[2022] Another Creator Experimental card is coming!

They definitely didn’t forget them, especially Symmetra

I don’t want to steal any of the spotlight from the creators here, so that’s all you’ll be getting from me today

Critique is great, however I personally believe the last ExCard was pretty successful, by multiple measurements.

• It had a very high adoption rate (meaning lots of players checked it out)
• It had a very high hours played (in comparison to other cards)
• Content Creators were generally positive about it
• Broadly, players were excited about it

I know that it’s easy to be cynical and only focus on the negatives, however you have to take in the good with the bad. Otherwise you’re just cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Grateful for the kindness and yes, we are iterating with a goal of improvement and optimization each go-round. Ultimately, we’d love for these collaborations with content creators to be both fun and sustainable, so we’re keeping an open mind as to how we can level up both the ExC and it’s related Creator Cup

Friend, I am a Community Manager, not a designer.

This is a small way that the community team can drive towards a creative solution for keeping the game fresh (through the ExCard), all while not having an adverse affect on T4’s other development priorities. The halo effect of content creators feeling excited, higher engagement with the feature in game, and increased CCV category wide on Twitch during the tournament, are all welcome additional benefits.

Sure:

• Specifically for Damage, there was an overwhelming number of Heroes for one person to handle, which lead to not every Damage Hero initially receiving the attention they deserved. to address this, we’ve divided the category among 2 creators for the next card
• There’s a perception among some players that personal biases play too heavily into the proposed changes. This is something that all of the creators we’ve been working with for the second card are very self-aware about, and they’re paying close attention with their notes
• Some players don’t understand why we’re working with creators and not the broader community. Our goals for this project (engaging with Creators in a unique and interesting way, instigating more competitive events in the community, and increasing CCV on Twitch) weren’t clearly stated ahead of time, so I’ll own that
• there’s a perception that this somehow takes away from developing other more meaningful updates to the game. I get this perception and, to be frank, there’s little I can say here to sway your entrenched opinion. All I’ll say is that this hasn’t had a detrimental impact on our current development priorities, and in fact was proposed with this consideration in mind

As much as I’d love to be able to reach each and every player, both current and lapsed, we all know that’s not practically possible. What I can measure and observe are the folks who are here, like yourself, who share their thoughts and feelings across the various platforms our community lives on.

We have tools that measure sentiment quantitatively, and experts whose job it is to interpret that data into meaningful analysis. We also have folks like me who often times provide more qualitative analysis, so we have a complete picture.

Generally speaking, sentiment about the ExCard was surprised (at it’s existence), delight because the changes were fun, and confusion over the purpose of the ExCard (feedback I’ve delivered internally).

Does this somehow diminish their excitement?

There’s another halo effect of these kinds of activations: creators of that profile pay attention when developers collaborate with their community. When you have demonstrable proof and the support of your existing creator community, newer and lapsed creators are more inclined to give you a second look.

Somewhat related, but Seagull did return last week and seemed like he was having a pretty great time with Jay3 and Emongg.

For sure. This was a factor that was specifically pointed out during our initial analysis of the ExCards performance. Even with that knowledge, the overall impact was positive.

Not speaking to any specific meeting or otherwise, but there’s a lot of behind the scenes relationship management that the community team is responsible for. Making sure that creators are prepared for our “big beats” and are able to make the best possible content is to everyone’s benefit, player and dev alike.

I can ask, however to set expectations - we don’t generally share data publicly unless it’s something that really moves the needle.

I will say this: the April Fool’s card was the bar against which we measured the first Creator ExCard’s performance and it hit or exceeded all of our expectations

yes.

Creator relations means supporting the entire OW creator community, to work to retain existing creators, to maintain relationships with folks who may have churned out, and to foster up and coming creators who are just starting on their journey.

BTW. we’re hiring dedicated support for this responsibility as we speak: Community Manager, Creator Support job in Irvine, California, United States of America | Community Development jobs at Blizzard Entertainment

Your feelings here are all valid, and I want you to know that the team is aware and frankly, feels similarly. To a T, every person I’ve worked with on T4 cares deeply about the player experience, and the current pace of updates isn’t something we’re satisfied with either.

I’m going to avoid promises and platitudes here, and simply state that we want to focus on letting our work speak for us this year.

Completely fair criticism. We don’t do enough currently to support small to medium sized creators, and that’s something I’m tasked with improving. Not much more I can say right now, aside from “I hear you”