OverModerated

NYT - The Life of a Chinese Gold Farmer

2007-06-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

A fairly typical article about gold farmers, but it does have some interesting information.

For me, the fact that gold farming is done by many, many small businesses in China shows how difficult it is to combat the practice by simply banning the farmers. It's like putting out a fire in a peat bog.

A company that is unwilling to make significant design and process changes to combat or derail RMT is either willing to accept the practice and the downsides, or is committing itself to an expensive and unending guerrilla war.

In any case, the lesson that a lot of money is being left on the table by many MMO companies is still apparently not sinking in.

Read it HERE

Why Forums Don't Scale

2007-05-25T12:06:00.000-07:00

It's a math problem.

The number of potential interactions between users goes up exponentially with the number of users. The interactions are what need moderation, of course. Therefore, the number of moderators needed to keep a constant level of oversight goes up exponentially too.

The income per user, of course, does NOT go up exponentially. (Although that would be a neat business model, if someone made it work.) There is definitely a level at which you can make forums work with a single mod per shift - or even one real mod and a bare minimum of oversight. A bit higher, you can do with 2-3 people during the bulk of your posting hours. That's still a pretty reasonable budget for a (pre-WoW) successful MMO. Beyond that level, though, it is either too expensive to do at all, or it just gets done badly - and badly moderated official forums are, in my experience, worse than none at all.

It's not that I don't think official forums are valuable, although, having tried both sides, there is a definite advantage for the community manager to being completely divorced from the moderation side of things (and, by extension, for the company - the players can't complain that we're censoring them when WE aren't even involved.) It's that I think that for games past a certain size, the expense of having official forums is not offset by the value. I can get many more valuable things done when I'm not moderating, and if someone offered to pay for a staff of moderators, I could honestly find other work for them that I think would benefit the game and the community much more.

Eating Bees

2007-05-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

If you're interested in the sort of stuff we talk about but want to see it done better, check out http://eatingbees.brokentoys.org - Sanya Weathers, formerly known as the infamous Tweety, covers community management in her inimitable style.

Information Dissemination

2007-05-11T11:40:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since my last long-winded post, so I thought I'd whip up a little ditty on the differences between the centralized and decentralized form of game information release in terms that relate to Community Management.

Centralized Control

Summary:
Accessible. Official. Definitive.

Examples:
Official forums, WoW’s Armory, LOTRO’s Lorebook

Edges:
Bringing forums and game content under direct control, more power can be exercised in the release of information and it’s tonality. Additionally, accessibility to the information will increase for both casual and hardcore players as an officially sanctioned resource offers the definitive word on a topic relating to the game. The information is also lent more credence as being factual if it comes from the mouth of a Community Manager or Designer appearing in official forums or posting quest information to the website than if it came instead from a player at a fansite.

Flaws:
Internalizing the release of information means that a greater burden is placed on the community relations and web team to provide frequent and consistent updates. This shifts the CM focus further into the “Maintenance” area of the Online Community Focus triangle. Centralizing control also removes some of the impetus for fansites to form, as they usually occur as the result of making information available that the developer can’t or won’t.

The Mystery Factor:
Information provided out of game reduces the amount of discovery needed in-game. Laying bare all the monsters, gear, items, and levels to the players could potentially damage the game experience, and concurrently the amount of time spent playing the game by negating the elements of discovery.

Decentralized Control

Summary:
Low Maintenance. Evangelist Empowerment.

Examples:
UO Stratics Forums, Allakhazam

Edges:
By providing a vacuum of official information, or rather segmenting it via limited release, decentralized control limits the amount of time and energy required by the community relations and web team. It also decreases the amount of time required in the “Maintenance” area of Online Community Focus, freeing up hours that can be spent directly growing the community or expanding supporting infrastructure. Evangelists in a decentralized system tend to find greater purpose in presenting information that has been discovered through in-game means. Learning and sharing that one secret about how to complete the end-level quest or what the greatest build order might be garners the revealing player a measure of prestige and respect amongst his peers.

Flaws:
By limiting control over where and how information is reported to the public, risk of unwanted or downright damaging information from speedily reaching the public. Being at the mercy of fansite and gaming news portal owners means that deteriorating interest and general player attrition on the part of evangelists can fragment an online community. Sculpting perceptions is also more difficult to do as well, as the tonality of the message is changed from source to source. Accessibility and dependability are factors, as casual or new players may not bother to browse through the official “Links” or “Community Sites” section to find the answers they are looking for.

The Mystery Factor:
A lessening of both the availability and definitive quality of information about game content lends towards fewer players being aware of that content. Less awareness can mean less interest, but can conversely spark feelings of exploration and discovery. That feeling that comes in the beginning of playing any new game is like the first day of school. An intimidating, yet refreshing feeling of a whole new world to explore, with its rich tapestry of intricacies and mechanics unraveled before you as a holistic part of the gaming experience. Everyone knows how to get the warp whistle in level 1-3, but envision how it felt to be the first one to find that wonderful little secret?

I'm Back!

2007-05-08T15:14:00.000-07:00

After a long hiatus, I've rejoined my comrades here, and plan to terrorize them into posting more often.

Meditations on Lord of the Rings Online

2007-04-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

As a Community Manager, watching a new community form from the ether surrounding a new game announcement is thrilling, but watching that game ship is like seeing a live birth. There's a tense emotional quality for those involved, and alot of hope usually mixed with alot of pain. As an outsider, watching the LOTRO community come into existence, I can't help but think of it in these terms. For one paying attention, there are some really interesting things we can learn from these early stages of LOTRO.

Frequent, casual, consistent communication from an approachable CM lends a huge sense of stability and a feeling that "the devs are listening."
Patience, the LOTRO CM, is very personable and frequently posts in topics that a jaded veteran normally wouldn't expect to find an immediate response from a developer in. Topics that would usually fall under the "Why the heck do they CARE about this?!" category are being answered by her, and that's impressive.

Extensive, multi-staged beta test with Marketing involvement
This was an incredibly intriguing formula and I'm honestly surprised how effective it appears to have been. What they did was they had one or two closed beta tests, invite-only to a steadily growing number of folks. But that wasn't the unique part. The unique part was that pre-orders got to join in a special "Pre-Order Only" beta period, where the characters they built would be transferred over to the live servers once the game was released. Not only this, but Pre-Orders were given access to special "Founder" pricing and given an option to purchase a lifetime account. Additionally, two unique items are given in-game.

At first glance, this doesn't that sound genius. But look at it closer. What this has done is effectively provided THREE incentives that appeal to multiple parts of a player's consideration where adopting a game is concerned.

It says, if you join as a pre-order, you get a head-start. You can only get to level 15, but there's no limit on the number of characters you can get to level 15...imagine how many people you'll be ahead of when the game releases.

It says, if in the future, you realize that you want to play this game, you'll have missed out on a great chance to get special pricing for it. You know how quickly those subscription fees can add up... so if I buy the pre-order now, I won't have to worry about that in the future. They'll probably be in high demand, too. And if I really fall in love with the game, I can always plunk down the price for lifetime and be done with it.

It says, not only do I get that, but I also get two little baubles to help me through the first 10 or so levels of the game. Even MORE of a headstart.

Couple this with an Open Beta (which industry folks should by now be reading as a "time-limited free demo") and you have a really great combo.

Adherence to Consistency
From the get-go in character creation, you are -very- encouraged to participate in the lore of the world. A multitude of naming conventions are presented for you based on your racial selection, with polite offerings of what you might augment your name with. It may sound like a small thing, but perception of stability and consistency begins right after the first impression. Perceived consistency breeds immersion, and immersion is one of the key factors connected to community that keeps players playing.

The world itself is interesting and inviting, albeit a bit of a linear-style train ride as far as questing goes. The differences between the Peter Jackson movies and EA Games and LOTRO is stark, but the classes, the rich quest dialogue and scenery make it feel like LOTRO is a more faithful representation of the books. Not that I'm a purist by any stretch!

A fun game so far, and certainly a great case study to observe for enlightened CMery.

Community Management Focus

2007-03-12T13:10:00.000-07:00

In my comparatively short span of time spend managing online communities I have noticed that budgeting time performing community management can be summed up into three basic types of activities. To visually represent this, here's a little diagram I whipped up to help represent these areas of focus-

Printed out, I poke a push-pin in where I feel the community focus is, and a second where I feel it should be headed. It has helped my own day-to-day tremendously and serves as a great reminder up on the office wall. What follows is an explanation of the three points of CM focus, Infrastructure, Growth and Maintenance as well as a short breakdown of some of the related activities.

Infrastructure
Infrastructure in Community Management is any means by which your message may be conveyed and the refined processes thereof. Infrastructure is the whole of all of the combined methods and systems that permit your communication and influence to travel through your network of contacts and information outlets. These are represented in various mediums, as forums, websites, fansites, IM lists, newsletters, e-mails, in-game chats and more.

In most situations, the Community Manager’s primary pieces of infrastructure will be the Official Website and the Official Forums. In a typical setup, communication flows from developer to player via the website, and from player to developer via the forums, with the Community Manager mediating and facilitating the flow of information.

In essence, community infrastructure is the “population cap” of a given a community. Infrastructure determines the level of organization and order your community possesses as well as the number of individuals and groups it can comfortably accommodate. Being too far under it is never good, as it means the community growth has gone stagnant. Going too far over this imaginary “pop cap” through accelerated growth can be equally detrimental, and can result in a few tricky problems like Community Manager burnout, fan resentment, and poor perception by the gaming media.

Growing the level of infrastructure in a community is as simple as spending the time working building tools and improving relationships with the people involved. Here are a few examples of infrastructure found in common gaming communities-

Tools
Official Website
Your official company or game website.

Community Sub-site
A special community specific sub-site, usually containing links to forums, fansites and special downloadables.

Fansite
A fan or network run site dedicated to news and community for your game.

Official Forums
Message boards which are considered the primary source of community feedback for your game, usually hosted with the official site.

Fansite Forums
Community run and guild forums, usually hosted off of existing fansites.

E-mail List / Newsletter
An extensive listmail that can be used for one-way communication with your players.

IRC
Chat rooms set aside on official or fansite servers which can be used to host discussions and developer chats.

Direct Instant Messaging (Yahoo, MSN, ICQ)
Direct line of communication with your evangelists, fansite owners and key player leaders.

Developer Information Pipeline
The process by which you the Community Manager receive aggregate information about the development of your game. A raw source of unfiltered information from the development team, garnered through meetings, company e-mails, casual discussion and task lists.

In-game Tools & Systems
Global broadcast messages, Messages of the Day, patcher notes, built-in news systems, lobbies and general chat fall into this category.

People
(Online) Community (Relations) Manager/Director
This is the person responsible for representing the developer to the fan base. Responsible for creating and following through on initiatives and using all the resources available to grow, maintain and organize the game’s community. Operates as the primary conduit between developer and player for communication and feedback.

Community Representative
Shares the load with the Community Manager in maintaining the community. Usually specialized to provide developer feedback on the forums.

Forum Administrator/Moderator
Forum admins and mods, either employees or volunteer players. These individuals are responsible for keeping order on the boards and making sure discussion remains civil and focused.

Fansite Owner
Owner of a game or genre-specific website that focuses heavily on your game or a set of features in it. Fansite Owners post news, stories and articles about your game on their site.

Evangelist
Evangelists are the front-line warrior-leaders of your community. Usually early-adopters, fansite contributors or guild leaders, evangelists are the primary opinion makers and tend to maintain large networks of friends and acquaintances that they influence. The evangelist is the primary building block of a strong community.

Growth
Growth is the means by which a gaming community increases in number or dedication. Numerical growth is easy to quantify using basic metrics of forum traffic, unique site visits and in-game user polling. Growth in the player base dedication to the game can be a bit more difficult to determine, but nevertheless represents a very important aspect of effective community management. The loyalty your players show to your game correlates directly to how likely they are to recommend it to a friend, and word of mouth recommendations are some of the strongest forces in the gaming market.

Of the three pillars, Growth is perhaps the most difficult to affect. Is there a demand for your game? Does it fill a need? Is it buggy or well polished? Do your marketing guys know what they are doing and if they have enough of a budget to do it well? These are all concerns related to growth that are beyond the control or purview of a Community Manager. The good news is that growth can be prodded in the right directions through targeted community initiatives. This includes contests, fansite promotions, live in-game events, swag strikes, developer chats and anything else that directly engages the community. In addition, direct conversion through clear invitations to notable evangelists in related genres can help get a community starting from scratch off to a great start.

Typically the most influential evangelists in your community will have come from other communities, and early growth is an absolute requisite. As Raph has mentioned, don’t be afraid to steal the community you need! All communities and social structures have come from one or another, born out of the need to share in order to accomplish. What follows are a few examples of actions that can inspire growth in a gaming community-

Challenges
Screenshot Contest
Offer a small prize to anyone who can capture the greatest looking or funniest screenshot from your game, or even a caption contest for an existing screenshot.

Tournament Competition
Appealing more to the hardcore segment of your community, a tournament of skill can be great fun and can generate a lot of interest.

Fan Art Contest
See who can draw the best or funniest fan art for your title and offer prizes to the winners.

Fan Fiction Contest
Let your players write up their version of events or expand the lore of the game with some fan fiction.

Game Knowledge Contest
Reward knowledge about the game world with a trivia contest.

Appeals
Target Evangelists: Same Genre
Visit the forums and fansites of games in the same genre as your title, establishing connections with them and networking with their evangelists.

Target Evangelists: Related Genre
Visit the forums and fansites of games in related genres as your title, personally offering an opportunity for evangelists to experience a greater variety.

Incite Topic Discussion
An official thread inciting discussion about a particular topic tends to garner a greater amount of attention. Don’t hesitate to shift focus towards something your dev team might want feedback on – keeping the dialogue fresh is good!

Arrange Fansite/Media Exclusive
Nothing builds fansite love faster than an exclusive interview with a developer. Proactively offer your devs and in-progress concept art and goodies as down-payments on coverage and interest.

Maintenance
Maintenance can be considered the regular daily upkeep required to keep a community intact and functioning without issues or drama. Most methods of maintenance revolve around keeping your community well informed about progress the development team is making, and keeping the channels of communication open and clear. Regular website updates with news items, frequent posting in the forums, patronage to prominent fansites, board moderation, checking up on evangelists and site owners and making sure that feedback gets to the right folks on the development team are all examples of maintenance activities.

Maintenance is the “default” mode Community Managers operates in, as they are tasked with keeping the online community content and informed. Keeping an eye on the level of maintenance in the game’s community is a very important role to consider when building up infrastructure or targeting increased growth. A drop in the maintenance can be a costly one, and difficult to recover from. Managing expectations and perceptions players have of the Community Manager and the community itself takes on an important role in the everyday upkeep. Keeping in constant touch with the community is the best way to build healthy, lasting relationships with your players and also boosts their confidence in having chosen your game to play. Here are a few examples of community maintenance.

Maintenance Actions
Read/Post on the Forums
Pay attention to the active threads in your community and offer your voice where response is needed. You represent the developer’s presence, and keeping involved lets the community know that they are cared about.

Metrics Tacking / Trends Analysis
An arbitrary function at best, metrics tracking can help justify certain actions taken to grow the community, and also display growth trends as well. Tracking referrals can also be useful for identifying isolated pockets of community that might not be receiving as much attention.

IRC / IM Dialogue with Fansite Owners and Community Leads
Being directly available to certain higher-level evangelists and site owners can help when situations arise that need immediate attention. Having these contacts close at hand can help to build strong relationships with them.

Board Moderation
Keeping your forums clean of trolls, griefers, spammers and other nuisances helps to instill a feeling of order necessary for maintaining a vibrant community.Website Updates
The best way to keep your public informed and aware is by presenting information about the latest happenings and news on the official website or community sub-site.

Town Hall-style Chats
Allowing players to ask questions in a town hall style IRC chat can help fans relate to the development team and know first-hand that their concerns are being heard and responded to.

Player Issue Resolution
Filter through the din of player feedback for valid concerns and issues, compile them, and direct them to the appropriate departments in the development team.

I'm Glad I'm Me!

2007-01-31T17:46:00.000-08:00

On April 1^st, 2004, I started the Community Relations Manager job at NCsoft. Granted that April Fool’s Day is an appropriate time for me to start a new job, the important thing to note is that, at the time, we were less than a month from launching TWO major MMO’s – City of Heroes and Lineage II. Both were launched at midnight on April 28^th, 2004.

Between trying to learn the ropes of a brand new job and trying to help out the community teams responsible for CoH and L2, I remember that month as being an extremely hectic one.

However, I think I’ve been utterly trumped.

A friend of mine JUST started her job as the Community Relations Director for Cartoon Network and, right off the bat, she gets to deal with something like this.

No matter how crazy my first month on the job at NCsoft might have been, I never had to worry about very serious men in very dark suits with very conspicuous bulges in the underarm area coming to visit me. For some very serious discussions.

Not to mention the media issues. I have an urge to hide under my desk just thinking about it…

I'm done with the RMT debate.... but before I go...

2007-01-10T19:02:00.000-08:00

I confess. I don’t really understand the RMT debate. I see lots of argument and analysis. There is certainly a lot of emotion wrapped up in the issue. Everything from psychology to sociology to business / financial analysis has been applied to it. God knows, I have been on the front lines of the RMT “war”, dealing with communities that had VERY strong opinions on the subject.

But I still don’t get it.

Behind all the endless blogging and white papers and lectures and roundtables I still just see one simple thing:

There is a substantial subset of players who will spend money to advance more quickly in a game than is intended by the design.

What follows from this is equally obvious:

Let them pay you for the privilege. They’re obviously willing to.

This is not a particularly revolutionary concept. There are a variety of companies that are doing this kind of thing already. Why are the “mainstream” MMO companies so paralyzed into inaction by this idea? And let’s not mince words, that’s exactly what they are. These companies seem caught between rule-breaking RMT companies that cause them no end of support / community headaches and vociferous industry and community partisans that vow to keep the dirty practice of RMT off the pristine shores of whatever fictional realm they happen to inhabit.

I feel like I MUST be missing some important crux of the issue. Game companies have complete control over the virtual items in their products. Gold, ISK, swords, whatever. If it’s in the game, the company can make it. If the company can make it, and there are players that want to buy it… What’s the next logical step, Economics majors?

Yes, it’s pretty simple. I’m talking about companies selling items and currency directly to players who want to buy it. And don’t tell me, “But SOE has TRIED that!” because they haven’t. Not anywhere close.

And yes, I know it’s not THAT simple. There are balance issues to be considered, the public perception to be managed, etc. But no one is even really trying. Wouldn’t it be possible to tweak a system so that rewards you get from actually playing are a tad nicer than what you could buy? Or had cool effects that buyable items didn’t? How hard would it be to set a server aside with an RMT model and let people who want to advance faster in the game pay to do it? They’re doing it already. In droves. And the methods used to get the items/currency that are being sold are a sore spot for a significant number of customers.

I’m not a designer. I’ll never pretend to be one. Well.. maybe pretend.. but I digress. Tell me what the obstacles here are. Is it the legal issues? I can’t imagine there’s not a way around that. Is it Puritanism? I know at least one industry stalwart that doesn’t think that way. Year after year at conferences, I hear that “better design will alleviate this problem” or “it’s a problem of poor design” and yet the same design is churned out over and over and over again.

I guess what I’m saying is that this issue isn’t going away and that I don’t think there are subtle answers.

Cut the Gordian knot.

The Virtues As Applied to Community Management

2006-12-04T10:05:00.000-08:00

Community Management originated well before Ultima Online, but didn’t quite emerge until the first few MMOs arrived on the scene and began to necessitate it. The need for ongoing attention paid to the burgeoning communities of subscription-paying inhabitants of these persistent worlds is still relatively new, and has gradually been extending out to encompass games with multiplayer aspects (RTS and FPSs). Ultima Online was the first big one however, and being my first experience with MMO communities, it shaped much of how I view community management and the challenges that go along with it. From Leilo to Sannio to Nomad, UO has had its fair share of CM pioneers. In that light, I thought it’d be nifty to assemble a collection of guide points for CMing, based around the old Virtues of Ultima lore. So, in no particular order, I give you the Virtues as Applied to Community Management-

Honesty
Tell it like it is, and don't be afraid to level with your audience. Only give absolute timeframes if you have to, and if you have to give them a deadline, make darned sure that you stick to it. Nothing breaks the trust gamers have for their Community Manager more than feeling like they’ve been lied to about a time or date for something to come out.

If your game has issues - and it will - being honest doesn’t mean telling them everything about what went wrong, but it does mean being prompt and up front about, and letting the attentive audience know that your team is working on fixing things or making them better. Brief, informative, to-the-point posts can mean the difference between a minor snafu and a megalithic disaster in the eyes of the gaming public.

Justice
If a community evangelist or fansite owner has done something good for you and your game, then recognize them publicly and shower both affection and swag upon them. The cost of sending off a signed copy of your game, t-shirt, mug and a personal thank-you note is well worth the satisfaction they receive in knowing that they made a difference and that your company realizes it.

On the flip side, if a member of your community is actively harming it with sour commentary, doomsayer-style prophecies or outright exploitation, don’t hesitate to marginalize that community member. A private chat via IM with the person to address and acknowledge their issues can often help turn a dissenter into an evangelist. For the more casual naysayer, proper forum discipline and liberal use of “This is not on topic” pruning by forum mods can usually direct attention towards more productive discussion.

Valor
Get down in the trenches with your peeps! Don’t be afraid to answer the toughest questions with “I don’t know, but I’ll find out for you.” There is no shame in admitting that you don’t currently know something, and your community is almost always going to have more questions than you have answers. Because you often serve as the lightning rod for public opinion for the entire development studio, a great deal of pressure can build on you very quickly when community perception shifts as a result of a news piece, game issue or controversy on the forums. Be brave and don’t be intimidated. Keep to the facts out front and keep the spin to a minimum. Bold, direct answers will earn respect for you and for your developers.

Honor
Marketing, Public Relations and Customer Service are rarely synonymous with “integrity” in this day and age, and with Community Management an amalgam of those professions, it can be very challenging to present an image of honorable intent when communicating with an audience of gamers. It helps to remember and keep to your word and always, always follow through.

Respect and praise your community members as a whole, because they will eventually react in much the same way you treat them. Don’t address detractors directly, but defend your game and developers in hostile threads with matter-of-fact statements and privately encourage community allies to back you up. Never fear saying “You are wrong, and here’s why…” but make sure to acknowledge their trepidations and offer your gratitude for their willingness to express them publicly to you.

Compassion
The industry forums and blogs are filled with drive-by developer posts from aloof luminaries more concerned with high-level vision than they are with the day-to-day concerns of their gamers. Being able to recognize and fulfill the needs of a gaming community should be one of the foremost duties of a Community Manager. They operate as the emotive online face of the game development company, and should be as approachable as possible. Lurk on the popular guild forums, they’ll appreciate the extra attention. Pop into IRC occasionally for some casual chatting with fansite owners. Make sure your evangelists have your IM info and tell you about every little neat thing that’s going on in the community or problems on the horizon that you might not be able to see quite yet.

Sacrifice
Typically, patience and sanity are the quickest things sacrificed up to the gods of Community Management. Hearing the proverbial vox populi on a daily basis at typically ear-shattering decibels can quickly jade a CM. Dealing with a large cluster of vociferous and occasionally malcontent gamers protected by the anonymity the internet provides is both time-consuming and maddening. And, unlike the developer vocations of Production, Art, Design, Programming and QA, Community Management is never actually “finished”. Understanding first that simple maxim can save a CM bunches in sanity points. Keeping that in mind, the overall objective in keeping hold of the reigns remains simple: maintain and grow the online community for your game.

Spirituality
In order to sincerely and passionately represent the developers and the game to the public, you must first play the game. That may seem like a very obvious statement, but a surprising number of community management folks don’t actually play their own games much. It is imperative that the CM be intimate enough with the game to know its heartbeat, and to be able to tell when signs in-game point to things overlooked that demand attention. It is important to play the game, even if you suck at it.

Passion and zeal are winning edges to have as a CM, and your community will be quicker to believe you aren’t feeding them a line of marketspeak when they’ve seen your nick in-game actually playing it and checking up on things. Plus, passion is contagious! If you are passionate about your games, it will show through when you write or speak about them.

Humility
As a Community Manager, you play video games. Some of those video games have communities. Some of those communities have Community Managers. When you deal with your community, bear this in mind – how do YOU want to be treated as a gamer? Mentally put yourself into their position before posting, weighing the wants and needs in communication with the interests of your developer team. A more genuine, forthright tone will pervade your interactions with the community, and will help keep your company on personable terms with its fans.

Targeted in-game events, even small ones, can help keep a gaming community active and interested. One interesting event to consider is to present either yourself or fellow developers as sacrificial lambs to engage in friendly competition with the players. These Stomp-A-Dev contests usually end in player victory over the dev, and offer warm fuzzies all around with the player enjoying the satisfying result of beating a dev team member “at their own game”.

A Personal Note

2006-11-29T19:00:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to use this blog for this kind of stuff, but of the 17 people who read it, there are probably about 4 who aren't aware of my current situation, so what the hell...

For those of you who don't know, I have taken a position as Community Director for Kaneva in Atlanta. I'm currently working there now while my intrepid wife works on selling the house back in Austin. If you're in the market, let me know!

In any case, Kaneva is a startup social networking / virtual world enterprise and thus far has been very interesting to be involved with. I’ll hopefully have reason to talk a lot more about it in the future.

We now return to our scheduled programming of RMT rants and debates about message boards.

Root Causes 101

2006-11-14T07:50:00.000-08:00

That beloved curmudgeon Lum has once again awakened the beast that cannot be fed.

... if your MMO has an RMT problem, then your MMO has a design flaw by definition. Simply because if someone is paying money - the measure, by almost any criteria, of the value of a person’s time in our society - to avoid part of your game, that part of the game is not fun. Because if it were fun, why would they not, you know, play it?

Amen.

The Vocal Minority

2006-11-03T16:00:00.000-08:00

Howdy all,

I am Alan Crosby, often known as Brenlo and I am delighted to have been asked to post here. The folks here are a smart bunch and it is a pleasure to join them and share our passion for Community.

Now to piss everyone off. . .

Forums are the Vocal Minority. Argue with me all you like, but they are. The number tossed about is 10%. 10% of your players frequent the forums. I find it actually varies from community to community with some hitting only 5% and others being closer to 20%, however that number is not the debate. We all agree that it is somewhere in that ballpark. What is open to debate, and I hope to spur some here, is the representative value of the forum opinion.

Forum posters are often the most passionate of our players. Forum posters always believe they are right and always believe they represent the whole. They can often make compelling arguments and an inexperienced Community person can be swayed by their passion, if they are not prepared (which leads into a future post on how important it is to play our products). This is one of the more dangerous pitfalls we can fall into as Community folk.

They often have extreme opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the entirety of your player base. We must always remember, my friends, that they are not the whole, nor do they represent them. Make a change based on their feedback alone and you wake the slumbering beast on the other side of the argument.

However, this by no means they should be discounted or cast aside as so many developers seem ready to do. Much as the Republican Party cannot afford to ignore the Christian Coalition, neither can Community or Dev teams discount the forum posters as extremist, overly negative crackpots.

First, they are still members of your community, who should be held dear for having that extra passion for your product. These are folks who, while they may not always admit it, are deeply committed to your product.

Second, they can be a powerful force that can be loud and often knows just who is listening. One of the quickest ways to hit Slashdot or Digg is to tick your forum posters off.

Many are also influencers, swaying large groups, outside of the forums and shaping others opinions on your product and service. Others perhaps play your game, and perhaps pay a subscription, merely to discuss the game and its mechanics while donning their Would-Be-Designer hats.

All of these are just as valuable a member of the community as the player who never posts and never asks for help. Perhaps a little more maintenance, but no less important.

Lastly they bring to you a great source of information. It requires a little more work than a developer may want to devote to it, but that's what a good Community Manager is for. There is volumes of valuable data on the forums. But much like diamonds in South Africa, it can take a little work to get to it. Dig past the "Your company sucks" and "First" posts and you can find some real gems.

Forum posters are almost always people who want to be just a little more involved with the product and that my friends, is a wonderful thing. Ignore the negative, accent the positive, value them as the loyal customers they are, but keep in mind that they are not always right.

Yes forum posters are the Vocal Minority but you ignore them at your own risk.

Dollars to Donuts: A Quick Look at RMT

2006-11-01T10:58:00.000-08:00

How much is a donut worth to you? Sixty cents, or perhaps upwards of a dollar or two for a rather extravagant one? Yeah? How about a virtual gold coin? Why does it seem immoral or wrong to pay for one to be made for you, but not the other?

Both are products that can be purchased with cash, and both are produced through a service provided. You can make your own donuts, and you can make your own gold coins. While most players do make indeed make their own in-game currency, most folks who enjoy delicious donuts do not make them themselves.

Now, before I get lynched, allow me to say that I am intrinsically opposed to RMT from a design perspective. However, as a player, I will gladly shell out a ten spot here or there for a few million gold and hours saved in an online game I’m enjoying. As a player, the value of the exchange is abundantly obvious to me. The original exchange between the developer and the player can be reduced to its basest functions- an agreement between the developer and the player is that the player offers Money for World, and the developer offers Achievement for Time. Lets quantify these abstracts a bit-

Money – Cash, of the cold and hard variety.

World – The actual game itself. Systems, features, and content. The ability to exist within the persistent state world.

Time – An invested amount of hours playing the game.

Achievement – Rewards, wealth, power and status within the game.

There are notable exceptions to this exchange, but it is fundamental in the majority of MMOs. What RMT does is circumvent the typical exchange of Time for Achievement. Instead, it allows the player to increase the amount of Money expended to obtain Achievement through a third-party, saving what they may value more in terms of Time.

At its core, this is not an issue. The old adage of “Time is money, friend!” is appropriate here, and not just for its MMO connotations in relation to the Steamwheedle Cartel. Many of the opponents of RMT are quick to jump at taking the moral high ground, stating that it is an unfair practice to employ third-world players in an RMT firm, and the stigma of the “Chinese Gold Farmer” is well known. Ironically, the bulk of RMT critics are certainly at ease shopping at their local department store. How is it somehow unacceptable that Chan the 16 year-old computer-savvy Chinese kid should be hording mooncloth for backpack creation as opposed to earning thirty-cents a day sewing t-shirts for a retail giant to sell at $10.00 a pop?

One of the often overlooked issues with RMT is the player objecting to being beholden to the “money is power” undocumented feature of real-life. The guy with the most money gets to do the most the quickest in a game where RMT is easy, as often he’ll have the most houses, the most gold, the best characters. Suddenly the fantasy game where every player enters on equal footing starts to resemble the unfairness of real life. In Ultima Online, the whole of Ice Island on my old play shard was owned in total by one very rich doctor. The bitterness of his rampant exploitation of RMT was, and still is felt by many.

The biggest issue where RMT is concerned comes not from the practices of the infamous IGE or rampant Chinese gold-farmers camping a spot 24 hours a day. Rather it comes from inherent design flaws that developers build into the game. It would seem from a cursory glance that designers haven’t quite gotten the knack of balancing virtual economies where the amount of resources collected is not limited by supply, but rather by the quantity of player time invested. Unlimited supply means that inflation must be controlled through the clever employment of sinks, unlimited black holes into which players are constantly throwing currency. If inflation is out of control, RMT will exacerbate the problem until the economy is so destroyed that the currency is devalued.

One of the best tactics is to first scale Achievement based on level of Time invested. This translates as specifying strict requirements for items and exceptional equipment based on level or skill. Binding an item to a player helps by limiting the number of transactions a segment of the virtual economy (the item itself) can experience. Durability is always a great standby as a gold sink, keeping the penalty for player death or item use in place while logically presenting a form of economic entropy posed against the unlimited accrual of currency.

Restricting the dependency of players on the value of currency can also aid in reducing the effective reach of RMT. A player is less likely to go out and buy a horse for 700 gold if he knows at Level 48 he will get one for free. A strong system-featured barter economy with emphasis on player-created items and services would go a long way to decentralizing the machinations of RMT. Let’s look into the beneficial and destructive effects of Real-Money Transfer a bit.

MMO Grandpa Ultima Online, still chugging along 'lo these nine years, has had RMT kicking around since shortly after its origin (pun intended). In the beginning, player death and a much harsher game world functioned as a great force of keeping the unlimited resources of the game from proliferating and being horded by players. Possession of one million gold probably meant that you were one of the richest people on the shard. If you were able to find someone selling a million gold for cash in those early days, you’d probably look to pay an upwards of several hundred dollars for it, if not more. Resources remained unlimited, and even then the gold sink was not large enough to completely prevent the gradual inflation that took the game into the advent of Trammel. With Trammel, the housing market that had remained stagnant for years had suddenly doubled, and with it came the elimination of player-killing. The in-game economy boomed, the currency fell dramatically in value while simultaneously eBay sales of virtual UO property and gold increased.

At current, a savvy buyer can find Ultima gold going at about $1.00 US per 1,000,000 gold coins. Is that a bad thing? Well, not necessarily. RMT took and inflated the prices of higher end items and virtual real estate while simultaneously devaluing the in-game currency. It was destructive in the sense that a large portion of high-end exchanges now occur external to the game. The aggressive real estate and rares market bolstered as a result of the RMT distended the curve in favor of the veteran horder making it difficult for the totally new player to compete for economic status.

However, in the same light, the valuation of in-game assets made the aging population of UO players reluctant to relinquish their holdings. Whereas a player can quit World of Warcraft at level 60 after partaking in the remaining consumable content and leave little mark on the game world, a Castle Owner in Ultima Online has a parcel of real estate worth a good $600 to encourage her to keep paying her monthly subscription. The boost to player retention and longevity may be a tradeoff developers are certainly willing to make.

Reduced to its base forms, RMT isn’t something to be feared like a boogeyman that hides under the bed of MMO Designers, but rather a very logical result of player demand to circumvent an exchange they find unsatisfactory or inefficient. Design the game’s economic systems with RMT firmly in mind as something to work either for or against. Acknowledge its presence and effects in the iterative process, and the results will be beneficial to both the health of the virtual economy and the community that grows up around it.

Where’s P.T. Barnum When You Need Him?

2006-10-31T22:24:00.000-08:00

I haven’t heard much news lately about the reincarnation of E3. I’m kind of curious to see what news comes out about that in the near future. I would think that there’d have to be some kind of concrete indication soon what is planned for the “big show”.

But it’s not only E3 that is due for some changes. As has been posted elsewhere (and in a more timely fashion than this post, God knows), the Austin Game Conference has been acquired by the GDC folks, aka CMP. Additionally, a new conference has been kick-started, going by the name of the Online Game Development Conference, to be held in Seattle.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve volunteered to serve as an advisor to the OGDC, though that’s neither here nor there for the purpose of this post. What I’m curious about is where these various shows are going and what the attendees of them want to see. Is there room for another conference covering online games, given that AGC pretty much went for that theme? Will CMP’s acquisition of AGC change how they run GDC? Can I fit some more acronyms in here?

In any case, I certainly hope that we see some changes in the tracks at these conferences like GDC / AGC / OGDC. Certainly GDC has typically managed to pull down some big names for lectures and seminars and such, but looking over past programs and comparing it with what AGC was doing, it seems rather repetitive. Granted, it’s a personal bias, but I’d like to see more HR content and more variety in the communication tracks, for starters.

I think that it’s not only E3 that needed an overhaul (and it’s questionable that they’re overhauling E3 in the right way, but that’s another story), but also these other shows could use some serious tweaking. And in the case of OGDC, there’s an interesting opportunity there, in a blank canvas kind of way.

Why I'm blogging

2006-10-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

Since Tisirin introduced the blog, and Greypawn introduced himself, it's my turn to hog the spotlight. I'm not going to talk about myself - much - but I do want to talk about why I'm doing this, here, in public.

In many of the links we've posted in the last two weeks, there has been a common thread - they just don't get it. "They" meaning developers, producers, publishers - whoever appears to be stifling the glorious efforts of the wise and brilliant community team. My compatriots have gone so far as to suggest, darkly, that "they" will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. I don't necessarily disagree with them, but I'm also not waiting for the revolution.

Designers have blogs, producers have blogs, programmers have blogs - they talk about the issues relevant to their positions, and in doing so, help make those issues more widely understood. They also become part of the larger community of publicly visible game professionals. Why should community be different?

What we do is not a secret - even less so than some other aspects of the industry. An hour alone with Google, and I can find out how all of my competitors handle their boards, their patch notes, their contests... it's all public. How we talk to our players is very seldom secret - I can search anyone's boards for the CM's post history in minutes. Why we do things the way we do... well, I think the industry as a whole would benefit from more discussion about this, rather than less. That's why I'm here.

I'm emphatically not here to talk trash, to air dirty laundry, or even to make a name for myself. I have a job in the industry - I'd like to keep it. And I don't really have the personality to be a "personality" - but I spend a lot of time thinking about why I do what I do, and I like to talk it out. It's a young profession, and we can't grow it if we're reinventing the wheel with every game, with every company, with every segment of the market. Let's talk about how to do it right - then we can really compete.

I'll post something original soon, I promise:

2006-10-12T12:47:00.000-07:00

Moorgard looks to his roots

Vox Populi, Vox Dei

2006-10-12T12:33:00.000-07:00

Allow me to introduce myself - I’m GreyPawn… and I’m a Community Manager. Admitting it is the first step to recovery, I’m told.

Kidding aside, I’m different from my colleagues here, in that while my pedigree certainly contains a heavily MMO-centric theme, the community I manage is based in the real-time strategy genre. This brings me to the very first subject I’d like to touch briefly on - the proliferation of community management in the games industry.

It is interesting to note that since the advent of the very first video games, communities have naturally formed around them, as they are apt to do with any entertaining pastime. Until the widespread adoption of the internet in the 90’s the scope of these communities tended to be limited by technological and geographical constraints. With the relative freedom of exchange provided by the net, communities that were relegated to the arcade or BBS were suddenly given room to grow. A lot more room.

In that iteration came some of the early communities built around the more popular releases. As the first genre-defining titles were released, the communities that naturally coalesced around them took on their own unique flavor and demeanor. As developers were further pushed by their public for more and more information and interaction, community management was born. Only until the recent advent of the MMO genre has the profession reached any kind of maturity. MMOs and to a lesser extent any game with a multiplayer aspect have much higher demand for communicating with communities.

The bulk of players in these games are no longer playing in the worlds we create, but rather living in them. The demand for assurance and interaction from those responsible for the well-being of these part-time lives of players has increased as a result, and we are seeing the effects across the board as more and more developers and publishers bring on Community Managers. Well, the smart ones, I should say. The unfortunate industry hardliners who refuse to engage their public in meaningful discourse with a unified voice will predictably soon find even their die-hard loyalists gravitating towards the more cohesive social structures of the competition.

More Commentary on Forums

2006-10-11T15:58:00.000-07:00

From What Would Matt Do?

We Get Pwned

2006-10-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

Timothy Burke writes the post we should have written

This is an excellent description of what I do every day when reading the forums - I'm embarrassed that I haven't been able to articulate it this clearly.

Same old argument, different days coming

2006-10-08T17:09:00.000-07:00

“Many can argue; not many converse”

--Amos Bronson Alcott

As seen below, there has been quite a bit of talk about the value of forum feedback in the MMO bloginati world last week. Rather than recap all of it, I’ll just point out that it is pretty much the same discussion that’s been going on for the last 8 years or so: given that only a small percentage of a game’s players post on the official message boards, how important is that feedback?

I would like to point out one thing that Raph has said before and that bears repeating, because some folks don’t seem to be paying attention. That is, and I quote: “The in-game experience and the forums and the guilds and the fan art and the rant sites — they are all “part of the game.” You ignore any given aspect of this ecology at your peril.”

That being said, let me just say how tired I am of this subject and of having this same argument over and over again. Many game companies (especially MMO companies) have a built-in, real-time customer feedback mechanism – the message boards and similar direct feedback tools (Mythic’s, for example). As archaic as these systems are becoming, it is ridiculous that the argument of “do they matter?” is still being had. With other companies outside the gaming space working hard to build brand-loyal communities, gaming companies are, on a senior-manager and executive-level, still trying to decide if they even really want to deal with them. Instead of figuring out new ways to engage customers who are passionate about a company’s products, time and energy is being wasted by having this same argument over and over again. Every day.

MMO companies, in particular, are blessed by having a customer base that is accustomed to providing loads of information to the company about their product. And they pay for the privilege of doing so. That such a resource and opportunity is, for the most part, being treated so cavalierly is hubristic at the very least.

While I have something of a Luddite’s disdain for new technical tags, such as “Web 2.0”, the fact of the matter is that there have been many advancements over the last few years in the development of tools in the community-building space: MySpace, Friendster, Yahoo 360, etc. etc. Anyone reading this knows all about those. Meanwhile, the game companies hardly embrace anything that even comes up to the standards of the old Yahoo or MSN profiles.

Instead of trying to figure out new ways to engage their customers, many game companies are, in effect, trying to figure out if they really want customers who know how to talk to them. The pointless debate sputters and staggers on. And the competition in the game industry ratchets up all the time. I can give some level of comfort to the “vocal minority” advocates, though. You won’t be around much longer to have to worry about customers who want to talk to you.

Other Folks Talking about Community

2006-10-06T07:07:00.000-07:00

There's been quite a bit of this lately. Actual commentary to follow, no doubt:

Ron Meiners on Community Managers, on Terra Nova

Raph Koster follows up

Scott Jennings talks about forums

Raph Koster, on the same subject

So, um...

2006-09-26T11:30:00.001-07:00

Thanks, Lum. Hi, all you Broken Toys folks! We'll try to be entertaining.

The Vocal Minority II

2006-09-26T09:28:00.000-07:00

As Nomad points out, the "vocal minority" argument can and has been used as an excuse not to take action on issues of legitimate (and noisy) concern by a given game community. However, this is also a perception that is sometimes fostered by people within Community Relations itself.

Too often, a CM becomes overly concerned with his/her relationships internally -- with producers, other managers, execs, etc. -- and loses track of the primary area of responsibility for the position. Of course, that "primary responsibility" is a matter of some debate, but I think that most people agree that the liaison function of the CM position, between company and customers, is at least one of the core functions of any Community Relations effort.

So, I have seen CM's themselves buying into the fallacious (in my opinion) "Vocal Minority" argument as a way to either ingratiate themselves with co-workers or to avoid confrontation about perceptions within the company versus customer perceptions. Additionally, the liaison function of a CM can be grueling, and there is always the temptation to slip out from under it and to invent other tangential areas of responsibility. However, in doing so, a CM undermines one of the primary reasons for their existence.

Engagement with paying customers is crucial for almost any industry, be it real estate or computer games. But it can be hard. And sometimes even expensive. But there is a competitive advantage there. The "Vocal Minority" meme is too often used as an excuse to avoid the work and expense. And sadly, this meme is sometime championed by Community professionals themselves.

"The Vocal Minority"

2006-09-15T15:17:00.000-07:00

This phrase is heard pretty often when talking about community management, particularly when discussing forums. It's not untrue - statistically, active posters on forums are generally a small subset of the playerbase. They also tend to represent the powergamers and the social butterflies - not necessarily your average player. So calling them a "vocal minority" is fairly accurate.

It's also toxic as hell.

The phrase is generally used by producers and execs who don't want to take seriously the feedback the CM is presenting. It's condescending, dismissive, and ultimately potentially disastrous. It's one thing to look realistically at forum feedback as compared to login polls, in-game metrics, and other forms of feedback, but it's quite another when forums are the only form of feedback you have - which is, sadly, often the case.

As m'lord Calandryll put it at a recent AGC panel, your "vocal minority" is your canary in the coal mine - if you ignore it when something goes wrong, instead of that one bird dropping dead, it will be everyone.

My New Motto

2006-09-14T08:58:00.000-07:00

Today, we take over the forums...

Empty Pavilions

2006-08-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

Empty Pavilions

Speculation abounds regarding who will fill the “big show” void left by E3’s revamp, but do the major sponsors still want to make the effort?

Almost everyone who pays attention to game conventions, or even just gaming news in general, is well aware that the Entertainment Software Association recently announced a major shift in the emphasis of the massive, controversial Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Reacting to the unhappiness of E3’s major players with rising costs and effort, the ESA is reportedly retooling E3 to better facilitate press, media and retail networking with game companies. In the process, the expo is moving away from the huge, glitzy (and expensive) displays that many companies felt obligated to put on.

Discussion of what these changes mean in the long and short term has been active on blogs and gaming news sites over the past few weeks. Comments on blogs like Damion Schubert’s Zen of Design and Scott Jennings’ Broken Toys, for example, tend to examine how E3 had changed over the years. But, more importantly, there is an ongoing theme in the overall discussion: “Who will take E3’s place as the three-ring circus of video games?”

Many alternatives and scenarios are thrown out in relation to a replacement venue “taking up the slack” for what E3 will be cutting out of the show. Maybe PAX will be more of a tradeshow now. Or could Austin Game Conference host a “classic E3” kind of convention? GDC is mentioned as well and, most recently, even CES has jumped back into the fray. Foreign game industry shows like China Joy and Korea’s G* have also been promoting themselves as E3 alternatives.

What only a few people are discussing, however, is that E3 is changing precisely because of battle fatigue on the part of the major participants of the show. Companies like Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Electronic Arts and NCsoft literally spent millions on their E3 “booths” and, based on their reactions on the ESA’s announcement, seem very happy about the scaled-back E3 planned for 2007. Additionally, a rising chorus around the game industry over the last few years decried the time and schedule disruption necessary to get a product in development “demo-ready” for E3. Some studios have placed the total time lost preparing for E3 at as much as 3-4 months of development time over the course of the year.

It’s becoming apparent that many of the larger E3 participants had viewed the effort and expense as a distraction from what they consider the “legitimate business” of the show: evaluating potential new development partners, showing upcoming products to select press and retailers and general networking with a variety of service providers, support companies, etc.
The possibility exists, of course, that eventually some other venue will provide a home for the bright lights, loud music and extreme spectacles that E3 once provided and is now shedding. However, it’s hard to imagine that the very companies who have forced this change will soon forget the time and expense necessary for that kind of production. Also, once those companies feel the effects of a suddenly and drastically reduced E3 budget, what are the odds that they will want to sink those saved dollars into doing the exact same thing somewhere else?

While many are speculating about what or who will become the “next E3”, nobody is asking the companies that would have to foot the bill for re-creating that experience. And, as everyone knows, fire-dancers, rappers and fantasy-garbed models don’t pay for themselves.

Why this blog?

2006-08-24T08:43:00.000-07:00

Why this blog?

There are innumerable blogs relating to the video game industry. Most of them cover fairly specific design and development issues, written by designers and/or developers. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

What we don’t see, that I know of, is communication from a broad section of the game development industry. Call me a masochist, but I’d love to see a QA blog. Or a Customer Support one. Now THAT’S entertainment.

But this isn’t either of those. This blog is a cooperative effort by a few Community Relations professionals, and thus I would expect it to pretty much focus on those kinds of issues, especially relating to MMO’s. I wouldn’t be surprised if things went off track from time to time, of course.

But that’s what moderators are for.