Community Management: Thou Shall Not Lie

I recently attended SIEGE 2010 in Atlanta, GA and one of the reoccurring themes I was pleased to hear from public relations professionals, marketers and community managers was the importance of “being genuine with your users.” This includes not only being honest when you’re caught red handed, but also means you have to be open with your users about potential issues.

As Sanya Weathers recently explained, sticking your head under a blanket and hoping nobody notices your mistakes isn’t good community management. You have to be open with your community: apologize and address the issues. Expanding further, it’s not enough to just address the issue; you have to honest about it too. Trying to cover up your mistakes with excuses and lies is only digging yourself deeper.

To anyone that has worked in community management, this probably seems like a no-brainer. Unfortunately, some companies find it easier to fabricate a story as opposed to trying to explain their way around mistake or uncomfortable situation. It makes sense that the temptation to lie would arise. After all, you don’t want to reveal something that could tarnish your company’s image. But lying to your community is actually significantly more dangerous than telling the truth.

You think you can lie and get away with it? Don’t count on it! Never underestimate your community. Your most hardcore users are watching everything you do and somehow manage to find even the smallest, most secretive updates to your site. And in this time of exploding social media, your secrets will spread like wildfire through Twitter and Facebook they’ve come to light. You can’t contain it. The obsession and dedication that you typically value from your community will be the very thing that brings you down.

There’s always a chance that you’ll be able to get away with your dishonesty, but is it really worth the risk? Of course not. It’s disrespectful to the people that you depend on for your product’s success and it’s setting you up for drama if (or when) they find out. When your secrets come to light, you risk angering your community, damaging your reputation and losing users.

One of the primary duties of a community manager is to handle communications with your user base. This relationship is necessary for helping you gain feedback about your product and keeping your users informed. A community manager needs have earned the respect of the community, be able to relate to the users and talk to them at their level. If your users don’t trust your community team, then your community manager is totally worthless to you. Even a small lie can severely damage the relationship between your community team and users, so I can’t emphasize the importance of honesty enough.

Everyone knows that some information can’t be shared with your community. Your users might not like it, but they understand the concept of confidentiality. However, there’s a big difference between withholding confidential information from users and outright lying to them. Whatever you CAN tell your community, you SHOULD! There’s no need for secrets. As an added bonus, having an honest and open community team allows you to control the release of information and keep rumors and exaggerations at a minimum.

Lying might seem like the easy way out of a tough situation, but being honest, apologizing and admitting to your mistakes is the best way to keep the trust of your community. Not to mention, if your company truly values their users, then the least you can do is be upfront with them. A good community manager should be able to handle a community crisis and should be empowered with the ability to be truthful when these situations arise.

StarCraft II Choices

I finally started playing StarCraft II, which is obviously an amazing game. I'm addicted to playing and loving the new units and story so far. Anyone that knows me probably also knows that the original StarCraft is my favorite game of all time.

Although, I admit I have one complaint - the choices. As an RPF fan, typically I love being offered alternate paths and having the freedom to impact the game, but this isn't really one of those cases. I hate permanently missing out on a potential upgrade just because I chose to research a different upgrade. As a strategy game, shouldn't I be given both options and allowed to strategically decide at the time which best suits me?

I'm also not a fan of how the story progresses. I don't really need several options about which mission to do next. I'd much rather KNOW which mission comes next both story-wise and difficulty-wise. Giving players the option to jump around and choose how they progress just seems to break the story up. Ideally, I'd like to have various options about how to proceed, but I want enough direction to make a decision about how to do it.

Still, I'm not done with StarCraft II so I'll reserve my judgement. And either way, I'm thoroughly enjoying the experience so far.

Facebook Game Addiction

For the longest time I had avoided playing any Facebook apps. After all, I'm not really a big Facebook fan in the first place (The site is unorganized and confusing if you ask me and I'm just not super social anyway).

Despite my efforts, I was apparently just putting off the inevitable. Everyone I know seemed to be playing SOMETHING on Facebook and they were constantly encouraging me to give it a try. And as a gamer, I found myself growing more and more curious what the fuss was all about. I decided to give it a whirl and test the waters. I wanted to see what was out there, why people liked it so much, and why the gaming industry was going insane over it!

Naturally, one of the games I started off with was Farmville. I mean, over 70 million people are playing Farmville, so there must be something to it, right?

I made an effort to limit the number of Facebook games I played so that I could still keep some sort of a life. Of course, that didn't last long. I started logging in multiple times per day and made sure that checking the status of my Facebook games was one of the first things I did in the morning and last things I did at night before bed. I even dished out some cash to purchase virtual currency for some games.

The more I played the more time these games were stealing from me. I would login and waste hours doing monotonous tasks such as feeding my fish or harvesting my crops. When I was only spending a few minutes per day playing, it wasn't so bad... but as your game expands to new levels you end up killing more and more time. Easy to see how people end up blowing HOURS in these games.

Making it all worse, what was I gaining from this whole experience? No, these weren't real fish I was feeding or real crops that I was harvesting, so there's no 'real world' benefit. And unfortunately, I wasn't even having fun playing these repetitive games any more. I finally came to terms with this and decided to stop wasting my time playing a game I don't even like. My test was complete!

It's really easy to become addicted to these games. All of your friends are constantly harassing you to play them through Facebook requests, they're easy games to pick up and play, they prey on your instincts to care for things like plants and pets (you're always thinking "oh, I had better water my crops!" and "I bet my virtual pet is hungry"), it allows you to compete with your friends and work on achievements, and they're attached to Facebook... and everyone is on Facebook.

Of course, this is all severely exaggerated. I was never one of those crazy people logging in at 4AM just to make sure my crops were still alive and I never dropped my offline life to make sure my virtual fish were healthy. But the point remains the same - these games are easy to get addicted to and many people continue to play them NOT because they are fun... simply because they are addicted. Sadly, this takes the enjoyment out of gaming and turns it into a chore!

Don't get me wrong, there are some really fun games out there and the social gaming trend is leading to some really great breakthroughs in the industry. I'm still exploring the realm of social gaming and will keep on enjoying what it has to offer. But I think I'll avoid the addictively un-fun games for a while. :)

Free Realms Rant

So after finally getting some time to play around with Free Realms after the BIG update last month, I don't think I care for most of the combat changes.

It's much more fast paced, now, which is nice. However, battles are so easy there really isn't any challenge or strategy in it anymore. The additional powerups are neat in theory, but with battles being such a breeze, I never really need them. I miss all my cool, old abilities as well. Attaching abilities to weapons is a nice touch, but unless you really look close, it seems there isn't much difference from one ability to another.

Who knows, maybe I just need to go explore some harder battles.

Facebook App Games

Well, I may have finally given in. I have to admit, I've never been much of a fan of Facebook (despite me being logged in right now).

Anyway, it seems that everyone I know is addicted to some sort of Facebook game. I've played a few, but have never really put much time into any of them. I think my brother may have finally convinced me to give Farmville a second try.

Any other suggestions for games? I've tried Barn Buddy as well and so far I think I like it better than Farmville.

We'll see how it goes...

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays!

I've been busy traveling, visiting family, shopping, and all the normal holiday stuff, so I haven't been updating much. However, I have been able to log-in to Free Realms from time to time and collect my daily Christmas presents.

That's it. Just wanted to check in and wish everyone a Happy Holidays!

Vampire's Assistant

I saw Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant last night.

It was silly and very cheesy, but surprisingly entertaining. If I was literate, I'd consider reading the books. Don't expect anything too serious out of it and you'll probably enjoy it. It's not as kid appropriate as I expected, though...

New Free Realms Comic

Just picked up the latest issue of the Free Realms comic, which comes with a code for a cool in-game item. The item in this issue is a re-usable healing item, so it's pretty handy... and better than the sword in the previous issue in my opinion.

I still haven't read the previous issue. Maybe I'll do that today...

On a side note, the I mentioned the Free Realms updates as of late. The game seems to be running really poorly for me lately and I've run into a few bugs. Although, the updates are awsome so I guess I can live with it.

Ponyo

So I just got back from seeing Ponyo at the theatre. If you aren't familiar with it, Ponyo is the latest animated film from Disney and Studio Ghibli. And if you aren't familiar with Ghibli, they're responsible for animated movies like Kiki's Delivery Service, Howl's Moving Castle, Nausica, and Princess Mononoke.

Ponyo wasn't exactly my cup of tea... it was much more like Kiki's Delivery Service than it was like my personal favorite Ghibli film, Princess Mononoke. However, it was a cute, high quality animated film. Probably better for the young ones, though.

My opinion? Better than Porco Rosso (which I couldn't even sit through) or Kiki's Delivery Service, but far inferior to Princess Mononoke (no shame there, though, most films are) and Spirited Away.

Links: http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/ponyo/

How I Feel Right Now...

Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!!

(Star Trek references are always good...)

Ummm.... Evony!?

This is the strangest banner ad I've seen for Evony yet. The previous one that was plastered all over the internet was a bit silly as well, but this takes it the a whole new level.

I mean, the ad doesn't give a single detail about the game. I played a little bit of Evony a while back and I don't recall ever seeing any scantily clad women during my adventure. Of course, I didn't play a whole lot of the game since it's a tad confusing and not very exciting... so who knows what I missed...

Either way, this just looks more like an ad for a dating site or a sex hotline than it does an ad for a fantasy, city building game. Somebody needs a new marketing department. Then again, I see ads for Evony everywhere... and here I am talking about it. So, maybe they've accomplished their goal?

Grrr

Ugh, soooooo frustrated right now. Long story, but not really something I can share right now other than the fact that it relates to work. I just needed to get it off my chest.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There. I feel at least a little better now.

Missing Magic

I just realized how long its been since I played Magic: the Gathering. Wow.

I used to play a ton back in High School and early College and had amassed a very large collection. I think the main reason I stopped was because I've moved away from all of my ol' Magic buddies after college.

The other big reason is because I think I just got overwhelmed. I was a bit obsessed with Magic and bought a lot of cards... tried to keep a pretty massive collection and acquired cards from each new set. But they kept releasing so many cards, so many sets, so many new card types, and a wide variety of zany abilities... it just became too big of a hassle to try and keep up with it. By the time I managed to collect a good amount of cards from one new set and learn their abilities, it seemed like TWO new sets would be released.

Either way, I've always been very passionate about Magic. It's a great game, and even though I don't actively play, I consider myself a pretty big fan. I had jumped into Magic Online a few times... maybe I'll sneak back in there for a little bit and see what I've been missing. And perhaps I can reconnect with some of my old Magic buddies through there.

Free Realms Safety Observation

So I just realized in Free Realms, players under age 13 cannot chat at all. Wow, that totally stinks for them. Although, from what I've observed, Free Realms isn't a horribly chatty game anyway. Obviously I'm over 13, though, so I didn't notice this restriction earlier.

But, it makes perfect sense. By keeping the kiddies from being able to chat, they're also preventing them from being able to give out dangerous personal information, such as age, location, phone numbers, email addresses, or any means to contact someone outside of the game. Sure, harassment and vulgarity are issues in any virtual world, but the release of personal information is the real threat because it allows potential predators to contact kids online and lure them to an unmoderated environment.

Yet at the same time, taking away chat from kids isn't limiting the experience for the older users by imposing a super strict chat filter or dictionary.

Free Realms has some obvious safety features for kids, such as a number filter, usernames that have to be approved, and the lack of chat for those under 13. Although, in a lot of ways it seems more like a traditional MMORPG that has made itself "kid friendly" as oppossed to a full fledged kids virtual world. A lot of virtual worlds out there take it to the extreme one way or another, and as a result scare away plenty of potential players... they're either too strict with child safety restrictions, thus scaring away older players, or they're too liberal with their safety policies, which makes the game unsuitable for children.

It broadens the audience so everyone can enjoy it whether you're young or old. So adults who are looking for a user-friendly, free to play MMO can really enjoy Free Realms just as much as the kids that need a safe experience.

Of course, I'm sure all the kids are just going to lie about their ages. So, it problably doesn't really matter anyway!

My gaming rant

Recently finished a review of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. The game is tons of fun to play. Maybe not quite as good as the original, but definitely worth picking up.

The majority of my free time has been split between Free Realms and Habbo Hotel. I have to admit, Free Realms has really surprised me. I'm addicted to exploring the world, going on quests, and working to level up my character. I took part in the Open Beta and really enjoyed my experience with it, but after they deleted all of the Beta accounts, I was a bit irritated and quit. However, I liked the game enough that I knew I wouldn't be able to stay away for long. I still haven't bought a membership, but I've been thinking about it. Had they not cleared my account after Beta, I'd certainly be a member.

In Habbo, I spend most of my time simply earning achievements and decorating my home. I mostly keep to myself since the game is filled with punk kids. But I do have to admit they come up with some REALLY creative rooms in Habbo. I think I like Habbo because I see glimmers of VMK in it from time to time. The communities are totally different... Habbo has an older audience, less strict rules, and no Disney cutsie-ness. But functionality-wise, there are obvious similarities. Habbo is one of the very few virtual worlds I've been willing to dish out some cash to play.

E3 is in just a few days. I have to admit, over the last year or so I've been out of the loop a little bit with the gaming industry. Just been a busy year, I guess. Before my previously mentioned Puzzle Quest review, I don't even remember the last review I did. Hopefully more coming soon. Seeing all the E3 news makes me miss it a lot. I didn't miss it so much last year, since last year's E3 was a joke... but now that it's 'back', I wish I was there. Too busy with real-life, though. Oh well. Hoping to hear some good gaming announcements.

While I do miss reviewing hundreds of games, attending press only gaming events, and getting early access to tons of games, it's also nice to just take my time and play games for the enjoyment of playing a game and not for the purpose of analyzing it later on. Just gotta learn to balance it, I suppose.

Free Realms Quick Impressions

Ok so keep in mind these are all first impressions based on about half an hour of gameplay, but....

Free Realms rocks.

I just finally signed in with my Beta access account and I have been thoroughly impressed. The game is running great for me considering it just recently went into beta, the graphics are beautiful, the world design is enchanting, the gameplay is very intuitive. It's very cute, yet obviously has some depth to it. Much more interesting than simple virtual worlds like Club Penguin. From my first few minutes here, it looks like the kind of game that an MMORPG player would want to introduce their kids to.

There's a great tutorial at the start of the game, so at least jump in and check that out. I'll post more detailed impressions once I've had the time to get more into the game and experience the deeper details.

Free Realms and Wizard 101

I don't know a whole lot about this upcoming game... but I have to admit it instantly grabbed my attention as soon as I visited their site. I'm a sucker for fantasy, and I've been spending a lot of time with virtual worlds for kids lately. Oh, and an upcoming card game? Cool! Free Realms definitely seems interesting! I signed up for their Beta... but am stuck waiting. :(

Anyway, check it out, looks neat! http://www.freerealms.com.

I've also been thinking of checking Wizard 101, a Wizard-themed MMO for kids. I signed up a while back, but never actually got around to playing. I'll probably finally log-in for the first time once I finish this post, so I'll let you know how it is.

What to play?

I must admit, I've been a bit burned out of my regular virtual worlds lately. So, I'm looking for something to play.

I turned to a few older games that I have sitting around (one for PS2, one for PS3), but neither really grabbed my interest. I'll admit, I haven't really gotten hooked on any games for a while. I really enjoyed Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which I played back in January. But since then... eh, nothing grabbed my interest.

I don't feel like jumping into something long and epic.... maybe something easy and mindless instead? Maybe a good action game. Hmmmm....

Time for Gaming?

It's been quite a while since I've done much gaming outside of casual games and a handfull of virtual worlds for kids (Habbo Hotel, Garden Party, etc.). A variety of reasons for this, I think.

As much as I love gaming and my Xbox 360, I think I overloaded myself a bit last year. I played a ton of games, and several of them were rather long, dull and overall mediocre. At that point, gaming was starting to feel a lot more like a chore than a form of entertainment. Blue Dragon was one of those games... it's a long and plain old average game and as much as I struggled to make myself want to play it, I just couldn't. One day I'd like to go back to it, though. As you can see from my GamerTag, the last game I played was Halo 3, which I'm also not a fan of. I liked the original Halo just fine, but after that I lost interest in the series... but, what kind of gamer would I be if I didn't play one of the biggest releases of the year? I played through it and didn't particularly enjoy it, which probably didn't do much to help my burnout.

Secondly, my Xbox 360 has been having a few technical problems. I'm sure this is something I can easily fix, but I haven't gotten around to it since I've been a bit burned out anyway.

Third is work. I started a new job back in April and it's kept me somewhat busy. Fortunately, I really like the job, and since we're developing a virtual world, it conveniently allows me to fill some of my gaming needs.

Recently I started playing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Other than a few glitches, I'm really liking the game. Of course, I may be biased because I've always been a huge Star Wars fan.... at least, a huge fan of the old stuff. The new trilogy just lacked the depth of the originals and focused waaay too much on the action and CGI and not enough of characters and story. Oh well.

I've got a rather large pile of games I've been meaning to get to and my burnout resulted in me missing on a LOT of games... Xbox games, Xbox 360 games, PS2 games, PS3 games... and a Wii game or two. Not a fan of the Wii, obviously. I doubt I'll get through all of these games anytime soon, but I might as well get started!

Starcraft 2... a trilogy?

Without a doubt, StarCraft is my favorite game ever made. A superb storyline, awesome characters, deep and balanced gameplay, and three fascinating and unique races... it's just a great game!!!

Obviously I'm really hyped about SC2 (although, I'm not much of a PC gamer so I expect I'll need a new computer to play it). Up to this point my only fear wast that I was so used to the ol' StarCraft that playing this "new, fancy looking StarCraft" just wouldn't be the same. Could it possibly live up to my enormous expectations? Of course, I can deal with change and Blizzard has a history of making great games. So that fear was minimal.

But now, I unfortunately have a new worry... Blizzard just announced that StarCraft 2 will... be a trilogy? Each game will focus on one of the three races. WTF?

Obviously this has the potential advantage of MORE STARCRAFT! W00t! As a huge fan of the game, I'd be lying if that prospect didn't get me excited. On the other hand, I also don't want to have to pay for 3 separate games, which is what I'll need to do to see the whole storyline and as all three races. Sounds like a scheme to pull in more cash, huh?

Not to mention, I'm horrified that I'd have to purchase all three just to get the full multiplayer experience of all three races and their unique units and abilities. Of course, this hasn't been confirmed, but it's scary to think that I might have to keep dishing out more and more cash just to be competitive. Naturally, I expect to see bonus features in an expansion and I also realize that these features should be limited to those that purchased the expansion (like in Brood Wars)... but I DON'T expect to see gamers DEPRIVED of features just because Blizzard wanted an excuse to divide the game into three parts. This could hurt the perfect balancing that the original StarCraft had and really limit the online play.

Oh well, I guess we'll see how it goes. Clearly this has me worried because it inspired me to finally update, which is something I should do more often. Read about it below:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20603