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Players who post, posters who playOctober 5th, 2006 |
Tide’s Horizon and Lum are both talking about this, but I am frankly a little loath to. I don’t want to come across as criticizing, since that’s not really my intent. But lately there’s been a spate of discussion about what community relations is, whether forums should be run, etc.
As you may know, I have fairly firm opinions on this. But that’s not what I want to talk about just now… and really, what I am saying has little connection to the actual original thread that kickstarted the topic yet again. Edit: since the preceding sentence was apparently not clear enough: this post isn’t about SWG or Chris Cao’s statements. It could just as equally apply to Linden Labs switching to a blog mechanism for communicating to their users, or really any company that sees forums as an adjunct to to the world. Please don’t hijack the discussion to debate a given game’s management.
The question is really about constituencies. There’s folks on the forum who play the game first and foremost, and post only occasionally. There’s folks who live with a foot in both worlds. There’s folks who are far more interested in the forums than in the games proper. There’s the stats that show most people just play and never visit the forums. There’s the marketing data showing that loud voices indelibly shape the public perception of a game.
The first thing that I think we need to realize is that we’re misperceiving the issue when we frame it that way. The question isn’t whether 80% of people don’t read forums, or whether vocal minorities are also influencers, or any of that. The fact is that by putting this software out there, we’ve created something a community accretes around. 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.
In other words, “posters who play” and “players who post” is a false dichotomy. They are both in your product’s orbit even if they aren’t paying you. They just “play” your product in different ways. People who watch Smallville, people who hoard old Lois & Clark DVDs, people who admire the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons, people who read the comic, people who saw one or other of the movies, people who buy the lunchbox, people who read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, people who have a vinyl figure of Supes on their desk or a big red S on their underwear… they are all in the orbit. The guy with the briefs may well never consider picking up the comic. He is still, in a weird way, a Superman customer, a possible Superman community member. (Possibly, his member is a member. Ooh, did I just write that?)
Of course, they will have varying levels of quality of input for your purposes. The folk who just want to make machinima using your client will have a radically different agenda from those who want to run powerlevelling services. And as operators, we have goals of our own for the service that may say that machinima makers are pretty far down on the list of people we feel the need to cater to (you can’t make everyone happy, after all, and you have to choose what need your product is designed to satisfy).
Just don’t ever forget that the quality of the content these subcommunities provide is only variable from your perspective as an operator. From their own perspective, it’s all top-notch. Yes, even that of the folks who do nothing but flame — they are playing their game using your toys, and they probably feel quite good about it as they do it. In their mind, they are just as important as any other constituency, and they won’t let you forget it.
And of course, at some point, you may find that it’s those machinima dudes that land you on South Park or something. You never know when your will get added value from a constituency you devalued.
If you choose to ignore “posters who play” who value the forum game more than the game itself, you’ll get just as much bad word of mouth as if you ignored any other constituency of that size. The key lesson here, common to all forms of design, is that you are probably wrong about the end uses to which your product is put. It is almost certainly used in ways you nver imagined, and for every new use, there’s a new audience whose needs you are meeting. To put it in business terms, a new group of customers who feel happy with your product.
It may be true that having forums is just a big money sink that provides a hellish pit of whining and contradictory drivel. But you should have them anyway, because it is evidence that you are actually listening. It is the equivalent of posting your phone number, directly comparable to meeting someone’s gaze across a table. It’s inviting people to come over to your place to catch up on what’s going on in their lives. Telling people you’ll plant bugs in their houses instead (aka “monitor the fansites”) is not really an acceptable substitute, though you should of course feel free to go visit from time to time.
If the issue is that you would really rather not listen, then, well, it’s just a matter of time before you aren’t around anymore, so you’re irrelevant. Companies who refuse to take note of customer needs eventually fail to meet those needs. (Edit: FWIW, I think none of the current VW operators have this mindset. Several of the social networking sites seem to, however, and my comments apply equally to them).
All the other debates are mostly gravy. In some ways it is actually astonishing that we still have these discussions, because there have been several extremely successful community relations programs run and the positive effect on the bottom line has been easy to see. They all shared a whole host of common characteristics. Industry best practice, at least to date, isn’t that hard to ascertain. What is needed is refinement of methods. For example, we know that part of best practice is to be sure to gather data from all the constituencies you can. The open questions should be about the how, not about the why or whether.
In the end, when you create a product — any product, really — you are tossing a bit of dust into the atmosphere. Infinitely varied snowflakes form around that bit of dust, and you don’t get to pick what they look like. You just deal with the aftermath, and in many ways, the grain of dust is the least important — certainly the least beautiful — part of what gets created. You bust your ass to make the best grain of dust you can, but point is the snowflake, because you design for users’ needs, and the snowflake is what they want to do. And sometimes, their need is to have a good reason to bitch on boards.
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[...] Here’s something interesting. I was so utterly frustrated with SWG after spending most of the day thinking about the state of crafting that I just couldn’t bring myself to stay logged on tonight. Then I read this: http://tidehorizon.blogspot.com/2006/10/unnecessary-post-soe-swg-dev.html And this: http://www.brokentoys.org/2006/10/05/playing-the-boards/ And this: http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/10/05/players-who-post-posters-who-play/ I have a lot of respect for the people who post these blogs, all for different reasons. It’s very interesting to read these, especially today after my little rant about "meaningful communication". Maybe Chris Cao and the rest of the people at SOE should pay attention to what their colleagues are saying._________________Trace Silverhawk - Weaponsmith, Smuggler Alts: Darice Starshadow - Master Shipwright Varina Llaspe (Apprentice Weaponsmith) Jhaime the Wanderer “Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit…” “There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain…” [...]
[...] Comments [...]
[...] Now comments even here. [...]
[...] Posted: Friday, 06 October 2006 04:46AM lol, SOE reminds me of those devs over at Dark & Light. "Its the players fault our game sucks" This brings up a good discussion though. "Forums & Feedback" I liked this editorial,Click HereOf course Raph Koster had some things to say about SOE. Click HereEdited By Vanive on 10/06/06 04:07 [...]
[...] Eine eigentlich ganz gut auf den Punkt gebrachte Überlegung über das was eigentlich so alles zu einem MMO dazu gehört. Denn das "Spiel" hört nicht auf wenn man auslogd, es geht in den Foren weiter, auf einer anderen Ebene die aber mitlerweile genauso dazu gehört. Auch wenn über 80% der Spieler nicht regelmäßig Foren lesen, werden sie indirekt davon beeinflusst. http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/10/05/players-who-post-posters-who-play/ __________________ ka was ihr habt … ich kann das :p [...]
[...] And Raph’s Response, a MUST read… also color coded on page 12 of this thread… [...]
[...] http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/10/05/players-who-post-posters-who-play/#more-743a MUST read:but to give an preview:QuoteThe first thing that I think we need to realize is that we’re misperceiving the issue when we frame it that way. The question isn’t whether 80% of people don’t read forums, or whether vocal minorities are also influencers, or any of that. The fact is that by putting this software out there, we’ve created something a community accretes around. 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…Just don’t ever forget that the quality of the content these subcommunities provide is only variable from your perspective as an operator. From their own perspective, it’s all top-notch. Yes, even that of the folks who do nothing but flame — they are playing their game using your toys, and they probably feel quite good about it as they do it. In their mind, they are just as important as any other constituency, and they won’t let you forget it…Companies who refuse to take note of customer needs eventually fail to meet those needs. [...]
[...] Raph’s Website » Players who post, posters who play | 05-Oct-06 at 9:05 pm | Permalink [...]
[...] Players who post, posters who play - o kontaktach z klientami i tym, co powinno znajdować się na forum gry. [...]
[...] Raph Koster’s Website has an article up called “Players Who Post, Posters Who Play” that makes the case that gaming companies should have online forums for the user base, even for the user base that is primarily about posting in the forums versus playing the game. [...]
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/10/05/players-who-post-posters-who-play/
[...] There’s been quite a bit of this lately. Actual commentary to follow, no doubt:Ron Meiners on Community Managers, on Terra NovaRaph Koster follows upScott Jennings talks about forumsRaph Koster, on the same subject [...]
[...] Raph Koster: “All in the Orbit”Posted Oct 6th 2006 3:15PM by Akela TalamascaFiled under: Odds and EndsRaph Koster, game designer and writer of A Theory of Fun for Game Design, has posted on his blog about the continued debate over the usefulness of forums. What he’s talking about here is not strictly about forums, but rather about the communication that forums (or fora, to use the correct term) engender, and how important that is.He also ties that notion in to the larger issue of perceived value. In this open letter to game/world developers, Raph insists that the uses to which users will put your worlds are not always in line with your intentions as designers, but that you’d better pay attention to them anyway. The key word here is community. People, even those who complain most bitterly about the game, are still your users, and they’re using your product because they choose to. You need to support that as much as you can.It’s a good article, and worth reading (it’s fairly short), as well as following the embedded links, which lead to related posts.(Via Raph’s Website)Permalink [...]
[...] Raph’s Website » Players who post, posters who play In talking about the different constituencies of a game, I see another view of how virtual worlds merge into the real world. (tags: mmog social) [...]
[...] This topic got out quick hehe They even got burnt by Raph Koster for this unprofessional act. http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/10/0…sters-who-play/ [...]
[...] [Delete this Post] I thought this was very timely;http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/10/05/players-who-post-posters-who-play/I note that Second Life is abolishing their forums and moving all debate to the blog format. I think that this has some legs, actually.We are going to roll out a ooo and PP blog soon, and may be able to fairly easily support players creating their own blogs. This would be awesome. I don’t think we’ll be able to kill the forums, but it sure is tempting sometimes! [...]
[...] Roughly 80% of the people who play (SOE Game) never read these boards. We know this from our own internal metrics and it poses an interesting question. Are we talking to people who play the game or posters who play the boards? I don’t mean to imply that the people who post here don’t play the game. Far from it. There are thousands of well-constructed, thoughtful, and insightful posts from people who obviously know the game very well. Just read a few lines of these gems and you’ll realize that, first and foremost, these people care about the game. Their focus is the game. I think the lion’s share of the profession feedback in the last couple publishes is a fantastic example of these players who post. But, at the same time, these boards are constantly cluttered by the reverse. Posters who play. They use these forums to lash out at others, criticize wantonly, and generally feed their own egos. They regularly attack devs and moderators, clinging to past wrongs and imagined slights. They focus on themselves instead of the game. To them, the boards are the real game. As devs, we aren’t here to play the board game. An interesting claim to lay to a consumer base. So how do you make a forum comprised of "Players who Post"? I mean 3rd part and community run sites lack many of the tools developers have in which to enlicited the type of behavior modled by "Players who Post", and already we’ve seen and I’ve very quickly said goodbye to a few of the "Posters who Play". For those of you whom are into this sort of thing, here’s a few links of the MMO Dev Blogsphere. Ralph Koster Scott Jennings Rob Meiners Ralph Again I think I’ll add to the rules, "If you feel the need to throw another stone, indulge a rant, whine, pick apart another poster, argue a dead point, rules lawyer, quote ancient history, or engage in any of the other classic board game moves, you can expect to get frowned upon here at WHA." __________________ Garthilk Site Manager Warhammer Alliance "The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence." [...]
[...] favourite Dev.. yeah Ekic http://mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm?thread=97699&bhcp=1 i don’t really want to talk about it much, i only posted this here to add something to that “we are going to hav a brighter future” picture be sure to read Raphs comment on it: http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/10/05…ters-who-play/ [...]
[...] Ale nie to jest głównym problemem. Ostatnio rozgorzała dyskusja na temat feedbacku jaki otrzymują developerzy gier poprzez swoje fora internetowe. Jednym z pierwszych artykułów w tym temacie były Players who post, posters who play oraz artykuł z Gamasutry które prezentowałem już wcześniej. W połączeniu ze statystykami zaprezentowanymi przez SOE można by dojść do wniosku, że rzeczywiście to co pojawia się na forach może być bardzo daleko od tego co sądzi większość graczy. Dyskusja ta toczy się na wielu stronach i blogach na całym świecie. Jednym ze świeższych i ciekawszych artykułów jest Playing The Boards. [...]
[...] SWGStraticsVoice - 9:16 AM PDT | Posted By: RainStar We’ll start off with quotes from the Austin Game Conference that were found on Gamasutra.comGordon Walton of Bioware Austin::… You’re all a bunch of whiny little b—-es. We’re all victims of the guys with the money! No. Guess who signs up to make the game. Guess who along the way decides to change things. … Guess who won’t stand up and lose their job rather than ship s–t. I put myself in there. I’ve done that. I’ve made bad decisions … many more times than most people here in this room … I think the challenge here is, are we agents of our lives, or are we victims? We’re talking about, oh, it’s going to come from the top down. Well guess what, if nobody will work for those schmucks, it’ll come from the bottom up. … What are they going to do? They don’t know how to put it on a disc. …The other thing is, we’re not holding up our end. Somewhere along the way we caved and promised something we couldn’t deliver. So you can’t say it’s the other guy, it’s some other motherf—er. No, it’s not. Everybody in this thing is responsible for what happens. Every single person on the team had a opportunity to do better. And I’d like to see more people think about how they’re going to make it happen rather than sit up and rant and b—- about it.Rich Vogel of Bioware Austin:Looking out at E3 this year, there is nothing innovative coming out in the next three years, and that’s pretty sad.Scott Jennings, senior designer at NCSoft:Players are like “ravenous locusts,” and while Blizzard releases patches with updates to the game regularly, they’re not as accessible as they ought to be. The system “is best described as, ‘Let’s make something so frustrating, people will just post the damned patches for me,’adding that he had a FilePlanet account just to download new WoW patches.Part of our primary service of an MMO provider is providing the damned MMO. The second part is just being there – letting customers play when they want, as expected, instead of waiting in line – something else WoW doesn’t always provide. Further, MMO services should provide respect in the form of competent relations with its players, treating them as people rather than piggy banks. Raph Koster, formerly of SOE/SWG:Content isn’t worth a damn. What is of value is the relationship between the consumer and the producer. Being good is no longer an exclusive. In a hit-driven business, the epitome of success is to be the Beatles or Elton John, which means having a consistent record of making blockbusters, or almost never screwing up, of always earning out reliably and of doing this over the course of decades. Those people are so rare they are the dodo, and their share of the audience as a percentage of the population is shrinking.The goal instead should be to be the Grateful Dead. You don’t want to be the number one hit, you want a relationship so that you can ding them over and over and over again. The band’s t-shirts may make more than their recordings.SOE’s John Blakely and Todd Fiala: Don’t make our mistakes.John Blakely: …..But what I would have done differently was be more sensitive to the target audience. The audience you launch with is the one you’ve got.Chris Kramer, Director of Corporate Communications at SOEIn late winter through early spring, SWG was one of SOE’s biggest gainers in terms of new players to a live game, coming through both the trials and through new software purchases.Jason Ryan, the Events Manager for SWG:We’ve had great responses from the players. The last two patches were player initiated bug fixes and lingering issues. The Expertise system is going in and has been well received.Alan Crosby, Director of Community Relations at SOE:Players have been very upbeat on the forums and the questions are mostly about the future and what the game is about moving forward. Now we go to the SOE/SWG site where Chris Cao made the boards light up….. The Game vs. the Boards by Dev Chris CaoRoughly 80% of the people who play SWG never read these boards. We know this from our own internal metrics and it poses an interesting question. Are we talking to people who play the game or posters who play the boards? I don’t mean to imply that the people who post here don’t play the game. Far from it. There are thousands of well-constructed, thoughtful, and insightful posts from people who obviously know the game very well. Just read a few lines of these gems and you’ll realize that, first and foremost, these people care about the game. Their focus is the game. I think the lion’s share of the profession feedback in the last couple publishes is a fantastic example of these players who post.But, at the same time, these boards are constantly cluttered by the reverse. Posters who play. They use these forums to lash out at others, criticize wantonly, and generally feed their own egos. They regularly attack devs and moderators, clinging to past wrongs and imagined slights. They focus on themselves instead of the game. To them, the boards are the real game. As devs, we aren’t here to play the board game. We’re here to play, and to make, SWG.The upcoming chapters will see the remainder of the profession expertise systems implemented. We have a lot of work to do and the feedback from players who post is going to be invaluable. You aren’t going to like every decision we make and we understand that. We have a limited resources and time to accomplish all that needs to be done. But, as I’ve said before, we will be here (on the boards) and we will be listening. If you’re up for a focused discussion of ideas, we welcome you and you can bet you’ll have our attention.If, however, you feel the need to throw another stone, indulge a rant, whine, pick apart another poster, argue a dead point, rules lawyer, quote ancient history, or engage in any of the other classic board game moves, don’t expect us to pay attention. We have better things to do.We have some SWG to make. Chris Cao Editor’s Note: To say The game vs the boards thread got a lot of responses from the community would be an understatement.Raph Koster’s post on his his personal website, part of which says this:Tide’s Horizon and Lum are both talking about this, but I am frankly a little loath to. I don’t want to come across as criticizing, since that’s not really my intent. But lately there’s been a spate of discussion about what community relations is, whether forums should be run, etc. As you may know, I have fairly firm opinions on this. But that’s not what I want to talk about just now… and really, what I am saying has little connection to the actual original thread that kickstarted the topic yet again. Edit: since the preceding sentence was apparently not clear enough: this post isn’t about SWG or Chris Cao’s statements. It could just as equally apply to Linden Labs switching to a blog mechanism for communicating to their users, or really any company that sees forums as an adjunct to to the world. Please don’t hijack the discussion to debate a given game’s management.Here is the rest of what Raph had to say on that matter.That’s it for this edition of interesting quotes and posts. [...]
[...] Why, therefore, is the question of what forums are good for such a perennial issue? Why, in particular, do many developers seem to exhibit varying degrees of hostility to forums as a source of information, and cast them instead as a tool for "community management"?I’m thinking about this question again because of an outbreak of cross-blog conversation between some of the usual suspects in response to SWG developer Chris Cao’s irritated response to the SWG forums. [...]
[...] I’m thinking about this question again because of an outbreak of cross-blog conversation between some of the usual suspects in response to SWG developer Chris Cao’s irritated response to the SWG forums. [...]
[...] A few comments from my friend Chris Cao have ignited a bit of controversy, with Lum and Raph chiming in, among others. Though I moved from community management to design a while ago, being involved in the goings-on of communities isn’t something you can ever really walk away from. Just ask the two guys to whom I linked. [...]
good idea. As a matter of fact, if you’re aren’t doing this, you’re losing out on a big resource. More on this later. You’d also do good to keep in mind that the posters that visit your forums often consider that as much a part of the game as the quests: Just don’t ever forget that the quality of the content these subcommunities provide is only variable from your perspective as an operator. From their own perspective, it’s all top-notch. Yes, even that of the folks who do nothing
A few comments from my friend Chris Cao have ignited a bit of controversy, with Lum and Raph chiming in, among others. Though I moved from community management to design a while ago, being involved in the goings-on of communities isn’t something you can ever really walk away from. Just ask the two guys to whom I linked.
[...] Prince for Whatever (emprint) wrote,@ 2006-10-12 10:51:00 Go play? On RPG forums, you see a lot of arguments about people who play games versus those who “just” read them. They go like this:A: “This game sucks! The magic system is broken and the setting has holes in it you could drive a Mage Revised thread through.”B: “Whatever. If you’d actually played it, you’d know your mother sucks cocks in hell.”C: “I play it, and it makes my group want to hold hands and have singalongs! My players and I ignore the magic system, because I’m too dumb to figure out how it works.”D: “These games are about fun! By which I mean playing D&D!”B: “C, shut up about that Forgite bullshit.”D: “This game encourages railroading, anyway. I like the freedom of deciding whether or not to check for traps.”B: “D, your conceptions of what an RPG can be are too narrow. Something that can’t be said about your mother.”MOD: “B, this is your warning: do not violate Rule 6: ‘Respect other posters’ mothers.’”(For what it’s worth, I’m usually C.) All of these people are trying to define each other out of the argument.But aren’t they all actually involved in the game? Yeah, they are. Which brings me to some interesting comments from Raph Koster, former designer for UO and SWG. He was talking about MMOGs, but they apply to us, too:In other words, “posters who play” and “players who post” is a false dichotomy. They are both in your product’s orbit even if they aren’t paying you. They just “play” your product in different ways. People who watch Smallville, people who hoard old Lois & Clark DVDs, people who admire the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons, people who read the comic, people who saw one or other of the movies, people who buy the lunchbox, people who read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, people who have a vinyl figure of Supes on their desk or a big red S on their underwear… they are all in the orbit. The guy with the briefs may well never consider picking up the comic. He is still, in a weird way, a Superman customer, a possible Superman community member. (Possibly, his member is a member. Ooh, did I just write that?)Thoughts?(Read comments)Post a comment in response: From:Anonymous OpenID Identity URL: Log in? LiveJournal user Username:Password:Log in? Subject: [...]
Last week, the big discussion digesting across the blogointestinal tract was drama on the SWG official boards. Tide’s Horizon kicked it off here, Lum responds here, Raph responds here, and Abalieno (who I thought had quit but apparently hasn’t, not that I’m complaining!) throws in his 2 eurocents here. I already ranted about how official boards are a bad idea back in March, here, and
[...] Lt. their copying SWG, which made alot of bad choices, and eventual turned into the lifeless shell it is today. Their following the same maximize your return scheme, SOE/LucasArts did. check this blog, about how forums are "bad". http://mythicalblog.com/blog/2006/03/23/forums-are-bad/ then when your done with that if you have the time, read this one from Raph Koster, SWG’s lead designer (before he got fired) continues to watch the MMo scene from a distance fring off rounds of wisdom. it’s a bit of a read… but worth it ! http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/10/05/players-who-post-posters-who-play/ - - - - - Huh.. what.. what… ?!?_________________Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. Some people wonder what happened. [...]
[...] Example B, Raph links it as discussion about whether forums should be run: Tide’s Horizon and Lum are both talking about this, but I am frankly a little loath to. I don’t want to come across as criticizing, since that’s not really my intent. But lately there’s been a spate of discussion about what community relations is, whether forums should be run, etc. [...]
[...] Hehe… http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/10/05/players-who-post-posters-who-play [...]
[...] a billion fansites out there. There’s many virtues to having an official forum (and I have written about them before), but there’s also a lot to be said for encouraging a diverse ecosystem of sites. More Google [...]
[...] you IRL too, and the place they bring the fight is on the message boards. Kinda goes along with the recent debate over whether the forums and chat are part of the [...]
Broken Toys Eating Bees Freddy’s House Na Fianna Dragun Persistent Illusionist Prydwen.net Ralph’s Website The Daedalus Project Zora’s Corner
[...] target! In his honor I will posts link's to statements about his post! [...]
[...] who visit the forums do so in search of information about the game in question. The forum regulars, those who play the forum game, are a minority of the player [...]