say those stories out loud and remind ourselves of them. I like that you both had stories to tell. Looking at the list of questions I informed you of in advance, I think we already talked about a story of a challenge you face. We’ve talked about challenges quite a bit. So let’s talk about learning. Where do you learn to do your job better? Specifically your job as a Community Manager.

Kallum Hoy
Do. Just doing. Doing, doing and doing is pretty much all I can say. What I did more specifically when I did sign for community management is I quickly reviewed how other Community Managers in other Discords, in other social aspects interacted with their players and tried to learn why they were doing what they were doing. And if that was something that I could bring to the table with this team. There’s no real textbook on this because community management will always and forever remain so unique to the community that you have. But it’s just self research, understand what it is you’re trying to achieve is probably the best thing to do because you will learn as you go along. You may make mistakes, but that’s what makes us human. And if you can learn from the mistakes, then you’re a golden child and you will, you will prosper. If you can show your learnings that you, you know, let’s say you make a spelling mistake. I do this quite frequently in our newsletters. I will be the first to admit. but you can challenge yourself to do better. But what I tend to do now is I make a game of it. I say, if anybody spots one, I will give them some credits in the game. You know, you will always be learning what to do next and how to do it better. It’s just your personality and how that interacts with the role. That’s, that’s the key identifying factor there. Work on that and the role will become natural to you. It also helps to have the ability to talk out of nonsense for at least 45 minutes in any conversation, that helps, but not everybody does that. So, you know, what makes community management for you is the personality and the role that you’ve got.

Steve McLeod
Dale, what would you like to add about how you learn to do community management?

Dale Stiffell
I’m quite a opinionated so I’m gonna say something very controversial and you can stop me and we may we can cut it out maybe we’ll see see how harsh it is I’ve been a gamer all my life I played a lot of games and I get sick to death of just experience bad community management. I think it’s the experience. I’ll give you some examples League of Legends I don’t even know who their Community Manager is I’m not offending anyone sorry I don’t even know who that person is I played this game for 10 years I’ve got 1500 skins on this game and I still don’t know who the Community Manager is. I play this game a lot. When something goes wrong, I don’t even know where to look. That to me is bad community management and I always go, actually, we’re not doing community management like these guys. We’re going to learn from these guys and do it better. I mean, there’s just many. mean, I remember sending in a support ticket to a game called Dofus. It took them 62 days to answer my support ticket. Not even joking, I’ve got like trail of it and it’s just like, yeah, we’re not ever going to do that. It’s just many games. mean, if you are a gamer and you’ve been into your Discord servers and you see their Community Managers, I mean, I remember when New World released from Amazon games, they didn’t even have a Community Manager. It’s just like the amount of problems that happened during that game as a player. I’m just like, what is going on? And nobody’s there to even tell me. So I feel like… Yes, you can do like Kallum said, but also have a look what everybody else is doing. Your favorite games. Think of your favorite games. How does the Community Managers work in your favorite games? Can you pick up on something whenever there was a problem in your favorite game? How did the Community Managers react? How quick did they react? Of course, we don’t know the background and what’s going on in the, you know, in the background and things. If there’s bugs and things like how transparent are they are when they do talk like what is going on? These are some of the things that in my favorite games I’m trying to reflect on how, you know, what the problem is and I’m trying to reflect on how they’re dealing with it because I want to make sure that we’re better.

Steve McLeod
Yeah. Kallum, we lost you there briefly, but you’re back. Good. so both kind of you answered, both of you answered about learning from what others do in one case, it was learning what others do well. And the other case it’s learning what they don’t do well. I want to sort of defend those couple of games you talked about. I want to defend the Community Managers and say, they, where they existed, they probably had the best intentions, but if they’re not getting supported by the studio lead, or somebody who’s in a position of power, can be so hard. I can imagine nobody’s happy if it takes them 60 days to answer something, but if they’re not supported with the resources…

Dale Stiffell
Yeah, I mean, of course it goes more deeper than the Community Manager, but I just wonder what’s going on at those studios when chaos happens. Like, do these studios not trust their Community Managers? It just makes me think and I’m like anybody ever wants like a pinky NDA chat and we all we want to talk about community management. I’m always is I’m always open. But I just know that when we’re running community here, that’s never going to happen. We’re going to be on it. We’re going to be transparent. And we’re going to make sure our devs listen, because thankfully we work with developers who do listen. But I understand we’re not as big as these companies, so it’s a lot easier for us.

Steve McLeod
Good stuff. Now we’re almost running out of time. There’s one question I should have asked much earlier and I completely overlooked it. So I’m going to ask it now. What is community management at Yodo1? I almost said Yoda1. Yodo1. What is community management there? Because you did mention to me before we started recording that community management doesn’t have a consistent definition and it means different things in different studios. So tell me what is it for you guys?

Dale Stiffell
It’s yes, you’re right. I mean, we’re recruiting for a Community Manager at the moment, actually. Sorry. When this probably goes out, we’re probably not anymore. Sorry. So we kind of do read. I’ve been reading a lot of CVs and cover and cover letters lately of different types of Community Managers. Some do social media. Some do actual community work. Some on the other hand, like here. So we we basically took the idea from Supercell when we worked at Space Ape because that was interesting and how they work is they’ve got something called the game champion. And now what the game champion is, is they’re the person who has a seat on the table with the development team and they are the first point of call. So for example, if they’re building a new feature, the development team will have the game champion sat in that meeting and they will literally ask them, what do think the community will think of this? They have that big, big saying. It’s something we’ve also taken to Yodo1. So our game champion covers support and the Discord community channels and any other community channels and whatever side project they want to do. So when I was doing community, I had a bit of game design. So I was reworking legacy bots and things in our game to just bring some more revenue and just increase sentiment. So older content that people are not playing with, I just rework them. I would then manage our socials and Discord and things. And then I would also write policies and do Zendesk as well. So we had a bit of a support department who managed tickets and things. I would write the policies that the player, what they would follow to, you know, respond back to the players. So it was just like a whole list of things. So we call it game champion. The game champion is just, that main person who has a seat on the table, speaks to the development team and assists them when they can. And they, they’re very, very important to us. We don’t, we don’t want Community Manager to be this side thing where it’s just like, “Oh, I’m going to write all these reports and I’ll give you the reports” and you can, you can action if you want. No, our community, our game champion is going to sit in the meetings. They’re going to tell you what the community will like, what they don’t like, and they’re going to influence the design stage as well.

Steve McLeod
I like both the concept but also the name of the role. It’s a fantastic name for a role.

Dale Stiffell
Yeah, we do. Obviously we didn’t come up with it, but we stole it.

Steve McLeod
You were inspired.

Dale Stiffell
We stole we but we inspired by it. But I just think, yeah, it also elevates a Community Manager because, you know, they feel so important. Yeah, it is a lot of stuff to do. Yes, they can get burnt out pretty quick, but we have to equip them with the right tools as well. So if we need more people, yes, we’ll give them more people because it’s a very broad role. It’s great—this is why I think I excelled when I started at Space Ape. I wasn’t just given a community. They were just like, “Right, this is yours. Do what’s right for the players.” And that’s why I excelled. So that’s why I brought it over to Yodo1, because I want other Community Managers to also excel. And even though I’m calling it Community Manager, it’s not community, it’s a game champion, but I want them to excel as well.

Steve McLeod
Moving on to our final, and in my opinion, most important question. What game have you been playing lately?

Kallum Hoy
I’m still playing RuneScape. Still, to this day. And I’m not embarrassed about it. Because I like it. It’s chill.

Steve McLeod
Some games have lasting power. What is it you like about RuneScape apart from it being chill?

Kallum Hoy
The fact it’s still going. No, they, they brought back the old servers, which is my nostalgia of really being hit in the head. And they’ve, they’ve kept it running and I think I like what they’re doing with their community where they have polls on certain updates where it’s like, it needs to reach 70 % yes before it gets even implemented or even thought about.

Kallum Hoy
So it’s a really community driven sort of side of the game that I’ve enjoyed because of that I think is probably what kept me around longer than it should have.

Steve McLeod
Dale, what have you been playing lately if you get time to play games?

Dale Stiffell
Well, big shout out to the RuneScape Discord because I go on a bit of a rant about how bad some people… I just think that honestly, if you’re Community Manager, go look at RuneScape’s Discord server. They do a great job. The Community Managers in there are so on it. It’s amazing what they’re doing. So yeah, I don’t know anybody from… There’s no plug out. I don’t know anyone from RuneScape. Me, I’m playing Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. But I love it so much that I’m like, I don’t want to play it tonight because if I finish it too quick, I’ll get bored. So I’m really pacing, I’m really pacing myself. I’m playing World of Warcraft as well, which I’m… lots of World of Warcraft, League of Legends, of course. And also I’ve got Red Dead Redemption 2 that I still need to complete. I’m nearly there. And then I’m just waiting for the new GTA 5. But I’ve also got a lot of Chat GPT…

Steve McLeod
Aren’t we at GTA 6?

Dale Stiffell
GTA 6, sorry.

Kallum Hoy
Still waiting. Still waiting.

Dale Stiffell
The thing is, is they released GTA 5 so many times. It’s just all in my head now. So I can’t wait to buy that six times next year. It goes to different platforms. So yeah, super excited. Yeah. And lots of chat GPT projects on the side, like…

Kallum Hoy
What about yourself Steve? Has anyone asked you the question back?

Steve McLeod
No, no, you’re the first one to ask me actually. So I have small kid at home and I’m running a company and these days I didn’t get much time for games. However, when I had Victoria Tran on the podcast last season, I asked her, she told me about the game Blue Prince and I had heard about it. I’d seen the buzz and I knew this sounded like the type of game I would like. So I intentionally didn’t try it. I don’t have time for it. She told me she was loving it. I finished recording an interview, went and bought it. I think maybe I didn’t even need to buy it. I think it was included in the game pass on the Xbox. And yeah, that was like suddenly a whole lot of time was gone that I didn’t have played it, completed it, didn’t complete everything in it. But this type of game, it’s very frustrating and brilliant at the same time. I just like these games that are really, really unique in their concept where they’ve really taken something, taken their time to come up with something unique. But thank you for asking

Dale Stiffell
Yeah, there’s a game I was playing. was just like that. It’s like a game dev tycoon or something. Not that I’m ever going to build my own game, but know, putting the combinations together and so I love those type of games. You know, it’s just like a time sink. I think one day I must have stopped playing and it was 5am and I like, damn, I’ve got work in five hours.

Steve McLeod
What Blue Prince reminds me of not exactly in the same type of game, but in that it was so unique and captivating for me was the game from about 10 years ago, The Witness. Do you remember that one? Yes. Also this game in which you can’t describe it unless you make somebody sit down and play it. And yet also I played it to completion. I think I went through it a couple of times back when I had time. Yeah.

Dale Stiffell
No time now then.

Steve McLeod
No, and actually I’m not looking forward to GTA 6 getting released because I know I’m going to have to play it and I don’t know how I’m going to fit it in. Probably I’ll stop sleeping. just have some… Yeah.

Kallum Hoy
Everybody’s doing it.

Dale Stiffell
I just hope it doesn’t I hope it’s just I was just expectation I really hope it is so come on Rockstar come on Rockstar

Kallum Hoy
I think I’ve got an annual leave request on for that day anyway.

Dale Stiffell
Have you? Great. I’m going to decline it because I’m taking it.

Steve McLeod
Now, my daughter likes playing video games with me, but she’s way too young to be exposed to a Rockstar game, I have to say. Yeah, maybe I have to find something else I can play with her.

Kallum Hoy
Minecraft, yeah, you know what we tried. It didn’t work for her yet. I guess every six months to 12 months I try again. And one day sooner or later, it’ll work.

Dale Stiffell
Yeah, it’s just going to click. It’s just going to click. It will. It will just click. Wow. I can’t believe we just started talking for an hour. Thank you, Steve. But have you got any more questions? Because we don’t mind if you have.

Steve McLeod
I completely, well, I do have more questions, but we need to wrap up. So that’s been a really easy conversation. Like I tell people, the time is surprising how quickly it goes in these conversations.

Dale Stiffell
I can’t believe it was just what, one o’clock now it’s two. I mean, not that people will watch this at that time, but yeah, it’s just flown by. Wow. So thank you.

Steve McLeod
Guys, I want to give you a special thanks because I think you guys really spoke from deep down at times. Yeah, I think that’s nice being willing to talk about this stuff. It’s not always an easy job.

Kallum Hoy
Think we’ve got to be truthful in ourselves. If you’re ever going to tell people to come into community management, there is a past that everybody has been through to get to where they are. And community management is no different. We’ve all got our own little past. So if you can speak from your heart, speak from your, just speak your truth and people will resonate or say it’s stupid, but that’s up to them.

Dale Stiffell
Yeah, and I think I’ve seen a lot, you know, obviously I don’t want to keep plugging it because it’s not going to matter in a month, but we are recruiting right now and you know, the amount of CVs, just advice that people, anyone wants to get into games. Show me you want to get in games rather than writing a cover letter what says, “I love games.” Please, please show me your drive, show me your fire. I don’t care if you don’t have any experience, just show me. You want to work in games and I’ll give you an interview to give you a chance to get into games. It’s just so frustrating, but yeah, it is difficult. It’s not the… I mean, it is the best industry to work in ever. But boy, is it a rocky one. Like sometimes we don’t know if we’ve got a job next week. You know, it’s just like that. That’s games.

Steve McLeod
So wrapping up, where can listeners get in touch if they’d like to know more or maybe even discuss these topics with you?

Dale Stiffell
Yeah, I mean, they can reach out and LinkedIn happy to answer any messages. Me and Kallum are at conferences all the time. Pull us for a chat. We’re always happy to like chat and, you know, pick your brain and you pick ours. That’s completely fine. So my LinkedIn, well, I don’t know my LinkedIn link.

Steve McLeod
I’ll have it in the show notes.

Dale Stiffell
It’s in the show notes. Kallum’s is in the show notes as well. Happy to talk to anyone.

Steve McLeod
And it has been my experience for meeting you guys in person at Develop that you are very approachable and easy to talk to. And when I asked, can we meet, it was an immediate yes. So he’s telling the truth, listeners, he’s telling the truth.

Dale Stiffell
Yeah but Steve was it the weather? Was it the weather why I was so happy that day? Because it was really sunny!

Steve McLeod
All right. Thanks. Thanks very much, Dale and Kallum for being on the show.

Kallum Hoy
Thanks so much for having us.

Dale Stiffell
Thanks for having us, really appreciate it and thanks for making this possible. Appreciate your time.

Steve McLeod
Bye guys. Bye everyone.