Making Friends With... Victoria Tran

Welcome to another episode of “Making Friends With…” - a special series where the Tech for Good Live team sit down for an in-depth interview with someone who is doing exceptional work in the tech industry.

This time, Ben White and Fay Schofield from the TFGL team are chatting with Victoria Tran.

Victoria is the Community Director at InnerSloth, producers of the wildly popular game Among Us. She is also co-organizer for Game & Colour.

Transcript

Intro: Hello, welcome to an episode of Tech For Good Live presents Making Friends With.This is a bit different to our regular weekly show, some of our teams are going to sit down and chat with people who have good stories to tell. Hopefully, by the end of it, we'll even make a few friends. We need to because we're all desperately lonely.

Ben: So hello. Very nice to meet you Victoria. I am going to ask you a burning question from my end, which is that you are the Community Director in InnerSloth. So as a community director at InnerSloth, what do you actually do? What does an average day look like?

Victoria: That is the question everyone has and the fun thing about community especially when you have like a tiny - so InnerSloth consists of four members, including me, like four core members. We have external partners that help us out with a lot of things. But when you have four members, it means you're often doing a lot of things. And I don't have what a standard day looks like. But the way I sum it up is that basically when it comes to being the Community Director, any sort of messaging, any sort of communication that you see, going out of InnerSloth Official, Among Us Official, anytime you read anything on a store page, or things need to be approved in terms of working with external partners, that usually goes through me. So literally, if you hear from Among Us, you're probably hearing it from me or from something I've approved.

Ben: This is absolutely crazy to me. You have a core team of four. You have 25% of that team that is devoted to community. That's kind of really interesting, because when I think about video games, I think about the big stuff where there's probably four people who work on like solid texture. What led you to this, this kind of this role as a community leader for a games company?

Victoria: Yeah, so if we go back to university, I never thought I would get into games at all. So I had a very traditional upbringing. I was originally going to go into university for healthcare PR. I have a degree in sociology. I have a double minor in communications and social studies and medicine. I graduated and then I had the classic post University breakdown of like, I don't know what I want to do. And this isn't, this isn't what I wanted to do. So I was just like sobbing. But basically, because I was already sort of at rock bottom, I was like, well, what's something I always kind of wanted to do. And I've always wanted to work in games, but I didn't have any programming knowledge. I had no art skills to speak of. But I basically just emailed a bunch of random people in games and luckily, some of them got back to me. And yeah, kind of, I realised like, yeah, I could get into community management. I could get into marketing. I could get into all those kinds of things. So I started applying for jobs. I got one in an outsourcing company working just like in customer experience and community management. And then on Twitter, the studio I was working for with before Kitfox Games, was hiring a Community Manager. I applied there. I was there for four years and it was a lovely time. And then basically, InnerSloth was looking for a Community Director. I had some connections in the industry and one of them slid into my DMS and was like, hey. Hey, there, are you looking for a job? I was like, Well, what do you mean? And then, and then I'm here.

Fay: [laughs]

Ben: It sounds so seedy when you put it like that. 

Victoria: It wasn't seedy. It wasn't seedy.

Fay: Oh, God, um, that as well. Yeah. It sounds like you obviously didn't take a traditional pattern, especially if you do like healthcare, PR and stuff. Yeah. That's an amazing jump to kind of get from that, and then obviously be the Community Director that you are now. I know, we've kind of mentioned it. I'm sorry. We've got to talk about Among Us. I must admit, I'm a player, slightly obsessed with it. You  recently published a really fascinating post over on your blog, which was all kind of about deconstructing the Twitter strategy that you used for Among Us. If people haven't gone to read that you should go and read it. And yeah,  it's really, the thing that really struck me is that the community is at the centre of everything. I think there was one line in your pocket that is, you know, that you said it's not about going viral. It's you know, it's about kind of crafting that conversation with your community. So what is it about the Among Us community of which I am one, which makes them kind of different and kind of, I guess makes them special. And yeah, makes them stand out in this amazing way.

Victoria: Yeah, so one of my favourite things about Among Us is how, like, diverse the community is. A lot of the times when you talk about gamers and you know, that kind of like idea of gamers, you think of people who are like, you know, have the big like computer rigs and, or like a PS five, and they have like all the latest games, and they're really intense about them, which is great. Like, I'm definitely one of those people. But I find it most powerful when games can reach people that don't necessarily like ‘‘consider themselves as gamers’’ and Among Us has that mass appeal. Well, one because it's accessible via like, you know, your phone, or a computer or, at this point, the Nintendo Switch. So you have all of that. But then you also realise, like, the bulk of the game is all based on the community personality, right? It's all about how you interact with each other. It's all about you know, your social deduction skills, and just having a good time and connecting with each other. And then like little tasks in between are very simple. You know, you can easily figure out how to do them. It's not something that takes up a lot of time or you don't need to put 50 hours into it in order to learn how to do the assignments as much. And that's kind of the beauty of it. I think that's why the Among Us community has flourished so much, and why I put so much stock in the community itself because it just welcomes so many different people into the gaming sphere, it kind of does that.

Ben: You do say those tasks don't take that much time, Victoria, but I played Among Us last night as part of my research and connecting those wires when someone's standing right next to you took about four years.

Victoria: [laughs] That's fair. That's a whole different thing. 

Ben: The level of tension it creates, it's kind of amazing. It’s absolutely amazing. 

Fay: It's not, it's not the tension. I mean, so me and my friends have been playing it during lockdown. So we’ve kind of got this I say, elaborate system, it's not an elaborate system. We’re all sat on phones and then we set up like a discord channel at the same time to chat through on that. But when you're the imposter, Good God, the level of stress is like so real. And I mean, me and my friends, we played God knows how many games and I was like, I haven't been imposter yet. What is going on? This isn't fair, I want to have a go. And when it finally got around to me, I just, I lost it within the first like two minutes and started laughing. They were like, we totally know that you're the imposter. Like you're meant to play it cool. And I was like, oh right. 

Victoria: It's tough.

Fay: It is. It is [laughs]. It’s really tough. And then I must admit, I did start playing like the online version. And just like some of the random groups that you join and come across, were just amazing. Like one of them was clearly like a bunch of high school kids and they were like, I don't know who you are like, get the hell out of our funnel. But then the next ones were like in the little chat thing, when you’re all calling each other out. But yeah, it's, it brings out a different side of you when you're the imposter. I will, I will definitely mention that. 

Victoria: It does. 

Fay: Which kind of, I guess sort of brings me on to my next question really well.  So obviously, aside from Among Us being super popular, it also became the platform where like, two US members of Congress, so obviously AOC and Ilhan Omar were live streaming on Twitch and this was such like a big moment in Tech for Good last year. So I just wanted to kind of mention that. Did you even know that they were planning on doing the livestream? Or did they just start happening and you were like, oh shit?

Victoria: It was literally like, Ilhan seems cool. I'm gonna play Among Us. So yeah, it was a shock to the whole team for sure.

Fay: That’s amazing. Yeah, like, aside from obviously tech companies looking at it and going, Okay, this is cool. This is a new way to kind of, you know, political figures to like, reach new audiences. Did your community, how did they respond to it? Were they stoked about it or were they kind of a bit like,hang on, you’re coming into our house now. Get in line. This is how we do Among Us.

Victoria: No, actually, it was really nice. Everyone was really excited about it. And honestly, it just introduced more people to the game. The cool thing about Among Us is that no one's really gatekeeping the game. It's just it's one of those games like you know, the more people that are playing, the better because you need to have a big group of people in order to play, so that was really nice.

Fay: And what do you think, like, can you see like Among Us being used in this way again? It’s just I’d be super interested in what you think about like kind of political figures, what they could learn from this or even just like people in power, like reaching new audiences in this way and kind of reaching like, I guess, the next generation of like voters and the next generation of activists. Yeah. Have you seen any other kind of big figures livestream and get involved with the community? What’s your take on that? 

Victoria: Yeah, I think, I mean,  the one thing that a lot of local figures are hopefully trying to do is to get more young people to vote, right. And being better at explaining it and making it less like, how do I put it? Like, a lot of the time, I think government and politics seems like this black box of like, we don't know what goes on in there. Especially like when you're younger, and you're like still learning the systems, it can get really confusing. And also, it just feels like they're not actually listening to you. And I think one of the best things about games like whether or not it’s Among Us, or whatever, is that they're really good ways to connect with people, right. And I say this a lot. But like, being able to connect with people isn't the same as actually truly feeling connected to them. And when you have political representatives, you want them to represent you. And this is kind of like one of the ways I think that we can get people excited about voting and excited about things like this. I don't think they'll necessarily be Among Us. But I've seen Tik Tok being used with political figures. So it is just, you know, not sticking with really old ways of communication and learning and adapting with the world because it's moving at such a fast pace that you can't just stick with the normal things or else you're going to be left behind.

Ben: A game that provokes like sabotage and suspicion, regular votes to catch out one member I can’t see it.

Victoria: [laughs]

Ben: Games are kind of at a level, especially if you are, as you say, you know, like a hardcore gamer. You’re somebody who’s just dabbling in it. And Among Us is amazing for that because you can pick it up and understand it really, really quickly. It's not like a game where the game itself sort of rewards exceptional practice or skill. The mechanics in the sense of running around and pressing the keys, it's kind of like a social interaction. So I think that's kind of one of the reasons I was able to pick it up and play it straight away without feeling frustrated, as I have done in the past about getting beaten up or whatever online community, I wander into it or wander away with my tail between my legs. And I guess if you are trying to engage in some kind of games to reach new audiences, it's got to be something that makes you look a bit silly, as opposed to just you’re bad at the game. I also had a cheeky little question and Fay, you probably must’ve thought about this. If you had your dream set of people to play Among Us, like who would it be? Would it be a collection of Greek detectives all trying to figure each other out or a series of like paranoid dictators or a five minute spell and then a meeting every single minute of that. 

Victoria: I would love to see, like actual interrogation people or the FBI or something. Just like, you know, people whose job is to actually figure out who's lying or not. And, like, I need to see that. I don't want to play in that game, because that would be way too stressed out. But I want to see it.

Fay: Like all members of MI5 meets the FBI, trying to figure out…..maybe they should use that as training thought and that could be like, can you pass imposter? 

Ben: That would be amazing wouldn’t it?

Victoria: Yeah. It would be really good.

Ben: Can you imagine they’d have everyone around the table at the start of the game and no one would move [laughs].

Victoria: [laughs] Yes. 

Ben: So obviously, yeah, obviously, it's an amazing phenomenon. It's essentially been mentioned a lot of times in terms of, as you say, ways that people can kind of like connect with each other during the pandemic. During lockdown. So I guess from the perspective of being the Community Director, were you expecting to become such a central pillar between people inside and outside the gate. 

Victoria: Yeah, definitely not. It's very rare. And when I say rare, I mean, I don't think I've actually thought, I know of any other game at all. Yeah. When a game initially comes out, like, that's like the big boom of like the influx of players, and then, you know, natural drop off unless you have a game that is constantly updated. Among Us was released two years ago. And at one point, they're like, okay, well, you know, it seems fine. Doesn't look like anything else is going to happen with it. We're just going to probably move on to a different game, try to make something new, that kind of thing. But then it started picking up steam in late 2020. And that was strange and exciting and cool. But yeah, definitely wasn't expected at all. And it's still kind of a shock because it really wasn't that long ago that Among Us started gaining popularity or more popularity than it already had. So yeah, that's really cool.

Ben: Obviously, we regretfully a lot of us are still stuck in lockdown, maybe more than we thought we would be.  Have you got any plans? I mean, what’s next for Among Us in 2021? Is there new stuff coming out? 

Victoria: Yeah, so currently we're working on a new map called The Airship. 

Fay: Ohhh. 

Victoria: I know. It'll be large. There will be more tasks. There'll be other things, there’ll be  ladders. You can pick like where you start out. There's like going to be three different places you can like spawn in. 

Fay: Geez the pressure [laughs].

Victoria: I know. That's like a big thing that we're planning for 2021.

Fay: Amazing. 

Ben: I love how Fay, as somebody who plays this game a lot, you’re instantly thinking how these things would work and i’m just like, I don't even know the first map furthermore another one. 

Fay: This is the thing like Ben. All it takes is one time to play and then you just become slowly addicted to it. It’s become, rather than be like, oh, let's go to the pub on Friday night it’s like meet you on Among Us at eight o’clock. Is that alright? Yeah, it's become my social circle. Do you still play it Victoria? Are you a regular player as well or do you just kind of, you get to the end of the day and you’re like oh my god, I’ve responded to a million of you on Twitter. I need a break. Or are you still a hardcore Among Us gamer as well?

Victoria: I definitely play it less. 

Fay: [laughs] Well if you’re talking about it all day. 

Victoria: [laughs] Because it is work. Like some friends will still want to play and I'll play it with them. But honestly I also get very nervous playing Among Us. If I’m a crewmate, it's fine but I am terrible at lying. So anytime I'm like the imposter I’m like no, nooooo. Why me?

Fay: What are you playing at the moment? Like I always love asking people in the games industry, like what are you? Like? What's your game of choice at the moment because clearly mine is Among Us. It will soon be Ben's after he's like become obsessed with it but yeah, what does the Community Director of InnerSloth play on an evening or weekend?

Victoria: I play a lot of different games. Currently, I'm kind of switching between several games, which is Destiny 3, Final Fantasy 14.

Fay: Nice. 

Victoria: For some reason I picked up the Uvio [laughs] Like a friend and I were talking about and I was like, oh I miss Uvio, I should play it. So I have Uvio on Steam now. So that's really fun.

Fay: I must admit, like, before Among Us, I was playing Breath of the Wild and isolated it for like a long, long ass time and the tunes with the task were beating my ass. Like every single freaking time I was being killed by the mechanical spiders. So when Among Us came along I was like thank God. It's like something I can play and not feel like a failure, apart from when I'm the imposter and I give myself away. Sticking with all the game's questions but leaving Among Us sadly behind us for a second, you are also the co-organiser of Game & Colour in Canada. I think it’s across Canada. 

Victoria:  Yeah. 

Fay: Maybe international as well. Can you just tell us a little bit more? Yeah, just a little bit more about the organisation and just the work that you folks are doing. 

Victoria: Yeah, so Game & Colour is something that me and three others started, say two years ago. I don't know how to tell time anymore. It could have been. We don't know. It could’ve been yesterday. I don't know. [laughs] Yeah, it came out of the fact that we felt like we just wanted a space that we could all like, you know, discuss and also share resources in and feel like there was a place where we belong. Because a lot of the time in tech in general, but also in games you usually have the same sorts of people, with the same sorts of background and we didn't feel as connected. Or sometimes you know you would go to a party and you'd be like well, I feel sort of alone in this. So this kind of came out of the fact that we just wanted to create a space especially for new developers to feel like they could discuss their feelings and ask for help in a place that was comfortable and kind to them. So Game & Colour we started doing, just like a lot of like grassroots meetups in our local city and that was really nice. We would play and try out each other's games, just talk and chat and kind of share the knowledge that we've gained over time. Currently we're not really doing any meetups because COVID, as many places are, so instead it's like now it's more about amplifying and signal boosting a lot of game developers of colour. I realise that I didn't actually mention what we did, which is we support and amplify game developers of colour in Canada. Yeah, and kind of just figuring out what we can do to better make the space more diverse and more inclusive in general. 

Fay: Is Game & Colour, is it just a Canadian based organisation or have you got sort of international plans for global domination?

Victoria: Currently it's just in Canada, but there are a lot of lovely other organisations out there. I know in the UK I think, there's POC In Play. In the States, they have Game Devs of Colour Expo and probably a lot of other organisations. 

Fay: Nice. I guess this kind of leads in a little bit to my next question. So obviously a big thing that you believe in and obviously it's very evident through the talks that you've done and kind of, you know, the articles that you've written, the tweets that you kind of send out is really, I guess is a pivotal part of your beliefs, is the intersection between kind of compassion and ethics and marketing and online community. Which is obviously why we wanted to have you on the podcast, being our name is Tech For Good. So yeah, I guess I guess, the question is twofold really. What's been the biggest challenge in terms of that that you've kind of experienced in your career, where obviously you're trying to push for those values and obviously what you do and just yet we just be interest to kind of see, I guess what challenges you kind of experienced on a more personal and professional level and just what's on the horizon for online communities to make that space more compassionate and kind and make that the norm for communities. 

Victoria: Yeah, yeah, I mean, honestly, there's so many problems, some many issues. For me the current challenge is, if I had to pick only a few, it’s the digital knowledge. Like learning that angrily quote retweeting is technically signal boosting them and giving them more attention and more followers than they probably should have. Right. And I think that is like the larger standard question of like, I find myself having to navigate Twitter, Facebook, other various media platforms, where maybe some of the practices or some of the things aren't very good. Or I wish there was more moderation or there was a better reporting system or for them is something that I'm constantly fighting against and not just in the like, you know, marketing sense of like, let's go viral, but literally in the sense of how do I make sure that the space I create makes signal boosting terrible, no giving attention to people who just want to troll and get that attention because that's definitely a thing on the internet.

Fay:It's true. It's true, it's definitely a thing on the internet.

Victoria: I know for sure, for sure. And it's fascinating, right? Because we have some of the smartest people in the world creating platforms and I get it because capitalism, and their sole goal is like, how do we make sure I keep coming back to this platform? How do we make sure people keep checking and I mean, I'm not saying that I'm not, I'm not also a part of this right. Like I am technically working in social media. so I do want people to check out what we have to say. And I think like my challenge with it is I just wish that more thought and care and ethics went into the algorithms and into the kinds of things that people create because there is a lot of that in tech, right? Like Twitter had that whole thing of when you had a picture of a white person and a black person, the auto crop always goes to the white person, which is a bias.  So I said a lot of things but basically, I think that's the core challenge is navigating a system or a space that maybe counteracts what you want it to do ethically and values wise 

Fay: That's really interesting, especially in light of what's happened over the past week with, you know, all of the big platforms banning Donald Trump. Yyou know, four years too late in my opinion, but there you go. Obviously, with the uprise as well, all the apps such as Parlor coming in and being like, Hey Nazis come over here. Come try over here and then obviously, you know what I mean? 

Ben: I saw that campaign and it was very compelling. 

Fay: [laughs] yeah. Nazis come chat to us over here. But it’s a funny one, isn't it because it's, I guess obviously, as you say Victoria it's the algorithms are feeding into racism, are feeding into hate are feeding into sexism and whatever else and then you end up with a moron like Trump, that’s the kindest word I could think to sum him up, who's using these platforms in such a vengeful way that the tech companies are actually having to look back. Do you know what I mean? They have to take a hard look in the mirror and probably for the first time in a long time and actually going, holy shit, okay, we can't let this happen like on our platforms anymore when the level of violence is so kind of prominent. And it's an interesting one with Parlor as well. Obviously it was hosted by Amazon servers that took it down. So again you’ve got like a big tech company who traditionally treats their workers like shit or whatever, have to make an ethical decision to prevent the level of violence.I work in social as well, it's going to be a really interesting kind of time to see what's going to happen this year, in terms of the actual platforms moderating themselves, if you know what I mean.

Parlor: Yeah, I do wonder if they'll actually moderate themselves, right. It's one of those things where like, you know, a lot of the time the big platforms don't want to be the first one to do something. But once like everyone hopped on the bandwagon, like it's less of a big deal. If all these platforms are doing one thing, rather than like this only this one platform is like banning someone. It’s really strange. And I know that like, there's not even necessarily the most violent people being managed. The way the algorithm works is like the biggest emotion, right? Happy, sad, angry. Usually it's angry because that's the easiest one to get, which is unfortunate and I do wonder what will happen with that. 

Ben: Do you think this is and it’s something that I’m asking to both of you, but Victoria to you as the guest, do you think this is some kind of watershed moment where we'll start to look back and think, okay, there was a series of issues in terms of kind of social media and the use of it and the political use of it spreading misinformation and then one of the tech companies took a stand and the others followed and we started to see a more healthy relationship develop or do you think this is just a little bump on the road to who knows where?

Victoria: I’m a little bit cynical. I guess I don't see that unless it hurts their financial bottom line, a lot of the time I don't see too much happening from it. It's kind of a bandwagon thing, right? It's like when you start The Black Lives Matters movement and you saw a lot of company putting out statements and we really care about this and I can barely count, like, how many companies have actually continued to do something rather than that one statement. So while I'm a little bit sceptical, I do think it is at least a little bit of a wake up call and I don't, much like how it is like when you change someone's mind it’s never just like they saw a really smart tweet and they're like, all right. You're right. I changed my mind now, it's always over time. All right, so I'm hoping that while I won't necessarily see anything huge within the next year, next two years I'm hoping things will start to change. And when we have more people talking about ethics in technology and compassion and that kind of hopefully also moves that along. 

Fay: Yeah, it's interesting. We were talking about this on another podcast earlier in the week and the question that one of our teammates kind of presented was, if Trump was still going to be in power, would they have taken down his account. And it was just a really kind of hypothetical question to ponder on and I was like, nah they wouldn't have deleted it. If he was going to be president for another four years of course, they’re gonna let him stay out. It’s PR and whatever else and the only reason they potentially took it down, well apart from you know, inciting deadly violence which you know is a small thing, especially when you see women getting banned off Twitter for like a month when they’re calling out sexism and they just decide to use a swear word in the tweet and they get banned for a month. But anyway, I’ll be here for a very long time if I start down that rant. Yeah, and it was just the fact that it was actually Twitter staff that went to Jack and was like, this is bullshit Pa.  They probably didn't say that because you know, they may not all speak in a northern English accent but they may do.  

Ben: Take em down. Take em down. 

Fay: Exactly. But it was, you know, it's the fact that it's having to fall to the actual workers. I think this just happens anyway, when you work in social or when you work in community, and you're stuck between that rock and a hard place of like, I'm working in these platforms that I have to work in, but at the same time, I'm questioning the ethics of the platforms every single day. And  I think it's a really interesting kind of time for social at the moment. 

Ben: It doesn’t feel like any of these companies have got a moderation policy or approach now. It feels like there’s a reaction to an extreme set of circumstances and if you bet on like, celebrity figures they kind of said, okay, this definitely is too much. There's no question about it, this an easy win.  But I don’t know if there's any kind of structural moderation, or kind of approach to what is and what isn’t, you know, what they would allow on the platform. What’s going to come out of this, it’s just if it gets as bad as Trump again, we’ll probably do the same thing and that’s not a systematic change that needs to happen. 

Victoria: Definitely. I mean, I understand. Like, the problem of this is, I mean, I assume it's very difficult, right? Like, you can't just get away with just automatic moderation. A lot of it is human moderation and sometimes when it is human moderation, I think there was an article on Fox, I don't remember. But there was an article about Facebook moderators, and how  absolutely terrifying it was for them because they had to keep seeing terrible things on the internet and doing something about it. And then they weren't paid well and they weren't treated well. So, it’s a lot. 

Ben: It’s like living in the echo chamber from hell basically. It really is like that. If anything on your Facebook feed is appalling and needs to be moderated. Ew’re kinda gone from really happy to cynical and gloomy. 

Victoria: I know. 

Fay: Sorry, you've got like a work day for the rest of this and we're just setting you off with a right positive mindset. .

Victoria: It’s all good. You know, I would rather talk about it oh, no, nothing's wrong is ever happening in social media. All good here [laughs]

Ben: Talking about here in the social media world. 

Victoria: Yeah, I don't know what everyone else is talking about. It's great. I got like five looks on my tweet. 

Ben: I guess it would be good to ask a question as our guest, bearing in mind the good and the bad, what's next on the horizon for you Victoria? What's the kind of thing you're looking at?

Victoria: Me personally?

Ben: Well, I guess let’s do professionally and then personally. 

Fay: Both.

Victoria: Why not? Why not both? Yeah, I mean, personally, I will continue probably my work with Among Us at InnerSloth. It's so interesting and cool to be in a small team and also to be a Committee Director, because I get to basically do what I want. I mean, within reason, obviously. 

Ben: This is how it starts [laughs]. 

Victoria: Soon I’ll go mad with power. Yeah, well, It's just how I wrote my deconstructing the Among Us Twitter thing, I got to basically choose what I want us to sound like and choose our strategy. And it was a little bit different than a lot of big company strategies, which was, normally you tweet a bunch, right? And we're just talking about Twitter, because that's what the article is about. But normally, you tweet a bunch and you throw it out there and the algorithms like cool, you did it, you tweeted. And my strategy has been more like, how can I interact with people a lot. And that's just put out one tweet, and then reply to as many things as possible within the time that I have. And yeah,I am excited, because Among Us is such a big community and such a welcoming one that I want to put my hypothesis to the test. It's one thing for me to say that I care about compassion and technology and it's another thing for me to actually do it, especially in a larger space. So when it comes to me, I don't necessarily have a five year plan for you that I'm going to lay out but it is going to be, I want to make this a better space and I'm going to try my hardest and I guess Among us is sort of my guinea pig for it and hopefully it works out. 

Fay: I just absolutely loved when you were saying that the Among Uscommunity are so good and this was mentioned in your post about when you went on holiday and you had an almost an out of office design on your Twitter account and then they were calling you out because you were responding on your time off.[laughs] That’s amazing. What community does that? That was brilliant [laughs] 

Victoria: It's lovely and I do it like on the weekends too because I am just one person. I will

be like, hey, so I'm not working on the weekends. Goodbye. And then when I tweet that people will be like, I thought you said it was the weekend. Why are you retweeting? Why are responding to things? That's not healthy. 

Fay: That’s like every community manager's dream. Can you imagine? I'm just like, I've done my fair heavy lifting of like community management, you're like, oh, thank God, it's five o'clock. It’s like for an hour that someone working in social can switch off and then it's just like, blows up in any way. But the fact that they're actually like, oh Victoria, go on, have a nice weekend, you deserve it. 

Ben: You’ve got a community that’s managing you now. You’ve turned it on its head. 

Victoria: I know.

Ben: You’ve got a million people looking after you [laughs]

Victoria: Basically, yeah. Is it really lovely. I am very appreciative of that. 

Ben: The moral of the story is, work for a small company create a beautiful thing, reach out to people with genuine compassion and try and make connections with them and it all works. we’ve cracked the formula. 

Victoria: Good job. 

Fay: You could bottle that stuff and sell it. 

Ben: [laughs]

Fay: I'm sorry. I'm just fascinated by just this approach to kind of community management and putting the community first, and you saying that Among Us is like your guinea pig. And

what's kind of, if you can share it with us and you’re allowed, what do you sort of want to experiment with next in terms of how you're approaching community management? So obviously, you've just said that at the moment, it's, you know, posts, I guess, as the brand you’re posting infrequently, but you're like engaging often. And this seems to be working super well on Twitter. But yeah, are there any other channel specific strategies that you're kind of working on that you can get out a little bit? Yeah, just what’s cooking?

Victoria:Yeah, so I'm currently also on Tik Tok, I haven't talked about it much. But the Among Us account there also has a million followers, which is terrifying.

Fay: How do you even cope with all the notifications?

Victoria: I don’t [laughs] So yeah, that's very cool. So I'm experimenting more with that too and the community there because it is a very different community from Twitter. And then I do want to do other things with like, maybe a newsletter, and also our discord, which is a lot. I don't necessarily have my structure or everything set yet. But I'm kind of experimenting, seeing what content hits there and also just figuring out the nuances of the communities there, because I feel like every social media platform has a very nuanced community and it takes time to figure those out. So yeah, I don't have anything I could say to you, in particular, but I am interested now in figuring out how I can better communicate the process of game development because a lot of the time people are like, where's the new stuff? We want new stuff, it's been a month. Oh, it takes much more than a month to create something in a game. Because again, game development can be very difficult to understand when you're not in it, because that's exactly how I felt when I started in game development. So I’m trying to go down the education route. I’m still figuring out how to do that but I'm working on it. 

Fay: It's interesting, isn't it? If we look at sort of Cyberpunk and what happened there with  the release and the bugs and the community just kind of basically almost turning on the developers, which is super sad to see because they’ve been working on it. It’s like a piece of art really, do you know what I mean? It's like a lifelong job. And I hate myself that I could not remember the name of the company that created it?

Victoria: Senior Project Arrest.

Fay: Thank you because they just made Twitcher, which is my favourite game of all time. I’m a little bit in love with it. But anyway, it's almost kind of heartbreaking in a way to see the community turn in that way. So you saying you’re going down that education route and kind of taking your community on that journey with you, you're almost safeguarding against any delays or anything that potentially could happen. 

Victoria: Yeah, I mean, hopefully. 

Fay: Fingers crossed. 

Victoria: I mean, I'm sure there's still going to be people who are annoyed or angry and that's fine, too. I don't completely expect, you know, sunshine and rainbows.  One of the benefits of being indie is the fact that I get to be a little bit more transparent about everything happening and that works. And that is why it's sad, whether it's Cyberpunk or any other game, no game developer actually wants to put out a game that makes someone unhappy. But there's always the stakeholders, there's various legal things, there’s publisher deadlines, there's things that are impossible to test. Like for Among Us, we do test.  We test many things but it is absolutely impossible to replicate half a billion people playing games on multiple devices. There's bound to be something that breaks. And you'll never know until it goes out into the world. 

Fay: Well, thank you for sharing that with us. 'm gonna just go and study your Tic Tok presence now for the next couple weeks. And just see what I can learn. Is there anything, I know we're coming to the end of our time with you, which makes us sad. Is there anything you want to plug online? I know we’ve given a shout out to Among us and obviously came & Colour but yeah, anything else? This is your space. Is there anything you want to plug?

Victoria: If you want to find me doing things, you can find me on Twitter @vtran or @amongusgame. I’m also there, all the time.  And I'm currently hoping to put out a new blog post about creating joyful moments in communities. 

Fay: Oh cool. 

Victoria: I don't know when this is going to come out. Hopefully soon. Who knows? But I  always try to share knowledge and share my thoughts on things, so if you ever want to do that, please find me on Twitter. I'll be there.

Fay: Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us Victoria. It has been an absolute pleasure talking to you and talking about Among Us and geeking out a little bit. And, you know, shaking angry fists at Twitter and Facebook. Not that they will hear me but who knows, they might. And talking about tech and everything else. That’s the end of our Making Friends with Victoria. 

Outro: I hope you enjoyed that as much as we did. If there's anyone doing awesome stuff in tech for good, who'd you'd like us to interview, give us a shout on hello@techforgood.live. Join in the conversation on Twitter @techforgoodlive. Also we’d love it if you left us a review on iTunes.