Notes

Outline

How to Manage a Large-Scale Online Gaming Community Raph Koster Creative Director, Sony Online Entertainment Rich Vogel Director of Development, Sony Online Entertainment

About this talk May seem jarringly practical Don’t share this info with your users :) Realize that you are going to need someone who is a politician

Forming the community, part I Steal it (Yes, we’re serious) Co-opt an existing aggregation of potential customers Don’t be blatant; informative, non-hype info will work if your product is solid Always be complimentary of the people you stole it from

Forming the community, part II Steal early Communities are hard to kill, they stick It’s hard (and expensive)  to steal a subscriber from someone else The earlier you lock them in the more likely they are to buy the product

The heart of the game Define your mission or goal Needs to be something that inspires passion Your early adopters are passionate people Can it in a slogan Make it a slogan that is inclusive and inviting, not domineering Develop additional catchphrases/vision statements, use them often Proclaim it passionately Frankly, you better mean it—they’ll notice if not So have the person you have talking mean it even if you don’t

Early community development You need a place for them to gather—this means web boards Consider off the shelf solutions like UBB Keep it streamlined—few graphics, quick reload Make sure it can maintain some history Give it search capabilities, profiles (avatar icons) If no money, co-opt an existing venue and pay in patronage Fan sites love to have devs post Careful—you can ruin a community via your presence

Early community team A key evangelist: someone passionate about the “heart” of the game Best if comes from one of co-opted communities A dev team member so that players feel they have access for suggestions For trickling out “behind the scenes” Moderators to keep an eye on the community Make clear the difference! Webmaster so you actually have a site

Info release Make it a ritual Establish a clear periodic schedule Stick to it Give presents (holidays good candidate) Track & coordinate ALL info releases Tidbits Articles Media FAQs

Community standards: “soft” Don’t tolerate “broken windows” Shake your head sadly and tut-tut people who break etiquette A little public punishment goes a long way Helps co-opt people onto your side, they will enforce for you Call out role models Celebrate how cool your community is

Community standards: “hard” Put them in writing right at the start Leave outs for unforeseen cases (“must follow the spirit of the rules…”) Take firm action when necessary Clear TOS Clear warnings Clear punishment The existence of locked threads helps reinforce that action WILL be taken

Reinforcing community tone You have great power Whoever you answer gets reinforced; your attention is status Whoever you ignore gets marginalized Try to seem human Corporate/marketdroid speak turns people off Use personal touches and humor Admit mistakes You have to seem human first, of course Buys you goodwill when you really screw up Be HONEST

More tactics Changing the subject Don’t answer controversies, you feed them New info can derail a distasteful topic Act aggrieved Only works if you have built trust Closing the topic Will alienate some, but will become community standard You need to have given enough effort to addressing issues

Your community composition Realize you are talking to very hardcore people Not representative of final market …but they ARE the people who generate word of mouth, so keep them happy Savvy enough to understand tradeoffs, usually Remember your silent majority

Go Live! Community now moves into the game Primary communication is still the website Keep your in-game presence to CS only except for events Provide clear channels of info Update center of some sort Patch notes Continue regular access to devs Periodic chats are a good tool You may have to gag your evangelist now

A full community team Expand to more developers Use to address SIGs Assign one to be aware of upcoming issues/testing Writers for serial web content and newsletters You want to become a regular destination Fiction: hold a mirror up to roleplay News: use to create role models “Behind the Scenes”: make community feel like they are part of a secret club

Troublemakers, type I: verbal Can they become ombudsmen? Do they have a sub-community that sees them as a leader? Do they have their own forums? Can they be ostracized? Must be seen to make public effort to communicate You’ll need to put on a show of sorrow when you fail Make comments to 3rd party about your sorrow too Do you have excuses for banning? Language is the most common

Troublemakers, type II: hackers Most are prideful Use admiration/attention as a technique to get their tools Run incognito if you can get into bug boards/etc Many will offer to help Every game that has tried got burned They will lie and hold back info Some are improving the game Cure yourself of NIH and use their ideas, or even hire them to write those tools

Troublemakers, type III: grief players Why are they griefing? A (very small) percentage is doing it because your design is broken. Fix the design. Ban them Early, often. Even if they were right about the design being broken. Be scrupulous about the legality of the ban (never seem to ban because of spite) You cannot afford martyrs

Community scaling Rule of 150 Shows up in psych, military, religion, sociology, anthropology Reflect it in your game systems Provide subcommunity identity Wannabe game designers Chatters Fiction mavens Later: specific game system mavens Clans/guilds/etc: give public bragging space

Leveraging player-generated content Major legal issues here Law is NOT settled at all Make sure you are covered under derivative works Use it as much as you can anyway Realize your brand WILL be diluted (Or pick a brand where that doesn’t matter) Showcase via website and newsletters

Listening to your community Stakeholders Post proposed changes Get SIG input Actually LISTEN and modify proposals Testing environment/server Treat just like regular game as far as CS Be properly thankful but do not create sense of entitlement Provide an ombudsman for reporting issues Integrate into QA process Strike teams work great

Understanding biases Source is self-interested Will usually argue for improvements to their role Diehard player of the role Source has particular expertise in subject Will often argue for overly hardcore mechanics Source gave up on role Extremely valuable input May just suck at it though

Feedback loops Volunteers are tricky legal territory Get legal advice, there’s still ways to do it Make volunteer-like activities rewarded Weave into nature of game (advancement for helping!) Spotlight on website Give special access They can brag about it You’ll likely get good info

Some resources www.naima.com and Amy Jo Kim’s work including Community Building on the Web Raph’s website, www.legendmud.org/raph/ Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point is a good introduction to viral marketing & how it works