Bence "Beadyboy" Hamos reflects on 8 years at Crytek helping build Hunt: Showdown's community.



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The Hunt: Showdown community received a sucker punch in September when it learned that Bence "Beadyboy" Hamos, a beloved community-facing figure for the long-running extraction shooter, was unceremoniously let go in a wave of Crytek layoffs that affected at least 30 people.

For years Hamos was one of the faces of Hunt: Showdown, hosting livestreams, vlogs, and social media videos that kept players abreast of their favorite game's happenings. Through the highs and lows of Hunt's updates, events, and occasional controversies, he was a steady presence—calm, exuberant, and in touch with the experience of average players.

Hamos began at Crytek in 2018 in a social media role, eventually climbing to senior broadcast manager. As someone who absorbs the work of community managers constantly for work, I believe Hamos was particularly good at it—which is why his sudden departure hit Hunt's most dedicated players hard.

Hamos grew up in Budapest, Hungary. He'd looked up to Crytek since he was a teenager playing Crysis with his brother. He moved to Germany to find work and jumped at a job posting at the famed studio in 2018. He worked there for nearly nine years, focused entirely on Hunt: Showdown.

I caught up with Hamos last month, soon after his last day at Crytek, to learn what it was like to cultivate Hunt's community over nine years and talk about his unexpected departure.

"I really looked up to Crytek," Hamos told me. "[Getting hired] was such an unbelievable moment in my life, which obviously completely changed my whole career. It was nothing I never imagined I'd do. I was super happy."

Hamos said he had never worked in games when he interviewed at Crytek, but managed to charm the studio with his experience managing his rock band's social media, interacting with its community, and running livestreams on Ustream.



"It was right before the launch of Hunt, so in 2018," Hamos, who had recently moved to Germany from his home in Budapest to look for work, recounted. "I saw an opportunity at Crytek for a very entry-level social media position, and they really needed something.

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"Somehow, by huge luck, I got hired in two weeks."

When Hamos arrived at Crytek in early 2018, the industry was in the middle of a major shift toward live service games. Fortnite had yet to become the biggest game in the world, battle passes didn't exist outside mobile and MOBAs, and Crytek was taking a big chance on an FPS format so early in its infancy that it didn't have an established name yet: the extraction shooter. There was no playbook for communications in a game that's always changing, so Hamos did what came naturally.

To deal with a community and manage a community, you have to be part of a community

"I always had this principle that to deal with a community and manage a community, you have to be part of a community. So that's why I played a bunch of Hunt," he said. "I played over 2,000 or 3,000 hours just in my personal account, not even my testing account. I streamed it in my personal time.

"I think it's super important in a position like that to not just understand what the company wants, and the vision for the company, but also the other side of the equation—what players are feeling. I would understand their frustration. I would see the issues firsthand."

Hamos says his extensive hours in Hunt put him in a sometimes "weird" position of representing the interests of both the players and devs, which did not always align.



"You're the voice of the community, and you have to push that to the dev team and let them know about feedback and issues people are talking about. But at the same time, you also push the vision of the team and answers to the comm...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com

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