FIGHTING ONLINE TOXICITY WITH UTOPIA ANALYTICS.
WITH A SOLID CLIENT BASE IN OTHER VERTICALS, UTOPIA ANALYTICS NEEDED HELP TO EXPAND INTO THE GAMING SECTOR
Overview
As a provider of AI-driven content moderation services, Utopia Analytics’ software is able to swiftly identify and remove inappropriate content, whether that’s fraudulent posts on e-commerce platforms and dating sites or inflammatory language in chat rooms and news commentary.
With many of its clients operating within traditional media and insurance, Utopia Analytics tasked us with raising its profile within the gaming industry by demonstrating how its AI-based software can help studios counter online trolling, harassment, and hate speech.
Client
Utopia Analytics
Project
Fighting Online Toxicity
What we did
Research
What we did
With research showing a 65% increase in the use of online video games due to the pandemic, keeping on top of moderating user-generated content can be difficult for even the biggest studios.
As we’ve seen with the growing issues around Facebook and other social media platforms, chat and content moderation is an important safeguarding issue, with a rising need to help to protect online gamers against online bullies, trolls and harassers.
Our first task was to establish Utopia Analytics’ amongst other, more established moderation specialists serving games companies. We organised a positioning workshop to examine the company’s USPs, values, competitors, challenges and opportunities within the games industry.
Most people know that elements of toxicity exist within most online communities, but unless you’ve experienced it, it’s difficult to describe just how damaging it can be. So we wanted to raise awareness of the negative impact of online toxicity while providing recommendations on how studios can stop it.
As part of a content strategy designed to support the work of Utopia’s sales team, we partnered with rapid feedback tool and BGM client PickFu to survey 1000 gamers to find their real world experiences of toxicity whilst gaming.
How we did it
Using the PickFu platform we polled a representative sample of 1000 gamers based in the US, asking them to share their experiences of online abuse and toxicity from other gamers. Once we had the facts and information we wrote the report and did the design in-house to keep the costs to the client as low as possible.
We created a press release highlighting the key findings of the report and distributed this to international gaming and tech publications. Bylined comment pieces on the challenges and benefits of moderation were drafted and placed in key media outlets alongside interview and speaking opportunities.
As the findings of the report highlighted so many challenges and opportunities within the topic of content moderation (such as why simple moderation can’t work at scale and the importance of moderating audio chat), we’ve used these as talking points for both future blog posts. We also developed a LinkedIn content strategy to start building the profile of their Head of Sales for Gaming, Sharon Fisher, weaving in key findings from the report alongside her expert comment.
The Results
We secured 14 pieces of coverage from the report including key titles such as Screen Rant, Game World Observer, European Gamer and iGaming News
Secured a speaking slot at Develop Brighton to discuss the findings of the report
Used the report as the first piece of inbound lead generation content for Utopia’s website
Used the data and insights from the report to write a series of blog posts, linkedin posts and Twitter posts that Utopia could use as part of its marketing
We are now able to use the data from the report as part of our ongoing media relations and thought leadership
Because we did the writing and design in-house, the whole project was delivered on a budget of less than £10K – including the month-long PR push
The team at Big Games Machine have been a huge help in our ongoing efforts to build our profile within the game industry. We’re relatively new to games, but Big Games Machine’s experience and hands-on advice have allowed us to gain a clearer understanding of this sector, helping us to better formulate our sales and marketing approach to publishers and platforms.
Most importantly, they have quickly helped us to be part of the bigger conversation around moderation that is happening right now – something that we simply couldn’t do without their know-how.
Janne Huuskonen, Director, Marketing and Communications at Utopia Analytics
