Agenda

Great communities are designed, not moderated into existence. In this talk, Nate Sawatzky, head of Trust and Safety at Supercell, shares how to build healthier player environments by making community design part of the game loop. Drawing from his experience at Disney and Club Penguin, he will explore how evolving lore, in-game updates, and playful interactions can set expectations in a fun way, reinforce norms, and create surprise and delight that strengthens community belonging. Sawatzky will also explore how player creativity reshapes intended systems, revealing new pathways to fun, stronger social connections, and smarter feature evolution

Takeaway

Design a repeatable community loop, encode norms through content and UX, treat surprise as infrastructure, anticipate exploits with lightweight threat modeling, and channel player subversion into safe, rewarding outlets.

Intended Audience

Anyone interested in improving game design environments, including: Game Designers, Developers, Community Managers, and Data Scientists.