No doubt you would recognize her by now, either as the host for the recent Facebook live stream of the 2018 Qualification Round drawing or in one of the recent Ask Travian episodes. She’s an integral piece of the bridge between us, the developers and our huge community and the mastermind who organized the Legends on Tour event. Meet Martina, our Community Communications Manager!
Hi, Martina thank you for letting us interview you for this edition of Meet the Team. Where are you from and for how long have you been working on Travian: Legends?
So, I am from Italy, but I live in Germany for about 8 years now. I work in the gaming industry for around 13 years and specifically for Travian: Legends for about 1 year.
For our readers who aren’t exactly aware of what you do, can you tell us briefly about your position and what your responsibilities are?
Ok, this is a very hard question to answer. Just imagine that I am trying to explain my mom, for 10 years now what is my job and what I do, and every try was not successful. I am the Community Communications Manager, in short:
- I am in charge of creating the high-level community communication strategy for Travian: Legends and the creation of a conversation calendar on the different platforms (forum, social media, blog, etc)
- I take care of the coordination of the communication from the Game Center to the community as well as bringing the feedback and wishes from the community to the Game Center
- I plan and organize together with the Senior Community Manager the international online and offline events related to Travian: Legends and make sure that all assets (text, graphics, and so on) needed are done in time and delivered properly to our Community Management crew
- I also advise Community Managers and Senior Community Managers in critical situations
To sum up, I am a communication project manager, with creative skills that from time to time act as a mom, dad, priest, and accountant for different figures related to the community.
How did you end up managing game communities? What’s the origin story?
Around 2005 some friend convinced me to start playing Ogame, a popular strategy game in a space environment. After playing for a while I decided to join the volunteer team as Game Operator in the Italian community, and later on in the International Community. After some year, it was 2009, the Community Manager of the International Community got in touch with me telling me that the company was looking for internal Italian native speakers community managers and suggesting me to apply. At that moment I had a permanent job as Marketing Manager in Italy and I wasn’t really thinking to relocate. She told me to not worry about that anyway, it would not have been something super fast, due to bureaucracy. Therefore I sent an application. It was more for curiosity.
After about 2 weeks I got invited to Karlsruhe (the company is based there) for an interview, and they offered me immediately a job. This caught me not really prepared, in fact, I could not even answer the question “when can you start?” because I would have never expected to get immediately hired. This was happening mid-October 2009. After the interview, I went back to Italy, packed my things, resigned from my job, started all bureaucracy to move and in January 2010 I moved to Germany. I have to say I never regretted the decision.
What would you say is the most satisfying aspect about your job?
Well, slapping you is definitely the most satisfying moment of my job. Just joking, the part I prefer of my job is the planning, getting all the pieces of the strategy fit in the schedule. It’s like creating a puzzle out of different type of information and content. The organizational part is definitely my favorite. I get also a lot of satisfaction by reading comments from the community about contest, events or activity we organize with the Community Managers.
You’ve been with us for just over a year now, what makes the Travian: Legends community special and unique to work with?
The Travian: Legends community is very engaged both in the game and also in the community life, there is so much passion for this game, and I totally understand it. There are so many different people playing the game and participating in the community life, and they are all special. I play in incognito in some Italian server and it’s crazy for me to see how much effort they put in organizing some gaming strategy, it’s very interesting and appealing. I am more a gregarious, first because I do not have that much time to invest in the strategy analysis, second because they are much better than me, third because I am not reliable as they are since there are times when I cannot check WhatsApp or the game for hours due to meetings.
So what does an average day look like for you at the office? How does it all start?
Well, first of all, my day start under the blankets. I usually check my mobile phone as soon as I wake up. I check my game accounts to see if something happened overnight and my emails. The second thing I do is, get a coffee! In my day there are a lot of coffees breaks, yes!
When I arrive at the office, I check first my emails and answer to the most urgent one. Then I have a look at my calendar, it’s always filled with a lot of meetings with different departments. And then, it depends.
It is really hard to describe an average day because in 1 year I am working for Travian no day was similar to the previous one. During the calm days, I usually focus on reporting or concepts, and I talk a lot with my colleagues about what is going on in our community, what is planned for the next weeks and checking if something is missed.
It would be strange to work at a games company without being a gamer! What are a few of your favorite games?
I describe myself as a monogamous hardcore gamer. I tend to focus on one game per time (of the same kind). Currently, I am playing a lot Travian (more than one server at once – it’s very challenging) and a lot of League of Legends. I spend around 30 to 50 hours per week on gaming.
Last question, What’s your guilty pleasure?
This is a secret so keep it for yourself please! Well, I am Italian, Italians love espresso and coffee in general and there are certain standards to drink coffee. For example, it has to have a certain temperature and so on. Well, I like to make my coffee machine and then wait that the coffee is cold and mix it with cold milk and sugar and then drink it. I think most of the Italians would kill me for doing it because coffee has to be drunk while hot and not while cold, but I really enjoy it more in this way.
Thank you all for reading our short interview with Martina! We hope you enjoyed it. Stay tuned for the next edition of meet the team next month!
