Our Commitment to Our Community

Heya everyone,  

Long time, no see. For those who don’t know me, my name is Kayly and I’m the Head of Marketing for all of KingsIsle and gamigo’s PC & Console games. While I haven’t been able to directly engage with the community as much as I used to, rest assured these games and this community are always at the top of my mind.   

I started playing Wizard101 back in 2013 when I was a bright-eyed optimistic high schooler. I fell in love with the game’s lore and the ability to wield spells with friends across the globe. My love for the game inspired me to write guides and become a community advocate. The more I became involved, the more it allowed me to see all of these incredibly creative niche parts of the community. My time spent running pet derby tournaments showed me the competitive resilience that existed within a relatively small side system. My time with Mercenaries101 allowed me to think more strategically and work with all sorts of different personalities and people who learned at different paces. I eventually went on to write on my own blog as well as MMORPG.com, where I got to flex my writing chops and share my excitement for the game that had given so much to me.   

Now …. why am I telling you all this? It’s because my history with these games and this company is deep rooted. If not for Wizard101, I honestly don’t know where I’d be or if I’d even be living in Texas at all right now. These games, this community, this experience, is what drove me to pursue a career in the video game industry in the first place. I’ve come a long way since my beginnings at KI in QA, but oh boy has it been such a fulfilling journey. I’ve gotten to spearhead many projects that were born out of things that I wanted to see when I was a player – plushies, a vinyl record, completely branded world updates, and a heartfelt 2D 15^th anniversary animation to name a few.   

But I don’t do these things alone.   

It takes a lot to support games as big as Wizard101 and Pirate101. The marketing team works closely with the dev team to make sure we’re highlighting features that the team is excited about. The web team was a huge part of helping to launch those new microsites that we did for Novus and Wallaru. The team at large has become closer to the community over the years – that is dev, marketing, community, and more – interacting and soliciting feedback with more regularity, so we can make the Spiral the best it can be together.  

We don’t plan on any of that changing, and we want to make sure the community knows our commitment to supporting them continues. I’ve recently started to take a more direct role when it comes to community communications and strategy. I’m coordinating with Emma personally and myself and others on the team are working on supporting her with anything she needs. We ask for your patience and understanding if there are some temporary delays in the process.  

The community is the beating heart of these games and I’m committed to working with both the community and the internal team to make sure that your concerns, feedback, and thoughts continue to be heard and are taken seriously.   

So here’s what will be changing for the time being:  

• Your main point of contact. Anything that you would’ve sent to Hawkules or Sparck, please direct to Emma instead.   

• Who you see in the discord. New faces will be around to support both you and Emma. Please give a great big KI welcome to any new names you might see!  

• That includes me! I’ll be poking my head in every so often to support Emma and the team.  

Here’s what won’t be changing:  

The team’s commitment to you and the games. I’m not the only community member who has made the jump from player to employee over the years. People like Mia, Mercedes, Mesa, and more across all different departments are a huge part of making things happen here at KI, and numerous new features and projects have kicked off because of what they bring to the table. Other KI employees have even been at the company 10+ years! Our team cares about Wizard101 and Pirate101 deeply and we don’t plan on stopping our momentum anytime soon. Please keep chatting, giving feedback on any new content, and sharing awesome community creations! We love seeing it and sharing cool things we see with the dev team.     

I’m so excited to have an opportunity to return to where my journey started – interacting more often with the community to support all of you and everything you do (it’ll be a really nice break from the constant pouring over spreadsheets and data!).  

This community quite literally changed my life, and I want to do everything in my power to do you and these games justice by helping to pave a successful path forward.   

All my best wishes,  

Kayly  (Vanessa Mythdust)