Hello everyone! I am Daniil Vakhrameev, a third-year Communication Science student at the University of Amsterdam. From March until now, I have had the pleasure of interning for Weeping Melon, a game development studio based in Amsterdam. Weeping Melon is developing an exciting card game called Aeviternal that places a special emphasis on storytelling and immersive gaming. This focus on narrative and player engagement is what sets Aeviternal apart in the gaming landscape.
During my internship, I was part of the Marketing department. This department was responsible for creating and executing comprehensive marketing strategies for Aeviternal. These strategies included innovative approaches like geocaching card drops to promote the game both physically and online. Ensuring alignment with company goals and the different target audience demographics was a key part of my role. To me, the most rewarding aspect of this internship was the diversity of tasks I performed for the team. This made each day different. One day I was crafting social media posts while another day I was conducting market research. This variety helped me develop a well-rounded skill set. This aided my motivation and eagerness to learn more about all the elements that made the marketing team successful.
Daily, I assisted in the brand management of the game, creating a clear vision for the brand identity and ensuring consistency in messaging, visual representation, and tone across all marketing channels. This was essential for building a strong, cohesive brand for Aeviternal. I was also in charge of various digital marketing channels such as social media, email marketing, and SEO. These channels were crucial for increasing user acquisition and engaging with the gaming community. Through this internship, I have mastered several online marketing tools and programs such as Mail Chimp, GMass, and Salesforce.
Moreover, content creation played a significant role in my responsibilities. I produced social media posts and other marketing materials highlighting Aeviternal’s gameplay mechanics, features, and updates. This not only involved a certain level of creativity and problem-solving but also strategic thinking to ensure the content resonated with our audience. Another key task of my internship was market research. Frequently, I observed what the competition was doing differently or how their campaigns led to successes and failures. This analysis allowed us to optimize our campaigns and resource management accordingly as well as prevent future mishaps in the direction of our marketing team.
While on my internship I mainly worked with my colleagues within my department, however, I also had the opportunity to brand out and support other departments as needed. The company’s start-up outlook and open-mindedness made me feel I was participating in something important from day one. All interns were highly regarded and our ideas were taken into consideration to move forward due to our out-of-the-box creativity.
Based on this experience, Marketing within the gaming industry is something I would like to pursue after I finish my studies. In my opinion, doing an internship should be required to complete a degree, since it fosters a great work ethic in the corporate sector but it also brings insight onto the fields that one might be interested in.