What are game design communities?

Communities for game developers and designers at indie studios and beyond. Discord is the primary hub, with communities for feedback on prototypes, finding collaborators like artists and musicians, getting indie game jobs, and talking craft across all stages of development.

Where do most game design communities live?

Discord is the most common platform in this report (36% of 28 listings).

Are most of these communities free?

96% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.

How big is a typical game design community?

Among listings with public size data, the average is 170K members and the median is 19K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.

What do these communities usually include?

Forum is the most common (68%). Others that show up often include live chat and online/offline events.

How does Hive Index collect this data?

Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.

Where can I see the full list?

The full directory is on Hive Index's Game Design topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Game Design Communities Report: Stats, Platforms, Trends...

Executive Summary

We analyzed 28 game design communities listed on Hive Index to understand where people gather, what these groups offer, and which communities attract the most interest.

The big picture: game design communities are broad and fragmented, with many small groups and a few very large outliers.

Source: Hive Index community database · Updated periodically

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Communities: 28
Platforms: 7
Avg members: 170K
Median members: 19K

Where Game Design Communities Are Hosted

Discord
10(36%)
Reddit
10(36%)
Slack
2(7%)
LinkedIn
2(7%)
Independent Platforms
2(7%)
Circle
1(4%)
X / Twitter
1(4%)

Format mix

Chat communities
12(43%)
Forum / feed-based
12(43%)
Other platforms
3(11%)
Private membership
1(4%)

Chat communities is most common (43%), but forum / feed-based is also well represented (43%).

Discord leads, but Reddit and Slack also represent meaningful shares.

Audience Size & Access

Community size

Tiny
<20 members
1(4%)
Small
20-100 members
0(0%)
Medium
100-1,000 members
5(18%)
Large
1,000-10,000 members
5(18%)
Huge
10,000-100,000 members
7(25%)
Massive
100,000-1M members
6(21%)
Gigantic
1M+ members
1(4%)

3 communities have unknown member counts.

Free vs paid

The average is much higher than the median (170K vs 19K), which usually means a few large groups are pulling the average up.

How Game Design Differs From Other Categories

Game Design is more free-to-join, and more chat-heavy, compared with typical Hive Index topics.

Metric	Game Design	Hive Index average
Free to join	96%	84%
Median members	19K	25K
Average members	170K	673K
Paid or apply-to-join	4%	16%
Live chat	61%	41%
Discord share	36%	17%

Feature Mix

Common features appear in at least 15% of listings.

Common Features

Forum
68%
Live Chat
61%
Online/Offline Events
21%

Niche Features

Job Board
14%
Courses
11%
Newsletter
7%
Tools
7%
Paid Community
4%
Pairing
4%

Live Chat appears on 61% of listings.

What Visitors Click

Outbound clicks / mo: 65

Platform supply vs. clicks

Platform	Communities	Share of communities	Outbound clicks	Share of clicks
Discord	10	36%	51	78%
Reddit	10	36%	8	12%
Slack	2	7%	1	2%
LinkedIn	2	7%	4	6%
Circle	1	4%	1	2%

Share is calculated within this topic.

Discord hosts 36% of listings and 78% of clicks, so supply and interest line up.

Most-clicked formats

Chat communities
52(80%)
Forum / feed-based
8(12%)
Other platforms
4(6%)
Private membership
1(2%)

Most-clicked features

Live Chat
57(88%)
Online/Offline Events
40(62%)
Job Board
36(55%)
Newsletter
35(54%)
Forum
23(35%)
Tools
9(14%)

Most-clicked size ranges

Huge
30(46%)
Large
23(35%)
Gigantic
4(6%)
Massive
4(6%)
Medium
3(5%)

Top-clicked listings

Work With Indies
25(38%)
thegameHERS
10(15%)
OpenGameArt
8(12%)

Most clicks go to chat communities and forum / feed-based communities.

Trends

Founded year

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2015

2018

2019

2020

2022

2023

10 communities have no founding year on file.

Most listed groups were founded around 2009.

Community Quality & Ratings

Only 1 community has ratings so far, so read this as a small sample.

5.0 average rating across 1 community.

Rated examples

Game Dev Universe
Discord · 5.0 stars · 175 members

Methodology & FAQ

Methodology

This report uses communities in the Hive Index database tagged as Game Design. We exclude removed or suppressed listings. Member counts, traffic, features, reviews, and ratings may vary by source and are updated periodically.

•This is a smaller slice of Hive Index's database, so read trends as directional.

FAQ

: Communities for game developers and designers at indie studios and beyond. Discord is the primary hub, with communities for feedback on prototypes, finding collaborators like artists and musicians, getting indie game jobs, and talking craft across all stages of development.
: Discord is the most common platform in this report (36% of 28 listings).
: 96% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.
: Among listings with public size data, the average is 170K members and the median is 19K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.
: Forum is the most common (68%). Others that show up often include live chat and online/offline events.
: Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.
: The full directory is on Hive Index's Game Design topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Keep exploring

Browse

All Game Design communities

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