“Every Video Gives You Information”: Xzem on Building a Brawl Stars Audience

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For people discovering Xzem for the first time, who are you, and how did Brawl Stars become the game you decided to build your content around?

I’m Xzem, an 18-year-old content creator focused mainly on Brawl Stars. I’ve played the game for a long time, and at some point I realized I enjoyed not only playing it, but also talking about updates, discovering small details, comparing things in the game and sharing that information with other players.

Brawl Stars is also constantly changing. There are new Brawlers, balance changes, skins, events and updates, so there is almost always something interesting to make content about. That made it the perfect game for me to build a page around.

Do you remember the point when you realized the account was actually starting to grow rather than simply being something you were doing for fun? What happened?

Yes. At the beginning I was mostly uploading because I enjoyed making videos and testing ideas. Then some videos started performing much better than what I was used to, and I began seeing the same people return in the comments and follow the account.

That was probably the biggest change for me. It stopped feeling like random videos getting views and started feeling like there was actually a community forming around Xzem.

Once I noticed that, I started taking the account much more seriously.

You’re now approaching 40,000 TikTok followers. What do you think has been the biggest reason people started following Xzem instead of simply watching one video and moving on?

I think consistency is probably the biggest reason.

If somebody follows a Brawl Stars account, they want to know that when something interesting happens in the game, they will probably see a video about it. I try to cover updates, new mechanics, interesting details and things players may have missed.

More recently, I’ve also been trying to give the videos more personality and humor. There are already many creators who are very good at simply giving information, so I don’t want Xzem to feel like just another news account. I want people to recognize the style of the videos too.

Your recent analytics showed more than 478,000 post views in 28 days, up more than 500% from the previous period. Was there a particular video, update or change in your strategy behind that jump?

It wasn’t only one video. I think it was a combination of being more consistent and reacting faster when there was something happening in Brawl Stars.

Updates are obviously a big opportunity because suddenly millions of players are searching for the same information at the same time.

I’ve also been putting more attention into making each idea easier to understand immediately. On TikTok you don’t have much time to explain why somebody should care about a video, so I’ve been trying to make the concept clear from the first seconds instead of building up to it for too long.

The @xzem_brawl TikTok profile showed 39.1K followers and 616.4K likes when Xzem supplied the image. Image supplied by Xzem for editorial use.

What does your process for making a typical Brawl Stars video actually look like, from choosing the idea to publishing the finished TikTok?

It normally starts with the idea. I look at what is happening in Brawl Stars and ask myself whether there is something useful, surprising or entertaining enough to turn into a short video.

Then I try to reduce the idea to the simplest possible hook.

After that I write the script, record the gameplay or find the specific clips I need, record the voice-over and edit everything together. Editing is a big part of it because I use subtitles, zooms and visual changes to keep the video moving.

Before publishing, I normally watch it again and remove anything that feels unnecessary. With short-form videos, even a few seconds that don’t add anything can make a difference.

Short-form gaming content can move incredibly quickly. How much attention do you pay to things like the first few seconds, video length, captions, trends and posting time?

A lot.

The first few seconds are probably the most important part. You can spend hours making the rest of a video, but if people swipe away at the beginning, they will never see it.

I also try not to make a video longer just because I can. If the information can be explained in 15 seconds, I would rather make a strong 15-second video than stretch it to 30 seconds.

Captions and visuals are important too because a lot of people scroll very quickly, and the video needs to be understandable immediately.

I pay attention to trends, but I don’t think every trend needs to be used. It has to make sense for the video and for the audience.

You joined the Supercell Creators Program in July 2024 and are currently listed as a Trusted Creator. How did you get into the program, and what did reaching Trusted Creator status mean to you?

I originally joined the Supercell Creators Program in July 2024, when my content and audience were still much smaller than they are now.

Since then I’ve kept uploading and improving the account. Becoming a Trusted Creator felt like recognition that the work I had been putting into the content was actually being noticed.

It was especially meaningful because it wasn’t something that happened overnight. There was a long period of consistently making videos, improving them and building the audience.

For me it felt less like reaching the end of something and more like proof that I was moving in the right direction.

Has being part of the Supercell Creators Program changed the kind of content you can make or the opportunities available to you?

Yes, definitely.

Being in the program can give creators access to information, assets and opportunities that make it possible to prepare better content around the game.

It has also made me feel more connected to the creator side of Brawl Stars rather than simply being a player uploading videos about the game.

At the same time, I still want the content to feel like my content. Being in a creator program doesn’t mean I want every video to sound official or promotional. My audience follows Xzem, so keeping my own style is important.

Xzem’s Supercell Creators Program profile lists him as a Trusted Creator and a member since July 3, 2024. Image supplied by Xzem for editorial use.

Brawl Stars has an enormous creator community. Do you see other creators mainly as competition, as people to collaborate with, or a mixture of both?

A mixture of both, but mostly in a positive way.

Obviously everyone wants their videos to perform well, so there is some competition. If a major update happens, a lot of creators are going to be talking about the same thing.

But I think that competition can be useful because it forces you to ask what you can do differently.

I also think collaborations and relationships with other creators can be really valuable. We are all creating around the same game, and the Brawl Stars community is big enough that creators don’t need to treat each other like enemies.

What has been the hardest part of building Xzem that viewers probably never see?

Probably the amount of work behind videos that sometimes don’t perform.

A viewer sees a 15 or 20-second TikTok, but they don’t see the time spent finding the idea, recording everything, writing the script, editing it and changing small details.

Sometimes you can put a lot of effort into something and it gets almost no views. Then another video you weren’t expecting much from can perform extremely well.

Learning not to let one bad video completely change your motivation is probably one of the hardest parts of content creation.

You have to look at the account over months rather than judging everything based on one upload.

You’re only 18 and have already built a sizeable gaming audience. Do you want content creation to become a career, or are you still figuring out where you want to take it?

I definitely want content creation to be part of what I do in the future.

At the same time, I’m also very interested in video games beyond just creating content around them. I want to work in the games industry and eventually build my own projects.

For me, content creation is also teaching me things that are useful far beyond TikTok: how to understand an audience, how to market an idea, how to communicate quickly and how to build a recognizable identity online.

So even if Xzem changes a lot over the next few years, I think what I’m learning from it will always be useful.

Do you eventually want Xzem to cover games beyond Brawl Stars, or is becoming even more established within the Brawl Stars community the priority right now?

Right now the priority for Xzem is definitely Brawl Stars.

I think there is still a lot of room for the account to grow inside this community, and I don’t want to lose the identity that people followed the account for.

Maybe Xzem could expand in the future, but I would rather build something really recognizable within Brawl Stars first than suddenly start posting completely different games just because they are popular.

What advice would you give someone starting a gaming TikTok today with zero followers? What do you know now that you wish you understood when you started?

I would tell them not to wait until everything is perfect.

When you have zero followers, you actually have the best opportunity to experiment because there is almost no risk. Try different hooks, editing styles, ideas and video lengths and see what people respond to.

I also wish I understood earlier how important the idea itself is.

Editing can make a good idea better, but amazing editing usually can’t save an idea that nobody cares about.

And I would tell them not to judge the account after five or ten videos. You need enough uploads to actually learn what works.

Every video gives you information.

Finally, what comes next for Xzem? What would you like to have achieved a year from now?

The next big goal is to keep turning Xzem into a name people recognize inside the Brawl Stars community, rather than just an account they occasionally see on their For You page.

Of course I have follower goals, and reaching 100,000 would be an amazing milestone, but I don’t want the only goal to be a number.

A year from now, I’d like Xzem to have a much bigger community, stronger videos, more opportunities inside the Brawl Stars creator ecosystem and a style that people can recognize without even needing to look at the username.

I think that would mean more to me than simply having one viral video.

Written by Ronny Fiksdahl, Founder & Editor-in-Chief of Fix Gaming Channel.

Send interview pitches, corrections, tips, or developer stories to contact@fixgamingchannel.com.

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