Hi, I'm
Eduardo Sajgalik
Who am I?
- — Explorer of worlds —
- — Multicultural talker —
- — Yet living online —
Current Pursuits
Community-Centric Game Design
After years of experience in the industry, I am coming to the conclusion that the elements that most strongly develop and grow a community are contained within games themselves. With tens of thousands of games releasing every year, it is important to look into these experiences – strengthening emotional peaks, making it easier for fans to share photos and videos of your content, ensuring that user-generated content resonates with new and existing players. Combined with a good acquisition strategy, the aim is to have games that spread through “word-of-mouth".I am available for hire as a consultant on these aspects to ensure your titles maximize their community development potential.
You can also see my talk in two parts on the subject at the bottom of this page – the first looks into general concepts, while the second part dives deeper into how the design of games can develop specific types of communities.
Combatting Tax Withholding
With Steam becoming the dominant distributor for games on PC, this puts developers from certain countries at a distinct disadvantage – Valve is only based in the US. Double taxation agreements are country-specific, meaning that many countries from emerging markets (such as Latin America) are subject to a 30% tax withhold from the US government. Multiplied with Steam’s 30% share, this leads to developers in that region receiving 49% of the total revenue from games sold, before then being taxed further within their countries.This situation leads to developers having a very difficult time making their studios survive. My current goal is to explore alternatives for developers in these nations that do not have a double taxation treaty with the US, such as partnering with distributors that are not solely based in the US or can open non-US subsidiaries, or setting up self-publishing.
Measuring the Experience of Spectators in Games
Measuring User Experience (UX) within game studios is a relatively recent trend. But while user-generated video content is prevalent within the industry (Twitch having grown from correctly identifying the potential in this field), the tools to measure the experiences of spectators are not being used.This presents a lot of challenges – identifying correctly what type of content will be created by users and how to tweak it beneficially, integrating spectators as part of a game’s user flow chart as well as the actual tools to measure the experiences themselves.
Currently, I am having discussions with potential partners that would be interested in collaborating and investigating these questions further.
Professional journey
Independent Video Games
Location: Montreal
I am currently writing this chapter of my life - consulting for Community Development! I have already become a proud member of La Guilde des Jeux Vidéos Indépendants au Québec to demonstrate my commitment to independent game development in the region. This means I am specifically aware of the challenges and opportunities you have access to – get in touch if you are looking to develop your community branches or are simply looking for best practices in the space.Travelling
Location: Everywhere!
Faced with my first real career break, I decided to use the savings I had accumulated to go travelling. It helps that my card-playing hobby paid for quite a few of these flights. A sample of my destinations: Devon, Milan, Valencia, Peru, Bolivia, New York, London, Seville, Brussels, Krakow, Paris, Florence, Las Vegas, Lille, Vancouver, Toronto, Bristol, Edinburgh, Madrid, Lyon, Miami, Atlanta, Montreal, Detroit, Barcelona, Columbus, Pittsburgh, The Hague, Rotterdam, Honolulu, Sydney and to top it off, an astonishing trip to New Zealand. In the end, I fell in love with Montreal and decided to establish a new base there. This city is truly fascinating, with a vibe like few others.
Mind Sports International
Location: Plymouth, UK
A passion project made me work at this company, focused on developing a series of events bringing different types of competitive games together (Scrabble, Chess, Magic: The Gathering, eSports, Go and more). To say my work was open-ended would be an understatement – whether it was phoning tournament organizers across the globe, designing schedules, starring in video content, writing articles or communicating with a community as varied in nature as the competitive games they enjoyed (Scrabble players had very different desires from those playing Starcraft II). It was in any case an interesting time at this small company from Plymouth that had much larger ambitions then its size would suggest.Jagex Games Studio
Location: Cambridge, UK
This is the largest independent video game developer in the UK – it was close to 500 employees when I was there. RuneScape is a very strange success story for a MMORPG, where two brothers created a game in their basement that is now played by millions of players online. Being able to play the game from a browser is a great compelling point – a precursor of what was to come as part of the mobile revolution. As for myself, I had a lot of fun interacting with the French Community of the game mainly, but touching as well the Spanish, fan sites and a lot more. My happiest projects remain the contest that ended up more than doubling our Facebook language audiences, as well the event and contest work on War of Legends that gave new life to a game that was close to having its servers terminated.University of Bristol
Location: Bristol, UK
My first home away from home. This is where I started developing traits that would become part of my personality – my enjoyment of exploration through walking, travelling and being part of a multi-cultural group, of which a peculiar highlight was doing a play with the Chinese Society. I also ran events and trips, acted as president of the MUN Society and vice-president of our Hall’s committee – getting 30 pine trees indoors and then removing them for a Christmas party was a very strange time indeed. I also completed a Chemistry degree.
Talks
Testimonials
Maureen Berho Montalvo, CEO & Producer at Niebla Games
"I had the chance to meet Eduardo for the first time at the GDC 2017, and since then we have stayed in touch to discuss and collaborate around different topics related to video game development. During this period, he has advised multiple Chilean indie game studios in the design of their Community Strategies. I'm very glad to recommend Eduardo as a very analytical and capable professional, genuinely committed to the progress of indie game development in Latin America."
Claudio Bustamante, Founder at Frisson Games
"We had an amazing experience with Eduardo, he seemed very passionate about our project and helped us immensely to find a direction for the community of our game."
Salim Larochelle, Game Designer / Founder at Flying Carpet Games Teaching Game Design at Dawson College
"I had the pleasure to listen to Eduardo’s fascinating talk on community management at Gameplay Space and then personally meeting him at MEGA 2017 in Montreal. I was eager to invite him to talk again to my students that take part in the independent video game design program at Dawson College. Eduardo’s insight into current community trends of the game industry is of true value and his methods are professional and very inspiring."