Why are Fdev so bad at community management?

VR jefranklin18

VR jefranklin18
Mangal Oemie said:
Look, let's be real.... "Community Management" is just the 21st century corporate speak for "PR" but "PR" itself has got such a bad rep, nobody calls it that anymore.

Community management is an empty phrase when it doesn't involve managing or engaging with the community. If anybody does community management here, it is Brett C and the volunteer mods doing a great job of actually engaging with the community.

Community Management at Frontier means speak at/to the wider community, and speak with a small group that some have called the "Cambridge Driving Club". If you're not withing easy reach of Cambridge and on the list of "friends" (including Triple Elite), you don't matter. Frontier doesn't speak with player groups about topics, unless you're part of the little in-group. That's fine, they should just admit it, instead of pretending to listen to the entire community.
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Not heard it called that before but it seems to generally fit. Frontier espouses equal engagement but there has always been a "first among equals" attitude, and if your names not on the list, you're not getting in.

Best community management team? Must be on the basis of the 24 hr charity stream each year, which is often hilarious. Throughout the rest of the year? Crickets and crisis management when the forum blows up.
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Given the silence recently, I think the crisis management part has been binned. There seems to be an attitude of "they'll run out of steam eventually".
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
TheSynopticVision said:
About the -- frankly uneventful livestreams -- it really doesn't take much Google-fu to discover this pretty exhaustive article (and Gamesindustry.biz is a very reputable source) clearly titled How to create a successful developer livestream.

The article's conclusion goes:



I mean, I am a random guy with no experience in community management, and yet I am able to see how this is good advice (keeping in mind that Livestreaming is "a tool for marketing and expansion.", not to "make friends with players"). How is it that a large company like Frontier, with CM professionals, cannot come to the same conclusions?
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Interesting, as I read that quote thinking 'that's exactly what fdev do'. I guess you came to the opposite conclusion somehow - people eh?
 

amigacooke

amigacooke
Factabulous said:
Interesting, as I read that quote thinking 'that's exactly what fdev do'. I guess you came to the opposite conclusion somehow - people eh?
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A common mistake I see, even with Triple-A titles, is developers who refuse to answer the most popular questions about their game. If you don't know when you will release, informing your fans about your development process rather than telling them "we will have info soon" is much more effective. If you don't have concrete info, giving approximations on things like how many hours of gameplay, how many characters will be available at launch, and similar is very effective, and your fans will reward your truthfulness with loyalty.
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You think FDev tell us about the development process rather than say that news will be coming soon?
 

TheSynopticVision

T
Factabulous said:
Interesting, as I read that quote thinking 'that's exactly what fdev do'. I guess you came to the opposite conclusion somehow - people eh?
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Seriously?

"If you don't know when you will release, informing your fans about your development process rather than telling them "we will have info soon" is much more effective"

Do you need an edited collections of all the snippets when the answer was: "nothing to announce at the moment but keep an eye on all the social media platforms"?

Or, conversely, can you produce examples of the last time they gave actual details about the development process of a given feature? Like "yes, the Thargoid ships are coming along nicely, but we are still trying to resolve an issue with the AI that controls the swarm, because at the moment they follow the wrong path, and that might take another month or two".

Sometimes they show previews of features, yes. But that's not the same as discussing the development process, and being forthcoming with progress made and obstacles still to overcome.
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
TheSynopticVision said:
Seriously?

"If you don't know when you will release, informing your fans about your development process rather than telling them "we will have info soon" is much more effective"

Do you need an edited collections of all the snippets when the answer was: "nothing to announce at the moment but keep an eye on all the social media platforms"?

Or, conversely, can you produce examples of the last time they gave actual details about the development process of a given feature? Like "yes, the Thargoid ships are coming along nicely, but we are still trying to resolve an issue with the AI that controls the swarm, because at the moment they follow the wrong path, and that might take another month or two".

Sometimes they show previews of features, yes. But that's not the same as discussing the development process, and being forthcoming with progress made and obstacles still to overcome.
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lol - misread the quote! nvm, more info soon ;)
 

Lordxenu

Lordxenu
Certainly seems to have started a lot of debate!!

I would say that there have been a couple of suggestions that I want Fdev to tell me everything or that I have a "right" to know.

I just want to clarify this is absolutely not the case I just wanted to raise the discussion about how they, in my opinion, get community management so wrong. I have no right to know and Fdev have no obligation to tell me.

I've had my money's worth and if they close the game tomorrow I can't really complain but, it's like buying a car you have no "right" to the cup of coffee they give give you, you have no "right" to the salesman answering your calls on demand and you have absolutely no "right" to the mats you insist they put in the car but if the dealer gets this right you call it a positive experience if they get it wrong you shout from the rooftops about how terrible they are.

For me CM in live service games is exactly this does it change my game experience? no not at all does it change my view of Fdev? yes absolutely I bought planet coaster just because I thought Fdev we're superstars of game development I didn't buy JWE because I lost that faith.

Does this mean Fdev should change? no! it's their business but I think customer feedback on this element should be raised.
 

Jukelo

Jukelo
sorcer3r said:
Well, Warframe / DE plays in its own league. Every two weeks a dev stream and almost daily sneak peeks on social media.
They just made a great game and their F2P model allows them to work always on new stuff.
Community management must be a dream for a game which never goes into maintenance mode.
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More accurately, their F2P models REQUIRES that they always work on new stuff and constantly keep the community engaged.

On the other hand if a game is in maintenance mode dev streams would be kind of embarrassing and newsletters would include a lot of terms like "exciting stuff " and "next weeks". ;)
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I'm baffled at what people call maintenance mode these days. If I took a months-long work order from a client and they were nagging me for not doing much because I haven't sent them a snippet after a few days, that would actually be the last contract I take from them. And FCS, this is Frontier we are talking about. They haven't discussed their development process before it's ready to be thrown at the media since the kickstarter and early 2015 days. Do you expect them now to tell you all about what they're doing, a year and a half at least before they release it?

Stop with the tamper tantrums already. And knowing what is coming wont make the wait any shorter.
 
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gooddoc

gooddoc
Lordxenu said:
For me CM in live service games is exactly this does it change my game experience? no not at all does it change my view of Fdev? yes absolutely I bought planet coaster just because I thought Fdev we're superstars of game development I didn't buy JWE because I lost that faith.

Does this mean Fdev should change? no! it's their business but I think customer feedback on this element should be raised.
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Funny, I didn't buy Planet Coaster, because I wasn't interested in it.
I bought JWE because of Elite & thought it may be something that the grandkids would like.

I'm disappointed in JWE, I haven't had my money's worth out of it & haven't played on it since the last chapter of Beyond was released in Elite.

As for Elite, I've definitely had my money's worth, even if I HAD purchased a LEP - but I don't do LEP's, I take my chances that the developer's will add to the game & will pay the top price should I like what they then release. So far I've shelled out around £110 on products & cosmetics.

Personally I think that FD have been given a 'free pass' in their lack of information (& updates) being released, due to the community lead DWE2 expedition.
With a large amount of players busy on this venture, FD don't really need to add to current content, not until the trip has concluded (my opinion only!).

As I home in on Beagle Point my dilemma is....

Do I take a long journey home because there's nothing of interest to me in the bubble & the next major update is the end of 2020.....or...

Do I return to the bubble with haste & play other games because the next major update is the end of 2020. Still pondering on whether to buy NMS!

It's only the DWE2 trip that got my gameclock ticking again, as prior to the last Beyond update I'd stopped playing.....I can see the same thing happening again when I've returned from the expedition. That's mainly down to lack of information about future game content, but also the game content itself.
 

TheSynopticVision

T
gooddoc said:
Funny, I didn't buy Planet Coaster, because I wasn't interested in it.
I bought JWE because of Elite & thought it may be something that the grandkids would like.

I'm disappointed in JWE, I haven't had my money's worth out of it & haven't played on it since the last chapter of Beyond was released in Elite.

As for Elite, I've definitely had my money's worth, even if I HAD purchased a LEP - but I don't do LEP's, I take my chances that the developer's will add to the game & will pay the top price should I like what they then release. So far I've shelled out around £110 on products & cosmetics.

Personally I think that FD have been given a 'free pass' in their lack of information (& updates) being released, due to the community lead DWE2 expedition.
With a large amount of players busy on this venture, FD don't really need to add to current content, not until the trip has concluded (my opinion only!).

As I home in on Beagle Point my dilemma is....

Do I take a long journey home because there's nothing of interest to me in the bubble & the next major update is the end of 2020.....or...

Do I return to the bubble with haste & play other games because the next major update is the end of 2020. Still pondering on whether to buy NMS!

It's only the DWE2 trip that got my gameclock ticking again, as prior to the last Beyond update I'd stopped playing.....I can see the same thing happening again when I've returned from the expedition. That's mainly down to lack of information about future game content, but also the game content itself.
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As I like to repeat: ED is the only game where the community does more (free) work for the game than the developer does.
 

sorcer3r

S
Jukelo said:
More accurately, their F2P models REQUIRES that they always work on new stuff and constantly keep the community engaged.
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Both is accurate. It just depends on the point of view. Anyway, what matters is that warframe is a great example how devs could do a great job in PR (and everything else ;) ).


Jukelo said:
They haven't discussed their development process before it's ready to be thrown at the media since the kickstarter and early 2015 days. Do you expect them now to tell you all about what they're doing, a year and a half at least before they release it?
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At least the lack of infos about the QoL changes is irritating.
There was a time were we had dev diaries and newsletters. Instead on going this way frontier decided at some point to close this door.
One reason might be that they had just not enough resources to deliver and show enough content (if we look at how long they needed for season 2 and how the quality of that content was)
 
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