InsaneBear

Our Adventures: PAX East Day 1 Liveblog

Keep checking back throughout the day for updates!

-Just arrived at the “What the heck is a community manager?” panel, a little late, so I missed the speakers’ names.
-Naughty Dog’s community manager is talking about his responsibilities. Involve fans through forums. Multiplayer feedback,etc.
-Insomniac’s CM is speaking now. Started out programming the website. As time went on more people came under his responsibility and they were able to do more things like podcasts and such.
-Capcom’s CM is talking now. He became the CM because he always wanted to work on Street Fighter. All of them have talked about gaining the respect of the rest of the team–programmers and artists and designers don’t always understand just what a community manager does, but once they do, it’s a big happy family.
-CMs help determine what goals are realistic when developing a game. Weigh cool ideas that fans suggest vs. what’s financially feasible.
-One of the hardest things a CM has to do is explain to fans why certain features can’t make it into a game without going into technical details.
-The GiantBomb crew subtly walked in a minute ago. I told Ryan to take a picture but he wouldn’t. They left, so this must be a lame panel. Also, Jeff was wearing a bandanna over his face.
-CMs need to sift through fan feedback to find the constructive feedback hidden amongst a sea of rage.
-Insomniac’s CM “just ignores petitions.” They pay attention to emails, tweets, FaceBook comments, and other direct forms of communication.
-Arena net’s CM is discussing how the feedback that’s most likely to get a response is the logical, unemotional feedback.
-Capcom’s CM often uses forum polls to gauge interest in ideas. He also says that CMs make themselves easily available to fans who want to voice their ideas. That’s their job.
-Naught Dog’s CM is talking about the backlash that came from an Uncharted 2 patch that changed damage modeling months after the game released. He says the best way to deal with backlash is to just be open about why changes were made.
-Insomniac’s CM says that personally responding to forum rants can really calm the storm. “Being honest is really key.”
-Capcom’s CM differentiates CMs from PR. CMs don’t have to tow the company line. It’s their job to speak for the fans, so if something sucks they need to acknowledge it sucks.
-Crazy fan stories time! “I’ve ended up in a furry video chatroom once.” – Insomniac’s CM. Now he’s talking about people who call the offices everyday to try personally complimenting the writers. CMs have to handle situations like this nicely.
-Arena net’s CM is telling a story about a fan who found out that she was having a bad day, so the fan sent her a present a couple days later. Thankfully it wasn’t a furry costume.
-Insomniac’s CM is now talking about how if you want to write about games for a living, you need to start out by hanging around forums, writing, and getting to know the community.
-Naughty Dog’s CM highlights the importance of developing an individual voice.
-Arena net’s CM says journalism is one route to community management, as it’ll develop and hone your writing skills.
-Capcom’s CM says he was in the “right place at the right time.” He hired one guy right off of Xbox Live because he was a regular in the community and he ended up bringing some awesome art skills to the table. It’s a matter of some luck, but also persistence.
-The moderator comments that the CMs at Media Molecule got noticed through the levels they built.
-Now onto the question of upward movement from the CM position. Insomniac’s CM says his passion is interacting with the fans and that he isn’t in it to advance into a development role. The CM field is growing, though, and more positions are opening all the time.
-Arena net’s CM says “Different community managers have different roles at different companies.” Community management is a new field even outside of video games, and nothing’s really set in stone yet.
-Capcom’s CM says CM is “secretly the best job in the video game industry.” CM is marketing, but most marketers don’t realize this. “This is not only an awesome job, it’s the future.”
-Insomniac has five CM positions. Naught Dog has just the one, but they’re looking to hire another person. Arena net has three CMs, each working on a different language. Capcom has four CM spots.
-Q&A: This should be interesting. “Red shirt guy” – He’s a CM himself. Wondering who the panel speakers answer to in their respective companies. Do they set marketing strategies?
-Insomniac’s CM is independent, answers to president. ND’s CM answers to co-president. “We’d love to be integrated with marketing plans.” Arena net answers to customer support department. Capcom’s CM says “Be aggressive, go as far as you can.”
-Next question: How do you deal with corporate pressure?
-Capcom’s CM says “prove that you can have success and they’ll leave you alone.”
-Next question – Asking what you can or can’t say when the people above you try to restrict your speech.
-Insomniac’s CM offers that if you absolutely have to submit to the higher ups, just be honest with the community and say that you can’t say anything about the issue at the time.
-Next question: There are loud noises so I didn’t get the gist of the question.
-Yeah…
-Next question: What’s the next step to communicate with fans after Facebook, Twitter, etc.
-ND’s CM says to give the fans a way to express their voice–forums, wikis, etc.
-Arena net’s CM says you need to have a focus for each outlet you’re using for exposure. “Why do you have a Tumbler, why do you have a Facebook?” Don’t spread yourself thin.
-Capcom’s CM says “Don’t open outlets you’re not going to feed.” It looks bad if you have unupdated outlets.
-Last question: Didn’t hear it, but Insomniac’s CM said “We’re probably responsible for announcements of announcements.”

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Tags: arena net, capcom, insomniac, naughty dog, Our Adventures, pax east 2011, sony, uncharted 3: drake's deception