Sep 2, 2020 · 34m · a16z
From Unknown Title to Viral Game: 12 Growth Lessons From Spellbreak
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this a16z presentation, Proletariat CEO Seth Sivak outlines the 12 pre-launch growth lessons and community-building tactics that enabled an independent studio to generate over 600,000 pre-alpha signups for their spellcasting battle royale game, Spellbreak.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 0.3 Guest teaching 0.4 Guest disagreement 0.4 The host pushing back 0.1
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 3:00 No one cares about your game
Seth aggressively challenges the audience's assumptions by stating bluntly that no one cares about their game and that they compete directly with Netflix and TikTok.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 29:10 Inquiring about team scale and time dedicationThe host presses on the practicality of these growth strategies, asking how much dedicated headcount and time was actually required to pull it off.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 21:50 Explaining the cost of torching early power usersSeth educates the audience on the trade-offs of early playtesting, explaining how fundamental game changes permanently burn hardcore early adopters.
The host holds their own ▶ 27:40 Framing the impact of TikTok algorithmsThe host directs the conversation toward modern platform shifts by asking specifically how TikTok alters game discovery mechanics compared to traditional platforms.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Mindset: Making Players Care | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | Solo presentation segment where the host is not present. The guest uses strong, blunt language ('no one cares about your game') to challenge developer egos, but the dynamic remains an instructional presentation rather than a conflict. | |
| Growth Lesson 2: Post Authenticity, Not Advertisements | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Monologue segment detailing growth tactics around organic posting on Imgur and Reddit. Host host activity is absent. | |
| Growth Lesson 5: Enable Your Evangelists | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Monologue presenting referral mechanics and email sign-up funnels. Host host activity is absent. | |
| Growth Lesson 7: Control the Flow of Information | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Monologue on using light NDAs and Discord bot roles to build exclusivity and channel community hype. Host host activity is absent. | |
| Growth Lesson 9: Force Social Connection | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Monologue explaining how forced voice chat playtests built social connections among early playtesters. Host host activity is absent. | |
| Growth Lesson 11: Establish a Content Sharing Flywheel | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Monologue covering the content flywheel, community highlights, YouTube launch, and meme channels. Host host activity is absent. | |
| Summary of the 12 Growth Lessons | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | The host facilitates audience Q&A covering Discord scaling, retention, team sizing, and TikTok. The exchange is completely collaborative and friendly, with the guest sharing industry operational insights. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Proletariat raised around $30M in total venture capital funding
“We've raised about thirty million in total venture capital over a couple of rounds of funding.”
Sivak: Video Games Compete Directly With Netflix, Facebook, and TikTok
“You're competing with everyone. You know, you're competing with Netflix, you're competing with you know, with Facebook and TikTok.”
Proletariat Released Spellbreak Pre-Alpha After Failing to Secure Publishers
“We made the decision to go out in a pre alpha because we were not really getting anywhere with potential partners and publishers. We knew we had to show traction and it was way before any of us were comfortable having players in the game.”
Sivak: Early-stage game developers should prioritize high-upside viral channels
“The number one thing I think everyone should be doing right now is focusing on their high upside channels.”
Sivak: Publishing Spellbreak Dev Blog on Imgur Drove Tens of Thousands of Signups
“So what we did instead is we actually took our development blog and we put it on imager. And so by doing that, we were actually able to generate, you know, you can see that thing has 200,000 views. And that, that would drive tens of thousands of email signups …”
Proletariat avoided direct download links in early Spellbreak posts
“One of the things that we did for all of our posts is we did not actually, because they were set up to be dev blogs, we did not actually say, Hey, download this game right now or sign up. Instead, what we did is we'd wait for basically the first comment to act…”
Sivak: Game word-of-mouth happens via social media GIFs, not office chatter
“The water cooler moments that people used to share in the office, where they would say like, hey, you know, I was playing this cool game, or I fought this cool boss, no longer exist. They're all getting shared as animated GIFs now, whether it be through TikTok…”
Sivak: Referrals accounted for 60% to 70% of Spellbreak signups
“At one point during the summer, we were getting like 60 to 70% of our signups that were all referrals.”
Sivak: Discord Is Far Superior to Email or Social Channels for Community Building
“And we knew that discord was going to be really useful for us because we could engage directly with them and be able to tap in to that audience and much better way than we could through any other social channel that was currently out there or through email.”
Spellbreak reached nearly 200,000 players during its beta phase
“Even when we were up to about at one point, like at the very end of the beta, we had almost 200,000 players.”
Sivak: Controlling pre-launch information creates content scarcity and drives engagement
“So I think controlling this is, is really important because it allows you to build a lot of interest around anything that you're going to put out, and there's a real scarcity of content that you keep control over, and that becomes really valuable for every pie…”
Only one-third of Spellbreak's early Discord members were playtesters
“At any given time, only about like a third of the people in the discord were actually testers.”
Sivak: Spellbreak Community Required Mandatory Playtest Voice Chats to Form
“And I think without us really pushing these play tests, I don't think it would have actually happened because I think that that sort of loose social connection of just being in text chat or whatever is not the same as like forcing you to play with the same gro…”
Spellbreak playtesters dropped video backlogs on day one NDA lifted
“When we actually went fully live into the closed alpha, when we lifted the NDA, we actually saw that like so many of these people have this whole library of videos. They just dropped on day one.”
Spellbreak Discord server doubled from 30k to 60k members in four days
“And our Discord server doubled in size in four days. We went from 30,000 to 60,000 people in the course of four days.”
Sivak: Unrestricted Community Discord Meme Channels Drove Top Spellbreak Marketing
“We made the meme channel accessible to everyone, not just testers. And I think that was really important because it meant that tons of people that didn't have a key yet could still be making memes. And the people that did have that did have a key, the testers …”
Sivak: Top 1% of Spellbreak playtesters logged 40 hours weekly
“Like we did a calculation on the top one percent of spell break players and they basically play 40 hours a week and they have since the summer of 2018.”
Sivak: Game studios should use existing community platforms over proprietary forums
“And more and more, I think you're better off choosing an existing platform than running your own forums.”