A chat with Supercell Community Manager Drew
Drew is currently the manager of Clash Royale, we'll ask him about his job and unique outlook given his position and role at SC.
Drew on X: / drewbian
0:00 Intro
2:55 Typical Day for Drew
6:00 How to Be Heard
9:30 Does Drew Feel Trapped?
17:25 What led Drew to SC?
23:40 Thoughts on Content Creators
33:00 Was Drew too Defensive?
37:19 How bad did things get?
42:10 Let's Talk Monetization
48:09 Drew's Mental Health
54:40 Is Gaming too toxic?
1:02:00 Supercell new games
1:04:40 Creator Academy
Props to Drew for opening up.
Thanks for watching ;)
Great conversation with Drew, this was much needed for players and especially for Drew!
Thanks for watching, Carter!
This felt like the 3 of us were just sitting at the pub, and me listening in to people sharing their experiences ... Fantastic chat
Thanks for watching ;)
Great interview, considerate while asking what we all want to know. If the voices on Reddit and Twitter could do the same perhaps productive conversations could transpire. I feel Drew is always honest and serves the community well, he can’t agree with everything the team decides but he cares about the players and the game. Big thanks to Drew for showing up and opening up.
Thanks for watching, Mike ;)
Thanks for having this convo. Very eye opening and a great listen. I genuinely am still upset about lvl 15, and I'm sure plenty are, but it's so important to remember at the end of the day that Drew and the rest of his team aren't our enemies. And obviously in cases like this, it's ridiculous to suggest that they are trying to sabatoge something we all love. I think we could do with more reminders like this that even when we disagree with people that they are still people.
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Drew is the man. Genuinely cares about his job and the game. It is impossible to keep 100% of people happy and that expectation is mad. Top man I say!
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This really helps understanding the perpective from the other end, Only love for Devs and Ash ofc ♥
Thanks man! Means a lot ;)
Drew makes some excellent points. Great interview!
Thanks for tuning in ;)
I've always enjoyed the conversations with Drew in the past, and very happy to see him back on here again. Much love both of you
Thanks man!
This was amazing to see a chat between 2 of the people who have had such an impact on the CR community
Thanks for watching ;)
Ash when you announced quitting CR after the new cash grab you made that same decision super easy for me. Thanks for that. Haven’t looked back, moved on to a new game.
which game?
Thanks for doing this interview, Ash and thanks to Drew for being so open.
Hey Ash, happy to see you doing well. Keep up the hard work!
Thanks man! I appreciate it ;)
Really interesting to hear from Drew's perspective. Appreciate him sharing. Personally, I vowed to never spend another cent after level 15 and I haven't. Heck even level 14 wasn't needed. I just log on to the game occasionally for maybe half of the clan war days now. They really lost me with the new levels, and that's as someone that's been playing since day 1 with a bunch of gems and gold just stored up in my account. On the other hand, I can't believe that it came as such a surprise to the developers that players didn't want to have all of their max level cards to become not-max-level. How could they not see that would be unpopular?
I am a f2p and strongly would remain so, tho to play devil's advocate more levels=more grindings which theoretically means more content for players to work towards. I disagree with this a lot but I can definitely see this perspective.
Thanks for tuning in ;)
Hey ash, I just got around to watching this now. Thanks for the content
I only really hated the team when they pretended to be “listening to the community” and shoving their monetization onto players asking for it, such as “More gold” as an excuse for the mastery gem change and Players asked for lv15
Thanks for the timecards!
Thanks for tuning in ;)
Great interview, I spent a ton of money on clash royal. Now I spend zero money on anything supercell. Hopefully they go out of business soon!
Really good interview, Ash! One nitpick, what’s with the elevator music in the background? It is hugely distracting for me and well, just 🧀
That's what I've been waiting for!
Thanks for watching ;)
Awesome you were able to interview Drew himself! Can’t wait to watch it all
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Wish I could like this a million times. Both great guys. A really wonderfully entertaining conversation. Thanks Ash and Drew
Thanks Josh! I appreciate it ;)
This was (for lack of a better word) enlightening! Thanks Ash and Drew you guys should definitely do this interview format more often!
Thanks for tuning in ;)
Daamn I remember many late Goldeneye N64 group blunt sessions! Good old days. 🔥
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Awesome 😊
Quite the spicy interviewee!
Great interview. For me, it’s still hard to reconcile. He’s here saying cash grabbing is bad and stuff which is nice. But that just leaves me scratching my head at the last 6 months of shop offers, monetization structure changes, drastic pass royale value decrease. I would still be buying pass royale today and enjoying this game with my wife if the value was the same. But it isn’t and we hardly ever play anymore. Hopefully they get it figured out. This interview would have hit even better if SC had reverted some of these changes already.
It’s because the community managers can’t do anything. They don’t want to admit that the executives force them to add more pay to win features
Still play the game. And have a lot of respect to supercell so I'm gonna have an open mind when watching this. I don't expect you to put him on the hotseat about the state of the game. But would appreciate to hear what they think about the state of the game
Thanks for watching ;)
I love conversations like this. We love you Drew and thank you Ash
Thanks for tuning in, Jeff!
Growing up with your channel and now that I'm older, I just wanted to let you know that I love the new style of the channel and I'm all for it
Nice guitars dude! \M/
Oh wow i wasn't expecting this lol
Thanks for tuning in ;)
I'm only half way through the video and the interview is 🔥!! Love it
Thanks man! Glad you like it ;)
Unexpected mention from drew Great to know i come to mind immediately with the mention of Clash Mini :D
Awesome Interview! ❤ for Drew thanks for the amazing dedication to a game that helped many of us get through our own struggles/depression in life.
Thanks man! Glad you like it ;)
Nice
Thanks for tuning in ;)
Good stuff man. I'm still playing CR and I really miss the content Ash but understand and support you. Creator code CWA forever! Thanks to Drew as well. Dude has a tough job.
No mention of Leisure Suit Larry when talking about Sierra?
Extremely interesting interview. This is a smart and tasteful way to invite the community to have more compassion towards the devs. It’s nice to hear Drew speak and share his thoughts about sensitive topics in a setting where he feels comfortable and isn’t being instigated. Good interviewer skills on your part too, Ash.
Thanks for watching ;)
Super crazy hearing Drew used to work at Bin weevils.. that was literally my childhood game
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This is so cool to hear from drew. The recent updates havent been on the brighter side and i have also quit playing the game as i wasnt having fun. But the hate drew gets is not deserved. Great to hear the teams growing. I wholeheartedly think if drew or max or anyone from the clash royale team talked to us through a creators platform or from their channel at the start or like a month after, things would have been way better for the community. For example brawl stars immediately responds to backlash. I remember the game lead Frank himself came on for the gears update. Just clearer communication and something that wont be memed on against the devs. Thats my honest feedback
DREW WHAT ABOUT NEW CLAN BANNERS🎉
Drew needs a hug! 🫂
Thanks for tuning in, Dany ;)
Loved this interview, always appreciate how open supercell are 💪
Thanks man! Glad you like it :)
Awesome interview guys! And ash always keeping it real… luv it!
Thanks for watching Daniel ;)
Great convo and thanks for the upload Ash. Music is a bit too cheesy in my own opinion.
This is one of my favoirte chats yet. Great video Ash!
So i took a 6 month break, and stupid super cell deleted my account, it does not send me verifiacion code, and now i have no way getting my account back, since they ask me for my profile info, i asked a friend to get me my info and tells me that my account name does not appear in their friendlist ... Tecnical support where rude, they did located my account through a receipt. But since i have no way of getting my account profile info. They told me my account is lost...
When did the channel name change? Why does this video literally only have 5k views?
this guy seems scarred by the community abuse to me whenever he talked about community any time, their team needs to do a review and make sure he is fit for the job
Add more inflection to Drew’s voice…. Enter Critical Drinker
Ash I love you. I expected this interview to cover more of the "hard" questions. Hope we get another
Absolutely love hearing things from Drews side especially with an overly qualified clash plyr interviewing Him delicately😉Thank you Ash❤...nice to know my mesgs to the clash bot end up being actually read too!@!😬
Thanks for watching ;)
As someone who stopped playing Clash Royale in early 2020, after playing it since soft launch in January 2016, I've still kept up with some of the news and announcements for the game during that time. I don't really have an opinion on the positive/negative changes to the game, as I haven't played it, but this interview with Drew was so interesting, thank you.
Great interview, thanks for doing this Drew!!
And we have New community manager
Thanks for bringing this to the community. It was much need to see the thoughts of other side. It shows we are all human and make mistakes. They do care!
Drew’s a chill guy! ❤
Thanks for watching ;)
is there any sneak peeks on the upcomming update?
I can’t enjoy playing this game anymore…. But it’s nice to see how wholesome drew is
Thanks for watching :)
Totally agree that being the spear head is the hardest thing about being a community manager. What is nice though about Supercell is that they have the culture to at least let you fight internally if you disagree with something. I’ve worked for companies that just tells you to shut up and follow orders from “management” so that made it really nice. Also most of the decisions are made by the TEAM so it is much easier to digest even if you disagree.
It actually makes it harder to digest. Since they seem to operate on a democratic system, the majority seems be made up of people that don’t understand how the game should be run. Drew confirmed there have been disagreements among them but as he said, nothing can be done if you’re left in the minority. I’m starting to think this is why these updates are received terribly. The majority seems to know what we want whilst befitting themselves but they truly don’t know/understand what we want.
Thanks for watching ;)
Hi Jumpei!
Thank you Drew. Very cool
Thanks for tuning in ;)
41:04 by far the worst part of any update this game has received. Especially the original reasoning given behind it which added to the gaslighting. I hope that never happens again, if an unintended feature breaks the economy in a good way for players, taking it away is a terrible idea. What shouldve been done is adding more ways to use gems,not removing them completely. By more ways I mean adding more 12 win challenges, boosts like decreasing chest time, reintroducing old banners for gems,etc.
He's joining my game brawl stars 🙀
You know clash royale became just another crappy phone game when they added the "mobile game piggy bank" won't be surprised if they put Ads in clash royale...
Cannot wait to watch this!
Thanks for watching ;)
Just watched through it entirely (2x speed with subtitles) Disappointed with the interview but at least learned a couple things. - Ever since the team size has grown from ~15 members to ~40 members, a large portion of members seem to be out of touch with their own game. A big disconnect & poor communication was admitted. “Shocked to see the negative feedback”. - Monetization seems to involve more immediate inclusions rather than long term investments. Pair that with another team handling monetization. - Seems like everyone does have an equal level of input but once you’re in the minority & can’t convince enough members, the input is just out the window (ex. 25v15 split). I wished more grittier topics were discussed like Evolutions, Elite Level, Champions, a deeper in-depth view into Monetization as to why ex. Elite Level is being monetized, etc. I suppose I should chalk up every major decision made over the recent years should be directed to every employee that doesn’t have the full grasp of the situation. You guys just need a better understanding as to why you’re all hated on. I understand that floods of complaints can be very detrimental to health like what the CM’s are facing but don’t just talk about the flood, talk about the source of its existence. This level of hate doesn’t spring up from the bowels of Hell, it comes from players that care about their beloved game & seeing it get dissected with a rusty knife. About the gem-mastery situation, I’m glad that you admitted that them being there in the 1st place was a bad idea. I’m unaware if that was known information before but it’s definitely confirmed now. So, was the ‘people are hoarding gems’ an excuse to remove them? Also, you shouldn’t have taken that decision back. It’s already been pushed so might as well let players have it. No matter how it’s spun, it’ll result in great backlash. All in all, appreciate the interview nonetheless Ash & a thank you to Drew yourself for the willingness. I really want this game to succeed but whatever’s happening right now cannot continue. You’re gonna lose it all. PS - I hope this was enough constructive criticisms for y’all. Some of us are reasonable & pay no attention to mindless haters, they exist everywhere.
Adding this here as an edit since my comment was long enough. An example of members being out of touch is the Elite Level system itself. The way this game is designed & how it’s played, is directly impacted by card levels. Having the ideology of “players should only have a few” is heavily flawed. This needs to be understood so no one is surprised about negative backlash. Pair this ideology up with the monetization team putting up EWC offers that directly go against your own statements also looks really bad as well. Again, everyone on your team needs to understand why things like this are viewed so negatively. There is no future if you let history repeat itself which is a fact of our modern world.
💯👌👏
awesome interview, was amazing to watch and much love to drew, can’t lie, i know i have replied to tweets about the recent changes and it makes me worried i was rude unnecessarily 😅 if i was and you’re reading this drew, i apologise, keep up the amazing work man ❤
Thanks man! Means a lot ;)
Love you ash but the background music is pretty annoying
Great interview. I quit playing after lv15 was introduced. I still interact with the clan I formed on launch day. It saddens me that I watched the game die (to me). I respect you both for your position and wish you both the best. Drew manned up! Thanks for giving him the platform. SMASH THE LIKE 👍 Edit: Why the funeral piano?
keep crying
@@b1parksoha540 🎉 You get it! Moving on to the next round…
Sarcasm is the best form of communication. It actually makes people think.
No Ocarina of Time? 🤨🤨🤨
15 was a HUUUUGE Mistake
Great interview
Thanks man! Glad you like it ;)
It's nice that a company can keep employing people and bringing in income, but unfortunate for that that means perpetual change to a game where it eventually becomes unrecognizable from what people loved about it originally. Makes me think of Starcraft: Brood War vs Starcraft 2. It'd be cool if they released like an OG/year 1 whatever, snapshot of Royale alongside the microtransaction modern version.
I submitted the bug many times to the support, unfortunately it didn’t change: I reached ultimate champion in the monk meta, got also the emote, but after a couple of months the achievement on my account vanished. I know from friends that I am not alone with that issue. So if anyone from SC, like Drew would read this, that would be great!
Great interview. Hopefully they realize that the Diamond pass costing 12 dollars is a complete scam and that evo shards NEEDS to be easier to get, no matter if you buy the pass or not.
Thanks for watching ;)
Late to the party but that was a nice chat! Cheers!
You are an excellent interviewer.
1) They had a 1.5-hour meeting with the content creators and nodded along to their concerns but in the end it seems like they brushed it all under the rug 2) He says after the update they had a meeting with the team to discuss what's wrong but somehow they managed to repeat the exact same blunders. 3) Content creators who criticise the game sell their souls for views but didn't the team sell out for a quick buck by adding a feature no one even asked for? And hey, Drew, what's with conveniently "forgetting" to include crucial stuff in the patch notes? You guys do like one update a year, can't you squeeze all five changes onto one page? Like, the whole gems vanishing from masteries thing? Reddit spotted that a mile away. Did you really think no one would notice?
It seems like people just love to hate
I think drew's interview with ian77 was not good because iam made videos about how bad the update was but in the interview he was saying this year clash royale team has listened to the community a lot more But it's not drew's fault i just hope the dev team start listening to the community again
Hi ash hi all
Hey!
I dont mind giving supercell money so long as they give me new cards or content in exchange for my money
The monkey of Supercell
This is the same guy who was cheering when a CoD streamer was banned for saying "Let's just leave the kids alone"
finally, were getting better communication
Thanks for watching :)
Drew gets too much hate
Thanks for watching Mike ;)
Drew seems like an cool person and he really does wabt the best for us players. You asked some really good questions to Ash, like asking about the role of Drew were he is splitted between the community and the team of developers and
I know I’m late to this video but I’m half I watched, puts it into perspective very well. Everyone is human
Great interview. I hope this sheds some obvious light that drew is a real person just doing his job. He’s not responsible for what the devs do, he’s just a voice and a face to it all. Props to yo drew for opening up. And props to you ash for the interview! The flow was fantastic.
should put royale tv games on screen for us to watch while listening, kinda like kairos does on his 100% honest reviews
1 hour of pretty much nothing
I wouldve liked to know how much the devs play the game, trophies and achievements.
Great talk. I am sad to see the game dying. I played it since beta, but now I see a lot of people inactive or leaving the game. Can we have all mastery quests added in game? or is that forever gone? For example some cards have 2/3 quests unlocked. I know this doesn't bring any money for SuperCell, but maybe give something to do to the players? And STOP adding other currencies! Don't be like World of Warcraft! Gold is already a useless currency in Clash Royale right now, after being the most important currency after the card number. Banners are too many and useless. Remember Star points? What the point of still having that currency? now that there are no more star points added and reached over 2 million star points. Can Supercell PLEASE convert dead currencies instead of pretending these never existed?
Thanks for tuning in ;)
Drew is a top cool guy but i really don t get it,if it is how he said,like 1 million people say something for CR team and they are like 30 40 people ,how come they never listen to the fan base ? How come 40 people opinion is better than millions? Is what he said.. i m not here to criticise ,just asking....for example all the fans asking for at least 2 yrs to change war bcoz is dead and they nothing,how come is better to just add a card or 2 per year is better? Was just an example ,i don t see the game going up with just releasing 1 2 champions....
Ash you smell like beans (in the best way)
Enjoyed that chat, Drew’s one of the good guys.
I always tell people to invest in what brings you happiness within means. I enjoy mobile games and am ok dropping a buck here or 5 there. Moderation is key. But I fully believe if something brings you joy that it's only right to at least invest 5 a month in it.
While I disagreed with some of CR's decisions lately, I realize there are real human beings working hard behind the scenes and it's great to see that through this interview.
He def is not an extraordinaire
Is it because of what’s happening now in clash Royale?
firs
🔥