Amir Satvat’s Post

How I tripled engagement % over the past month by not caring about "popularity" or topline metrics, and how you can do it too Friends, I've been reflecting on how competitive social media has become, especially for larger communities. I want to share some learnings with you in hopes of encouraging you and your community to be more authentic. In the past 6 months, LinkedIn had made tweaks to its algorithm that affected many high-volume or larger community content creators. For me, this resulted in a gradual decline in daily impressions, dropping from about 125,000 to the mid-80,000s. Initially, I tried to maintain these numbers by producing more content. I also spent time analyzing popular posts to create more data-informed content. Unfortunately, this actually led to a decrease in our engagement rate from a healthy 1.2-1.3% down to 0.75%. Our content had become just a bit too "data-based." At that point, the beginning of June, I decided to focus solely on posting content that I genuinely believed in, without worrying about topline impressions or what would be popular. I stopped looking at past popularity. The response from you, my friends and our community, has been incredible. Our engagement rate has tripled, reaching 2.1-2.2%, with periods touching 3%, which is the highest in our community's history. Even though our impressions initially fell to about 80,000 a day, they are now climbing back up as our engagement rate improves. For those of you managing your communities, remember that engagement metrics are much more important than top-line impressions. A rate above 1% is good, 1.5% is great, and above 2% is Arin Goldsmith territory. Stay true to yourself, focus on quality, and hopefully, you'll see similar results. Thank you, everyone, for your continued engagement and support. Even I can do a better job, sometimes, of being more of my true self and thanks for reminding me that. Gamers vote with their heads and hearts!

Have you ever received a total compensation increase of more than 10% within a 12-month period without switching companies?

For the 4th of July, I was watching the Nathan's Hot Dog competition, and I thought to myself, what is the motivation for the person who is the last place finisher, but was good enough to qualify and sit at that table, going through eating tens of hot dogs, but not receiving as much notoriety or compensation? This may seem like a funny jumping-off point for a conversation, but it made me think that if one gets beyond all the posturing, all that any of us wants is to be recognized in some way, even if in a small way, for something. No one wants to feel anonymous and that what they've contributed or who they are is not important, doesn't rate. This is why you see all these things like social media, people putting themselves out there, trying to have a voice, a message, an identity for themselves. This is why even for the smallest, smallest things like someone finishing and posting on a certificate course or taking an extension learning that they did, they talk about it. To some extent, even for people who do charity or non-profit work or board work or things like that, I feel comfortable conjecturing that at least part of the reason they do that is to stand out and to differentiate themselves and to make it known that they have something special about them to contribute, to put themselves out there. And you know what? There's absolutely nothing wrong with all of that. If anything, it actually makes me feel very disappointed with those who often want to make light of or even make fun of smaller contributions that people may make in something. You may be like, oh, that's so, insert adjective here, that someone would want to be in this contest eating hot dogs or why is someone posting on this certification they received in engineering or why is this person adding a notification or making a post on some event that they organized for just six people in their town? Well, I think all of that stuff is great. I think there's definitely a line between putting oneself out there and trying to generate some notoriety for oneself for something that one has done or accomplished and being an arrogant person. But as long as that line has not been crossed, I think that's great and my attitude will always be the more the better. Let's have less judgment about the size, importance, relative value of contributions that people make out there. If it's special to them, either in a very, very serious way or a solemn way or a fun way or even a silly way and it's presented in a nice, harmless, appropriate, not arrogant way, why can't we just be happy for them and what they're doing and that they found something that makes them feel special that is special... ...even if that being special takes the form of consuming tens of hot dogs, but not nearly as many tens of hot dogs as the worldwide winner?

"Mommy, can we talk about Lincoln?" My middle son kept asking my wife this last night, repeating it with such earnestness that she decided to indulge his curiosity with an elaborate, lengthy tale about Abraham Lincoln. She recounted his life, his achievements, and his legacy, thinking this was what our son was fascinated by. However, he kept insisting, "I want to talk about Lincoln." It wasn't until a while later that my wife realized what he meant. In my room, I have these little buddy plushies of Toon Link, Zelda, and Tingle. I'd given them to him, and what he actually wanted was to "Tuck Toon Link In" for the night. My son even asked for a Toon Link storybook, which, of course, doesn't exist. So, I took it upon myself to create one today, using the tapestry scenes from Wind Waker and writing additional content myself. As a dad, this was an incredibly sweet moment. It also reminded me of the importance of having the right ports in place. Here's to more adorable misunderstandings and the magic of storytelling in all its forms, especially on the Nintendo Switch.

These great opportunities remind me of E1M1. Then again, everything great in life reminds me of E1M1.

People often ask me when I first experienced toxicity in online games. Interestingly, it wasn't me - it was my dad who first experienced it while I watched over his shoulder as a kid. My dad loves backgammon, and because I love my dad, I showed him how to play backgammon on Yahoo! Games. He’s quite skilled and quickly climbed the rankings, winning match after match. He eventually reached the upper echelons, where he faced an opponent who couldn’t handle losing. During a pivotal game, as my dad was about to win and advance even higher, his opponent started stalling, taking the maximum time for each turn, and bombarding him with every possible swear, even telling him to kill himself. My dad, one of the toughest yet most soft-spoken people I know, quietly turned off the computer and said, “Well, we don’t need to do that anymore.” He pulled out our physical backgammon board, and we enjoyed some games together with lemonade. After that, he never played online games again. He wasn’t even upset - he just didn’t see the point. He had thick skin but questioned why he should put up with such behavior for something meant to be fun. I reported the offending player repeatedly and we tracked them for a month. They were never held accountable by Yahoo for cursing at my 60-year old dad and his mother and his wife and his kid in the most obscene of terms and telling him to go kill himself. People often overlook the deeper layers of toxicity in online games — hate speech, emotional distress, exclusion. My dad, who had been my games partner for everything, gave up online games within a month because it wasn’t worth the negativity. I wonder how many others we lose from the online games community because all they hear about is the toxicity, or they try it and immediately tune out. It’s disappointing and makes you question the mentality of those who invest so much energy in ruining a simple, fun experience for others. To me, this is what toxicity in games truly means — bad actors pushing people out of the community. It’s not just about having thick skin. Many of the toughest, thick-skinned players who can shrug such things off will still eventually ask themselves, “Why bother engaging?” And that’s a significant part of the problem. Toxicity in online games isn’t just a matter of hurt feelings — it’s about the exclusion and discouragement of entire segments of potential players, making the community poorer as a result. It’s a shame, and it needs to change.

Dear Ben Kvalo and my friends at Midwest Games, I wanted to extend my heartfelt thanks for the wonderful hoodie you sent me. It's incredibly comfortable and stylish, and I truly appreciate the thoughtful gesture. I appreciate how much members of the Midwest Games team, like Ben and Alyssa Padia Walles, have had my back regularly in content, comments, and even direct support. Ben, you have been a very, very special friend. I can't imagine a person who's more genuine and kind. Who you are as a human matters a million times more to me than anything you will ever do as a businessperson, although you excel at that stuff too. Thank you once again for the generous gift. I'm looking forward to seeing what amazing things Midwest Games accomplishes next. Keep Wind Waking in HD, Amir

Nintendo says generative AI is not needed. Michael Fitch says crunch wasn't needed on Monopoly Go. What's next - a talking banana?

Friends, I am now comfortable sharing my time series forecast for layoffs in the video games industry for the rest of 2024, based on historical data and every of the millions of piece of additional data plus analyses I’ve reviewed or created since 2022. If you ask what number of additional layoffs I would be happy with, the answer is always ZERO. However, if you're asking for a "baseline" figure of what I expect and model off of, that feeds everything I share in Project Flagpole and more, the forecast for the period from July 7, 2024, through December 31, 2024, is 4,463 additional people. This would bring the total cuts for the year to 15,742. I sincerely hope that I am wrong and that we see significantly fewer layoffs. But this is my best estimate as of today. I have enough data to share this projection with confidence and will keep you updated as time goes on. I have been working on a 2025 projection for some time as well but I don't have enough statistical confidence to present the results yet.

IMAGINE What if content creation, on LinkedIn or otherwise, was solely about adding value and making a difference? What if there was no path to monetization? What if we didn't need speaking engagements or long-term strategies? What if there was no need to build broader commercialization plans or merchandise or freemium podcasts or newsletters? What if the focus was entirely on sharing knowledge and experiences to help others grow? What if we prioritized authentic connections over metrics? What if we celebrated others' small wins and personal stories rather than just business successes? What if the purpose wasn't just constant self-promotion or proving that everything you ever did was perfect while having no vulnerability? What if we could focus on providing and encouraging others to provide thoughtful, fun, real, human content rather than a lecture track on what "belongs on a professional site?" It's worth imagining a world where our only goal is to make a positive, supportive difference in others' lives, one post at a time. We need to stop seeing doing the right things for others as a stepping stone to some bigger enrichment for ourselves. I only see one step and it is the step we are on right now and have been on the whole way. We will just make that step bigger and bigger so more can stand on it over time. You might say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one