No, it’s not a Q&A, it’s my “managing questions” post at Modsquad.
It’s kind of funny – I let this blog go dark/dim because I felt like I’d said everything I could possibly say on the topic of community. Also, the MMO Underbelly series at MMORPG.com was completely sucking me dry.
But the Obvious Truth well apparently never runs dry. And I’m getting pings (but no jobs for remote employees, grumble crank moan) on how these little posts at Modsquad are really helpful to people doing strategic planning.
Well, yes. That’s why you hire a community director before you get into beta, after all.
Rant on: After ten years, the idea still persists that we’re forum mods – widgets you hire when you have customers and not before. You CAN hire community people that way, but you should call them “moderators.” Or you can hire someone whose job it is to babysit Facebook and Twitter, and that’s a useful job too, but that’s not a community director either. That’s a social media moderator.
Community directors DO strategic planning, tool development, customer research, and contribute to the design process both in terms of product development and marketing. We’re the glue holding the team together.
Have you tried Zenimax online media?
…and like well-placed glue, you’re usually invisible.
I think part of the problem is the whole name “Community Manager/Director/Coordinator/Specialist/Flunky.” While it started as something very MMO centric, all those same customer-focused principles are being leveraged by Social Media managers/directors/gurus for double the money and more leverage to make change. The community title allows the MMO gaming companies to scratch their heads and act puzzled about pay rates and job descriptions because this “community business” is difficult to get data on, then when they get data, its for forum mods and they want to extrapolate what a Sr. Community Manager should make from that. They can’t say the same for social media and nobody expects to hire a Social Media Director for less than $100k. We both know what major software companies think a Community Director is worth. So I say a title change is in order. There’s nothing a Social Media Director is doing that a good Community Director isn’t already doing anyhow (plus more arguably)…provided upper management is allowing them to do their job right.
I don’t know but that you might be on to something, Bob.
I too feel that “Community director” is not an accurate term of what a good MMO needs. I would think a more necessary title would be “Social Engineer” or “Social Psychologist”.
I have always felt that a good MMO game design does not often happen by accident. If it does ever happen by accident it is also quickly damaged through that same haphazard accidental methodology of design.
To design a great MMO the designers need a good social engineer or social psychologist and that social engineer or social psychologist needs to have extensive input, not just in player/company interaction or in press releases but extensive input in the games initial design as well as later changes. While I believe that many who code MMOs are often brilliant, they often are techies who are happy being stuffed in a cube in front of multiple computer monitors 24/6, as long as they have enough TAB/Mt.Dew/Cheetos (From the Youtube video “Code Monkey”).
Yes I guess that I am exaggerating about the social ineptness of the coders but those who code usually are not trained in social engineering, their primary training is in techie code.
Unfortunately most game development is ultimately controlled by one person and if that person understands the benefit of good social design in a game, then the game benefits but if that one person does not understand the delicate social structure that exists between players and the game, then what could be a brilliantly huge game is more than likely destine for a short flash and then a slow death.
I have to disagree with that John.
In terms of great MMO standards, majority of the games in this category have not included those positions into the equation. As time moves on, the importance of the game community becomes more visible with each passing year. Therefore, in respect to newly discovered demand, it’s highly possible such positions could be useful for the future of game development for tomorrow.
Additionally, I don’t see why anyone should be exaggerated about social ineptness of coders though. Coders are not designing the aspect of the game. Coders are simply assisting in the implementation phase of the creative (i.e.: following another person’s concept).
When you talk about great game designs for MMO’s, you can say a good bulk of them happen by accident. I say this because of what most game designers refer to as the “unknown” of game development. You can’t possibly know that specific data until the design has been implemented into a live environment. If we could predict all the needed data then we would never see another exploit or game tweak to any existing MMO for as long as it stays alive.
Finally, in some weird misconception of how design actually works. You managed to make a very clear point on the difference between community professionals and social media professionals. One can be seen as the chaperone or light of the party, where the other can be seen as the same. However, the priorities of discovering the “unknowns” transcend differently between both of the positions in terms of impact on the mob or platform (the game).
While some game designers are adept at intentionally providing for the social and psychological needs of their customers and a few other designers accidentally created something that worked, it does not mean that successful designers are using correct methodology to spend upwards of a hundred million in development of a new game.
You mention the unknown. It is only unknown because they are not schooled in those things that would allow such knowledge to be known. That the expertise exists to clarify many (no, not all but yes many) of their unknowns, but is not utilized or is ignored, is a terrible error. Those errors are only allowed because the industry is still new and somewhat wild west in nature but it does not need to be that way.
Game companies who are trying to build a large population MMO, who are essentially building a society, could improve the odds of having a hit if they consulted those who are more knowledgeable about what makes a society work/fail.