The Community Lounge

This week I'm joined by a familiar face: Julia Rozwens, Content Marketing Manager here at Feature Upvote, my own company and the team behind this very podcast. Julia joined us four months ago, bringing around ten years of community management experience from an unlikely path: a law degree, a stint in tax advisory, and then a pivot through marketing into community roles at Omnidrone and eight years...

Today's guest is Faye V, Community Lead Advisor at Chaos Manufacturing, returning for part two of our conversation. If you haven't heard part one, we recommend starting there. It covers Faye's unusual path into games through a psychology degree and years as a professional circus performer, and how both shape her approach to community management today. In this second half, Faye makes the case for o...

Today's guest is Faye V, Community Lead Advisor at Chaos Manufacturing. Faye got a psychology degree, taught English in Japan, and spent years as a professional circus performer. From there she moved through the Pokémon Company, Singularity 6 (Palia), and Fantastic Pixel Castle, finally landing at Chaos Manufacturing today. We chat about how her psychology degree shapes the way she thinks about on...

Today's guest is Chandler Wood, currently working with Skilltree Marketing. Chandler started his community management career truly in the deep end. He left games journalism, where he'd spent about a decade, to join Avalanche Software in his hometown of Salt Lake City working on Hogwarts Legacy. He only left the role years later when love took him to New York. We chat about Chandler's "oil in the e...

Today's guest is Greg Castle, Community Growth Manager for Essential Mod at Spark Universe. Greg started out as an archaeologist before finding his way into the games industry, and it turns out the two careers have more in common than you'd think. We chat about what a "community growth manager" actually does, the unique challenges of managing an 800,000-strong Discord server, and how skills from a...

Today's guest is Danreb Victorio, Community Coordinator at Gamers Outreach — a nonprofit that brings video game entertainment to children in hospitals through their signature GO Kart kiosks. Danreb has over ten years in community management, starting as a volunteer moderator on GameSpot at just fourteen years old, co-founding the games media site Smashpad, and spending seven years at Glu Mobile on...

Today's guest is Kristoph Zandecki, a passionate community manager and marketer in gaming based in Poland. Kristoph was seconds away from becoming an English teacher before a Junior CM offer came in at the last moment. He's spent the majority of his career in the VR space, working with studios including Incuvo and VR indie publisher GameDust, and has also built up broad experience managing communi...

Today's guest is Orchid, Community Manager at THOMIC, where she works on the cozy-but-brain-twisting rabbit breeding game Rare Rabbits. Orchid's path into games is one of the most unexpected on the show. She came from a family of journalists, worked in TV news in Ukraine, and only stumbled into the games industry after walking the catwalk at a local anime fashion show and striking up a friendship...

Today’s guest is Ray Willmott, Social Media and Community Lead at Curveball Games and founder of Ready Mix Consult. Ray’s path into games began after a decade working in local government before transitioning into games journalism and eventually community management through volunteer writing and moderation work. We chat about how skills from public sector work shaped Ray’s approach to community man...

Today’s guest is Milissa Maxin, Senior Community Manager at Singularity 6, makers of Palia. Milissa’s path into games is anything but conventional. She began her career studying tuba performance at Berklee College of Music before discovering her passion for community building through online roleplay servers and virtual worlds. We chat about how growing up in early online communities like Toontown,...

Today’s guest is Joshua Callaghan, ex-Community Manager, and now an Account Manager at Raptor PR. Joshua began his journey in the games industry as a teenage Reddit moderator, building hands-on experience in community management before transitioning into PR through a degree apprenticeship. His path highlights how non-traditional routes—like volunteering and community participation—can open doors i...

Today's guest is Greg Cummings, Community and Content Manager at Far From Home, a Polish indie studio behind the survival game Forever Skies. Greg's journey into community management began while working full-time in retail and being a dad; he built experience through unpaid work as a content creator, streamer, and unofficial community moderator for PlayStation Access before landing his first indus...

Welcome to a solo episode of the Community Lounge Podcast! I'm launching the brand new Community Lounge Guides: A series of practical resources designed specifically for community managers: The first one is now available: " Becoming a Community Manager: Real Life Stories " This guide explores the diverse paths people take into community management, organised into four categories: Volunteering, Tra...

Today's guest is Vicki Fieldhouse, Senior Community Manager at Secret Mode. Vicki took an unconventional path into games, entering community management in her mid-30s after years of trying to break into the industry. Her journey involved customer service from running her own business, social media management, and streaming RPGs during COVID—all of which became the perfect foundation for her commun...

Today’s guest is Joshua Mathews, Marketing and Social Media Manager at Doborog. Josh has spent years in community and marketing roles across the indie games scene, working on projects ranging from Calvino Noir to Clone Drone in the Danger Zone and its VR successor Clone Drone in the Hyperdome. Before joining the industry, Josh built a following as a YouTuber spotlighting under-the-radar indie game...

Today’s guest is Charis Reid, founder of Cut Teeth, an ad-hoc community management agency. After unexpectedly being made redundant earlier this year, Charis turned a setback into an opportunity—launching her own business that lets her collaborate with multiple studios and projects at once. We chat about how redundancy pushed her to build something new, the challenges of setting boundaries when run...

Today’s guest is John Lloyd, Community Lead at The Path, a UK-based games marketing agency. John’s journey into community management began long before his first professional role—he spent years building and nurturing player communities in games like Age of Empires II, RuneScape, and Guild Wars 2. His passion for fostering player connection eventually led him to a career at Ubisoft before joining T...

Today’s guests are Dale Stiffell and Kallum Hoy, the dynamic community duo behind Transformers: Earth Wars at Yodo1 Games. The two met while working together at Space Ape Games and have since become inseparable collaborators—often joking that they’re a “package deal.” Between them, they bring years of experience in community management, player engagement, and storytelling through live service game...

Today’s guest is Jarvs Tasker, Head of Communications at Happy Volcano. Jarvs has held several community and communications roles across the games industry, including at Raw Fury, where she worked on Dome Keeper and Blue Prince. She’s also an award-winning accessibility advocate, recently recognised at Game Dev Heroes 2025 for her work championing disabled and neurodiverse representation in games....

Today’s guest is Victoria Tran, Games Communications Director at InnerSloth, the studio behind Among Us . She’s also the creator of the Community Dev Newsletter, an organizer of the Wholesome Games Initiative, and the author of the upcoming book Mastering Community Management . In this episode, Victoria shares how she “accidentally” became a community manager—and ended up one of the most respected...

Today’s guest is… me, Steve McLeod! In this special solo episode, I share why I created The Community Lounge podcast and how it connects to my product, Feature Upvote. I tell the story of how the podcast become a way for me to connect with community managers, learn how they work, and provide a space to share their stories. I talk about how it all started, the lessons learnt on the way, and how fee...

Today’s guest is Sofia Pettersson, Community manager at Apog Labs in Malmö, Sweden. Sofia’s journey into the games industry is both personal and inspiring—after a major life upheaval, she found her way into community management, combining her passion for creativity with a growing interest in games. We chat about her non-linear path to the games industry, what it’s like building community for a gam...

Today’s guest is Henri Bazire, who leads community work as Social Media Editor at ARTE, the French-German TV network with a dedicated video games division. Henri’s path into community management is far from traditional—he started in molecular biology before pivoting into marketing and eventually landing an internship at Ubisoft, where his passion for the games industry took root. We talk about wha...

Today’s guest is Nora Mattsson, a first-time community manager, 2D artist, and CEO at Studio Downstairs, a small indie game studio based in Sweden. Nora and her team are currently developing Find or Be Found , an asymmetric co-op horror game inspired by titles like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes and Amnesia . In this episode, Nora discusses her multifaceted role within the studio, highlighting t...

Today’s guest is Dennis Abe, a community manager at King in Sweden. Dennis has held various roles in the video game industry, including time in Japan as a game designer and esports commentator. His unconventional journey—from awkward introvert and indie game studio intern in Tokyo to respected community manager—reflects the power of curiosity, persistence, and community-building. We chat about the...