a post that people like and interact with, TikTok will push it to your followers and to a lot of new viewers. But if your post doesn’t get the traction, it’s buried pretty quickly – even towards your own followers and only the top followers will get it, if at all.”
Rosa Carbo-Mascarell, lead game designer at Loveshark
SHOW SOME PERSONALITY “[The algorithm is] very useful, but it does indeed have downsides,” adds Widomska. “It’s great at finding highly relevant audiences and putting your content in front of people who are most likely to engage with it, which also makes it perfect for building communities. “Though, as most brands and creators will
eventually find out, success on TikTok can be fleeting. The algorithm is in a ruthless pursuit of the newest, hottest thing, so if it deems your content less relevant than it used to be, you could lose views as quickly as you gained them. It’s not the end of the world though – it’s more like moving to a ‘phase two’ of TikTok success, where your videos will pop up in front of people already familiar with you.” The concern with TikTok is less about
what your content is, and more about how you communicate it. TikTok videos are often personality-driven, with the creator front and centre of the experience. While this isn’t an absolute rule to the app, it’s nonetheless something worth keeping in mind. “TikTok is a huge platform and there’s certainly
space for both,” says Widsomska. “For indie games, personal stories seem to work really well: starting your videos with something like “I’m making my dream game” brings stronger engagement and more views. TikTok users also seem to be interested in how games are made, so any prototypes, concept art or demos are usually well received. On the other hand, this strategy won’t work for more mainstream games: so, stream highlights/gameplay clips/’top 10’ lists can still do well on TikTok, as long as they’re formatted for 9:16 instead of 16:9. But, a personal touch goes a long way, so you’ll find that even these videos start with a quick selfie cam introduction from the creator compiling them.” “I tend to do educational TikToks and those are
the ones that tend to do best,” says Rosa Carbo- Mascarell, lead game designer at Loveshark. “There is a large audience of people out there who are interested in how games are made but don’t
30 | MCV/DEVELOP January 2022
know where to look. So a TikTok from a real game designer showing them how games are made is fascinating to that audience. It also feels personal. This isn’t some company carefully calculating how to best market and sell a game. It’s a game designer in her home or at her desk, showing the practical and messy behind the scenes.” It’s often tempting to assume that high
production values will wow your potential audience, but standing out in such a way could be actively detrimental to your campaigns. With that said however, there’s certainly a market for more gameplay-oriented videos too.
“Some of my TikToks have been viewed over 400k times and I never have to worry about abusive behaviour.” “I would say, what we traditionally call high
production value, is not the most popular content on TikTok,” says Reisenegger. “It’s about being authentic and making TikToks that look like TikToks. That means understanding how good clips are passed, certain tonal nuances, using the right font within the app etc. It can be a lot of work to make a video look authentic, find the right angle and really make a video pop in the first five seconds (which is super important on TikTok) but the time doesn’t go into the traditional “polish” but more into the ideas.” An interesting point, and one worth noting, is the
culture of TikTok compared to other social media platforms. I’m certainly not claiming that abuse and harassment don’t exist on TikTok – but it is nonetheless a more welcoming space for women than some of the other platforms out there. Which, for an app that values authenticity and direct interaction with the user behind the videos, is certainly attractive. “On Twitter I’m always worrying that if a tweet
ends up doing too well, it’ll end up in front of the wrong people and I’ll have to go private,” says Carbo-Mascarell. “Especially as a visible woman online. I’ve never had that issue with TikTok. Some of my TikToks have been viewed over 400k times and I never have to worry about abusive behaviour.”
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