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How Online Forums Like NeoGAF Influence Video Game Makers
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Mon Apr 28, 2008 1:00 pm Reply and quote this post
Tyler Malka is the 24-year-old owner of one of gaming's most belovedInternet stops. On any given day, thousands of game fanatics -- and asizable number of developers, marketers, and journalists -- take abreak from whatever they should be doing to log in to the messageboards at NeoGAF.com, a no-holds-barred WrestleMania of breaking gamenews and snarky commentary. "I like to think of it as a nexus offandom, media, and industry," Malka says. "GAFers take gaming news andissues very seriously, and you'll often see big names jumping intodiscussions and flame wars with everyone else."You don't read NeoGAF. You follow it, like a sport with a highprobability of bloodshed. The site's regulars, unpaid enthusiastsworking mainly to bolster their reputation within the gaming community,sift through the vastness of the Internet in search of any detail,screenshot, or video they can dig up about the games they love and thepeople who create them. Their work makes the site the best aggregatorof up-to-the-minute gaming news around, fueling a boom in traffic. InJanuary alone, NeoGAF scored 30 million page views from 750,000 uniquevisitors. And Malka, needless to say, is now self-employed.The site is proof that, though ancient by Internet standards,message boards are a vital part of the gaming ecosystem, providing anoutlet for passionate players to be heard by and influence industrytastemakers, creators, and deciders. It also allows them to indulge inthat most cherished of Internet traditions: thumbing your nose atauthority -- anonymously, and with as few properly spelled words aspossible.
Blood Sport
Any regular GAFer will tell you that news is only part of thereason to visit. The thing everyone's really looking for (and this iswhere the bloodshed comes in) is a scandal, a batch of bad screenshotsto joyously tear apart or a misspoken, out-of-context quote from anindustry VIP ragging on the competition. Like chum in a shark tank,these occasional events can provoke impromptu swarms of violence, pageupon page of whining, yelling, and piss taking, usually to comiceffect. Sometimes, the GAFer army manages to make so much noise thatthe din reaches the upper echelons of the industry. Case in point: InJuly 2007, Microsoft's press conference at the Electronic EntertainmentExpo featured (then new) marketing VP Jeff Bell. As GAFers watchedstreaming video of the event and posted their impressions live, Bellprovided comedic fodder, faking his way through a game of Maddenagainst New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush, after which hestiffly remarked: "You schooled me on that one, brother." NeoGAFpounced.Mike Maag ("a Master Ninja," NeoGAF poster): Thegeneral consensus seemed to be that Bell came off a bit like a used carsalesmen during his presentation. A number of posters mocked hisattempts to use "hip, urban" terms. Wes Holt ("Teknopathetic," NeoGAF moderator): I thinkthat companies didn't really know what they had gotten themselves intowhen they first started to publicize these events via the live feeds.For the most part, they're still using the same dry corporateexecutives. If they want to use the trade shows as big infomercials, abit of personality helps."Muttyeah416" (NeoGAF poster): This Bell dude sounds like a douche. Jeff Bell (VP of global marketing, interactive entertainment business, Microsoft):We like to get feedback, and we take it very seriously, but we alwaysencourage people to try and be polite. There aren't really a lot ofother industries that generate the same level of passion as videogames.For me, that was a learning curve, to understand the intensity of thecommunity and, perhaps, the lexicon and language. Mike Maag: A week later, news broke that longtime Xboxspokesman Peter Moore would be leaving Microsoft for EA. My post ["KeepPeter Moore, get rid of Jeff Bell"] apparently caught Mr. Bell'sattention. That day a new member, calling himself "bell801," wasapproved. His first and only act as a member of NeoGAF was to send methe following message: "And you're contribution to society is...what?"After site moderators confirmed that "bell801" was, in fact, JeffBell, the feeding frenzy commenced. Users quickly turned to Photoshop,plastering Bell's face over an assortment of characters, notablyVanilla Ice.Jeff Bell: The only thing I could tell you is that I'ma human being. I'm a nice guy, a father of three boys, [and] marriedfor 21 years. I mean no harm. I am, in fact, listening to gamers, andI've brought their voice into the work we're doing. Am I learning?Absolutely. Have I made mistakes now and again? Yes. Mike Maag: The entire incident was surreal to me. I'mjust some anonymous message board poster who criticized a corporateexecutive. I could never have predicted that Mr. Bell would actuallyread that post, let alone respond to it. I like the idea that someonewith influence might read our feedback and implement our suggestions.My one piece of advice to gamers who post on message boards is to beaware that the industry is paying attention to us, for better or worse.
Putting the Message in Message Board
But just how closely are they paying attention? Do marketerskeep their ear to the ground at NeoGAF and other message boards? Dothey track public reaction to their promotional efforts? Did they alltake notes when Bell got his 15 minutes of online infamy? Do they seeinside our heads?Elizabeth Tobey (community manager, 2K Games): Withthe proliferation of public-discussion places, we have a constantsource of real-time feedback that can lead to bigger and better thingsfor our products. At every level, we have people who follow the trendsclosely and pay attention to what the community takes to and what thecommunity skewers. Tammy Schachter (senior director of PR, EA Games):People at EA are gamers first, so they are reading the boards likeeveryone else in the industry. Whether in the studio or in marketing,we're all always interested in hearing what gamers are saying about ourgames and the competition. We live in an online world where anything wesay and do is disseminated on a global scale in an instant. This hasrevolutionized the way we do marketing and PR. While we are alwaysthinking about our campaigns through a digital, global lens, we do notmicromanage our campaigns in reaction to any one online moment.


The sneaking suspicion for many, however, is that paid shills lurkin the ranks of online forums, trying to shape group opinion bycheerleading for certain games.Justin Epperson ("sp0rsk", NeoGAF moderator): I'd liketo think GAFers could smell a rat, but it seems like a good percentageof them can't even smell the ones right under their noses. A while backuser "GhaleonEB" became an Xbox VIP and was given a free trip to go seeHalo 3, among other things. Instead of being cynical about how validhis opinion was, fellow Xbox fans attacked anyone who thought it was alittle fishy. Ben Caton ("GhaleonEB," NeoGAF poster): Microsoft hasan MVP program for active members of communities, not just Xbox, butall of their groups. It's basically a list that gets you invited toevents like that a few times per year. The Halo event is the only oneI've gone to; there is a big one next month, but I declined to attend.It's closer to some kind of viral program than I'm comfortable with.1UP: Do you feel like you've done anything underhanded or intentionally fooled anyone in the community? Ben Caton: When I was accepted into the program, Icontacted the GAF administration to let them know, and posted athread on the topic. I also asked for and received a tag noting mystatus. I wanted to make sure everyone knew about it and how it worked.There are, at least, two others MVPs on GAF that did not disclose.Justin Epperson: No one is safe from PR people tryingto control the message. That's a risk I think you have to consider whenusing a forum as a source for news. You have to be your own editor, ina sense.
Read All About It
Many people use NeoGAF as a one-stop shop for gaming news. Ifyou go there looking for original reporting, you're in the wrong place.But the GAFer army gathers news stories from around the Web withsurprising efficiency. So much so that many news pros keep an eye onthe site for potential material. N'Gai Croal (Newsweek blogger): A good message boardserves as a news aggregator, a gauge of what a portion of hardcoregamers deem important or interesting, and a sampling of how they'rereacting to the news in question. So scanning NeoGAF a few times a dayis like killing three birds with one stone: I can find out about astory that I wasn't aware of and/or determine how compelling GAFersthink a story is and/or measure their take on it. I might know moreabout games than one gamer, two gamers, or even 10 gamers. But there'sno way I know more about games than 100 gamers. Or 1,000. Nor can Ikeep track of as many stories as the collective forum. So as long as Ikeep things in perspective -- trust but verify -- it's one very usefultool among many. NeoGAF isn't a real news organization, but its owner has to dealwith one aspect of covering games that the pros face: publishers angryabout information posted on the site. Though you'd think publisherswould be most worried about the kind of inaccuracies that pop up in anunedited forum, the opposite is true.
Tyler Malka: It's not when inaccurate info gets posted-- it's when accurate info gets posted. Every now and then you'll seesubstantial NDA [nondisclosure agreement]-protected material get leakedand then posted on NeoGAF, and it has caused some trouble withpublishers. I've tried to be reasonable, but sometimes they open theirdialogue with threats straight out. More than once I've been threatenedwith being blacklisted out of the PR mechanisms of major publishers,which is about as hollow as a threat can get when we're not even on anyof those PR lists to begin with.
Quarter to Three: The Anti-NeoGAF
NeoGAF is certainly not the only gaming message board on theInternet. It's not even the only message board well visited by industryinsiders. Many developers who enjoy interacting with gamers onlineprefer something more low-key, and that's where the forums atQuartertoThree.com come in. Owned and operated by 1UP contributor TomChick, QT3 is a far cry from the spectacles and shouting matches of itsbehemoth rival, and that's the way its members prefer it.Tom Chick (owner, QT3): NeoGAF is a much larger forum,in terms of traffic and membership. But it's also a younger forum, in acouple senses of the word. NeoGAF is like a bunch of people in acoliseum to see a big show. QT3 is more like a neighborhood jazz bar.1UP: But for a small community, QT3 seems to have agreater ratio of developers and journalists who actually participate onthe boards and make their presence known. Tom Chick: I have no idea how it became the industrywater cooler that it is today. We inherited a lot of people from thevideogaming groups on Usenet, but I don't know why videogame writersand developers ended up there.Scott Lantz (associate producer, PopCap games): QT3 isas subject as any other place to trolling and flame-ups, but it'smercifully free of 12-year-olds and illiterate fanboys. So even whentrolling or flame-ups happen, they can still manage to be literateand/or witty.Brad Wardell (CEO of Stardock, Sins of a Solar Empire):I visit QT3 because when I absolutely, positively need to know theimportant things happening in the game industry, one quick peek at theQT3 forums will tell me. It's made up of industry veterans who alreadyknow what is going on and can discuss game industry issuesintelligently.
Audience Interaction
For game developers, public forums like Quarter to Three andNeoGAF offer a chance to interact with the audience they toil for.Trapped in the office all day, these sites provide a window into thethoughts of the everyday gamer, though developers disagree on whatkinds of interactions are appropriate. David Jaffe (founder, Eat, Sleep, Play): The Internetis an amazing tool for facilitating communication between fans andcreators. Why would I not want to communicate with folks who not onlylike the products we make, but who, like me, just love games ingeneral? The idea of being inaccessible does not work for me. I'm notlooking to be seen as ultraimportant and hard to get a hold of. I lovethat I'm just sitting here in my sunny little house in SouthernCalifornia, and pretty much anyone out there who digs games can somehowget a hold of me.
                <!-- end #content --> <!-- end #wrap -->                                                                      
                             1UP: You've never been shy about jumping into the fray inthreads about your games or interviews. Do you feel a need to defendyourself in these public spaces?David Jaffe: At the beginning, I enjoyed thesemi-shock value I would create by responding to someone who was --usually anonymously -- insulting me. They never expected me to jump inand call them out. But yeah, I would try to defend myself in the past.I used to think I could really turn the tide when someone on the Netwas bagging on me. I would just jump in there and defend and attackright back at them and really try to set the story straight. And it wasa total waste of time. The reality is: I am 90 percent responsible forthe image I put out there.Soren Johnson (lead designer, Civilization IV): Idefinitely can't keep myself from wading into a thread about Civ,especially when it appears on a non-Civ forum, as the opinions tend tobe more varied in the wider world. I will post from time to time toanswer questions. However, it's hard to know what to say, as I don'tbelieve developers should ever post opinions about their own games. Oneshould never defend a game in public. It's OK to post facts, but it istoo hard to be objective when discussing attitudes, opinions, andfeelings about games, especially your own.1UP: Do the game developers who participate in theseforums actually take the feedback they receive into account when theyclose their web browsers and get back to work? Are they influenced bywhat they read?Rob Fermier (game developer, Ensemble Studios, Age of Empires III):"Well, of course I'm influenced.... There's not much point in adiscussion if you aren't going to be open to new ideas or changing yourmind! Feedback certainly gets folded back into the churning mass ofneurons in my skull, and that in turn fuels all kinds of different gamedevelopment work."Brad Wardell: I think of QT3 and NeoGAF as a 24/7 GameDevelopers Conference panel. The comments on the forums about our gamesare taken very seriously. Both Galactic Civilizations and Sins of aSolar Empire had significant features integrated into them both beforeand after release based on feedback.Soren Johnson: Forums are a great way to getunfiltered feedback on your game, and I can think of many interestingideas and suggestions for Civ that came from the forums. With Civ III,unfortunately, most of that feedback came after release, so the changeswere only evident in the patches. To solve this problem with Civ IV, wepulled in around 100 of the best posters from the Civ forums into aprivate test session over a year before the game's release.
Site gags
Words are all well and good, but whenthousands of people are scanning a message board thread, eye-grabbingimages can communicate more. That's where visual memes come in. In thecontext of message boards, these are images or short animations thatonline communities adopt as in-jokes, a lingo that, to outsiders, mayappear nonsensical. At NeoGAF, the best of these images tend to comefrom site-specific events, as when a particularly rough batch ofscreenshots from the Xbox 360 launch game Perfect Dark Zero ignited afeeding frenzy of negative comments in the summer of 2005. Onedecidedly underwhelming screenshot featured a soldier taking coverbehind a wall. Spontaneously, GAFers began Photoshopping the image intonew contexts (other games, moments in history, random photos of kids atChuck E. Cheese) and creating animations, christening the character"Wall Guy."
Which brings us to private forums. Some developers prefer the morefocused and cozy confines of a board dedicated to just their games,especially when it comes to tweak-heavy online multiplayer games. Paul Wedgwood (owner/creative director, Splash Damage, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars):The biggest challenge one faces with community feedback is thequantity. If a player takes the time to write down his thoughts, it'sreally important to us that we're able to respond (either with a replyor by incorporating that feedback into a subsequent game update).However, it's just too much of a challenge to read every EnemyTerritory forum around the world. Further, we feel it's almost aninvasion of community privacy for us to go snooping on community forumsand interjecting our opinions.
Nerd Power
Loud, brash, and sometimes mean -- do the superactive gamers ofonline forum communities wield power over the kind of games that arepublished, how those games are marketed, or what the critical receptionof those games might be? Maybe a little? Todd Howard (executive producer, Bethesda Softworks, Fallout 3):[The online forum community] a good barometer of what "real" gamers arethinking and talking about. I can remember seeing the massive Oblivionthread [on NeoGAF] and thinking, "the game is doing well...."David Jaffe: If all you did was appeal only to thehardcore NeoGAF crowd, you'd make well-loved classics that sell about100K, at best. It's not like the sales of Sims 3 or Halo 4 are going tobe affected. But if you have a new IP, you damn well better get thesefolks behind your title because they were the ones who will get theless hardcore to give your game a shot. So as passionate gamers, theyare always important because they champion a medium we all love somuch.Tim Lewinson (associate director, Propaganda Games, Turok):The loudest, most hardcore contingents aren't necessarily the folks whorepresent the widest range of appeal. I've told more than a couple ofposters not to overestimate their influence. That said, they care. As adeveloper, it feels good to know that there are gamers who take it asseriously as I do and want nothing more [than] to enjoy a fun, engaginggame at the end of the day. That's what I want to make, and hopefullythere's a middle ground we can meet at. With axes at the ready.


DragonFable: Choose your own adventure
The upside to running an episodic role-playing game that relies onplayer suggestions to advance the plot is that, with droves ofenthusiastic fans beating down your door for a chance to contribute,you never run out of ideas. The downside? Enthusiastic fans beatingdown your door can get a little creepy. That explains why ArtixEntertainment, creator of the fan-directed, web browser-based RPGDragonFable, operates under a shroud of guarded privacy. Just trackingdown a warm body for this story was a challenge. No e-mail address forpress inquires, no PR contact. Their customer service number leads tothe ancient squeal of a fax machine. When I did manage to speak to thecreative director of DragonFable, this is how he introduced himself:"As far as anyone's concerned, my name is Cysero. I've done a good jobof keeping my real name from some really overzealous fans, and I'mhappy that way." Since launching his first game, AdventureQuest, from thedining room of his house in 2002, company founder and nick-namesake"Artix" has experienced several strange run-ins with his audience. "Myfavorite one was a young boy who offered to give me some diamonds andstarted calling my house and breathing heavy into the phone," saysArtix. "I called him back and got to talk to his dad two days beforeChristmas." Though they sometimes cross the line, devoted fans are whatturned Artix's homemade Flash game into a legitimate business. Thecompany has registered over 50 million player accounts for the threegames it operates, all free through ad support (an optional one-timefee unlocks nicer equipment). "It was always my dream to make avideogame," says Artix. "The goal was just to get 100 people to comeplay it so I could say I'd made a real game. Things went a littleoverboard."DragonFable is a valentine to those dedicated players. Asimple, turn-based, single-player RPG updated (pretty much) everyFriday with new content, the game relies on the players themselves tobrainstorm new ideas for what should happen to their characters. "Wehave a huge forum community where everyone is welcome to come in andgive suggestions and feedback," says Cysero. "We get a lot of our ideasfrom the players, and we really want the players to know that the gamesthat we make come almost entirely from what they want to see," saysCysero. What they want to see, apparently, is standard dragon-lovingfantasy fare drawn by anime-raised Americans and riddled withself-deprecating jokes and whimsical silliness. "There's a lot of swordswinging and drama to keep it going, but mostly it's bad puns andterrible jokes," says Cysero. Perhaps the most compelling "game" in DragonFable is theonline competition to get your ideas written into the world. "If you'rea player who's really into the game and you see your idea being used,it's like the biggest thrill of your life," says Cysero. Not quite asthrilling as tracking down the address of one of the game's developersand peering into their kitchen from the backyard bushes. Just aguess....

Contributed by Editorial Team, Executive Management Team
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