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Why Creators Should Never Read Their Forums
spidweb writes "One full-time Indie developer writes about why he never goes to online forums discussing his work and why he advises other creators to do the same. It's possible to learn valuable things, but the time and the stress just don't justify the effort. From the article, 'Forums contain a cacophony of people telling you to do diametrically opposite things, very loudly, often for bad reasons. There will be plenty of good ideas, but picking them out from the bad ones is unreliable and a lot of work. If you try to make too many people happy at once, you will drive yourself mad. You have to be very, very careful who you let into your head.'"
Sometimes you just have to wonder about the /. editors...
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
... don't have one. It's really that simple. If you do have a forum on your site -- any site -- then users have a reasonable expectation that you'll read it and, if not cater to their every whim, at least take their opinions into account. Failing to do this send the message "we don't care about our users," and that's not exactly a formula for success.
BTW, this shouldn't be taken as a slam against Spiderweb Software, which has produced some really excellent games over the years. More a general note, I guess.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I had a great time playing Galactic Civilizations II. The experience was certainly enhanced by interacting with the game's creators on their forums. These folks were pretty good about releasing major updates for a good while after the release date, so suggestions actually made it in to the game. If nothing else it was nice to feel like someone was listening for once.
In short, responsive/interactive game developers can enhance the experience both in and outside of the game; taking every suggestion doesn't matter.
Creative people are often sensitive. I wouldn't want to limit my world to things created only by people with thick skins: they are often unperceptive.
The whole reason of having a forum is to have an equal discussion medium. Everyone who participates is on equal footing more or less and you can have big discussions on whatever you like. If that's not what you are after, that's fine, but then don't have one. Just post the information you'd like to give to people on your website. Having a forum and ignoring it is stupid because, as you note, it makes people feel neglected but if someone doesn't watch after it it'll just get used for spam or other shit like that.
So really what you need to decide is do you want to deal with user feedback or not. Saying not is fine, deciding that users really don't know what they want is a perfectly legit strategy, one that I might note has been wildly successful for companies like Apple who basically say "We know what you want, you'll get things the way we make it and like it." For an indy company that wants to do that, don't have a forum. Let people discuss your shit on other forums and ignore those forums.
However if you do decide you want a forum, then you need to read it to see what you users want. That doesn't mean listen to everything they say, but see what is on there. You'll find that there is plenty of hate, plenty of stupidity, but also plenty of good ideas and feedback. You'll want to see what it is that concerns your users. For example if feature X is something that nearly every user on the forum complains about, then it is probably a problem. If just a few loudmouths whine about it all the time and everyone else ignores them or tells them off, then probably not.
Obviously you are going to need to have thick skin to some degree, you'll have to deal with haters. However to have a discussion mechanism and then to refuse to participate is rather silly.
Jeff is right that managing game forums is a job. A thankless one that can chew through even the most heavily armor-plated CSR over time. Community Management can be one of the most difficult jobs any game company employee can take on. So, yes, if you as a creator/developer, or your team does not have the skillset to manage forums, it's going to become a cesspool of unhappy people fighting amongst themselves and denouncing your existence and lineage all the way back to Lucy.
Gamers are passionate people, though the game industry is not necessarily the only industry where you'll find such. The trick is, if you are going to have forums, and you want them to be of value to you as a creator (as well as to your customers), you have to manage them. Ignoring them because it turns out to be an intrinsically difficult job isn't really much of a solution, and will really only fan the flames even more. A lot of the time, the act of distancing yourself, either in intent or just apparent, will make it appear like you just don't care; that you live in an ivory tower away from the players and look down your nose at them with the all-too-common "I'm the game developer, and I am always right/best/smartest/insert-superlative-here", regardless of whether you explicitly say it or not. When it comes to this phenomenon, appearance of impropriety has nothing on the appearance of hubris.
What this means is that you have to communicate. Frequently, candidly, and, most importantly, VISIBLY. Remember that "say five nice things for every mean thing" notion goes both ways, but is meaningless if hardly anyone sees it.
There may also be technical problems in communication. Some game companies opt for some REALLY REALLY BAD community portal/forum software that is just total pants. No matter how good a communicator you are as a creator, or how stellar your Community Management team is, if your communication venue and tools are crap, it will completely ruin you. On the flip side, an extremely well-designed community portal / communications venue setup will make your job of communicating and interacting with your customers an absolute delight.
Yes, there will be those people who will simply be chronically unhappy with you no matter what you do, and yes, the anonymity of the interwebz can turn people into total douchebags. Do everything in your power to use the carrot to try and bring them around, but never be afraid to resort to the boot if they simply insist on spreading their misery to you and the rest of your (otherwise happy) customers. Not saying necessarily ban them, but at some point, you can just simply say "I am truly sorry that I/we have failed to resolve your issue(s) / bring you enjoyment with my efforts; I want you to know that I am at my wits' end trying to do so. At this point, I would suggest that maybe this game / community simply isn't for you, and I would urge you to seek out another game or form of entertainment that can bring you enjoyment. There is simply no sense in remaining somewhere where you are miserable, and I don't want you to be miserable, here or anywhere. I wish you the best of luck in your travels, and you'll always be welcome to return, if you do find something of value to you here later."
One last thing: don't fall into that "well, the forums are only representative of 10% of the playerbase, and only the loudest cranks to boot" trap. Whether it is true or not is irrelevant to how you treat your customers. It generally is only true to a certain degree, and grossly generalizing and overtly dismissing the entire body of forum participation as non-representative of the greater majority of your playerbase is the kiss of death, ESPECIALLY if you say that publicly. So, don't do it. Ever.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
Nobody who retains any semblance of sanity and wishes to keep that should ever engage in online discussion. It's usually pointless, annoys people and yourself to no end and you seldom feel you've accomplished anything.
Now if only I had realised this before starting to develop this god-damned need to add my two cents whenever someone is wrong on the internet...
You've got all sorts of hyper-critical morons calling every moving under the sun boring or overrated. At the same time, you've got the fan boys calling Paulie Shore movies the next Citizen Kane. Open calls for criticism usually garner responses from the extremes.
It's like looking up car reviews. You might as well throw out all the 1 and 5 stars since they're respectively the guy pissed off that the dealer took too long getting the car cleaned or the woman astroturfing for Ford.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Just go with the general spirit of the open source community. Set up a chatbot that post "Fix it yourself if you do not like it" to every forum entry and don't give a shit about your users. Problem solved. Or not.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
To a certain extent I agree fully. Hearing criticism can be quite helpful, but often times that has ulterior motives behind it, The criticism itself isn't often times objective, but extraordinarily subjective at least online. I've played WoW for years and it's easy to see what a community can do to a game, both good and bad, and how sometimes it leads the developers to take on a position they wouldn't normally (like acting like god). The developers on WoW forums have aquired a very nasty tone through all the ass kissing some people do and whenever they're confronted with issues they can't directly address it, instead they need to go around the problem and apply a band aid fix in order to look like they were never wrong or they don't even address a glaring problem and instead go in a completely opposite direction as to avoid or obsolete the problem. If you never visit the forums you can never be proven wrong because people don't know if you actually read their post or not. It's almost like politics and it's quite laughable. Just look through the blue tracker on mmo-champion.
Someone could really write a case study on the effects of forums on game developers. This doesn't even take into account all the trolls, people with malicious intent, people just messing around with other people, and people trying to carefully shape things in their favor. Forums can be very powerful, but only as long as a strict hand is used in care for them.
I talked about Tabula Rasa on another article, but I'm going to talk about it again. They had very good relations with their player base in how they addressed problems and openly talked about it with them. They didn't cater to underhanded tactics and simply ignored some comments. The friday community updates were extremely enlightening and they showed the direction of the game, what they developers were doing to address current problems, and what their current thoughts are on matters. It was refreshing and I enjoyed reading it a lot as well as playing the game, it made me feel like the developers actually cared about what they were making and what I as a gamer though. Tribes 2 also had such relations with their playerbase and featured continual updates to address problems. Another example of this is Living Legends (which is a mod) feel free to visit their website and look at how they handle their playerbase. As a mod the community is the lifeblood that keeps them going as they don't have money to use and they rely on the communities help.
Something I don't know if the article mention, but you have to look out for is people in the community that start assuming the role and talking like they speak for the developers. These types of people are very bad and can affect whatever is being developed in a very bad way as they also usually operate on personal interest only. They kill off any sort of different ideology or ideas that differ from their own (and their perceived views that represent the developers with their own ideas mixed in to skew things) so all you end up seeing in the end is what they want you to. There is at least one or two of these in every community I visit, mod or game. There is usually only one because they scare off anyone else that tries to act like them. WoW has a few since it is so big that you can hide in different parts of the forums and no one will ever see you.
Case in counterpoint, Dwarf Fortress and it's most active forum frequented and responded to by the game creator. He answers questions, takes (in an ineffable manner) suggestions, and otherwise participates in the enjoyment of his game. Example: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=60554.msg1848408#msg1848408 Dwarf fortress: http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Dwarf_Fortress:About
Is this perhaps the same reason that politicians NEVER listen to the people they represent? (With the sole exception of lobbyists who show up with large amounts of cash).
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The problem is that Android apps don't have any copy protection on them, so users can simply copy the app from each other. Rovio gets around the problem by simply displaying adverts and make $1M a month from this strategy.
http://androidcommunity.com/angry-birds-android-ads-make-rovio-1m-per-month-20101208
Summation 2
There are actually creative people who can take criticism. No idea how rare they are, but they definitely exist. John Carmack has posted on Slashdot. Brad Wardell has posted on usenet (off all the hotbeds of flamewars and trolls...). And I think Brad has had very productive discussions there, which did influence his games.
For example: Brad prided himself on the good AI for Galactic Civilizations, and it certainly had the best AI I've ever seen in a turn-based strategy game. But it still lacked true killer instinct. Brad said it'd be too frustrating if the AI truly pulled all the stops on dirty tricks. I (and others) disagreed; we argued that if a game had difficulty settings called "impossible" and "masochistic", we expected some serious punishment to come our way. We wanted the AI to trick us in the same ways we tried to trick it. In the end, I think he made one particular AI pull all the stops on the hardest difficulty levels. Not all, unfortunately, but it's still something.
Of course there were also idiots who complained that the game was too hard because they couldn't beat the AI at "hard" difficulty, and needed someone to explain to them that they could set the difficulty to "normal" or "easy". You just need to be able to recognize the idiots and trolls and tune them out. Anything that might be useful, you need to read in the most positive light possible. But some people have mastered those tricks.
...be why God never answer prayers?
Critique is fundamental to design - good & great designers actively seek out criticism. Whether the criticism is worthwhile is another question, but any designer worth paying is big enough to deal with flack. IMHE, I've found designers to be the most motivated solicitors of feedback.
bang goes my karma... again...
I fully believe that there is something to be gained by reading your forums. Not every single post - just the ones that catch your eye, or seem to be highly-read. Sure, there's going to be a lot of crap, but there's plenty of good ideas out there too.
However, there is very little to be gained by responding to your forums. At most, you might say "actually, that does seem like a good idea", or "I already discussed this in a blog article several months ago. It just doesn't work.". Responding to even half of the stupid, short-sighted and ignorant ideas people post would be a massive waste of time, and would probably drive anyone insane.
I haven't read the article yet, but I have seen web forums be communities of fail. I'm not convinced that this is due to unavoidable faults either in forums or in human nature.
People will complain loudly about your products. They are not always rational or right. This will remain true whether you provide the venue for the forum or not.
Customer feedback is a vital part of any business. You need to have people who are capable of interfacing with customers. The best people for this are people who enjoy communicating with people and want to do it, and who also happen to have a solid working knowledge of the product. These are often other users of the product.
If you host a forum, you need to cultivate it in order for it to thrive. This does not mean censoring complaints about the product. It does mean policing the forums to keep abuse, trolling, griefing, and spam under control. Being a forum admin is probably not the best use of time for high value developers or designers. If you have a staff, the forum admin work should be delegated to an appropriate person or team who is suited to the task and knows how to do it well.
Having a presence on the forums will make a huge difference in how the general userbase perceives your company. If knowledgeable, helpful employees take the time to read and participate in forums, users of the forums will tend to be more appreciative and sympathetic toward the company. If official participation is loose and personable, not overly corporate toe-the-line, your customers will generally feel warmly toward the company. Don't punish low level employees who participate in the forums and openly admit that the product has faults or that the company could be better. It's obvious to everyone that you're not perfect, and punishing people for saying so isn't going to fix the problem.
If your only way of getting good information from your employees is through manually sifting through forum threads, you're doing it wrong. Your forum technology sucks, isn't well integrated with the rest of your business, and is out of date. That is why it fails. You can't just bolt a forum on to a web site and consider the job done. You need a system that rewards people for investing the time in participating positively to the forum, like Stack Overflow does. Forums where people are asking questions, especially where they are having problems, need to have follow-through and resolution. If this isn't provided, then the forum is largely a waste of time for everyone involved, and a frustrating experience.
You also need to integrate your forum into your overall customer relationship strategy, and other areas of the business process, such as product design and marketing. Forum discussions shouldn't dictate your product's design, but certainly customer feedback should be taken into account when considering your priorities, and a well-designed forum that provides useful datamining tools can provide this. A customer relationship management (CRM) suite can provide this integration quite well. Check out a product like Lithium and see what it can do for you. Western Digital uses Lithium CRM in their product support forums, and it's a lot nicer than many forums that I've seen used by other companies.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
If I had listened to my customers, I'd have built faster horses. ~Henry Ford
What no one seems to have thought about is some of the legal implications. I haven't seen this happen with games but I did see it happen with a well known author. He used to participate regularly in a forum about his works until some fan accused him of stealing his ideas and demanding payment. The fan had no legal leg to stand on aparently but the thing did go to court. Sowered the author on forum participation.
We need to be a little militant with n00bs and fools to get the message across. Breed a generation of people who will actually RTFM and learn how to ask questions intelligently.
Having just been through reading a 1200-post thread on Cinavia audio watermarking, your post perfectly summarizes that thread.
About half of the 1200 were completely useless, with about 50 useful and informative posts, and only about 10 that had information that would really be part of the development effort. I can understand how a small developer might decide to ignore a forum about their product, simply because the SNR is so low that reading the forum wouldn't leave time for actually writing code.