Online Community Management

Gamasutra offers an op-ed by former MMO community liaison Wera, explaining how often social community is what hooks people into MMOs just as much as gameplay does.

Community management in video games is a new way to think about the communication between a publisher or developer and its customers. Most closely associated with MMO games, it has scattered very fast to all genres of gaming, including through modding communities and popular online multiplayer games.

In the past, publishers may have thought that the most important task was to sell boxed software. In this age of ubiquitous internet socialization, it would be unwise to release a game without allocating resources to communication with the community.

If the people who play your games feel part of something bigger — a network with its own rules, its own stars and its own language — they will be less likely to move to another game, because they will remain loyal to where they belong. Just as it can be difficult for someone to leave their country, it can be hard to quit a community.