Community Management at IGDA Montreal.

On Tuesday 27 I attended my first IGDA round table gathering, I asked to be present at the Community Management topic. And it was awesome.

As a brief disclaimer, I will not talk about community management within the game, but rather “Studio – Audience”, otherwise it will be a complete different discussion, … imagine all there will be to be said about MMO’s!

SO! 

Our moderator started: “Do you think developers are talking too much or too little to their audiences?”,

I was the 6^th or 7^th person in line to answer, so I had time to inject forbidden chemicals to the obese hamster in my head and make him spin the wheel. I realized that this question embeds in essence that there is something already established about the amount of communication that a developer must/should observe when flirting with the public, therefore, such question could be (and was) dismissed with a simple “It all depends on your game” so I thought about changing the approach a little bit, “there is no such thing as much or little communication, but rather effective or ineffective delivery of your message”. So, I would reconfigurate the question: 

Are studios being effective when communicating with their audiences?

The “much or little” should be one of many characteristics of the communication plan we traced beforehand, this way our message will be as the famous soup in the story of that annoying and stupid blonde kid who ate the hungry bear’s food; “Just right”.

Now, let’s keep in mind that this talk was about community management, and under that context it does appear to make sense if we ask whether or not developers are talking too much or too little, as one of the attendees pointed out, so right here is where the line must be traced so I can build my point since it was argued that; “if the message is effective or not, it has little to do with community management, given that this branch of the studio deals with day to day communications, gives the audience a grass level view of how the game develops and keeps the social media interaction going”. To this I would say No. Not only.

My argument during the whole session was that community management should be 4 things:

1.- Equal to the PR department.

Because they both share the arena, it’s like a priest and a warrior or your ground units with sniper support or … you get the idea. While the PR people (among a million other things) will take care of the heavy media (TV, Radio, Magazines, News Papers etc.) your CM will take care of your social media efforts (also, among a million other things). It will be jaw dropping for me to be attending a strategy meeting where PR and CM are not aligned or fighting for a bone.

2.- Aligned to the marketing strategy.

Another question that was brought up by our moderator was: “What is the goal of community management?” my answer was “Drive revenue”, (even though my hamster was getting tired I managed to pull that one off). The marketing department in all its ancestral and unfathomable wisdom knows how to do this, and knows which key words, sentences, and images to show in order to bring the goods, and most importantly, what NOT to show. Every interaction of the CM with its audience should be like every move in Chess. Be that; a super geeky inside interview with your development team, a video game development diary on YouTube, or updates on Twitter, all of those should be tailor fitted to your strategy, this way you’ll avoid information redundancy and noise around the game.  

3.- A voice inside the studio that speaks for the audience.

Not only the CM will serve as a voice going out, but as a voice coming in. Posting in blogs, on facebook or listening through Radian6 is the least of the worries here.

Since we already established that the CM is aligned with the strategy, she/he will have the right tools to filter all the noise on the streets to deliver the most valuable information to the different teams inside the studio. I’m not saying choosing what should the developers know, (You’ll never know where your best idea might come from), what I’m saying is channeling the right messages to the right internal audience. A well informed, trained and judicious CM will be able to do this and also bring in new ideas to produce the best game.

4.- A cool dude twitting little secrets.

Yes, also throwing crumbs of information to the starved masses and make them know how much the studio loves them is essential.   

So; Are studios being effective when communicating with their audiences?

From what I gathered at the round table: More and more yes they are, but only those who have understood the value of the CRM and have empowered its members with a sound voice inside the studio.

This whole conversation brought more questions than answers, but we know that questions are all we need to understand the universe, don’t we?, so it’s ok. After our formal conversation inside the conference room, a bunch of us gathered at the lobby of the hotel, (between the electrical stairs and the bar to be precise) and the conversation continued. I, of course, with a fried hamster in my head had only voice for my enthusiasm for this industry and the massive amount of possibilities it has to shape our future, games are getting more dynamic, specialized and shoot closer and closer to harvest happiness right from the core of our brains. Fine detail criticism should be made to it’s cultural dynamics in order to healthily profit from it.

Amazing discussions await.