Happy online-gaming communities CAN exist

holdenhamlet

Most gaming forums and communities are full of toxity and hate.  People yell at eachother, and at the Devs, constantly.  This is considered "par for the course".

I was struck recently with an interaction between a player and the lead Dev of Overwatch.  First, the player posts a fairly standard thread on the main forums:

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20755627264#post-9

The title is "Does blizzard even play their own game??????" with the body of "nuff said"

Jeff Kaplan, the lead Dev of Overwatch, replies with: 

"We play the game a lot. Looking at your profile, I've won approximately 800 more games than you have. That's not counting the daily internal playtests I am in, the time I spent in Alpha and Beta.

Did you have a specific question or are you just here trolling?"

***

As I noted in this thread (http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/464287/game-director-jeff-kaplan-was-an-outspoken-mmo-player#latest ), Jeff Kaplan is an old time MMORPG player.  He, like many of us, was an outspoken "forum warrior", and apparently some of that slipped in here.

The player wanted to apologize for making the thread, and contacted customer support.  He did, and Kaplan responded with this: 

"Hi SharkyMarky,

Customer Service Representative Kallafrax just contacted me with the details of your ticket.

I felt compelled to reach out to you directly for two reasons:

1. Apologize
2. Thank you for the feedback

So first, I’m sorry for calling you out publicly on our forums. It was unprofessional and lacked good judgement on my part. To explain (and not excuse) what I did, I was simply feeling worn down at the moment. My team and my company care so much about feedback. So much so that one of the company values – which is bronzed around our Orc Statue in the center of campus – is “Every Voice Matters”. We’re constantly taking critical feedback – as we should be. On a personal level, I get frustrated and annoyed when people take “shots” at us without actually stating what their issue is. How are we supposed to act on feedback if the feedback is nothing but an insult? We get tons of feedback each day that we both agree and disagree with, and we love hearing it. But it’s super demoralizing to us to simply get insulted. To imply that we don’t play our game or that we don’t love our game is just straight up false.

Our team cares so deeply for what we’ve created and equally – if not more so – for our players.

I’m really sorry I replied the way I did and I hope it hasn’t brought any unwarranted attention from other players to you. If anyone is harassing you, please let me know.

(a few paragraphs about widowmaker here)

Anyway, SharkyMarky, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have used a dedicated and loyal player like you to make a point. You didn’t deserve that.

I hope you forgive me and realize that my actions are a reflection of my own personal flaws and don’t speak directly for the awesome folks I work with here at Blizzard.

All the best to you,

Jeffrey

p.s. I’m not sure if you’re a World of Warcraft player, but please enjoy a year Subscription on me: (not putting it here lol)

If you don’t play WoW, have fun making a WoW player’s day!"

***

Today, someone made this post on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/6hlmrk/since_jeff_is_was_worn_down_lets_all_be_wholesome/

to which Jeff personally responded with an 10k upvoted and 9x "gilded" response.

****

So what's the point of all this?  The point is that a happy online-community can exist.  It exists in Overwatch.  The players are happy and the Devs communicate to the player's satisfaction.  Online communities do not have to be filled with toxicity and hate, but it's up to the Devs to constantly maintain and a game that is fun to play, and an atmosphere where the players feel their views are being heard.

I feel like MMO-Devs especially have forgotten this, or never even taken into consideration that community relations is important.  I imagine that instead of a plaque reading "Every voice matters" in the center of their campus, they have one reading, "Every player is a potential cash cow".

Hatefull

It can happen, it would be nice if it happened more.

ste2000

The lesson is:
Customers are right to complain
Developers need to grow balls and take criticism on the chin and learn how to deal with it instead of enraging the wannabe Forum Warriors.

Yes I blame Developers and Mods for bad communities, because they should know better than the average Joe who post shit on their Forum.

Kaplan says that Blizzard like feedback.....they like it so much that once they famously answered to a fan who was asking them if 'there was a plan for Legacy Server' with a jaw dropping 'you think you know what you want, but you don't'.
Priceless.

PS: By the way Blizzard are very talkative with their community, and in general they do a good job, probably they are my favorite Developers.
Those Legacy Servers though.....

Tamanous

Community is only as strong as the common interest of it's members and the recognition of each member. This means the larger to community the greater chance of ideological conflicts and anonymity.

The game dictates the community. Early gen mmorpgs were designed wholly for the community. Genre specific games are designed wholly for the community. Mass market appeal games are not and even their retail model is bent against it.