“Always keep them engaged” with Lyn Dang

The Community Lounge Season 1 Episode 4

In today’s chat, Lyn Dang and I talk about the danger of burnout for community managers, about streaming with authenticity, and about appearing at physical events. And Lyn tells us her 3 rules for community management.

Games mentioned in this episode: Summoner’s War, Palia, Emberward

Find Lyn on LinkedIn.

If you are a student aspiring to be in the industry, you can find Lyn over at BobaTalks as a mentor.

The Community Lounge is brought to you by Feature Upvote: Painlessly collect feedback from your players. More insights, less noise.

Transcript

Steve McLeod
I’m Steve McLeod and you are listening to the Community Lounge, the podcast where community managers from the video games industry tell their story, talk about the challenges they face, and share tips to help other community managers do their job better.

In my chat today with Lyn Dang, we talk about the danger of burnout, about streaming with authenticity, and about appearing at physical events. And Lyn tells us her three rules for community.

Joining me today is Lyn Dang. Lyn has worked on games such as Summoners War and Palia. Did I get that right?

Lyn Dang
Yes, you did.

Steve McLeod
Welcome to the show, Lyn.

Lyn Dang
Hi everyone.

Steve McLeod
Lyn, I understand you did something quite unusual career wise when it comes to community management. You started working in community management straight out of college. Tell me how that happened, starting at the beginning.

Lyn Dang
Yeah, so I wasn’t expecting to become a community manager right away. Even I went to school, I had a degree in business, but I wasn’t quite sure what my future would be. And it wasn’t until I attended this after-school panel where they got people in the industry to speak. It was careers in the gaming industry. And when I attended that, just out of the whim, right, it was free after school, and then I realized that, wait, this is the connection. This was the spark. The gears churning in my brain were where I was like, I love video games. I could have a career possibly in this.

And that happened junior year, that event.

Steve McLeod
Okay, junior year is for non-American audiences. What does junior year mean?

Lyn Dang
Third. Third year. So like the one prior to senior or the last year that was when a lot of internships were opening. So I was like, okay, let me apply to places like Riot, Blizzard and the like. And I immediately got rejected from all of it. I had no chance whatsoever. But that was a wake up call because I realise nothing in my background made me stand out.

And I learned that there were other students who were more prepared. I learned that if I wanted to increase my chances, I would actually have to get more involved and understand this industry.

And so I found out that there was a video game development club on campus and I joined that. And it was such a strange experience initially admittedly because I was the only business major.

It was a club based on the computer science and engineering.

So a lot of students were more programmers oriented. I was the only business major and I also saw that we didn’t quite have a lot of artists.

To make a game you need a combination of many different skills.

So I started getting involved, trying to understand, okay, how do we make games? I learned we used Unity.

I got more involved on the operations side. So I joined the board really quickly, trying to raise our membership, joining game jams, it was like a snowball of events and getting more responsibility. But I fell in love with it and so I started organizing more events.

Growing that responsibility eventually turned into community management because it’s a lot of involvement, talking to players, talking to people, getting them excited for things and that allowed me to have a background. So when I applied to my role, they were like, ah, we’re going to take a chance on you. Because they normally didn’t hire college students. But they decided to attend a career fair like I was. It was like stars lining up.

Steve McLeod
Right. I could see that you showed passion for the industry, that you had this experience that you could get as a student. So suddenly you were a little bit more interesting to the games industry than you were beforehand.

Lyn Dang
Yeah. To say that I made games, I even published it on the Google Play Store, right?

Steve McLeod
No way.

Lyn Dang
Yeah, yeah.

Steve McLeod
So like you did some coding.

Lyn Dang
I was mainly the project lead and the game designer. So I would like come up with the ideas, work with the programmers and then try to make sure we did it within the deadlines. Because for game jams like you usually only have 48 hours to make a game. But that led to me getting a community management job right out of college and it was a wild experience. I could go from there.

Steve McLeod
Can you tell me what company that was or what games you were working on straight out of college, if it’s relevant?

Lyn Dang
Yeah, yeah. The company was Com2uS. So it was a Korean mobile game company and I mentioned that the biggest title was Summoners War.

We also did some other third party titles like MLB I think, NBA, license titles.

But primarily the ones I was in charge of were all the Gacha games, right? Yes, the anime styled ones. Yeah.

Steve McLeod
And I understand that you actually were already a player of one of the games of the company that took a chance on you.

Lyn Dang
Yeah, it really helped. When I was interviewing that I mentioned that I played their games. I would pull up my account and show it to show my progression and I even recognized the person who would become my hiring manager. I think that really helps with first impressions to not only say that I recognize the game, but I played it, I understand the community and I even watched their streams.

Steve McLeod
Yeah, that’s incredible. It’s such an industry of passion, isn’t it, that so many people want to work in the industry and the person who can show the passion for the particular game they’re going to work on has a big head start.

Lyn Dang
Yeah. It helps fold into like everything you do as a player, you have that perspective already of this is what I would love. This is what the community would love because you’re connected to it.

Steve McLeod
So going into the industry or working as a community manager straight out of college, did you feel young? Was that an issue for you?

Lyn Dang
Yes, I still do. I would say almost every team I’ve been a part of – because it’s been seven years now or so since I graduated – still though, every team I’m a part of, I’m one of the younger folks on the team.

Steve McLeod
And how does that feel for you?

Lyn Dang
I would say there is a bit of “I have to prove myself” right in terms of first impressions or in terms of trying to prove that I am a senior community manager. I’ve reached that level, but I’m still younger than folks on the team.

There’s this sense of what I say and what I do, my cadence, my impressions. I want to prove that right.

Steve McLeod
I think that’s good. I think it’s good that you’re more inspired to do what you do.

Lyn Dang
I would say the biggest advantage is that I tell folks I can speak Gen Z because I’m technically, I’m not a Gen Z.

Steve McLeod
Please not with me. I’m definitely not Gen Z, so I’ll be lost if you go down that path.

Lyn Dang
I’m a millennial, so I’m like that between years where I’m like, I don’t fully relate to all millennial things and I don’t fully relate to all Gen Z things. But I can, I say I could be the bridge, I can translate between the two.

Steve McLeod
That is a powerful thing. You do quite a bit of public stuff, I understand, or have done public stuff where you’re, streaming on behalf of the game or you’re running like live streams.

How’s that been for you?

Lyn Dang
I wasn’t expecting it because before I worked at the company, my first job, I didn’t stream at all. So it was more of the other community managers. I would see them stream and then it was an expectation. So they fortunately ramped me up in terms of responsibilities because I was a fresh college grad.

And so when it was time to finally do the stream, it was very much a hype moment. It was a build up moment. So players in the community knew who I was and I spoke regularly in like the Discord server, but I would not appear in the streams yet. That was my co-workers and so they would hype it. Up to say, oh, eventually Lyn, right, is going to be on the stream. It’s going to be a face reveal. That’s how we presented it.

Steve McLeod
It was a lot of pressure.

Lyn Dang
Yeah, yeah. But I approached it more of like, okay, well, I’m going to be my awkward self. And I don’t mind that. Right. They already knew me by, like, I would see regulars. Right. That I would hang out with in the Discord or in the community every day. But now it’s just the face to face kind of connection. And so when people saw who I was, it was like, oh, wow, like it kind of matches your personality already. It’s nice to meet you. Right. And so it was another level of getting to know the community and that’s what I enjoyed.

Whereas connecting with people through texts or comments, that’s one way. And then being able to hear people, like have people see my reactions, have the audio connection is another. And I liked providing that.

Steve McLeod
Do you have any tips for people who might want to also have to start doing live streaming for their job as a community manager?

Lyn Dang
I would say, I would say be authentic. Right. I mean, it might differ because you’re doing it for the company. Ultimately you have to have a professional side to you.

But at the same time, I think every community manager brings their own style, their own approach to things. And I do recall very, very silly moments on the streams where I think what helps is that I didn’t hide my facial reactions. So if someone said something very idiotic in the chat, I would be like, come on. Right. Or like, if something silly happened, like in the game, like I was losing, I was like, oh, you know, I didn’t hold back. And I think people really liked that in the sense that when speaking with officials, people are so used to like, you know, button up, very, you know, professional responses. So to have someone be a community representative that expressed this wide range of emotions that could understand, you could relate to really helps.

So that’s my advice.

Bring your own style to it.

Steve McLeod
Let your personality shine through.

It must be one of those things that just gets easier the more you do it too. It’s got to be hard for everybody at first.

Lyn Dang
Yeah. And I won’t deny that it was emotionally draining. Like after every stream I would be like, oh, I would melt.

I purposely scheduled them to be Friday afternoon. So as soon as I was done, I was done for the week.

Steve McLeod
And did that kind of ruin your Friday evening because you were all worn out.

Lyn Dang
No I’m one of those where, like, the perfect Friday evening is watching, you know, TV shows or a book or, like, I decompress. The week was long, so let me, like, recharge. Yeah.

Steve McLeod
Awesome. Hey, you told me in advance that you also like doing physical events. Got any, like, nice, positive story about a time you’ve done physical events, representing a game as a community manager?

Lyn Dang
Yes. I would do fan meetups. I would do convention appearances where we had booths out.

I even shoutcasted for an esports tournament. And I loved that. Like, it wasn’t as frequent because of COVID and all that, but it was another. Again, I talked about the different degrees of how to connect with community, and this is another one where it’s in person now. You can hear them. Like, there’s. You can even, like, hug people. Right.

And so I really enjoyed that. It transcended the screen people that I was used to. I knew usernames of them, I knew their profile pictures, but now I could put a face to it. And it’s a real person right, on the other side of the screen. And I have a lot of memories where people would come up and say, oh, my gosh. Right. I’m so happy. Like, I bought all the merch or like, I’m cosplaying as this character.

I even remember one family, it was a husband and wife and they had two kids and they dressed up. They all cosplayed. It was so adorable.

Yeah.

Steve McLeod
I gotta say that it’s one of the things I like about going to industry, the really big games conferences is the cosplaying. Like, it’s something I would never do. It’s just alien to me as to why people do it, but I do enjoy seeing it.

Lyn Dang
Yeah. Or I would say it’s like Halloween, right. Sometimes you just want to dress up and pretend to be a little different for the day.

Steve McLeod
And these people coming to the live events and physical events, do they sometimes treat you with a little bit of fandom themselves? Like, because they know you from streaming and from other community management media?

Lyn Dang
I would say there were some cases, yeah, where people would be like, oh, my gosh, it’s, you know, My online handle. I’ve even met moderators because, you know, every community needs good moderators to function. Right?

Steve McLeod
Yeah.

Lyn Dang
And so having, like, I would meet them at these events or we would go for dinner or anything. And it was just so nice to, like, meet with your team.

Steve McLeod
Let’s move on to some tips you might have for other people who are community managers and struggle with aspects of it. I think everybody struggles with it.

How did you learn to do your job better? Especially coming to it so young without any really. I don’t think there is formal training for community managers. So how did you learn how to do it from day one?

Lyn Dang
Oh, I would love it if there were formal training, but I’ve learned from many other CMs. You’re kind of thrown into the fire. So was I. In that sense, I learned a lot. So. So I think because of my background, starting out with mobile game titles, right. And I would say they gave me the ones that were smaller in scale, the communities were stable, the game had already launched for a number of years and so the risk was low, I would say. But my manager at the time or my director, he was open saying, Lyn, you can do whatever you want, just don’t burn the community to the ground. If you need a budget, let me know.

And so I ran wild with it. I tried so many different things. I would try different social media campaigns and it allowed me to really experiment and learn when the risk was low.

It wasn’t our biggest selling game or anything like that, but it allowed me to really learn what works, what doesn’t, how to present it. Because sometimes you’ll have the best idea, but if you don’t execute it well, it just kind of flops.

And I took like, I learned a lot from that and if I failed, it would be fully my responsibility. I would have to own up to it, I would have to explain. I think that kind of experience really is trial by fire, but very valuable.

Steve McLeod
Yeah, that’s one of the best ways to learn. And it sounds like you had a person you reported to who actually let you take risks. Did you have to try and get their permission beforehand or they were just really honestly say “what you do, we support you in”.

Lyn Dang
Yeah, it was a supportive case where they trusted me and you know, for these titles it was very much like the community is established at this point. So what can you do? Like, if you want to be experimental, if you want to try things.

Steve McLeod
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Steve McLeod
So that’s some really nice positive experiences. What about something negative that’s happened to you as a community manager that you’re happy to talk about?

Lyn Dang
Happy to talk about negative experiences? Well, I think it’s important because I do get people who ask, what’s it like being a community manager? And I don’t shy away from the more negative experiences. I’m open in saying that’s not for everyone, mentally taxing, especially if you have a large community to manage. Like, there’s a lot of feedback, there’s a lot of conversations happening and you have this sort of responsibility to try to take all that and then condense it in a way where you explain it to the development team.

And I like to use the analogy that you’re like the lightning rod, right? It’s a lot of energy and it’s not directed at you, but you’re handling it right.

And so I think it’s super important to have a lot of mental fortitude, to have a lot of empathy, because in a way, like retail, you’ll have angry customers who just want to – maybe they’re venting and they’re using very choice words, but it’s never at you and it’s never, very rarely it’s going to be, oh, you’re a terrible CM. It’s more like they – how do I phrase it – is they care so much about this game, they are so, like, impacted that they’re making an effort to give you this feedback.

Whereas someone who didn’t care, they would just leave, right? They would just be gone. And so this is a moment, right, to understand this is their frustrations, this is their anger. But as a community manager, you still have to represent that.

Steve McLeod
And it must be hard to have to deal with that type of feedback time after time after time. It’s okay if it happens once every month or once every week, but if you’ve just got, for some reason, five people in a row who want to use some choice language to tell you about your game and your company, how does that make you feel?

Lyn Dang
Yeah, there have been moments, especially there are times where updates will happen and we know in advance they’re not going to be good, but there’s usually a justification or there’s a reason behind it. And you can do all the best in the world to try to explain, to try to have it land better, but there’s always going to be people who interpret it certain ways or, like, genuinely, they’re upset and they have a right to be. But that’s kind of the trade off in this role, right? For all the highs, there are the lows. And so it’s so important to keep your mental health.

Steve McLeod
Have you had good support in the companies you’ve worked for in that regard?

Sorry, I’m going to rephrase that question because I don’t want you to have to make any judgments on companies. But what type of support would you say is helpful that a company could offer to people, to community managers who have to deal with this?

Lyn Dang
There are definitely moments where I have a particular memory of a manager. It was a tough time. We had a not so well received update and the Discord was on fire, naturally, right. And I remember one of my superiors, they were pulling me aside saying, I can tell you’re distraught. Like it was showing even physically, do you want to take a break?

Because it’s true, like these are the things people don’t see, you know, at the end of the day. But, you’re still connected. You’re the CM. You want everyone to be happy, right? But it’s a twofold kind of experience where when people are not happy, you try to see, like, what can I do, what can I do? Like, how do I make this better? And so my supervisor saw that and then pulled me aside and it was just, let’s ground yourself, right? Let’s have like breathing. Like, you gotta decompress because, like, for you to help others, you have to be strong yourself. You have to help yourself first. And so even if there are moments where, yes, it’s gonna be waves, waves of all this negativity or all this feedback, even positive, if it’s just a lot in general, you are alone, right?

And yeah, it’s just a lot of moments of understanding when to step away so you can recharge and come back better.

Steve McLeod
So a good supervisor is one who’s looking for that all the time and is ready to step in and say, let’s take a break, let’s do something we can do to get away from this briefly.

Lyn Dang
Right. And you’re so used to being connected, like online all the time, right. Learning to know when to step back on your own might be hard. So having that other person care and look out for you really helps.

Steve McLeod
Maybe just to remind you that, you know, you can’t answer everything all the time, that it’s okay, there’s nobody from the company in a discord for half an hour or an hour or overnight, like Discord, I have a love-hate relationship with Discord. Every time I go in there, there’s so much stuff that wants my attention, that wants me to read. And so I just go to visit one particular community and then I find that all the other ones drag me in and I looking at conversations that really I shouldn’t even be looking at.

Lyn Dang
Yeah. And I like to ask, how many other businesses out there have a 24-7 running operation in the way that Discord servers are.

Steve McLeod
Exactly, exactly. It’s a good point. I think you mentioned to me when we’re preparing for this, that people don’t read. I assume no one ever reads, but write for those that do. Tell me about this.

Lyn Dang
Right.

In my time as a community manager, I’ve come up with some rules. I would call them rules, actually, that’s more natural to me of what to expect as a community manager.

CM rule number 3: “assume no one ever reads, but write for those who do”.

So I think anyone who’s been a community manager or even has written copy to any extent will know that there’s always people coming in saying, what was that? They’ll ask questions, they’ll repeat what was already in the content you wrote. And I’ve come to accept that. Right. You can’t be upset anymore.

So the phrasing of this is meant to as advice to say, not everyone is going to understand, not everyone’s going to read what you write, even if you put a lot of effort into it. But the way you craft your document is for those who do, who do care, who do read and pour over every detail, because then they’ll be equipped to help others. So it’s not all on you as a community manager.

It’s an interesting way to go about it, but I’ve had cases where, especially if it’s a large community and you’re just like the only one on shift, for whatever reason, people will come in asking questions and then other community members will help.

And that’s kind of how I go about writing my communications, my announcements, my blog posts or things like that, where it’s a moment where the community can come together – and converse and share.

So that’s what the rule number 3 is: Don’t be upset if people come in with lots of questions, but also empower others to help you.

Steve McLeod
That’s really nice. I like that explanation. Should I ask what rule number one and two are, or is that a topic for another day?

Lyn Dang
We can go over it. Rule number two is that your time as a CM is spent in two phases.

One is, I’m telling you now, and the other is, I told you so.

Steve McLeod
Okay, now you’ve got me curious. What does that mean?

Lyn Dang
I think, truth be told, expectations of what a CM does vary per team, per studio.

There are times where there’s an adjustment period where you kind of have to really justify that, hey, I’m the subject matter expert of our community, of our players.

So you might be in a brainstorming session or going over the next content update or a sprint, and you’ll pitch in saying, hey, I’m telling you now, I think players will react this way or that way. It might be positive, might be negative. It varies.

And then we go forward with it and then the reactions come in. And because you kind of see the future a little bit, understanding your community so much, you point and say, aha, I told you so.

Steve McLeod
And how to say that so that they respect your opinion next time? Or just because you just need to?

Lyn Dang
Yeah, in a sense, it’s a lot of validation to know, like, this is how you solidify. Like, I’m the CM and this is what I’m here for. I truly understand the player base and I’m advocating for them. Giving them a seat at the table, so to speak. That’s the phrase.

Steve McLeod
Gotcha.Okay, so we’ve had rule number three. We’ve had rule number two. We’re working backwards. It’s like a countdown. Rule number one.

Lyn Dang
Rule number one. What do you think it is? I’ll leave it open. Any guesses?

Steve McLeod
Rule number one. Let’s see.

Something about…? No, I don’t know. No, tell me.

Lyn Dang
Rule number one is actually always keep them engaged. So always give people something to comment on, to question, like just how I drew you in. Right.

And I think it’s a core component.

Steve McLeod
Oh, I feel I took the bait.

Lyn Dang
Yeah!!!

I think it’s a core component of being a community manager. You’re about engagement, about giving people a good time. And so one of the ways I put this into practice is I might leave teasers. Right. I might say something that might be super innocuous, like, oh, I’m having ice cream as a treat. And then next week we have an update that’s ice cream themed!

Or I’ll ask questions purposely to get people interested. In a way, it’s a little like marketing almost, but it’s fun. It’s like, you know, a teaser. And that’s. I like it when you get others involved. Right. So it’s not just a one race street. It’s people coming together and enjoying things. So that’s rule number one. Yeah.

Steve McLeod
Always be engaging.

Lyn Dang
Yeah.

Steve McLeod
Okay, great, great. That’s three nice rules there.

One of the things you also mentioned to me offline is about don’t be afraid to ask your community.

What’s that about?

Lyn Dang
Oh, yes. So there were times where I would be the only community manager representing the entirety of the global community, which is quite a lot to handle. But it also left me with moments where I was like, all I can ask is my community.

So I wouldn’t be afraid to ask them for help, to ask them for their opinion.

And I’ve seen sort of this pitfall, especially for younger community managers where they come in saying, oh, I have to know everything about my community, I have to represent it. So a lot of assumptions are made or a lot of things are moved forward without really kind of having that touch base moment with your community.

And so that’s the advice I give of don’t be afraid to…

It might seem like you’re showing a bit of vulnerability of like, oh, I don’t know things. But I would say more times than not, people appreciate that you’re taking the moment to listen to them, to ask for their opinion, you know, of, like, how would you go about this? Of course there is a line to that of make sure what you’re asking is something you can actually see through. Right. Don’t want to make empty promises, but I feel like it’s an important moment of connection when a community manager is able to, you know, provide that for the community.

Steve McLeod
I guess asking is much better than assuming, you know, being wrong and looking like a fool. Actually, it’s better to let people talk. And it’s amazing how some of the, how much some people know your game spent so much time in it. They know more than most people working on the game could ever know about it.

Lyn Dang
Yeah. And it’s the power of many, Right. Where yeah, there were people who, they’re like walking encyclopedias. They just know everything. They know the formulas, they know the units by name and by damage and all that. And I think it’s just worthwhile to rely on that.

Steve McLeod
I wanted to ask you what tips you have for game studios looking to hire community managers.

Lyn Dang
Yeah, I’ve had moments where I’ve talked to people who, they’re like, oh, what does a community manager do? Or I know that it’s important for a game to have a community manager. What should I be looking out for?

And it’s interesting where I’ve seen cases where there’s like a focus on the camera, the on presence. Like on camera presence. The kind of personality where they’re, they’re great public speakers. It draws people in. But that’s only one half of the role as a community manager. There’s the other aspect where, yeah, at the end of the day, you’re the advocate for, for players, you have to represent their needs.

And so the tip I would offer is look for someone who – they seem extroverted, but it’s because they have to for the job. You want people who are able to have a backseat because it’s supposed to be for the players. Right.

It’s that balance.

Steve McLeod
Thank you.

Final question. What game have you been playing lately? I like to ask this of everybody on the podcast. So I’m asking you, what game have you been playing lately?

Lyn Dang
So there’s this very indie game that I’ve been playing. It’s called Emberward.

It’s developed by one person and it’s a mashup of tower defense, rogue-like, and I think Tetris. So when you think of tower defense, usually the map is already predetermined, right?

But in, in this game, you have your little pieces where you can build out your map and it controls how the enemies come in. And so you start setting up your towers… It’s hard to explain just locally, but I definitely recommend people checking it out. It’s currently in early access, but it’s been so fun and the fact that it’s made by one person is so impressive.

Steve McLeod
Yeah, it’s amazing what some people get done by themselves. Some of these one person games that often are as enjoyable as the games made by much larger teams. Okay, I’ll make sure to include that in the show notes for people who want to go and check out Emberward.

Lyn, where can people get in touch with you or follow you if relevant?

Lyn Dang
Yeah, it’s funny because despite doing social media a lot, I’m usually not on many platforms, but I think people can follow me on LinkedIn.

Steve McLeod
Okay. I’ll make sure that’s also in the show notes.

Okay, that’s all we have time for today. So, Lyn, thanks again for being on the show.

Lyn Dang
Thank you, Steve, for hearing me ramble. But I hope people have something to learn from it all.

Steve McLeod
Yeah, it’s been a pleasure. Bye, Lyn.

Lyn Dang
Bye.

Steve McLeod
Bye, everyone.

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