Forums (even game companies need them)

Written By: Seth Crofton on May 16, 2009 No Comments

Hello All!,

Just got back from the Login conference hosted here in sunny (okay rainy) Seattle. One of the interesting round table debates was on forums. The debate in questions was should there be official company forums around ones game or leave that to third parties and or fans? One of the many interesting topics that came up was overall cost of hosting a forum as well as the feedback it generated. Apparently fan based or third part forums were usually self moderated while larger ones were moderated by the sites volunteers or paid staff. The third party/fan based forums usually had more positive feedback and support for the games they were based on while the company based forums were more negative. Now guerrilla based negative comments really haven’t made it into these forums yet (but it has been hinted at) and game companies are generally the tip of the spear in new tech on a social level so that was great to hear.

However the discussion came down to a general conclusion that the game companies (even the giants like WOW,LOTR and Startrekonline) need both company sponsored forums and fan based forums. For mainly TWO reasons.:

1: Customers service is number one(without fans to play the game why exist) and they need to have a way to reach the company and forums are a great way to do this. Twitter and blogs don’t have the same impact.

2: Fan based forums are necessary to see what fans are doing amongst themselves and a great way to have research and development done for you outside your company(no cost as the fans are doing it themselves) and a cost effective way to release information about upcoming products and reward fans with sneak peaks.

Now you may not be a game company but forums can do the same for you. Provide effective communication to your customers on your products and service as well as allowing your customers to comment on your products and services and say things they might not tell you face to face that you need to know.

Tags: companies, Conference, forums, login, Twitter, workshop