ENGAGING WITH GAMERS Care in the community
Passionate consumers can do much more for publishers and developers than simply buying their games. James Batchelor finds out the benefits of engaging with your audience
VIDEO GAMES have the most devoted following of any entertainment medium. Gamers queue for days to
pick up new blockbusters at launch. They furiously defend their favourite games from criticism. And they don’t just want to talk with developers and publishers – they want to get involved.
Such passion is great for the industry. Word of mouth rallies fellow fans to support each new release and their feedback, both positive and negative, can be invaluable. But the ardour of the enthusiasts holds a greater potential. Rising Star’s head of digital communications Tristram Defries says: “Traditional marketing and PR is vital when releasing a game but you can’t communicate with people in the same way you can working with the gaming community. It’s the best way to learn what our potential market are looking for and what games we can bring to the UK.” Activity through forums, Facebook,
Twitter and even the consoles themselves creates a direct link from company to consumer. The trick is to ensure the link works both ways. “Gaming is built on a foundation of user interaction – when you perform an action, you expect a reaction,” says Daniel Maher, Xbox Live Editor for Microsoft Europe and co-host on Xbox Live show SentUAMessage. “That’s the principle we apply to Inside Xbox. Our fans aren’t the passive sort – when they’re not gaming, they’re constantly on the hunt for new information, or communicating with each other via Xbox Live and other social networks.”
SOCIAL LIFE
These networks have significantly expanded the scope of community management. No longer are firms dealing only with traditional message
24 July 8th 2011
Gamers are among the most enthusiastic consumers out there and must be engaged through Twitter, Facebook and shows like SentUAMessage (inset, right)
COMMUNITY SERVICE boards, which
require time, money and maintenance to run. Instead the hard work is handled by Twitter and Facebook, making it easier to interact with millions at no extra cost. Except effort. Nick Price, community manager
at Hitmandeveloper IO Interactive, adds: “Using tools that are free is obviously a bonus but we often look to deliver something extra like apps
“
If you use social media as a cheap substitute for ads, gamers wil cry foul. Daniel Maher, Xbox
for Facebook. This can cost money, but it’s the same sort of investment as marketing. We see our community as a long-term investment.” And crucially, it’s important to remember that the community has
invested just as much emotion into games as the publishers. “We should always care what gamers think of the game they’ve bought,” says Codemasters’ digital marketing director Lizzie Wilding. “A lot of time, money and emotional vested interest goes into playing the game, and so to allow anyone to get involved with that through community and social media is very valuable.” Maher warns that companies treating social media as free advertising are doing themselves a disservice: “If you’re planning to use it as a cheap substitute for a press release, ad banner or mini-site, the majority of gamers will cry foul pretty quickly and your stock among fans will plummet accordingly.” The emphasis, then, should be on actually socialising with the fans. In this way, a more personal bond can be developed – one that must be tended to on at least a daily basis. Price says: “It’s important to constantly interact as that’s a part
Gamers are often convinced they know better than the developers – but in some cases they can turn out to be right.
Localisation firm Partnertrans, which also handles community management for some of its clients, has found that by consulting gamers, it can improve the quality of its projects. “From a localisation point of view, it is good to keep a dialogue with the gamers in regards to specific terms, bugs or generally addressing their concerns as publicly as possible,” says Partnertrans owner Iris Ludolf. “For one game we worked on, we thought long and hard about the translation of one particular new class and came up with one. The community didn’t like it at all. So we immediately participated in the discussion in the forum and explained, why we chose that particular translation and asked them what they would like to use. “Then we decided on a term that was everybody was happy with. The gamers were very appreciative that they were involved and not just ignored.”
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