ELO, a new community building studio led by esports and gaming veterans Roald van Buuren and Wouter Sleijffers, has officially launched.
Based in London, England, ELO said it is focused on putting the community back at the heart of video games by building bridges between game creators and game communities. ELO works with game studios, brands and capital to enhance the out-of-game gaming experience, grow communities and provide real solutions in gaming culture and innovation.
As studios strive to create compelling games for audiences, ELO will work directly with developers and publishers to create and execute community-focused go-to-market strategies that can play a pivotal role in a game’s success after launch.
ELO is built on three core principles: to serve, create, and invest in gaming communities. That’s because ELO believes in the power of the community and that games are made for the players.
To emphasize that, ELO has launched its ‘#PowerToTheGamer’ campaign to reinforce ELO’s belief in the power of the community before, during and after a game’s launch.
“Humans have always craved emotional connections and a sense of belonging,” said Roald van Buuren, cofounder of ELO, in a statement. “And while traditional ways of community are slowly disappearing, gaming has become the new town square for people to share experiences and build memories.”
Van Buuren added, “But all too often, due to various reasons, the early focus from a studio is fully on the development of the game, rather than how it can engage players. At ELO, our goal is to represent the voice of the community while supporting developers by leading their go-to-market community strategy and execution so the developers can continue to focus on building great games.”
Since February 2024, ELO has been in stealth mode, working with industry leaders in gaming, and listening to the community, to identify the most important topics and issues facing studios and publishers.
ELO stands for “empowering gaming communities,” the founders said.
“Hence our campaign message ‘Power to the Gamer’ to reinforce what we stand for. We believe that, partly due to the massive growth of the games industry, pressure on delivery, and over-reliance on short term metrics and campaigns, a very important fundamental of any game started to become just another marketing thing: the community,” the founders said.
Now, the team is ready to break out and bring its deep expertise in community building to the forefront. All games have the potential to build strong communities, but the first step is making sure that a community is prioritized, fostered and given the foundation to continuously grow, the company said.
“Over the past few months, we’ve leveraged our networks to engage with people throughout the industry and from those conversations, one theme was consistent: community participation from origination to maturity has become an afterthought,” said Wouter Sleijffers, cofounder of ELO, in a statement. ”This is due to various reasons, whether it’s investor pressure or lack of resources. But with ELO, we are providing an alternative and supporting studios and publishers by ensuring the community is getting as much attention as the game itself.”
ELO Group and its subsidiaries are based in the United Kingdom (London) and Qatar (Doha). The company has five people. ELO collaborates with talented people in content, development, production, capital. The company also works with several talented founders and businesses on co-creations / productions and joint ventures that focus on its mission to empower gaming communities.
The founders said that in recent months the conversations with different stakeholders resulted in a recurring theme: the struggle of current game studios to see sustained interest and traction for their game, despite the ‘tried and tested’ user acquisition and engagement tactics.
Even more so, the growing lack of valuing the community not only as numbers, consumers or players but as real participants of the game development, growth and overall experience.
“With ELO, we took this issue at its core and ‘nailed’ our purpose to the importance of the community,” the founders said. “We don’t like to think of ourselves as just providing a temporary service. We’re here to empower the community creating ‘out-of-game’ experiences which in return empowers the game studios to focus on creating the ‘in-game’ experiences.”
ELO acknowledges these factors and motivates game studios to think and build on the ‘out-of-game’ experience as much as they think about the in-game experience, but we understand there are time and expertise constraints, so we are here to support them.
The name ELO relates to the ranking system first used in chess and now prevalent in gaming, originally designed by Arpad Elo. The deeper meaning of the word is that we believe that ‘ranking up’ is not something you can just buy. ELO stands for community empowerment through experiences, participation and innovation. There are no short-cuts to ranking up.
Empowering gaming communities
“We do this by ‘serving, creating and investing’. We serve game studios, we create our own community IP, and we support tech projects we believe in with time and capital investment,” the founders said. “While this may sound ambitious, we do believe that these three activities go hand-in-hand. Our inspiration for ELO is the place of innovation, the community creativity and the sense of belonging and sharing that’s so prevalent in this ‘digital arts and crafts’ movement.”
Through personal experience, studying at the biggest successes in the gaming and digital space and many conversations with both struggling and successful game studios, the trend they noticed was that community has been put at the forefront of the experience.
“This is not our first job, nor our first venture. But it is the first venture we started together since we have a thorough passion in bringing back the relevance and importance of game communities,” the founders said. “This is not nostalgia. We’re part of a larger evolution in a digital-first world, led by gaming, where communities are not just consumers but self-organizing participants, co-creators and co-owners. And we do believe that ELO has a unique view and approach in that trend. “
Games have become the new town squares, playgrounds and sports clubs. They are the gathering places where friendships are built and cultures are created. Yet the reality is, communities are often left as an afterthought. They are left to form in the margins instead of being placed at the heart of gaming.
“We feel we as professionals in the gaming industry have a duty to build positive places of belonging for next generations,” the founders said.
ELO exists to build bridges between game creators and game communities. It crafts experiences and shapes relevancy through serving, creating and investing.
“At ELO, we like to speak of ‘community orchestrated experiences’. We aim to work with game studios, brands and capital to enhance the out-of-game gaming and community experience, through culture and innovation,” the founders said.
Specifically, the company helps game studios craft seamless out-of-game experiences with the in-game experience around storytelling, creativity & characters, competition and rewards. Not through one ad hoc, disjointed campaign but by making community an integral part of the game development and life cycle process, starting from early community engagement and playtesting to go-to market and long-term, cohesive, marketing strategies.
“The type of service we provide will depend on the nature of the game and the goals of the game studio, but our focus will always be on empowering the community,” the founders said. “We’re looking to partner with game studios who understand the value of creating for and with the community but don’t have the capacity to do so. If the mission to empower gaming communities does not resonate with a game studio or brand, we are not the right partner for them.
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