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Community managers, we just wanted to say thanks

Microsoft versus Sony, Battlefield versus Call of Duty and Forza versus Gran Turismo. These are some of the rivalries that can get people talking about console wars. “Game On or Game Over” is your place to get inside the minds of Nicholas and Andy as they seek to find the true meaning of gaming and tackle some of gaming’s most controversial subjects. Both are award winning authors – although the awards haven’t been mailed or created yet — but trust them. Would they lie to you?

Andy: The past couple weeks we have spent a lot of time talking about the positives in the gaming industry. We’ve covered a lot from how far games have come, certain things that we take for granted and overall things that we really appreciate in and around the industry. After thinking about our conversations these past few weeks, it dawned on me that neither of us really talked about something in particular. It’s funny because what I want to talk about this week, at least the start, is something that’s really a huge piece of gaming right now.

It’s something that’s there when things go right, and it’s there when things go wrong. I of course, am talking about community managers/social media people. When you think about it they have to be a jack of all trades – they have to be able to troubleshoot issues, calm angry gamers, encourage others and celebrate successes and keep the interest in their particular games. A really good CM can be an absolute godsend to gamers. They are an extension of the game to many people so often they are the first line of contact. Yet, a bad CM can help kill a game and any hype for it.

Before I get up on my soapbox this week I just wanted to start things off on a broader scale. In the position you are in, you’ve had the chance to interact with a bunch of CMs? In your expert opinion, what separates a good CM from a not so good one? Would you say that the good ones are taken for granted?

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Nicholas: I’ve actually had the pleasure of interacting with, meeting and even becoming friends with a number of community managers over the past few years. What I wanted to highlight though, and which coincidentally leads onto your next question though, is that this hasn’t always been the result of my position as a member of Stevivor. For me, this is pretty important to clarify, and is the first part of my answer as to what makes a great community manager. The important thing of being a great CM is a representative, or representatives, which connect with their audience, the community, regardless of their position within said audience. What I mean is, a great CM will want to interact with your average gamer (which make no mistake, includes you and I) as much and on the same level as your editor for a gaming website or publication. I think this is the most essential element of what separates a great CM from a poor one.

The next aspect of a great community manager is one that’s able to add value to their audience. Whether this comes in the form of being available to answer any gamer enquiries as they are posted, posting entertaining memes relating to the kind of product they are selling or even just sharing news about their franchise/product, all these are examples of a great CM, and tie back to what you said about being a jack of all trades. A great CM needs to wear multiple hats.

Would I say that good community managers are taken for granted? Sometimes yes, but at the same time, I think great community managers are also thrust into the spotlight and placed on pretty great pedestals too (and I’m not to suggest that isn’t rightfully or deservedly so either). There are some fantastic community managers who are almost ‘celebrities’ in the gaming community/industry for their engagement and professionalism, so for examples like these, I would say that they’re certainly not taken for granted. What I want to say though is that I’m thinking about this question as a member of the media at this stage, and not your average gamer.

So, to put your question back to you, do you think great CMs are taken for granted? Does your answer to that question vary if you think of it as a writer for a gaming website, rather than your average gamer who only posts on publisher’s official channels (Facebook/Twitter/forums) that doesn’t mingle with other gamers in the community?

Andy: I really do think they are taken for granted at times. It’s an interesting dynamic though in that the good ones are taken for granted because of how good they are at their job. You know they are there and that they will help with anything you need so you don’t really worry about not getting help. Conversely, the less than stellar ones can be infuriating. You ask for help with an issue either on Facebook, Twitter or their own forums and are greeted with crickets chirping. While at the same time, the post right before yours that says “ZOMG your game is awesome!” gets a “Hey, thanks for your support” type of an answer.

I don’t think my view of a good community manager has anything to do with me being a writer, because like you, I got to meet a couple great CMs even before I was a writer. You talk about the “average player” and I think that’s where the really good CMs shine too. They don’t care who you are or what status you have. They genuinely want to help. On top of that, as a gamer, the CM is the your point of contact between you (as a gamer) and the developer. That initial point of contact, often times, can make or break the gamers perception of the game, the and company overall. Do they get a genuine reply, or do they get the generic copy and paste reply? Personally, I hate those copy/paste replies. If I took the time to write, give me the courtesy of doing the same.

That leads right into my next question, even though we have focused on a lot of positive stuff recently I think it’s time to go back to the dark side a little bit. I don’t want to name names, but what are some things that the less than stellar CMs do that irk you? Are there any pet peeves that you have for CMs? I talked about one of mine above in the canned generic response, but what about you?

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Nicholas: I’ll be honest in saying that I’ve never really come across a bad community manager. I’ve come across some really stand-out examples, but there’s never been that polar opposite one which has lead me to think negatively towards a franchise or company. If we speak about this media/writer vs. average gamer dichotomy, I wonder if that’s where these kind of differing views begin to form? What I mean is, and perhaps this is more of a age thing than your involvement in community, but I find myself reaching out to community managers quite rarely now. Most issues with a game will be solved with a Google search rather than me asking a company on Twitter directly, so I think that’s why I don’t see ‘bad’ examples. If you’re perhaps a younger gamer though, and if you have knowledge that you can just tweet or post to an official page directly, your reliance on those replies becomes more significant, and I can see where those lack of replies can start to irk people. What are your thoughts on that? In those examples you spoke about above, did you experience those directly or is it just stuff you’ve seen going through other posts?

We’ve both mentioned now how a CM can negatively affect your view of a company, and it’s what I’d like to lead onto next. We’re all aware of the situation at Turtle Rock about two years where their community manager was dropped after his called Donald Sterling a ‘victim’ following the racism scandal. While the tweets were made from his personal account and had absolutely nothing to do with the product he was supporting (hell, it had nothing to do about gaming, period), he was still fired from the company, with Turtle Rock claiming that his views were “in stark contrast to our values as a game development studio”.

Putting aside the situation itself aside, what are your thoughts about a community manager being inexplicitly tied to the company or product they support? We’ve all seen the Twitter bios with, “the views expressed are mine alone”, but does that actually mean anything? Do you think that’s just the responsibility you assume as a CM, or do you think some separation between job and personal accounts/life is important to note?

Andy: Personally I have only had one bad CM interaction that was bad, and it was just mind-numbingly bad. In fact the response I got was so bad after I read it I literally took the game out of my Xbox, put it in the case, drove to GameStop and traded it in. But, like I said earlier, I don’t want to point fingers here or name names, that was just one really bad experience is a sea of mostly really good experiences.

Man, your question is the million dollar question of social media isn’t it. I think it’s a Catch-22 if the person only uses the brand’s social media accounts, and doesn’t state in their bio that they work for a certain brand, then you can make a case that it’s separate. However, when an individual actively promotes themselves as being an extension of the brand(s) they represent then the little disclaimer of “the views expressed are mine alone” doesn’t cut it. It’s easy for us to say they are different, and it’s plausible to make an argument that it really shouldn’t matter. Yet, at the end of the day these community managers are the point of contact for these companies and in reality they are the face/screenname many gamers associate to these brands. Let’s not kid ourselves either, these are multi-million dollar brands that some of these CMs are representing. You better believe these companies will do everything they can to protect their image.

Something you said though brings up an interesting point that I wanted to explore a little further. You talked about how you usually find information when you encounter a problem with a game by just doing a quick Google search. Yet there is a large group of gamers that go right to social media or official forums for answers. What do you think is the reason for that shift in thinking? You and I are perfectly comfortable searching for an answer, but there seems to be a segment of gamers that would rather say “Here’s my problem fix it” and not put the effort in themselves to find answers. Is that just an indication of where society as a whole has shifted? Does that tie into the entitled nature of some gamers and people just wanting the easy way out for everything?

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Nicholas: I don’t think it ties into gamer entitlement, but I do think it ties into another theme, and one that I know I personally suffer from. Laziness. It’s much easier for gamers to make a quick sentence post on Facebook or Twitter and wait for someone to do the research for them, than search online, wade through pages of posts and find the answer themselves. I know there are times when I’ve wanted to an answer on a car-related question and have tried searching online for the answer, but goodness me it’s a chore at times. That said, the reason I’ll often search online first is because I’m impatient and can’t wait for the answer, but truth be told, it’s really not hard to find an answer to most gaming problems. It’s too large a hobby for you to experience an issue that no-one else has dealt with already.

You’ve brought up the topic of gamer entitlement now and that’s something I’d like to delve into deeper. Above you mentioned examples of gamers posting a question but not receiving an answer, yet the person who posts a sterile “you’re game is awesome” gets a response. I won’t lie, if I was the one making the post then I’d be a little guttered too, but is this not a perfect example of gamer entitlement? Is it reasonable for every gamer who makes a post on an official Facebook page, Twitter account or forum, to receive a response? At the same time, is it reasonable for one individual community manager to answer every post that is made on the platforms that they manage? Am I perhaps being too soft?

Andy: I think to really answer your question I need to qualify it with a pre-emptive response first. That being, in today’s world of social media being mixed with the every-changing world of video games, CMs have a lot on their plate. From the outside looking in, it seems like an awesome job to have. Working in video games and talking to gamers all day, that’s awesome right? Well, not when you really boil everything down. Sure the perks are still there, you still get to talk to gamers, you get to see the gaming industry from the inside, you get to host events, contests, etc. But there’s a lot that goes into that, and that’s not even talking about the reports they have to generate, the troubleshooting they have to do, and the general hate they have to deal with. Now, let me move onto your question.

Is it reasonable for a CM to respond to every post made? Not always no. Part of it will depend on the size of the game and the social media team, part of it will depend on volume of messages and part of it will depend on other responsibilities. Many times a CM can catch multiple birds with one  stone by keeping (and updating) a FAQ-type post and use that as a base for replying to people with issues. It’s not the individual help that some may want, but it’s a good jumping off point. What frustrates me like I said earlier is when the people that get the replies are those just saying how awesome the game is or keep up the great work, while there are four other threads asking legitimate questions. It then comes down to prioritizing what’s important. If it were me those “this is awesome” posts would get a “like” and then I’d move on. It acknowledges that I saw it and it really doesn’t need a response.  Whereas the gamers that are asking for help are the ones I should be worried about because if they take too long to get help you have the potential of losing a customer.

A good CM is able to triage posts of the fly, and get the help/answers to those who need them most as quickly as possible.  Once the immediate stuff is done then they can sweep back and respond to the “good stuff”. To wrap things up, just looking at everything we’ve talked about this week I stand by my initial thought that a good CM is vastly under-appreciated and certainly taken for granted. Taking all that into account, in my opinion the CM is a valuable part of the entire experience with a game and should be given at least a little bit of respect. They really do have a thankless job, so do you think it’s time we (gamers) start appreciating a little more? Or do you think the position will always be the punching bag of angry gamers and those too lazy to seek out their own answers? I mean once a game is released the CMs quickly become the frontline, they should get more credit for what they do shouldn’t they?

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Nicholas: Without a doubt, community managers have a significant job to play into today’s gaming industry and community. You’ve just asked if they’ll always be the punching bag of angry gamers, and the answer is an easy “definitely”. In much the same way that your Service Desk will always be the one to cop abuse from the end of a telephone for an issue they didn’t cause, a community manager will cop abuse from the end of a post for a game they didn’t develop or an issue they didn’t overlook. That’s unfortunately the consequence of being in a position where you’re the first point of contact with your customers, but it comes with the job.

I completely agree with you though, a great community manager needs to be appreciated by the community that they support, and while I don’t disagree that they are underappreciated, I know there are certain some who are. As gaming becomes more widespread and diverse so will the gamers that play them. It’s important that we recognise that not all gamers are unappreciative, so to all those great community managers out there, this one’s for you!

Tune in next time for the next instalment of Game On or Game Over. If you have any ideas for our next article, feel free to contact Andy or Nicholas on Twitter.


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About the author

Nicholas Simonovski

Events and Racing Editor at Stevivor.com. Proud RX8 owner, Strange Music fan and Joe Rogan follower. Living life one cheat meal at a time.

About the author

Andy Gray

From the frozen land of Minnesota, I was the weird kid that begged my parents for an Intellivision instead of an Atari. My love for gaming has only grown since. When I’m not gaming I enjoy ice hockey and training dogs. I’m still trying to get my Elkhound to add to my Gamerscore though, one day this will happen.