When Gala Net became the American publisher of a popular Korean game called Tales Runner, they put together a new publishing team and told us to come up with a comprehensive plan to promote and launch the title.

After I lead the community and customer support teams for Gala Net’s flagship title, Fly for Fun, they invited me to do the same for their latest launch, Tales Runner.

The key difference between the two roles was that I needed to establish support and community teams on Tales Runner before I could oversee them, which meant hiring new employees and training them on our operations. We also needed a suite of community channels set up, while at the same time promoting our upcoming release.

We all had roles to play. Outside of hiring, my focus was on building a community culture. I collaborated with knowledgeable influencers within our audience to find what made our players’ engagement, with us and with each other, distinct and exciting. (They were irreverent, competitive, and kind.)

Additionally, I made time to talk to the gaming press about our upcoming launch, along with other promotional responsibilities like copywriting our marketing content.

The game’s community existed for several months before the game’s actual release, and became a sort of attraction unto itself, in part because its members were so positive and full of hope.

I will forever be particularly proud of this launch, because a few of the people I hired or managed have gone on to have long, and fairly distinguished careers in the gaming industry. That is a testament to their own abilities, completely, but it makes me happy to know that I am a part of their story.

In just over three months, we built a community with over 10,000 members who generated over 150,000 pieces of content, such as images, forum comments, blogs, videos, and social posts.

More than anything, we wanted our players to be excited when the game launch and they definitely were.

In the end, we met most of our goals and built a solid base for future growth.