·S4 E4

"Get people engaged and get them curious" ft. Community Manager Orchid

July 10

40 mins

Episode Description

Today's guest is Orchid, Community Manager at THOMIC, where she works on the cozy-but-brain-twisting rabbit breeding game Rare Rabbits.

Orchid's path into games is one of the most unexpected on the show. She came from a family of journalists, worked in TV news in Ukraine, and only stumbled into the games industry after walking the catwalk at a local anime fashion show and striking up a friendship with a stranger from the Netherlands who happened to know some game developers.

We chat about how TV journalism skills turned out to be surprisingly useful in community management, her Ukrainian daycare story that perfectly captures her philosophy for welcoming new community members, and how she built the OddSparks Discord from scratch without being allowed to show a single frame of the game. Orchid also shares her no-nonsense advice for aspiring community managers and why she believes that when it comes to content creator outreach, knowing someone's cat's name beats a copy-pasted email every time.

Games mentioned in this episode:

- Rare Rabbits: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3966790/Rare_Rabbits__Snuggle_Haven/

- Neopets: https://www.neopets.com/

- OddSparks: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1817800/Oddsparks_An_Automation_Adventure/

- Factorio: https://store.steampowered.com/app/427520/Factorio/

- Satisfactory: https://store.steampowered.com/app/526870/Satisfactory/

- Pikmin: https://pikmin.nintendo.com/

- Dark Souls: https://store.steampowered.com/app/570940/DARK_SOULS_REMASTERED/

- Tamagotchi Plaza: https://www.bandainamcoent.com/games/tamagotchi-plaza

- No Man's Sky: https://store.steampowered.com/app/275850/No_Mans_Sky/

Find Orchid on:

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/orchidgoth/