Brawl Stars creator Xzem speaks to Games Latest News about early update access, building short-form content, younger players and life inside Supercell’s Creator Program.
A Brawl Stars update may be brand new to millions of players when it goes live, but for creators inside Supercell’s Creator Program, the work can begin days earlier.
Xzem has built his audience around Brawl Stars, turning updates, guides, rankings and community discoveries into short-form content. As part of the Supercell Creator Program, that also means getting a different look at what happens before new content reaches the wider player base.
Lauren Hobbs spoke with Xzem about what being part of the program actually means for a creator, how early access changes the way he approaches updates, and what creators can learn from player reactions that official announcements sometimes cannot capture.
We also discussed the work hidden behind a 30-second TikTok, keeping advice relevant in an ever-changing live-service game, the responsibility that comes with speaking to a younger audience, and what he would like to see next from Supercell.
Games Latest News: You’ve already spoken elsewhere about growing your Brawl Stars audience, so I wanted to start somewhere a little different: what does being part of the Supercell Creator Program actually change for you day to day?
Xzem
The biggest change is that I feel much more connected to the game and
its creator community. Before joining the Creator Program, I was
making content entirely from the perspective of a player and trying to
find everything myself. Now there are more resources available to me
as a creator, and I have a better idea of what’s happening around the
game.
It also changed the way I think about my content. When you’re
officially part of a creator program, you feel a bit more
responsibility for what you publish. I still want my videos to feel
like normal Brawl Stars content and not advertising, but I’m more
careful about making sure information is accurate and that I’m giving
my audience something useful.
Games Latest News: What access, resources or opportunities do creators get through the program that ordinary Brawl Stars players would never normally see?
Xzem
One of the biggest differences is access to official Brawl Stars
assets specifically provided for creators. We receive official game
assets that can be used when producing content, including early-access
assets for upcoming content before they’re available publicly.
We also receive information about upcoming updates in advance. That
gives us time to understand what’s coming, think about which parts
will actually matter to our audiences, and prepare videos instead of
discovering everything at the same time as the general player base.
For a short-form creator, that preparation time is especially useful.
A video might only last 30 or 60 seconds, but having the official
assets and information beforehand means I can plan how to explain
something clearly rather than rushing to understand it after it
releases.
Of course, having early access to information also comes with the
responsibility of respecting when that information is supposed to
become public.
Games Latest News: How much advance information do you typically receive around updates, balance changes or new content, and how do you decide what is actually worth covering?
Xzem
It varies depending on what the content is, but for some upcoming
updates or features we can receive information as much as around a
week in advance.
That extra time is really valuable because it lets me go through
what’s changing and decide what my audience will actually care about
rather than trying to cover everything. I don’t think receiving
something early automatically makes it worth turning into a video.
I normally ask myself whether a player scrolling through TikTok would
genuinely want to know about it. A small technical change might be
important but not necessarily interesting enough for a video, while a
new Brawler, Hypercharge, major balance change, hidden feature or
something that directly changes how people play can immediately stand
out.
So for me, early information isn’t just about being able to publish
quickly. The real advantage is having time to identify the most
interesting part of an update and figure out the clearest and most
entertaining way to explain it once we’re allowed to talk about it.
Games Latest News: When a major Brawl Stars update lands, what are creators noticing from the community before traditional gaming sites or official channels catch up?
Xzem
I think creators see the player’s real reaction almost immediately.
Comments are extremely useful for this. Within minutes, you can start
seeing the same questions, complaints or discoveries appearing again
and again. Sometimes the thing everyone talks about isn’t even the
feature that looked biggest in the update announcement.
Players also discover interactions, strategies, bugs and details
incredibly quickly. If you’re actively making Brawl Stars content,
you’re watching all of that happen in real time through comments,
TikTok, YouTube and the wider community.
That’s one of the advantages creators have: we’re not just reporting
what changed; we’re seeing how players actually react to those
changes.
Games Latest News: Do you feel there is sometimes a gap between what Supercell thinks players care about and what the Brawl Stars community is actually talking about? Can you give an example?
Xzem
Sometimes, yes, although I think that’s normal with a game as large as
Brawl Stars.
An update can have a feature that receives a lot of attention
officially, while the community ends up focusing much more on
something smaller — a balance change, a reward, a particular Brawler
or even a tiny detail that affects everyday gameplay.
You can see that very clearly as a creator because the audience
basically tells you what they care about. If I make several videos
around an update, the performance and comments can be completely
different even though all of them are technically about the same
update.
That’s why I think community reaction is so important. What looks like
the headline feature before an update isn’t always what players
consider the headline feature once they’re actually playing it.
Games Latest News: A lot of your audience comes from short-form content. What makes a Brawl Stars guide, ranking or update video work on TikTok rather than getting ignored after a few seconds?
Xzem
The first few seconds are everything.
On TikTok, people aren’t opening the app specifically to watch your
Brawl Stars video. You’re competing with basically every other video
on their feed, so you have to give them a reason to stop scrolling
immediately.
I try to remove anything unnecessary. If the interesting part of the
video is a new strategy, ranking or feature, I want the viewer to
understand that almost instantly. Visuals, subtitles, pacing and the
way the information is presented matter a lot.
But I also don’t think retention should come from wasting the viewer’s
time. If someone watches one of my guides, I want them to leave
knowing something they didn’t know before. The best result is when a
video is fast enough for TikTok but still genuinely useful.
Games Latest News: Because Brawl Stars is a live-service game, how difficult is it to build evergreen content when balance changes and updates can make advice outdated very quickly?
Xzem
It’s definitely difficult, and I think that’s one of the biggest
differences between making content for a live-service game and a game
that rarely changes.
A ranking can become outdated because of one balance update. A guide
can change because a Brawler gets buffed or nerfed. Sometimes an
entire strategy changes because a new mechanic is introduced.
Because of that, I don’t expect every video to stay relevant forever.
Some content is made for what’s happening right now, and that’s fine.
For longer-lasting content, I try to focus more on concepts, mechanics
or things that aren’t dependent on exact statistics. But being willing
to update your own advice is also important. If the game changes, the
content has to change with it.
Games Latest News: How much responsibility do you feel towards younger players when covering things like progression, monetisation, new Brawlers or limited-time offers?
Xzem
I think there is definitely a responsibility there, especially because
Brawl Stars has a lot of younger players.
If I’m talking about something that costs money, I don’t want a video
to make someone feel like they need to buy it just because everyone
else is doing it or because they’re going to miss out.
There’s also a difference between explaining whether something has
good value in the game and telling somebody that they should spend
real money on it. I try to keep that distinction in mind.
At the end of the day, people watch creators because they trust them.
I think protecting that trust is more important than getting a few
extra clicks from making something sound more urgent or essential than
it really is.
Games Latest News: What’s one thing about the Brawl Stars creator scene that people outside the community consistently misunderstand?
Xzem
Probably how much work can go into very short videos.
Someone can watch a 30-second or one-minute TikTok and assume it took
a few minutes to make because the final result is so short. But
there’s research, finding the idea, writing the script, recording,
getting the gameplay, editing, subtitles, effects and then trying to
make everything work within a very small amount of time.
And after all of that, there’s no guarantee the video performs well.
Short-form Brawl Stars content looks simple when it’s done properly,
but making something simple, fast and understandable is often the
difficult part.
Games Latest News: Looking ahead, what would you most like Supercell to improve either in Brawl Stars itself or in the way it works with creators?
Xzem
From the creator side, I’d love to see even more ways for creators of
different sizes to participate and grow within the ecosystem.
There are huge creators in Brawl Stars, but there are also many
smaller and mid-sized creators who can have extremely engaged
communities. Giving those creators more opportunities, resources and
ways to contribute could help discover the next generation of Brawl
Stars creators.
For the game itself, I think continuing to listen closely to community
feedback is extremely important. Brawl Stars changes constantly, which
is one of the reasons it stays interesting, but that also means player
feedback can change very quickly.
I think the best situation is when players, creators and the
developers all feel like they’re part of the same conversation.
Throughout our conversation, Xzem’s enthusiasm for creating Brawl Stars content was difficult to miss. He was incredibly friendly to speak with, quick to get involved with the interview, and that same energy comes through in his content. His videos are colourful, fast-paced and designed to catch your attention, but there’s clearly plenty of thought behind those few seconds on screen.
Before we wrapped up, Xzem had one final thought to add about the unpredictability of creating content and why, despite never quite knowing what will take off next, he keeps coming back to it.
Xzem
One of the things I find most interesting about making Brawl Stars
content is how unpredictable it is. You can spend a lot of time on
something you think will perform incredibly well and it doesn’t, then
make another video around a small detail or idea and suddenly hundreds
of thousands of people see it.
That unpredictability has taught me to pay attention to the audience
rather than assuming I already know what they want. I’m still learning
from every video I publish, and I think that’s a big part of what
keeps creating content interesting for me.
For a creator still early in his career, Xzem already seems to understand something that can be easy to lose sight of when views, retention and algorithms become part of the job: there are real people on the other side of the screen.
Throughout our interview, his focus repeatedly came back to the players watching his content — whether that meant protecting the trust of younger viewers, deciding which updates were genuinely worth their time, or admitting that sometimes the audience completely surprises him.
There is still plenty of room for Xzem and his content to grow, but perhaps that willingness to keep learning alongside his audience is exactly what makes his journey worth following.
Where to Find Xzem
You can keep up with Xzem and his latest Brawl Stars content on:
TikTok (@xzem_brawl) and YouTube (@xzem_brawl), where he shares guides, updates, rankings and more from across the Brawl Stars community.
