Ariana Spandl

High Vibe PR at #GDC2026 Heidi Christine is speaking at GDC on March 10th, and if you care about retention that actually works, you need to be in that room. As CMO and Head of Community at Pixels, Heidi has run 80+ live ops events in two years, and somehow made each one feel like it was built specifically for the community, not just pushed out on a content calendar. She's one of those people who lives in the community, not as a job requirement, but because she genuinely believes that's where the magic happens. Her superpower? Turning player sentiment into actionable strategy without overpromising or underdelivering. In "Is Your LiveOps on Life Support? How to Bring It Back to Life" she's breaking down the framework, planning systems, and real case studies that helped scale Pixels to 10M+ players while maintaining the kind of community loyalty most studios only dream about. Really looking forward to moderating this one. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/djrQritv

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3 reasons to CELEBRATE your Community Manager this Community Manager Appreciation Day 👇 1️⃣ They are your brand, personified 🎮 Community Managers show up every day with your brand's voice & values. They're in the public eye to keep your brand tone true to itself, while managing potential crises, influxes of members from viral moments, & keeping the lines open between your customers & your team. 🔥 2️⃣ They keep the chaos controlled (I mean, they are chaos when they want to be 🙈) Your Community Manager has seen EVERYTHING from bots, spam, NSFW posts, & more, but they're on the frontline to shield your community. They create welcoming & open spaces for conversations & feedback to thrive, while keeping the negativity at bay ✋ 3️⃣ They do MORE than "manage" your community 👏 Community Managers foster relationships, moderate conversations, create relatable content, translate corporate briefs into exciting updates to keep your audience hungry for more, & fan the flames of excitement that keep your community engaged! The list goes on, so shout out your Community Managers (& moderators, & social media managers!), because they DESERVE to be celebrated for the work that they do 🙌🥳 #SocialMedia #DigitalMarketing #GamesIndustry

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A welcoming community is built, not stumbled into Most people assume a safe and welcoming space like Girlies Squad just forms on its own. The reality is a structured moderator team running real systems and processes behind the scenes. With 57,000 members, more than 35,000 messages a week, and thousands of voice minutes, that structure is what keeps it running smoothly. In the latest Creative Juice Podcast episode, I talk with Nancy Chen 🔜 Unreal Fest Chicago about the moderation operation behind a thriving women's gaming community. Watch the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/dv52n9wY #WomenInGaming #GamingCommunity #CommunityManagement #Discord #CreatorEconomy

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Over the last week, I've been able to share information that both developers and creators + Creator managers need when it comes to connecting with the goal of making content. It's still shocking to see multiple product and game launches without clear creator comms or contact channels (it's 2026; get your act together; you are only hurting yourself), but it's been great helping share info for folks who don't know where to go. It's also been great helping creators who may not have assistance in finding the right channels. All of this brings great joy.

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Community management is becoming too focused on reporting and not focused enough on actually being part of the community. After 10 years managing communities across mobile, PC, console, MMORPGs, strategy games, shooters, and live-service titles, I’ve noticed a growing trend… that some community managers spend more time reporting on player experiences than actually experiencing the game themselves. 📌Weekly sentiment reports. 📌Feedback summaries. 📌PowerPoints and Dashboards. 📌Stakeholder updates. …. Yeah these are all important. But if that’s where your community management starts and ends, you’re missing the most valuable source of insight available: being a player. 🎮They’re in the game. 🌎They’re in the guilds. 🎙️They’re in the chats. 🚨They’re experiencing the same bugs, frustrations, progression walls, confusing UX flows, and exciting moments as everyone else. You don’t need a player report to tell you an event feels bad when you’ve played it yourself….. which many people wait for a player to report rather than just logging into the game themselves You don’t need a sentiment dashboard to tell you a feature is confusing when you’ve struggled through the same experience…. Community management was never meant to be a customer service desk with a reporting function attached to it. It’s about advocacy, empathy, and understanding players because you are one. If you’re actively participating in it, you’re building understanding.

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April First announcements from companies are an awful practice. Social media lives longer than one day. This causes too much community confusion and sometimes gets more internal attention than actual marketing efforts. I know Im in the minority on this, but I absolutely dislike today in the social media space.

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This isn't the first time I've had this thought... 🤔 I feel like Community Management is still one of the most misunderstood roles in the industry. Don't get me wrong... I completely understand why smaller studios need people to wear multiple hats. I've been there myself. BUT Community Management is an expertise. Lately I've been seeing more and more job postings asking for a Community Manager who's also an Influencer Manager, Social Media Manager, Marketing Specialist, Video Editor, Customer Support... the list goes on. The thing is, every one of those roles is its own discipline with its own strategies and skill set. I think the biggest issue is that "Community Manager" means something different everywhere. Ask ten studios what a Community Manager does, and I am pretty sure you'll probably get ten different answers... For me, Community Management is about understanding players, building trust, and creating a bridge between the community and the development team. It's translating player sentiment into actionable insights, helping shape communication and community strategies alongside marketing and brand teams. Also advocating for players internally, and making sure the community has a voice in the decisions that affect them. Can a Community Manager also do social media, influencer marketing, or customer support? Yes. But those aren't what define Community Management. I'd love to see our industry start treating Community Management as the specialization it is, instead of the default "anything player-facing" role. That's it, that was my thought of the day I wanted to share with you all. Cheers, 🤘 #communitymanagement #communitymanager #videogames

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I wanted to expand on one of my earlier posts about a gaming resume mattering more than skills, because I really do think it's an important topic that deserves more than a few sentences. One thing I’ve believed for a long time is that there are a lot of professional skills we can teach people. I can teach someone how to use a tool, how to build a community report, how to analyze sentiment, or how to follow a process. What’s much harder to teach is genuinely caring about the thing you’re representing. I’ve been part of gaming, anime, TCG, and broader fandom culture for essentially my entire life. That doesn’t replace professional experience or education — those things absolutely matter — but I think it gives you an instinct for the audience that’s very difficult to manufacture. When someone has loved these things for thirty years, they understand why a player gets upset about what might look like a small change. They understand why fans care about how a character is represented, why authenticity matters, why certain language feels corporate, or why a community can immediately tell when the person speaking to them doesn’t really understand the culture. For gaming especially, I think you need both sides. You need the professional skills to do the job well, but you also need people who genuinely understand and respect the audience they’re speaking to.

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𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿 🧢 What is a 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿, really? It depends. Every company gives this role slightly different shades: strategy, publishing, moderation, creator relations, events, sentiment analysis, analytics… the scope shifts constantly. The truth is that a good Community Manager knows how to 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘀, adapting to the needs of both the team and the community. That’s where the metaphor of “wearing many hats” comes from — simple, but incredibly accurate. I’m sharing here one of the most well-known infographics on the topic (credit to GetSatisfaction). It shows at a glance how multidisciplinary this role truly is, I really love it!

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