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How AI Analytics Can Boost Your Player Retention with Josh Plotnek
30 Plays3 hours ago
Episode Summary
In this episode of Player Driven, host Greg engages in an insightful conversation with Josh Plotnek, Head of Content at Keewano, diving deep into the significance of actionable insights derived from game data analytics. The discussion highlights how understanding player behavior through data can drastically improve player experience and game performance. Josh shares practical tips for studios of all sizes, emphasizing how AI-driven analytics can help uncover hidden issues, transforming raw data into meaningful actions.
Guest Information
- Name: Josh Plotnek
- Role: Head of Content at Keewano
- Expertise: Data Analytics, Content Strategy, Game Development Insights
- Company: Keewano
About Keewano
Keewano is a groundbreaking analytics platform that leverages advanced AI to provide actionable insights into player behavior, enabling gaming studios of any size to enhance player experience, retention, and engagement.
Key Takeaways
- Data Alone Isn't Enough (07:35)
Collecting data is the starting point; real value comes from understanding the "why" behind player behavior to make impactful decisions. - Recognizing Frustration vs. Engagement (20:08)
Player frustration can be either positive (engaging) or negative (leading to churn). Analyzing "recovery behaviors" helps studios differentiate and respond effectively. - Start Small, Then Scale Your Analytics (14:39)
Smaller studios can utilize accessible tools like Unity Analytics and Firebase, gradually scaling to more sophisticated AI-driven analytics solutions as they grow. - Leveraging AI to Uncover Hidden Issues (11:27)
Advanced analytics powered by AI can identify complex problems within games, such as pinpointing an item missed in earlier levels that causes significant churn later on. - Future of Analytics: Conversational and Accessible (49:34)
The future of data analytics is making complex insights conversational, allowing anyone on the team to ask direct questions and receive clear, actionable answers.
Resources Mentioned
- Keewano Blog
- Unity Analytics
- Firebase
Listen and Learn
Tune into the full episode to discover more about turning your game data into powerful insights and actionable strategies to enhance player satisfaction and loyalty.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to PlayerDriven with Josh Plotnick
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to PlayerDriven. Here's what you're about to listen to on today's episode. We're talking with Josh Plotnick. He is the head of content at Kiwano. And we talk about all things data on this episode.
00:00:11
Speaker
We talk about the importance of actionable insights
How can data-driven insights improve player engagement?
00:00:15
Speaker
from data. Data alone is just a bunch of numbers that you can do whatever you want. You can tell any type of story, but insights will actually lead you to takeaways and what you can do from that data.
00:00:24
Speaker
We talk about frustration versus engagement. Who's getting frustrated in the game and at what stage? What is the root cause of that frustration? And what can you do to help keep that player happy and in the game?
Getting started with small-scale analytics
00:00:36
Speaker
Then we talk about starting small and then scaling in an analytics. There's lots of tools like Kawano out there that can help you once you're scaling to help look make actionable insights on your data. But there's also ways to get started at no cost or for free just by taking a look at some of your data.
Josh's journey in the gaming industry
00:00:49
Speaker
It's a really fun episode. Great stuff. Josh has a lot of knowledge in his head about this stuff. So it's great to hear a bit and I hope you enjoy the episode.
00:01:01
Speaker
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to Player Driven. Greg here. Today we are joined by Josh Plotnick. He is the head of content at Kiwano. We are going to talk about all things data because I love data. Josh loves data. Everyone loves data. We make better decisions when we talk about data and we look at data. So we're here to understand what we should be looking at, why we should be looking at it, the importance of it, and
How does Kiwano's AI platform enhance game experiences?
00:01:24
Speaker
everything in between. So Josh, thank you so much for joining us today. How is your day today?
00:01:30
Speaker
Very good. Even better than now that I'm on the podcast. Excited to be here, join the pantheon of legends from the game development community. And to be part of that, I'm really flattered and honored that you called me and excited to get down to business.
00:01:46
Speaker
Appreciate That's a lot of pressure. to the The legends. I really appreciate you saying that. And Josh, I found you. i've tracked you down online ah for for weeks. And this was a couple months ago. I started seeing posts that were coming from Qwando and that was a new name to me. And the blogs I thought were fantastic. It showed that there was thought put into it. There was insight put into it. And something that always, always,
00:02:11
Speaker
kind of made me think was where does this data come from? It's one thing when you own the data and you can look into the data, and you can dive into the data. You have companies like Nuzu that are publishing stats from across the industry.
00:02:23
Speaker
i then First off, again, I'm rambling here, but thank you so much for the content you put out there. I think it's extremely powerful. I think it's educational, which is something that's important to me.
Josh's path into data analytics
00:02:32
Speaker
I'm curious, how did you fall into this role of kind of analyzing data? and And I want to get into where the data comes from, but kind of What sparked your interest in figuring out what this data is and how it connects these pieces?
00:02:46
Speaker
Wow. and Well, first and foremost, I'm about to cry because you're just like, it's so flattering and I really appreciate the love. um If my work can like reach out and affect people and give people value, that's amazing. So I really appreciate um I mean, first and foremost, I'm just like happy to say a bit about myself.
00:03:05
Speaker
I want to like, right off the bat, just disclosed to everyone watching. and
What mistakes do studios make in data collection?
00:03:10
Speaker
i'm not like this is This position of mine is my first entry point into the game development world. I haven't worked in game development in the past.
00:03:19
Speaker
I'm passionate about gaming for sure. And I guess like I'm more of a classics guy. and When I was a kid, I used to love playing games like Mario Kart, Street Fighter, Vice City.
00:03:30
Speaker
I'm a big soccer fan as well. So for like a good part of 10 years, the only game I played was Pro Evolution Soccer, which i I think rebranded to eFootball recently.
00:03:42
Speaker
um And since I got married and have kids, like I'm not, I'm not really playing anything anymore. um like I don't really have the time. My wife won't give me that time.
00:03:52
Speaker
ah love her, but that's, that's the current situation. Maybe when my kids grow up, I'll be able to start playing with them. I've also played ah ah GTA games on my phone, so I kind of understand and definitely got more appreciation over the last six months of what it takes for developers to kind of convert console games into mobile games and and cross-platform adaptation.
00:04:14
Speaker
um undergoing some kind of crash course right now into all things game dev and analytics and AI, all the buzzwords.
Balancing player feedback with data
00:04:23
Speaker
And and thankfully at Kiwana, I have this great team of experts, experienced people from the game development world, people who've worked at Plarium, entrepreneurs in the B2B SaaS world, also data scientists and and ai experts.
00:04:41
Speaker
So I'm really learning about this stuff at a fast pace. I kind of feel like Neo in the Matrix sometimes, you know, like when you learn Kung Fu in 10 seconds.
00:04:52
Speaker
I don't know if I know Data as well as he knows Kung Fu, but I'm i'm getting there little by little. With that said, i I'm appreciating the freedom I'm getting to be able to turn this knowledge into trying to anyway turn it into engaging content, whether through infographics, social media posts, and jumping on amazing podcasts like Player Driven.
00:05:17
Speaker
In terms of finding the right data that matters, we can dive into that more as the episode goes on. um But yeah, I just want to say off the bat, anything I do share, it's really much on behalf of those experts who have told me so much over the last six
Josh's content creation and SEO strategies
00:05:33
Speaker
months.
00:05:33
Speaker
So anyone watching this, if you have take issue of anything I'm saying, if anything isn't so clear, don't shoot the messenger. You can reach out to anyone at Kiwano with have questions on our website. We have contact us pages. So we're available.
00:05:49
Speaker
so So don't go after Josh if if he says something something controversial, which I think we're in the clear here. ah when your so so you were in you loved gaming and obviously life happens, right? It takes a seat.
00:06:03
Speaker
You found your way back here. what happened in the middle? Were you studying data? Were you studying something in in a different field? like How did you get back into the field? No, no data course, no nothing.
00:06:15
Speaker
Like this is a byproduct of the position I'm in right now. um Leaning on my course right now is learning from those data scientists and AI experts that I'm sitting next to every day and getting you know information from them.
00:06:31
Speaker
When I'm conducting research for my content, I lean on to them for questions. If I just wanted a little piece of information, ah for an article about, I don't know, multi-agent systems.
00:06:43
Speaker
um My AI expert, what I'm looking for is maybe a paragraph and he'll just dive in for like half an hour to an hour about everything multi-agent related.
00:06:54
Speaker
And I'm learning like maybe like five to 10 more articles worth of content. So it can be ah can be very extensive in terms of like data-based knowledge I'm learning.
00:07:09
Speaker
I don't know if that fully answers your question,
Managing social media content effectively
00:07:11
Speaker
but that's the full extent how I'm kind of like learning this stuff right now. And I love that. You know, ah we always talk about it on player driven. Sometimes you just need to dive in whether it's a subject, you know, a subject you don't know. Right.
00:07:23
Speaker
I remember in college, right. University, I had to take an accounting class. i had to take multiple accounting classes because that's what you got to do when you're in business. And the truth is, you can take a million accounting classes. But when you go to your first job, whether it be with one of the big four financial firms or or accounting firms something else, they teach you their way of accounting.
00:07:41
Speaker
You don't need to know everything you learned in university because they're going to teach you how they do it. And I don't think it's different in any other field. You can be a programmer. You can be a designer. You can be ah a data scientist, right?
00:07:52
Speaker
You can learn the basics, but when you get to your first job, you're going to sit down and to the experts around you do it, how the other people in your field are going to do it. And you're going to adapt to those methodologies. And maybe you'll not know some of the high-level things.
00:08:04
Speaker
reasonings behind things, right? But the truth is a lot of people learn this thing on the job and it's very important to monitor those around you, see what they do right, see what they do wrong. You know, if you don't set your bar to your peers, right, you're not going to exceed kind of the knowledge gap that you need there. And I think it's important to become a sponge of those
How does AI boost productivity and decision-making?
00:08:23
Speaker
around you and absorb that information to follow those best practices. And it's one thing that we talk about data because I think data is very important. And I'd love to learn more about what really Kiwano is doing because Without insights, data is pretty pointless. It's a bunch of numbers, it's a bunch of stats, it's a bunch of figures that you can tell a story about, right? Any type of number you can build a story around, but finding real insights in there is something that's valuable and not as easy. So can you kind of give us a high level, kind of what is Q1O doing? How does it take that data or what data is it taking and kind of how is it building it out for customers?
00:08:59
Speaker
Yeah, I'm happy to break down what it is and what Kiwano is and what it does. um In very short terms, it's Kiwano is the world's very first AI analyst.
00:09:10
Speaker
um It offers automated data collection and analysts for teams of any size without any complexity. so an indie game studio consisting of 10 to 20 employees or a large enterprise that has thousands of employees can benefit from this platform and and it will address the needs of their current situation. It achieves achieves this in a few ways. Firstly, Kiwana has this custom built data infrastructure.
00:09:42
Speaker
It's super fast. And like um I don't want to like underestimate that. Basically, in fact, it's 600 times faster than any other database out there. ah Specifically, it can process um hundreds of millions of player events per second.
00:10:00
Speaker
Secondly, it can load and visualize 1 billion events in under two seconds on our special behavioral map, which basically gives the user an outline or a like an overview of the game flow, and this can be presented vi across all your players, or you can zoom in on specific segments of your players.
00:10:23
Speaker
um But I'd say most importantly, this high-speed database, it powers AI agents ah to proactively look into any player behavior.
00:10:34
Speaker
And then it zooms in on any step. they These agents, they provide accurate insights that don't just tell you what the problems are in your game, They explain to you why these problems are happening intuitively, but it also tells you, it goes one step further than that actually.
00:10:54
Speaker
It provides you with actionable recommendations of how you can solve those problems.
00:11:02
Speaker
I have this very clear example in my head that my CTO has taught me over the last few months, and it always comes to mind. I'm happy to share with you, basically, let's say,
00:11:14
Speaker
players are churning at level seven during a boss fight you can use your imagination of what kind of genre game that could be um so traditional analytics tools they might focus on the difficulty of that boss but kiwano can trace that issue back five levels discovering that players who didn't collect a specific sword in level two couldn't defeat the boss in level seven So no other tool can really analyze this type of long chain of events so effectively, quite like Kiwana can.
00:11:47
Speaker
That is really something that makes us, it makes us different and it makes us better. So that level of detail would normally be extremely expensive and probably require a whole team of analysts for this kind of process.
00:12:01
Speaker
But Kiwana, whoever's using it can just plug it in. It's very easy to integrate and set up. And the AI does the heavy lifting for the user.
00:12:14
Speaker
I think that sounds like a dream, right? If I own a studio, if I own a game, i want to know what's happening in the game. And I'll never forget years ago, i was on a sales call. and We went to Coca-Cola and we were selling a social listening tool and they asked a question, how do I know what I don't know?
00:12:31
Speaker
And it was a fascinating question because it was during the time when boozy soda started to kind of make a comeback or whatever. It started to penetrate the market. it And they said, we can set up social listening to look up beer and we can set up social looking listening to look up cocktails. But we didn't know that boozy soda was going to come up. So how do I know what I don't know? And what you're saying is that Kiwano could take a look at...
00:12:55
Speaker
the data set from within the game and figure things out that I may not be knowing. And I think that's fascinating. i think it's very important for these companies, whether it be an indie game or AAA game, to be looking at these this data. I think collecting it's important.
00:13:11
Speaker
It's again about coming back to insights with it. But for smaller studios, it is overwhelming, right? How can studios get started by looking at this data if they don't have either a full team dedicated to it?
00:13:23
Speaker
are there Like you said, you it works for indies, but how would an indie go about using the tool? Yeah, it can definitely be overwhelming, especially when you're a small team and you're wearing multiple hats.
00:13:36
Speaker
um The key, I'd say, is to start small. Focus on what is actually doable. I'd say a few cost-effective tricks are things like tracking basic player events with free tools.
00:13:51
Speaker
ah Some that come to mind include things like Unity Analytics, Firebase. Those are solutions i've I've covered on Kiwana's blog. um You can possibly use in-game surveys and actual moments, for example, like a level completion.
00:14:09
Speaker
You could also pull insights from support tickets or app store reviews, like those that real signals from real players.
00:14:20
Speaker
Even watching stream platforms like Twitch or Playtest, they can help you spot issues that players maybe don't articulate in the moment. So, yeah. But with all that said, I think that once you get where beyond those basics, most analytic tools well and processes could hit a wall, they might have limitations to them.
00:14:40
Speaker
So as you scale, I'd say investing in a higher level AI-driven platform like Kiwano is... is probably the way to go yeah so for smaller obviously it's more manageable set of data right you can define the few few metrics things like retention rate things like handle time or play time right i think it's easy enough not easy enough but it's something you can track right but it's when you want to start to scale get a better idea of deeper insights then you want to start doing an investment into a tool that can help analyze this stuff that seem right this is spot on um in fact i'm just going to plug your article from uh
00:15:18
Speaker
our website because i I believe you addressed this in your own article for Kiwanis website. You said, not every developer has the luxury of scaling support quickly. That's why setting a solid foundation before launch is so important.
00:15:34
Speaker
So yeah, you can't fix what you can't see. I think you already mentioned this. Many teams, they wait too long to build a system that scales. So You need to be able to give so small teams that foundation, accurate insights, but without all of the overhead and too many resources, expenditure.
00:15:59
Speaker
That's the way I look at it, at least. Yeah, I think i think that's a a fair point. And Josh is referencing that we did do blogs for each other, each other's sites. We'll post that in the ah the comments as well or the the show notes so you can check out each other's blogs and see what that's like. ah And now that you're kind of going down this route, right, i think one of the big things that I think we wrote about were kind of player feedback and how it can make or break a game.
00:16:24
Speaker
um understanding feedback from from players, I think, is something that's essential. And I've come to learn there's really two types of feedback. There's qualitative and quantitative. Quantitative is just kind of the the hard numbers, that the the pure data facts you can find where quantitative or qualitative is the reasoning behind it, right? Why does someone not like my game? Is it a specific item?
00:16:47
Speaker
um you've been following data for quite a bit, right? Is there a big mistake that you see that studios make when starting to collect data, or whether it be player data? Do they jump the gun? Do they they misanalyze something? Is there something that maybe is a common mistake you've seen?
00:17:03
Speaker
Based on my own research, I'd say that one of the biggest mistakes is relying too heavily on feedback that is kind of know surface level. ah Studios, they collect surveys, right? They browse forums.
00:17:18
Speaker
They're on Discord a lot, which is great, but they rarely connect that to what's actually happening in the game, in my opinion. So if someone says, this boss is too hard, okay?
00:17:31
Speaker
Player behavior doesn't really show a drop off at that moment. You might be fixing a problem that doesn't exist or ignoring a problem that does. It can go both ways.
00:17:42
Speaker
That's one thing. Another thing that comes to mind is player reviews. So one player might give your game five stars, right? even if it's full of performance issues.
00:17:54
Speaker
So it might not be an accurate representation of of what how good the game actually is. Then another player might give you one star. This is like on the flip side. But basically everything's working just fine.
00:18:07
Speaker
ah Both are possible. Another mistake is chasing the loudest complaints. So just because something's trending in your community, it doesn't necessarily mean it's affecting all of your players or even most of them. um So going back to what you said the question, in my opinion, you need to combine that qualitative feedback and the quantitative feedback. In other words, behavior data to really understand a player's experience. um
00:18:41
Speaker
Of course, some AI can help solve these issues. For example, in theory, it can automatically read through player reviews and find the most common issues, which I think is like a huge win for developers moving forward.
00:18:58
Speaker
I you said a few things that I really loved. I think it's things that we should just re-mention, right? Frustration. and churn, although they they may be related, they're separate, right? I can get frustrated a boss. doesn't mean I'm going to to churn because of it, right?
00:19:18
Speaker
I think there's different signs if someone's becoming frustrated and is going to churn versus if someone's becoming frustrated and is just determined to beat something, right? I think those are different signals and it's fascinating to think about it It's like,
00:19:30
Speaker
in a terrible analogy, right? It's like Spanish. There's Spanish from Spain and then there's Spanish from Mexico or Portuguese might be the better one, right? Like there's different dialects of different things. And how do you tell the difference between that? And then I love how you just called it you called it behavioral behavior data. I think that's a ah great way to take a look at it. but What is the behavior of this person? Are they going into more menus after they lose a battle to try and level up their character or perform other actions? Are they just rage quitting?
00:19:59
Speaker
ah It really is a double-edged short frustration, right? And your post kind of talked about it. How can you either lead to loyalty because I am dedicated to this game or it can lead to churn because screw you, I'm not going to try and beat this game over and over again.
00:20:12
Speaker
Is there a way to actually tell the difference between that though, from a tool or is it all just like gut feeling? I'd say that frustration, ironically, it can be engaging if it's part of the challenge in a healthy way. Like when, for example, like when a player keeps trying to beat a tough level, uh,
00:20:34
Speaker
With that said, it can it can get toxic quite quickly if it comes from things like bugs soy poor UX, poor performance in the game.
00:20:45
Speaker
And the difference is what players do next. If they re-engage and event eventually succeed in the level and able to progress, that frustration might be working in your favor.
00:20:58
Speaker
But if they churn and give up, or if they head to a support ticket or want to request a refund, then these are all red flags. So think studios, they should be looking very much into recovery behaviors.
00:21:15
Speaker
So the what I'm alluding to here like, are players able to bounce back from their frustration? Or are they just checking out and never returning?
00:21:26
Speaker
So this is the question that studios need to ask themselves. I love it It's fascinating. And again, another term recovery behaviors. I really liked that. What are the the actions I take after my frustration point I think it's fast, like a, if this, then that type of puzzle, right. And trying to understand if I do this, then what happens. Right. And i don't know, these are all terms that make sense. And I probably know in the deep part of my head, but as we're talking about it, it's just fascinating to look at it at a bigger level. And I'm curious, you know,
00:21:59
Speaker
Again, what are some underrated ways maybe developers can start tracking this type of sentiment? Obviously, when you want to start to scale, you can look at tools, right? But is there a simple way to get started? Or sometimes it's just not, sometimes it's just a little too complex that there's no simple way to do it.
00:22:13
Speaker
So I'd go as far as to say that they're one and the same, and my at least in my opinion. Player behavior, it is player sentiment. And you just have to kind of learn how to interpret that or read it.
00:22:28
Speaker
So you need to watch out for things that you've already alluded to, it like rage quitting, skip tutorials, sudden session drops. I can go on. There's there's more. that Off the top of my mind, abandoned levels.
00:22:43
Speaker
There's also the concept of silent churns, so like basically when players leave without even saying anything. So support tickets, bug reports, they're also underrated indicators.
00:22:57
Speaker
But if a player is going to take a time out of their day to report something, it probably matters a whole lot to them. And at least that is an encouraging signal that they care about what they're playing.
00:23:09
Speaker
And all they want is someone on the other end to say, hey, I hear you and we're working on this and we want to make it this experience better for you. We talked about this earlier, right?
00:23:21
Speaker
Raw data is one thing. Insights are another, right? And I think insights are kind of, you know, you take the raw ingredients of, I don't know, a meal, call it a lasagna, right? And it's one thing to have wrong ingredients, but when you put it together, it creates this amazing meal. And I think that's what insights are.
00:23:40
Speaker
Are there some key high-level trends or metrics that studios should be focusing on and analyzing on when looking at this player behavior? I wouldn't quite identify them as trends, but it's just like metrics that have kind of been with the game developing like consensus for like since the dawn of time, basically.
00:24:01
Speaker
At a certain point, it's it's not even about collecting more data, but asking like the right questions. So yeah, studios, I think, should be focusing on things like obviously retention, churn, funnel drop-offs come to mind, feature adoption,
00:24:19
Speaker
These kind of all fall in kind of a similar bracket. Then you've got your monetization metrics, and things like LTV, ARPU, things of that nature. The tricky part, I'd say, is understanding why these things are happening, why certain metrics are being quantified the way they are.
00:24:37
Speaker
So finding the root causes behind why they are the way they are. That's where things can get a little bit... messy, where a lot of teams can get stuck um and on these numbers.
00:24:51
Speaker
So that's a huge pain point that we that Kiwina tries to address. We're focused on giving developers the tools to automate analytics in general, but especially root cause analysis.
00:25:06
Speaker
So instead of being overwhelmed with numbers and dashboards and things that maybe like people who don't work day in day out in the analyst space are not so familiar with.
00:25:17
Speaker
Kiwano points out, okay, here's a problem. Here's the group that is mainly affected by this problem. That could be everyone who knows. Here's where it started, this problem.
00:25:31
Speaker
And here's what we're going to look into to try and solve this problem. It gives you all of those details through a few ways, but one of the ways is in a chat through free text.
00:25:45
Speaker
You can like to supply the question and Kiwana will give you the answer back. But generally it's about closing the gap between understanding the problem and knowing what to do about it.
00:25:58
Speaker
How can you turn a problem into a solution? I think you wrote about it a little in in your article. You said it's a solid help centre and support system can enhance the player experience. It's not just about solving issues, it's about reinforcing player trust and loyalty. So I think there's a transferable sentiment there into what Kiwana can do.
00:26:22
Speaker
I love how you put surface level insights. I think it's important to really dig into what is the cause for a problem. I remember working help desk when I was just starting off in the industry, right? And you get a problem and you're like, oh the the game is crashing. The game is crashing. all right. That's the surface level insight. We need kind of the root cause analysis, right? And the fact that there's a chat interface. You can say, what are all the events happening that can cause this to happen? I can almost build out a roadmap or a mind map of, hey, here's everything that feeds into this, right? It's so much easier than looking at logs or texts and a way of analyzing things because it creates it in a more visually consumable way where I can take a look at this type of data and understand what goes into making the pie here. And I think that's really a great way to look at it
00:27:10
Speaker
I'd say it's just, it's true for analytics in general. You're not just finding bugs or trends. You're showing your players that you understand them and that you're paying attention. I think that's like a core sentiment.
00:27:24
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah. ah where I want to do my fireball around here. yeah I'm going to throw some quick questions at you. um not Not studied, not practiced. You good?
00:27:37
Speaker
We'll try. All right. It'll be easy. i promise. What did you have for breakfast? had leftover sandwich of my baby. He didn't eat most of it. ate it instead. All right.
00:27:49
Speaker
um What is the last book or movie you read or watched? I've been watching mainly TV shows. What's the last show that you binge watched? Severance?
00:28:00
Speaker
Oh, I finished that last night. Did you finish it yet? Kind of crazy. Yeah, yeah. I watched the finale. Absolutely love it. um I feel like lucky quite a lot of people can relate to it, like that work-life balance, and it kind of flips on its head. and It's just said an incredible concept that's executed so well.
00:28:19
Speaker
yeah what is the last game you played um i played some kind of card game uh poker i played poker okay there we go what is your dream vacation who wow that's an amazing question uh there's so many places i want to go to i'd love to go to south america and don't think i'm gonna have the time anytime in the next few years at least but it's a dream ever now Last question i have is what, if you were to go to a bar, what would be your drink order?
00:28:54
Speaker
Wow. Does not need to be alcohol. This is true, but you know, where's the fun in that? I always cover my ass, you know, my, my dad's favorite drink is a Southern comfort and lemonade or Southern comfort and lime. And I always enjoy having that as like respect to him. So.
00:29:13
Speaker
If that's available, I'll go for it. All right. Boom. i'm Off the hot seat. Um, your role is head of content and I'd love to understand what your workflow is like. How do you go about creating a piece of content?
00:29:27
Speaker
Um, can you kind of walk through what your process is on how you know, what how you determine what you want to write about and how you start that?
00:29:37
Speaker
Well, it's, it really varies from one piece of content to the next. Um, but the general outline if I could like generalize it a little which it revolves around of a bunch of different things. One includes what is currently being discussed in in the industry and who are the big players are discussing these topics.
00:30:00
Speaker
So I try to research what they're covering via both their blogs and their social media channels, seeing what's being discussed out there. So thats that's one of my starting points for sure.
00:30:11
Speaker
um ah SEO research is important in content, I believe. I wouldn't consider myself an SEO expert by any means, but it's something I'm definitely like improving on. so I would consider you an SEO expert based us trading our articles. You do a lot more research into that, and it's fascinating.
00:30:30
Speaker
Well, I appreciate it. ah I'd recommend using tools like SEMrush to give you that boost in terms of keyword research, finding the The words that are really like floating around and generating the most traffic are not the easiest to target.
00:30:45
Speaker
That's definitely one of my core strategies. And then the key is to find, there are topics that just aren't that easy to expand into long form or into various different mediums.
00:30:58
Speaker
Different topics lend themselves to better different different mediums, in my opinion. um For a piece of blog content, and obviously like constructing some kind of engaging list is always a neat way to go.
00:31:11
Speaker
um x amount of analytics tools that are going to make your data interpretation so much easier, just off the top of my head. I mean, that day is one way you could go. And another direction with blog content is to dive in more theoretically and focus in on a topic and kind of expand upon it more tangentially, almost kind of like you're having a conversation with the reader.
00:31:36
Speaker
um I leverage my experienced colleagues a lot. I think I previously mentioned this. I will ask someone a question. They will provide me ton of information that is very useful, and I will take as many notes as I possibly can, and I will exhaust my options, and I'll try and make sense of it and see what it has potential to be converted into engaging content that way.
00:32:04
Speaker
ah I'm grateful to work at Kiwano because I've basically been given the freedom to experiment with different content styles, content formats, not just ah going beyond the blog, but also being able to produce infographics and working in graphic design, being able to share content on social media platforms like LinkedIn, X and Instagram.
00:32:31
Speaker
That's the current platforms we're on right now. And they all kind of lend themselves to kind of different needs and content needs to be kind of repurposed or recontextualized and redesigned in different ways that are palatable for those audiences.
00:32:47
Speaker
um I feel like there's a ton of other components of my process that I'm missing out on, but I'm wondering, I'm also interested to learn what your process is.
00:32:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny. yeah You say this and I realize it's tough to to plan social media content cross-channel. You can use a tool that posts that cross posts, which I do. I use a tool Metricool, which is is fine enough. It has its quirks.
00:33:16
Speaker
um But you know you have to do keyword research, hashtag research. You can't format a TikTok like an Instagram, and it's different than a YouTube. and You got to go in there, and everything's got its nuances. and then The algorithms are against you, right? It's TikTok's like, hey, if you post it from our platform, you'll get more boosts than if you post it from a third party platform. Then you've got to measure, is it worth taking an additional 10 minutes?
00:33:41
Speaker
People will only say, oh, it's only 10 minutes. Well, there's a lot of other stuff going on throughout the day as well, right? To go to each social media network and and plan this stuff out. So it's kind of this wild, wild, wild.
00:33:52
Speaker
And it's also similar to you were talking about different types of posts, right? A blog post, an infographic, just a regular graphic, a video, a short video, right? like what connects with people and i'll do the x thing and everyone's told me i should be on x because that's where a lot of developers just are and i just don't feel like another account it's not anything else other than i just don't feel like another account at this point um well show you little inside that that kind of when you're on that topic of x like x go for it we're effective um i won't mention a name but an influencer that i've been collaborating with over the last few months
00:34:29
Speaker
She believes that a lot of game developers and people working in the in the gaming space have migrated over to Blue Sky. Yeah. Which is obviously like a and direct competitor to X. So I'm not on Blue Sky right now.
00:34:45
Speaker
I ought to be. in We try to make you on a platform, an account on it on Blue Sky as soon as possible. um Because first of all, my she is there.
00:34:58
Speaker
Uh, and we want to collaborate with her there. And so, yeah, I, I would share that little tidbit while we're on the topic of, uh, platforms that are effective in this community. Yeah. I tried blue sky for a week and change, but.
00:35:13
Speaker
I don't like the limitation of 300 characters and under 60 seconds of video because all the stuff I post is either little text heavy or it's a video based on what I've done. So I'm not going to try and fit in a square box.
00:35:27
Speaker
If it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit. And that's just kind of where I'm at right now. If I would ever get someone that helps with that content, I would no a doubt about do it. But it's just, again, you got to look at your time in the day and decide where you want and put your efforts. And I think that's the hardest part for me to realize is you know I stopped posting to Facebook because I realized Facebook is just not my audience. um Instagram, I'm iffy about. Instagram's harder because I want to be on it, but it's hard for me to find traction on Facebook. So at the end of the day, I have to look at the content I'm posting and decide, is it still worth my time or not? And it's tough because I love doing what I'm doing, but if it's not generating value, I should just pull that bandaid and save my time.
00:36:06
Speaker
For sure. While it's on my mind, I was in contact with another influencer ah recently who I've been collaborating with and they they have a large presence on LinkedIn. And i basically said to them, i think your visuals would be fantastic.
00:36:22
Speaker
They'd be perfectly suited to Instagram um just because of like the accessibility of them. And their response was basically, I'm spending too much time on LinkedIn. don't have time for other platforms.
00:36:34
Speaker
tough, you know, and you're trying to monetize each platform in ah in a way or at least get the value by awareness. Right. and It's tough. It's like a juggling act and deciding where do you want to put your your time again.
00:36:47
Speaker
Time is the one commodity we can't control, right? There's 24 hours of it in a day. you know you got You got to pick your poisons. And I think in any role, right? It's funny, even even in gaming, I've had an old sales manager that used to say, hey, if you're creating something and it's not working, fail fast, right? Know when to pull the Band-Aid, right? There's no reason to be sitting on something, working on something when you know Maybe it's even in your gut that it's not going to work out. So if you're going to fail at something, fail fast, move on and iterate.
00:37:15
Speaker
Cut the cord, keep moving on what is working for you and make it better. um But I can also see kind of an argument against that. But that's kind of my theory is fail fast, move on and keep creating stuff.
00:37:27
Speaker
It goes both ways, I guess. You know, they say, you know, you've got a You're trying experiment insanity, you're doing the same thing over and over again, but on the flip side, you have to persevere and, and, uh, you know, you give something enough time and attention.
00:37:42
Speaker
You'll begin to start seeing the, the fruit of your labors. Like I I've been making, uh, posts and infographics on, uh, LinkedIn, for example, and at the beginning, they weren't necessarily getting too much traction.
00:37:55
Speaker
Part of that wasn't necessarily to do with the content either. Like the quality has always been there, but it's also to do with where you're posting and what time you're posting, which LinkedIn groups are you targeting, for example.
00:38:10
Speaker
If you're able to find an audience that you know is going to really gravitate towards that content and gain value from it, your over time and over multiple attempts, you'll start to see the fruit of your labors. Your the impressions will go up.
00:38:24
Speaker
reactions will go up. um I wouldn't call myself, I said I wasn't a SEO expert, I wouldn't call myself a social media expert either. But I'm definitely like, compared me to a few months ago, I'm light years ahead of of where I was in terms of what I'm capable of.
00:38:39
Speaker
So I think, like I said, it's all about timing perseverance. It is consistency is key, right? If you're consistent at it, right? And as long as you're putting out a quality product,
00:38:51
Speaker
people will start to notice it as as long as it's quality, right? And the problem in the world of AI content creation is you see a lot of posts now that are clearly from ai And I think people are starting to kind of see right through that and skip that content over. And I still think there's a great role for AI out there, but it's no longer just throw it into a chat GPT, get it something spit out and post it, right? Everyone's doing that now.
00:39:16
Speaker
How do you take it to the next level? How do you make it more meaningful? How do you take your own data and feed your data into the machine, right? Again, same thing with Kiwano, right? It's your own data. It's looking at your own data, which makes it unique. It's not just socially available data that anyone could get.
00:39:32
Speaker
And that's what's going be the special sauce there is what is powering the creation or the tool that creates this stuff. And I think it's think it's a fascinating world we're going to be in for for the next few years here. 100%. I actually have something that I'm able to kind add towards that.
00:39:50
Speaker
in general, because I'm thinking about originality, right? And, you know, there is so much content out there and it's hard to say like, what is original and what isn't, what is just regurgitated, what is just, um, the by-product of prompt on chat GPT.
00:40:07
Speaker
Um, you know, there's always the temptation to lean into that level of automation, but, It's always important to try and put your stamp on your content and make sure it's as personable as possible and has your soul all over it.
00:40:23
Speaker
um Otherwise, what's the point? AI automation, it's a contentious topic. Bottom line, people have varying opinions on it. This is my take.
00:40:36
Speaker
It can completely support your team or support yourself as an individual. It doesn't just mean necessarily replacing an individual, replacing a team.
00:40:48
Speaker
When AI is used properly, it's a buddy. It's an assistant. It can handle the boring stuff. The repetive repetitive tasks, the tedious work, the stuff you don't want to do necessarily.
00:41:01
Speaker
You want to focus on the creative stuff, the important tasks that really have an impact on your business. AI is your, it's a servant, that person. In this theory, it should give us humans more time to deliver high quality work.
00:41:18
Speaker
And whether that be more accurate instant analytics, high quality support for your players, um genuine engaging content on social media, that's what AI is best for in my opinion.
00:41:34
Speaker
Yeah, I always like to tell people it basically turns Tony Stark into Iron Man, Bruce Wayne into Batman, right? It makes what you can do ah enhanced. It allows you to do more with your time. It removes the mundane stuff from your plate and allows you to accomplish more from within your day.
00:41:51
Speaker
it shouldn't replace the individual that's creating this stuff. It shouldn't empower them to do more. It should give them more tools to their advantage to allow them to grow as an individual. I'll never forget my first volunteer one support, right?
00:42:03
Speaker
I was hungry for more, right? You need to keep being that hunger for more. And if you can find a way to take those mundane things you do on an everyday basis, and automate it or find a way to get it done quick. it It gives you more time to continue to grow and learn in other fields. Right. So maybe you want to be a developer today, but you're a community manager, right?
00:42:22
Speaker
So how can you automate some of this stuff in your community management part of the day to focus on some of this game development side, right? It's, a superpower that we can utilize to help advance our careers if we use it properly. And we need to make sure that we are enabling humans to use these tools rather than shun them, right?
00:42:38
Speaker
Some of them are going to be crap tools. That's just the way of the world. And with new technology, people are going to create things that are wild, right? but But over time, you'll see the fat. People will say less and less about AI. That just means the tool is maturing.
00:42:51
Speaker
It's going into bigger products. It's be implemented in a way where maybe it's not as in your face And that's when we're going to start to see change happen. I mean, we're already seeing change happen, but I think that that's really the superpower of AI is to let us do more with our time. 100%. And this is exactly one of the goals we set out to achieve with QAnon.
00:43:12
Speaker
To you leverage AI, specifically AI agents, to help identify player issues, for all kinds of teams, c CX teams, marketing teams, product teams, analytics teams, designers, regardless of their level of analytics expertise or technical expertise, so that they can feel sure about their decisions.
00:43:36
Speaker
So this kind of automation, it's not about replacing humans at all. It's on the contrary, it's about empowering us to solve problems more easily and more efficiently.
00:43:52
Speaker
Love it. I'm going to end it there because I feel like that's the most beautiful way to put it. But, uh, you know, at the end of the day, when you're a small studio there, you're looking to build a game that you're looking to scale, expand upon, right.
00:44:04
Speaker
You can spend your time digging through logs, digging through code, or understanding what's happening. Or you find a way to find a tool that, whether it be Kiwano, whether it be some other tool that exists out there, right?
00:44:16
Speaker
To help automatically create these insights for you. I mean, the data's there. It's up to you if you want to utilize that data at the end of the day, right? But but at least stated data backed decisions, you at least you're you're more educated in that case rather than just swinging in the dark and trying to figure out what happens. And again,
00:44:35
Speaker
I love the fact that you don't need a tool to get started. Just choose a few metrics you want to start measuring. And when you start measuring it, see type types of results you can get. And then eventually when you're ready to scale, right, if you want to use a tool, there's tools available to you. It's just there's a lot of data out there. And it would be foolish not to at least start looking at this data to make educated decisions. You don't have to live and die by the data, but but the best decisions get made by looking at resources that will allow you to measure how well you're doing against ah standard.
00:45:03
Speaker
Yeah, and think to a degree there can be a bit of a stigma attached to even the word data. It can be scary. Some people can be and intimidated by it because maybe a lot of people, they're just not numbers people.
00:45:15
Speaker
Me, myself, i i I use data analytics to a degree, but it's not something i've kind of that's grown naturally to me or I've like grown up with.
00:45:25
Speaker
It's something I've been forced to you know keep up with us as the world evolves. um So I think in terms of the future of where ah data and data analytics is going, for it to affect the widest range of people, it needs to be more accessible.
00:45:44
Speaker
And more specifically, I think the most effective way for that is for it to become more conversational than just a bunch of numbers and dashboards. the ability to just like ask a question and get the answer.
00:45:57
Speaker
Um, so you can like find out the answers you need to make the, the data driven decisions without it necessarily being data at the forefront. It's kind of in the background.
00:46:09
Speaker
Um, that's the way I look at it anyway. I love it. I think it's great stuff and, Josh Plotnick, head of content Kiwano. I really appreciate the conversation. I really appreciate the content you put out online. I think it's educational, informational. I think it's just great stuff and I would encourage you to keep it up.
00:46:28
Speaker
um Before we do end today, is there anything you want to share, talk about, plug? um I'm not the best at plugging. This is a marketing guy coming to you live.
00:46:40
Speaker
Basically, I would say if you're interested interested in learning about more content from Kiwano, you can go to kiwano.com forward slash blog for, we're regularly like churning out content and blog articles about various topics around game development, game analytics, um latest trends in AI, market value reports, all kinds of things related around what our platform is capable of.
00:47:09
Speaker
And also I would just say, Like, God bless you, Greg, for taking a chance on me on this podcast, because it's that's what it's like when you're bringing these guests on, right? It's like flipping a coin. You don't know what you're going to get. So I'm just, like, grateful to have been here. The last time I was on a podcast was probably about 10 years ago.
00:47:31
Speaker
ah so sweet ah spoke with my friend about Star Wars for, like, three hours, and then it never even saw the light of day. and I've never even seen it. Really? Wow. Yeah. I'm more.
00:47:43
Speaker
I'm more confident that we're going to see this episode. I am confident as well. And I just love what you're doing, man. And yeah, you do take a chance, but we've spoken enough. I've seen your content where I felt.
00:47:54
Speaker
very confident about bringing you on just because I love the data and I just love how you're going for it, man. You haven't been a gamer for a while, that you said, but but you're in the industry, you're going for it, you're learning from the experts. And I think that sets the example forever for anyone that wants to be in this industry is you just got to do it.
00:48:11
Speaker
Talk to mentors, talk to others in the industry. And I think it's a great thing that you're doing it. And the only way you can learn is by doing it and asking questions and being inquisitive. So so Josh, I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate you sharing all this information.
00:48:26
Speaker
We'll have links to the Kiwondo blog as well as our website as well. So you can learn more about the tool itself. And Josh, again, really appreciate you taking the time. I know it's your end of day. So I won't keep you in the office here anymore, but thank you so much for coming out today and and having this conversation.
00:48:40
Speaker
Thank you, Greg. Right back at you. And, your you know, your content is also extremely valuable. i've I've read over your articles. You have a great way of words. I'd love to examine your brain because, you know, the amount of people that you've kind of like been learning from are all different corners of the industry.
00:48:54
Speaker
um You are well full of knowledge. And bottom line, you're just a fantastic person. And those are the only kind of people I want to work with and collaborate with are good people. I appreciate that. Right at the right top.
00:49:06
Speaker
Thank you very much, Josh. I appreciate it. And I hope you have a great rest of your day. Thanks, Greg.