Planning ahead

Not Released

PlayMakers is not currently released for productive usage. The material below is a preview reference.

Please contact us to get started.

Before diving into it and get our hands dirty, let's sit down and ask ourselves a few questions.

What do we currently have and what can we do to maximize the value out of UGC?

1. In what stage is your project?

• Just a concept
• Clearly specified
• In early development
• Shortly before release
• Already live

2. Where could the users contribute?

• Illustrations
• Background music
• Source code
• Story writing
• Advertisement (marketing content)
• Game assets (3D, animation, numbers, ...)

3. How tight do you wish to keep control?

• Full creative freedom
• Some restriction to prevent patchwork
• Strict artistic direction
• Full control

4. How to convert consumers into creators?

• Through a mechanic within the project itself
• Advertising other creations within the project
• Through external channels like social media

5. How to motivate further creativity (revenue sharing)

• Bounties (monetary reward upon approval of a submission)
• Royalties (reward proportional to the impact/usage of the contribution)
• Virtual rewards (like in-game coins, credits, easter eggs)
• Only in exceptional cases

Contributions

Base ideas

Even though users will come up with their own ideas, it's best to prepare the ground early on, in order to facilitate the integration of their submissions and to direct those ideas to cover as much terrain as possible.

If your project is in an early phase, are there opportunities to design elements taking advantage of UGC? Are there bricks that could be left up to the users to fill, saving your team effort?

If the project is already out there, what crazy ideas can be found in your existing community?

If you are an author and publish webnovels, chapters could be enhanced with fitting illustrations/fanart, side-stories could be integrated and become canon, background music, video trailers, audiobooks, polls.

Abstraction

After listing all those possible contribution types, let's look at them one by one and try to abstract them as much as possible: removing bias and opening up for creativity.

Practical example

Say you are working on a game and you think a sword can be an interesting contribution type. But could it be an axe, a hammer, a dagger, a morningstar? Can we even split the weapon in different parts? The hilt, with the pommel, the grip and the guard; along with the blade, the chain, the hammerhead?

After adding on top of this the technical restrictions inherent to the implementation, we will have defined our constribution schemas.

Integration

Several options are available, from the straightforward plug&play solution to the deep hardcore customization. It is entirely possible to start with the out of the box solution provided by PlayMakers, and slowly integrate components tightly within the project bit by bit.

tip

Our minimum recommendation is to plan for automatization in the implementation of the contribution within the project. In most cases, it's about taking a snippet of code to regularly poll for updates through our API, download the relevant assets and index them appropriately in your table of content.

Then, a question might be what effort should be spent on the Makers Hub if there is a wish to build your own.

And finally, in some cases, it might be worth thinking about a specialized tool or plugin to make it more accessible for users to become successful creators.

How to turn users into creators ?

Game studios can bring their users on the PlayMakers platform, by raising awareness about it. There are different strategies to do so:

Product-led strategy

By showcasing UGC directly inside your game. PlayMakers can be directly integrated in it or in your website, allowing a majority of players to discover that they can craft content for the game, and be rewarded for it.

Digital marketing

Social media campaigns

Studios can use discord announcements, reddit, insta and other social media to share news about creative / exclusive in-game or off-game events. They can organize AMA (ask me anything) with other creators, or run live-streamed workshops with some artists...

Influencer collaborations

Studios can partner with influencers or e-sports team to get the community to craft content showcasing their favorite teams or influencers

Incentive to get players to look and try the platform

Simplify the Creation Process:

• user-friendly tools: we provide templates and pre-made assets to lower the entry barrier, alongside GenAI tools
• step-by-step tutorials: we offer comprehensive guides, video tutorials, and live support to help users, regardless of their level, get started with creating assets. Moreover, with our auditing layer, we’re able to fix any issue that might have gone unseen by the creator

Incentivize Participation:

• monetary rewards: creators can earn money based on the popularity and usage of their assets.

- recognition and exposure:

• contributions showing the name of the creator and redirecting to the original submission on the Makers Hub
• we deliver as a home page our explore feed, showing the best contributions made from the community, as well as the community activity around them (likes and comments)
• highlight top creators, recent winners (accepted contributions) on your platform and through social media channels. Offer features like creator profiles and leaderboards
• through our carousel studios can also highlight specific UGC initiatives they would like users to be aware of

• in-game rewards: unlock coins / in-game currencies if your submission reach a certain threshold

Driving Engagement and Retention

Gamification

• challenges and contests: organize regular contests and challenges with attractive prizes to motivate users to create and submit their work
• achievement badges: implement a badge system to reward creators for milestones and achievements in-game potentially

Community building

Creator forums and groups: create dedicated spaces (on discord,...) for creators to share tips, collaborate, and provide feedback

Revenue sharing

A revenue-sharing program may be implemented so the creators have all there is to know about their contribution from the get-go:

• Terms, conditions and revenue split percentages are to be stipulated in such, in order to give fair and transparent treatment for anyone willing to be a creator.
• Prevent copyright infringement as creators should enjoy their intellectual property, unless your platform has clear rules that nuance that.
• The type of revenue sharing should also be specified.
  • Microtransactions: The creators can receive goods such as skins, items or even in-game currencies and use them in the dedicated platform.
  • Fixed payments: Real currency can be used to reward the creator, and the percentage of a commission may vary according to the quantity of sold in-game items. On another hand, creators may also benefit from the content they used to promote the studio (ads,...)
  • Royalties: The studio can either buy the creator's content to have its rights or pay royalties for each use of what they have contributed to.