You Probably Also Should Rethink The Blogging Thing, Too

Jeff Vogel, indie RPG maker, says reading your own forums is a bad idea.

This is why big, smart companies with actual budgets hire community people who do nothing but deal with and sift through forums. Managing fans is real work, and picking out the realistic and worthwhile comments takes a ton of time and judgment. That is why smart companies put a layer between the fans and the creators. If you don’t have this layer, you should keep a safe, respectful distance.

It’s a pity. My company, Spiderweb Software, has a really awesome, active online forum. Been there for years. Always active, full of all sorts of discussions. However, unless I’ve just released a game and are looking for signs of early, evil bugs, I have to stay away from it.

Some of my fans really resent this and take it personally, and they haven’t been shy about letting me know. But if you’ve ever wondered why the creators of your beloved games often avoid the forums (especially the Word of Warcraft forums, Yeesh!), this might help you to understand why.

  • http://www.facebook.com/ameggs Andrew Meggs

    To be clear, he said having *someone* in the company reading the forums is a *good* idea. But when it’s the main creative staff keeping up with it personally, it’s too easy to end up at the bottom of a very deep and time-consuming pit of contradictions. I’ve seen it happen.

  • http://Website moxcamel

    I get this sentiment, and mostly agree with it, even if I bristle a bit about the “managing fans” bit. Part of your community management team’s job is to distill into bite-sized chunks what the fans are saying and then feeding those bits like so many partially digested bugs and worms into the gaping maws of the appropriate authorities. (where the analogy breaks down, of course, is that usually the appropriate authorities aren’t so eager to be fed a slurry of fan reaction.)

    Now if Vogel’s saying that the forums are to be ignored by everyone except the community management team, well then that’s a problem. But I don’t think this is what he’s saying. You only need to look at somebody like Mark Jacobs to understand what happens when somebody who has no business being on the forums gets on the forums.

  • http://azspot.net Naum

    Lum, you still have a knack for writing catchy, witty headlines… ;)

  • http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/ Jeff Vogel

    Yay! You linked to me! Thanks.

    The title for your post seems a little cheap-shottish. I have my goals for blogging (like, say, getting attention for my tiny company), and it works extremely, extremely well for me.

    Second, the things I say track very closely with what you and Sanya Weathers have been saying about community management for some time. You guys have had a lot of influence on what I think about it. So, if you don’t like what I say, it’s all your fault. Ha.

    Finally, I really enjoy your blog, and, if you do think something I said is wrong-headed, I’d be very interested to read what.

    By the way, my forums are very useful to me, and, when people post problems on them, they do tend to percolate to me. By e-mail. I just don’t (usually) participate myself.

    - Jeff Vogel

  • Scott Jennings

    The title for your post seems a little cheap-shottish. I have my goals for blogging (like, say, getting attention for my tiny company), and it works extremely, extremely well for me.

    Dude, it was a cheap shot against myself, not you. :)

  • http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/ Jeff Vogel

    “Dude, it was a cheap shot against myself, not you.”

    Ah, got it. Please keep blogging. It gives me a break from placing endless orcs and chairs and spoons.

    - Jeff Vogel

  • http:/./ds180.net/specialk klaitu

    I don’t think I’ve ever been part of an official gaming website that had forums worth 2 poops.

    I can barely stand to read them as a customer, so I can’t really blame someone for letting his community team wade around in that kinda stuff so he doesn’t have to.

  • http://www.facebook.com/sanya.weathers Sanya Weathers

    I will say that early intervention makes a difference.

    People usually wait to hire a mod until the forums are going too fast to manage alone, and by then it’s too late and the place is such a cesspool that you’re always having to react, not pre-empt. But if you hire one (one) full time mod at the outset, you’d be surprised how big the forums can get with just that one single person working a normal 9-6 PM schedule.

  • http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/ Jeff Vogel

    We actually have a really good, helpful forum at Spiderweb, all with volunteer mods. It helps to be small. I also do occasionally need to swoop in, perma-ban the worst offenders, and say, “I own the company. I’m a bad man. Nyeah.”

    But every mistake that has been described on Eating Bees has been made by me multiple times. That’s part of the reason for my hiding as much as possible. I, like most reasonably confident, function humans with a lot of work to do, can have a temper.

    - Jeff Vogel

  • http://geldonsgaming.blogspot.com/ geldonyetich

    Maintaining my image is something I’ve never put a whole lot of effort into – I think my BYOND blog largely works to inform people just how unlikely it is I’ll ever release a game – but I agree with the theory that it’s better to be invisible than it is to give the fans something to take the wrong way.

    Because, just about whatever you have to say, somebody’s going to take it the wrong way, and the Internet has a way of putting a whole lot more somebodies in front of your words.

    Maintaining that, “safe, respectful distance” may even create a certain air of mystery that makes you all that more interesting to your fans. It’ll be cloying to those who would enjoy some acknowledgment their concerns are being listened to, but who are you more likely to sink your entertainment money into: international man of mystery, or foot-in-mouth disease sufferer?

  • http://Website Dana V. Baldwin

    We used to really pride ourselves that the production staff was so interested in the forums. We were really the CM team as well. Over time though that just fades or you get to personal with it.

    The tough part though is finding someone who knows WHAT to pass on to the team. Design, planning and QA all need that feedback.

    It’s a fine line sometimes. Too much to read so you need a filter. What we’ve done through the years is to not discourage reading and sharing but instead discourage direct feedback.

    I think you get more miles out of posted feedback and articles that one on one a hundred thousand times on the forums.

    Xenu’s Blessings on those with the strength of character and depth of perception to pull it off well.

  • http://Website Freakazoid

    He’s approaching the argument as a peddler of overpriced single player games. He is not required to listen to anyone. The nature of MMOs and its history is probably lost on him.

    But hey, he looked at the wow forums and saw them saying bad things and thought “hey people say bad things on my forum too I’m gonna write about it”.

  • http://www.facebook.com/sanya.weathers Sanya Weathers

    @Jeff: FWIW, I know about most of those mistakes because I made them :P

    And to be 100% clear, my post today on Bees wasn’t about your post or your forum (couldn’t be, having never been to your forum). I was responding to a comment thread a few of Scott’s posts back ;)