How Can Game Developers Improve Gamer Involvement?

TimCrider asks: "TeamXBOX is running an editorial about how console game developers can get the gaming communities more involved in the games themselves. Does anyone have any suggestions on how console developers can help build a gaming community?"

Comments

SDK's

[bastardknight]

How bout letting us mod the games? Modding games can allow games to have huge communities and much longer shelf lifes. I remember downloading, playing and creating maps for Duke Nukem, becasue of this I played that game long after it had past it's prime. Sony's attitude towards homebrew on the PSP has actually prevented me from buying one at this point.

Oh and FIRST POST

In a word: Don't.

[Rahga]

Did Jerry Garcia say "I want to build a musician fan community that will follow me wherever I go." ...?

Did Bungie set out to create a community of people that are so dedicated to their games that they are willing to subject themselves to bizzare alternative reality role playing games about a game?

Did Kos say "I want to rally the teeming masses of ignorant college kids and soccer moms against the unjust white male bourgeois pigs!" ...? (Okay, maybe he did.)

My point is really this: Community forms where they will, and trying to get gamers to build a community around your product is a stupid and condescending idea. How about this: If you build it, they will come. That'll work a whole lot better than corporate-sponsored video game fan club #232131.

They can't

[kinglink]

The very idea of the Console, makes it near impossible. We don't need mods or huge online sections of the game, we just need enjoyable games. You make great games you get fans. Some examples of minor interaction are MGS (MGS2 has all tags from real people's names, might be only in substance) and We Love Katamari (basically the entire game is a thank you for the fans.) But some of the best games is the ones that people feel like they get a large choice system in different ways.

Look at Ratchet and Clank, you choose your weapon in each situation, no weapon is always great so it's fun, You choose which mission, what problem and so on to tackle. Same with Sly Cooper and to an extent Jak.

The whole idea now is that you need to make the consumer feel like they have a choice in the game, Morrowind really got a lot of leverage because the game developes around the character even before mods are put in, then you factor in mods and each game feels tailor made.

The whole point I'm making is that you need a game where the user feels like he has a say. Notice, NOT A choice such as buying a different version, those piss off people because your forcing a decision. A "say" is "whether I go to Azeroth now or in a couple hours after I check out this other new dungeon."

At least that's what I think will allow you to have a community, making each game a unique experience should go a long way with creating a community.

Tecmo: How not to encourage a fan community

[PhotoBoy]

While the question is about encouraging a gamer community I think it's worth looking at the way Tecmo discouraged it. All the people at NinjaHacker.net (now offline) were fans of various Tecmo franchises, particularly the DOA games. They had worked out ways of changing the costumes of the characters in these games, which spurred a huge number of alternate costumes for the various characters in the games. One costume made a character look like the Terminator, one make Ryu in DOA look like he did in Ninja Gaiden and there were dozens of others. These were the dedicated fans a games company would love to have, yet Tecmo decided to sue the site's owners under the DMCA and threatened to go after the people who contributed the alternate costumes! While that is a valid response, surely the first step should have been to just ask NinjaHacker.net to cease whatever it was that they objected too? Surely threatening to sue all your fans isn't the best way to endear them to you?

Conversely Bungee love their community, would we have Red vs Blue if Tecmo had made it I wonder? Bungee is an example of how to do communities right, as they support and encourage what people do. Heck they even offer advice to game modders on how to do things. I just boycott Tecmo games now on the principle that they do not allow modding, I should have the right to do whatever I want with software I've bought.

I tried making that point here but the asshole guy who wrote the article edited and deleted my posts because he only likes feedback that agrees with him... Perhaps I take a leaf from Tecmo's book and sue him for modding my posts?

Give people things to talk about ..

[torpor]

.. in the game. And don't think all society is about statistics and numbers; there is more to a good act, good theatre, excellent literature, wonderful drama, than just keeping score of who has what token 'upgrade'.

Quit thinking of games as if they're anything less than modern literature. Books have their lessons; if you want to develop a game people talk about and form communities around, read a few more books ..

Re:Give people things to talk about ..

[torpor]

either that, or you don't play very intelligent games..

games are a form of literature.