Breaking Down the Wall: The Evolution of Community Interaction

[RaychelSnr]

It wasn’t too long ago when interaction between gamers and developers was mainly a one-way street. Developers trickled information out to gamers through carefully established channels like E3 press conferences, magazine exclusives and press releases. Gamers were left to share their feedback and concerns with other gamers. Granted, you may have been able to write letters or e-mails to developers, but there was no guarantee that they would be seen by anyone.

That type of controlled chain of command slowly started to change as the Internet opened more communication lines, but only recently has the gamer-developer interaction exploded into the full-on, two-way communication that we are experiencing today. Thanks to message boards, developer blogs and technologies like Twitter, gamers and developers now freely exchange information and ideas on a daily, hourly and even minute-by-minute basis.

-Feature written by Jim Harris

Read More - Breaking Down the Wall: The Evolution of Community Interaction

[RaychelSnr]

Great article Jim! I think the community interaction has been a HUGE factor in the overall improvement in the community and with the games we talk about.

[thudias]

Nice article

[deaduck]

Re: Breaking Down the Wall: The Evolution of Community Interaction

First off, nice article about something I tend to worry about probably more than I need to.

Because I strongly believe the more vocal voices on the internet DO NOT represent the majority on almost every subject matter, it worries me to see this kind of discourse...

From the article...

"The producers and the designers are still going to make the decisions at the end of the day," Russell said. "But if we can give them the tools to help better the product [based on] what our consumers say, that’s where the win-win is. So it’s not about the hardcore community or the casual community, because that’s not what this team is focused on for our product year-in and year-out. It’s about creating the most realistic MLB experience you can. That transcends the casual crowd and transcends the hardcore crowd. If it’s authentic, everybody is going to play it."

It doesn't seem logical to me that because the casual gamer is in effect "casual", he's not represented in the antics of the internet fan who loudly types that no colored socks is a "deal breaker". But it's good to see the developers have a handle on the types of representation that is out there.

[tril]

sounds like we pay these software developers so we can be game testers. software testers usually get payed.
seriously, its a good thing to know that these developers take notice of the every day gamer.
It

[stephensonmc]

Thanks for the opportunity to interview Jim!

[19]

I think it's great that Sony is going to accept input from the community (not a large part, but still) on MLB 10. Working out all the bugs so there is no need for a post release histeria is great news.

[texbuk84]

Great Article man. It does seem as if the developers are listening. I've seen huge strides taken to rebuild the NBA Live franchise and Madden this yr seem to be headed in the right direction. I was just wondering, What made the Developers change their minds, lead them to actually start posting on the boards, and lead to them actually implementing what we say into the game? I would love to see their cognitive process in doing this!

[cepwin]

Great article! I do agree that it is more a good thing than anything. Personally I think it is great that we can provide input that, if relevant and useful, will reach the development team and often acted upon..if not in the current version in future releases. They are going to hype in certain situations (like company podcasts) but you can filter for that. (I listen to the EA Sports podcasts for the info about the games and try to ignore the hype...same thing with Major Nelson's podcast.) In short, I'm glad the developers value our input enough to go on the forums, etc.

[NoDakHusker]

Excellent article. Its good to see that developers are open to the everyday gamers ideas.
However that seems to be a missed point in the NCAA football series...

[Trevytrev11]

Besides the contstant turnover over the past few years, I think one reason that the MLB 2K series has suffered is because they seem to be so out of touch with what people want.

Before the nightmare that was MLB 2K6, the 2K team were the kind of the pioneers of community interaction for sports video games with all sorts of Q& A sessions, developer diaries, etc. Since then, that interaction has been non-existant and I think it shows in the quality of their games. Excluding this year, it seems so much of their time has been spent adding gimmick modes and features to the game that nobody wanted, that they neglected all of the little things that made baseball great, which most of us (maybe not everyone) wanted.

The ironic part of it to me is that as a community, we are basically the best possible free source available to to run ideas by, test new features, etc. and for the most part, it seems that we're over looked for internal people that don't know the ins and outs of the sport their game is trying to emulate or simulate. Because of this, it's no wonder that for several years in a row and MLB 2K baseball game has been released with glaring issues that were somehow overlooked (or noticed and just accepted) by 2K, yet noticed by us on day one.

[RoyalKing716]

Re: Breaking Down the Wall: The Evolution of Community Interaction

Great Article... Game Developers Really care bout there Game and what we think and giving ideas to them and they trying to put them in the game and making our dreams come true to me the best game they can make Overall....