In our third interview in the series we talk to Kelly Heckman, managing editor of our site and former community manager for Horizons, about building and managing a gaming community. She'll be speaking at the convention about the types of online community resources best suited to indie game studios.Gamersinfo.net: Let's dive right in. An indie game studio has just gotten the funding for their game and is ready to hit the ground running, when should they start to set up their community and involve their future players?
Kelly Heckman: Beyond announcing they exist (if even announcing that) they should do nothing to involve community at the very beginning. To do so would only risk disappointing potential fans of the studio; should the studio be unable to complete the project, they'll not want the ire that unhappy fans carry with them.
Their first interaction should be when they've completed their design, know their core gameplay and can successfully test said core. Something sometimes called Alpha 0. As an Indie developer, the production cycle will either be much shorter or much longer than a larger studio. Waiting until they know they can deliver the basics will allow them to evangelize a core audience and use them to market their game.
If their production cycle is short, the players will be immediately engaged and excited. If their production cycle is long, they'll build more "hype" but based around deliverable gameplay.
Gamersinfo.net: What's the biggest mistake, in your opinion, that an indie studio can do in relating to their community?
Kelly Heckman: Not build the tools necessary for community management and customer service into their game. And I don't mean help files and GM calls. I don't think this mistake is limited to Indie studios, either. If you don't build your game from the ground floor up as a service, you'll be unable to provide one of the most (if not the most) crucial element of your game - good community support.
Design your tools with your community in mind. Empower your players to manage their guilds; give your GMs integrated abilities; log EVERYTHING so you can follow behavioral patterns; have multiple means of customer service; be as transparent as possible about decisions concerning players; and never be afraid to admit mistakes or make changes.
Gamersinfo.net: What's the biggest strength that an indie studio has over a big name company in regards to their community?
Kelly Heckman: Flexibility. Being small(er) allows you to react quickly to both positive and negative events. There are fewer layers of approval (if any) to wade through to make changes and often those changes can be made in a matter of hours rather than days or weeks.
Indies can also get up close and personal with their players without the risk of reprisals. This can backfire should the members of the team not have the skills or thick skin to work with community; but at the same time, players respect developers who are honest and candid.
Gamersinfo.net: Long term players have opinions galore of what would go on a “Thou shalt” list when it comes to relating to their playerbase. What would your “Thou shalt” list include?
Kelly Heckman:
Gamersinfo.net: There's a reason that the word “fan” is the start of “fanatic”. What advice can you give to developers in dealing with the more vocal (fanatical) of their fan base? Kelly Heckman: Use humor whenever possible to diffuse a "fan". Realize, even the most negative fan is there screaming about what's wrong because they love the game. If you don't have a natural thick skin or the ability to use humor, have someone else edit your posts. Take 15 minutes before responding. Or, make your response brief.
There's this unspoken "rule" of Community Management that states that you stay professional by not showing who you are as a person. In many ways I disagree with this. When I perform community functions I do so as "Ophelea" and as such I have certain standards I set - I don't rant, insult, etc. But, I also let a little of myself come through. I post on the non-help forums - General Community, Rants, Word Games. I participate. Kelly Heckman has a temper! Ophelea does not. Both have a "racy" sense of humor.
Let the players know you a little and they'll forgive you for being human. The ones that don't? Well, nothing will make them happy…but for everyone that stays unhappy, you'll have made ten players for life.
Gamersinfo.net: What are the pros and cons of having official forums? How does this compare to having fan site forums that developers are known to frequent?
Kelly Heckman: There are few cons to official forums beyond infrastructure expense and that can be offset by using players to manage an official community site. An official site allows you to have most of your information centralized, at hand and to some extent under your control. The key is: do not control what is said, only how it is said. Let people be people. Allow them the ability to show they like you as well as dislike.
Fan Sites have great potential as well. Each site has a different "flavor", a different style of visitor. Some will be more vocal about negatives; some will want to talk about lore; some want to work on economy, min/maxing and systems. The more fansites, the better for the health of your game. Unfortunately, the more fan sites, the more exhausted the members of your team will become when working to manage the community. Trying to strike a balance is often difficult because human nature tells you to go where the people are but the people go where the developers are and it's a vicious cycle.
Until you know what's out there, there's no good formula. It's something that is unique to each game.
Gamersinfo.net: How much of a priority should an indie developer put toward creating an official “brag site” for their players? A site that lists weekly kill rates, ranks players compared to one another as far as in game achievements, and other ways that a player can see how they compare to others playing their game has been something that new mainstream MMO's have been including at the release of their game. Is this because players are coming to expect such a site, or is it just “a nice feature”?
Kelly Heckman: It's completely dependent upon the type of community you want to engender. Achievement Sites tend to foster very competetive, grind-centric playstyles and that simply may not be the type of game that's being designed or the type of community wanted by the developer. And, in PvP-centric games they can cause additional problems by making the stats of the players public.
If, and only if, the game design requires competetive features in order to advance should such sites be a requirement. Beyond that, they should be used sparingly and only as a tool to boost community involvement with foreknowledge of the type of boost that will be gained.
I’ve played computer games since college, addicted first to story type games like Might and Magic. I have 3 children who also love computer games. My oldest son is a typical kid who loves the challenge of pressing the right combination of buttons and levers on a joystick in just the right way to make something happens, and frequently gets frustrated with mom’s slow fingers. ;) We use computers for both education and entertainment, and sometimes even bribery for good behavior.
The “glory days” of computer gaming for me were when games like Spectre Supreme, Pirate’s Gold, the Might and Magic series, the original Prince of Persia… those sorts of games were coming out on a regular basis. Back then I owned a Macintosh and was a die hard Mac fan. I was one of the first in my area to buy an iMac and on it learned the joy of playing games on the internet like daily crossword puzzle and “mind bender” type puzzles. My first online RPG was given to me for Christmas the year EQ was released, and I was hooked from day one. I played EQ for about a year. I started playing DaoC during late alpha testing, and was hooked on it.. well, to be honest I still am. I’ve tried pretty much every MMORPG I can get my hands on, from big names like EQ, to more obscure ones such as Underlight. I’ve been writing for IMGS since the first DaoC guide, and find I love the challenge of learning a game and presenting what I’ve learned (and sometimes my opinions), to other players.
I’m not a very strong player as far as learning PvE or quick reaction times, so I tend to stay away from games where I’m pitted against someone else in a way that requires physical (rather than mental) response. I still enjoy story and puzzle games, and in a way that’s how I still approach online games. I would much rather spend hours working through a quest than 5 minutes in combat against another player. I still get lost in simulation type games, obsessing over them until I’ve gotten them beaten. And I like being able to sit down at the computer when I’ve got less than half an hour and playing through a few levels of a puzzle game. I tend not to like first-person shooter type games, or anything with person to person violence, so I steer away from them unless they are fantasy based settings. All in all, I enjoy computer gaming so much that my life feels incomplete somehow when my computer is down.
