Jamin Smith
Pantaloon
Founder of Pantaloon; a veteran of both AAA and indie publishing, author of The Zero Budget Game Marketing Manual.
Jamin Smith is speaking at the following session/s
Anti-Social Media? Why the Humble Newsletter is Your Studio’s Most Powerful Channel in 2025
For game studios looking to achieve awareness around their games, the social media landscape of 2025 is fraught with black-box algorithms, toxic communities and the agendas of self-interested billionaires. Elon Musk’s tumultuous ownership of Twitter – now X – has spurred on an exodus from the once glorious platform, leaving game devs scrambling to find audiences amidst a patchwork of other platforms. Engagement has never been more challenging or unpredictable.
In this talk, I’ll explore why traditional social media is no longer the reliable growth engine it once was. Rather than these one-to-many platforms, one-to-one communication - the modest newsletter or mailing list - has seen a resurgence in popularity, and is more effective today than its ever been.
I'll discuss how owning your audience through an email list ensures consistent, algorithm-free communication. Unlike fleeting posts on social media, newsletters allow the opportunity to tailor your communication to the individual, providing a space to build trust and share a window into your studio's work that other platforms simply don't allow. One-to-one communication isn't without its constraints and challenges, of course, and we'll address these along the way too.
In this talk, I’ll offer tangible steps to launching, growing and bringing your mailing list into the heart of your studio’s communications. We'll look at lead magnets, open rates and deeper integrations to enrich the game-experience in ways other platforms don't allow for. In today’s fractured digital landscape, the humble newsletter is your studio’s most powerful weapon. I'll share how to wield it effectively.
Session Takeaway
- Why one-to-one communication via a mailing list is so powerful in 2025
- Reliable methods for improving your open rate, and optimising your content strategy
- Strategies to grow your subscriber base via landing pages, lead-magnets and other incentive schemes
- How to take your newsletter to the next level via automations and integrations
Session speakers
