作者：Paul Hyman

不久之前，社区管理员的职责是监管游戏论坛。

但是随着游戏的性质从产品转向服务，社区管理员也与工作室之间产生了更多的联系。今天的社区管理员有着多个职责，包括担任玩家和设计团队之间的联络人，为游戏营销做出贡献，负责公共管辖，提供客服支持并且为提升游戏留存率做出贡献，甚至还需要面见和问候所负责游戏中那些最热情的粉丝。

无论他们受雇于MMO、社交还是主机游戏公司，社区管理员都会确保他们的团队能够不间断地提供服务，通常这种服务是7天24小时的。而且，有传言称他们能够确保实现这一点。

以Valerie Massey为例，他从事这份工作已将近13年时间，最初是在1998年时担任《网络创世纪》的玩家顾问。随后，2003起担任《EVE Online》的社区经理。现在，她是冰岛CCP Games旗下MMORPG的社区关系高级总监。

EVE Online(from gamasutra)

她回忆道：“回想起1998年的工作经历，当时我们提供的是最前沿的支持。如果玩家认为游戏中有问题，他们就会联系我们，我们会尽量去解决他们所遇到的问题。”

今天，Massey拥有6个人组成的团队而且在不断成长中，他们与《EVE Online》的玩家交流，之前使用的方式是留言板，而近期使用的是Facebook和Twitter之类的社交媒介。

她解释道：“玩家告诉我们哪些内容让他们感到高兴，哪些内容让他们感到不高兴，我们将这些信息反馈给开发者。随后，开发者会告诉我们他们能够或不能够满足玩家的这些需求。”

她认为幽默是她的主要工具。她说道：“你需要明白使用幽默的恰当时机。最为重要的是，你不能主观地处理玩家的抱怨。他们所针对的不是我们，只是我们最先接触到这些怨言而已。不久之后，你就会对此感到适应，但同时你也不能同游戏完全冷漠以待，因为这样你就感受不到任何事情了。如果你对自己的工作毫无激情，玩家会马上看出来的。”

Massey遇到的最大PR挑战是玩家所创建的博客。她说道：“因为那些言论会被人当成网络上的权威看法。尽管行业之间看重的是职业游戏记者的看法，但是今天我们需要同样去关注那些博主，有些人或许还只是小孩子。如果处理不当，会迅速产生不良影响。通过这点，你就可以看到这份工作正随时间逐渐改变。”

社区管理员之前被视为“论坛监管员”，他们的工作是管理论坛，确保论坛留言板上没有恶意的图片和文字，但是今天他们已经成为设计团队的一部分。

她说道：“设计师想要知道玩家对游戏的反应，但是他们根本没有时间每天去阅读将近200条论坛帖子。所以，他们雇佣我们来阅读这些反馈并将其总结，然后告诉他们玩家最需要和最不需要的游戏内容。”

她和团队会定期给设计师提供报告并参加设计会议。她的大部分精力都投入到用户留存率上，告诉设计师哪些内容能够改变玩家的想法，让他们感到快乐。但是当设计师做出与玩家愿望不符的决定，选择不给予玩家他们想要得到的东西时，社区团队就要承担一定的责任。

她说道：“我们就像是人肉盾。”

这或许正是为何Gordon Walton成为她的灵感来源之一的原因。Walton是Playdom的副总裁和执行制作人，他近期出席了GDC Europe的Community Management Summit。

Walton表示社区管理员的话语对公司来说也很重要，他认为社区管理员所说的每件事情都会被玩家拿放大镜剖析。因而，他强调了开发公司同PR和营销团队紧密配合的重要性，只有这样方能确保信息简明扼要。

他在演讲的总结中，呼吁社区管理员让他们的工作获得应有的认同。他说道：“现在是该社区管理员崛起的时候了。我们必须让他人明白，必须做出积极的举动。没有人会主动认同你，你必须自己提出要求。”

Massey承认CCP（游戏邦注：该公司目前只运营着一款MMO游戏）的社区管理比那些有着数款游戏的工作室更加简单，因为社区管理员需要掌握和了解每款游戏内部的运转情况。但是，她所面临的情况即将发生改变，CCP即将发布第二款游戏《Dust 514》，这是款PlayStation 3专属FPS游戏。

她预计自己的团队将会参与到新游戏的推广中，就像他们在服务《EVE Online》时那样，提供推广和活动创意，同各门户网站合作发起活动，参加各种大会，比如近期在西雅图举行的Penny Arcade Expo。

到目前为止，James Stevenson已经在位于加州伯班克的Insomniac Games中担任了5年多的高级社区经理，他对如何处理多款游戏极为了解。自从这家独立游戏开发公司于1994年创建以来，已经发布了16款主机游戏，包括颇为流行的《Ratchet & Clank》系列游戏。

Stevenson表示，良好的社区管理员所需具备的最重要素质就是“耐心”，他和自己的5人团队需要对付那些极为棘手的少数玩家。他说道：“他们都是最为热情的粉丝，这些人既可以帮助你成就新的高度，也可以迅速地让你销声匿迹。这是因为，如果你做了些他们不喜欢或者不理解的事情，他们就会转身报复你，可能会在网络上告诉许多玩家说你的游戏并不好，这会摧毁整款游戏。”

因而，Stevenson相信通过各种媒介同这些粉丝维持长期友好关系格外重要，媒介可以是长期存在的留言板以及Twitter和Facebook等新媒体。

“我们尽量回应所有收到的问题，面对世界各地粉丝提出的洪水般的问题，你需要保持耐心。当你需要处理所有时区的事务时，总是有玩家是醒着的，24小时都有人在玩游戏，可能有些事情会出偏差，你要随时做好提供帮助的准备。”

他表示，有时这看起来像是需要投入7天24小时的工作，尤其是在当他努力去回答自己收到的每条Tweet时。他需要在睡觉之前查看并做出回应，而每天早晨醒来时的第一件事情还是这个。

Stevenson将自己视为处在游戏工作的最前线，因为如果Insomniac的游戏中有什么差错，他的团队通常都会最先发现。

他说道：“我们是最先听到玩家抱怨的人，而那时我们就要尝试去解决问题，告知合适的人，确保他们知道正在发生的事情。我们也是最先告知玩家开发团队已经了解了所有的问题并且马上就会得到解决的人。”

事实上，当他和团队成员身处此位时，让玩家保持平静的能力是最为重要的。

他回忆起上月在PS3上发布的《抵抗3》测试版引发的小骚乱。在准备修正补丁期间，开发商不得不将组队功能关闭数天时间。

他说道：“玩家马上就会开始抱怨，而我们的责任就在于保证他们对开发团队进度的了解，告诉他们我们正在解决问题。我们承担了很大的责任而且及时地给玩家提供了相关信息，我认为人们都会欣赏这点。”

Stevenson表示，从事这份工作的最大动力，就是看到团队对游戏产生了极大的影响。比如，当《抵抗3》处在开发期时，某些极端硬核玩家坚定不移地表示他们不想玩某些含有超能力内容的游戏。但是他透露称，游戏原本的开发意图中就有搭载许多疯狂技能的内容。因而，Stevenson的团队同设计团队开始商谈，结果就是玩家想要基于技能的游戏的愿望得以实现。

他说道：“当我们认为玩家的反馈合情合理的时候，我们会努力提出建议。让粉丝知道我们听取了他们的意见，他们能够真正影响到游戏的开发。通常情况下，我们都会有个对游戏有极大热情的粉丝群体。我们知道如果不是他们，我们根本无法取得今天的成就。”

虽然Stevenson毫无围绕社交游戏构建社区的经验，但是Insomniac目前正在研发一款Facebook游戏。根据他从担任社交游戏社区管理员的好友处了解到的情况，他认为自己即将面对的用户与之前接触的玩家有很大的不同。他表示，自己已经做好了面对挑战的准备。

他说道：“社交游戏的粉丝数量比多数主机游戏更多，因为我们的游戏将以Facebook为平台，所以将来所有同这些粉丝的互动都会在Facebook上进行。虽然基本原则将与之前相同，我们会尽量去吸引玩家社群，但是互动的数量肯定比我们预期的要多得多。”

过去3年担任CrowdStar社区经理的Yvonne Lee已深刻地了解到社交游戏用户和MMO和主机游戏玩家之间的不同之处。位于加州伯灵格姆的CrowdStar已经开发了7款Facebook和iPhone游戏，其中最为流行的是《Happy Aquarium》。

她解释道：“在我们的社区中，许多人并非真正的游戏玩家，90%的人是休闲玩家，通常是待在家中的母亲和年幼的孩子等。但是他们都会使用Facebook，所以他们可以接触到我们的游戏。”

因为Facebook游戏会每日进行更新，与多数MMO和主机游戏玩家相比，Lee同用户的交流需要更加耐心，以维持他们对CrowdStar的优良看法和感觉。

Alligator(from carstenkroeger.de)

比如，《Happy Aquarium》目前有将近20万的月活跃用户，Lee回忆称之前玩家希望在游戏中添加短吻鳄。两周之后，设计师发布有着7种不同颜色的短吻鳄，而这很快成为游戏中最畅销的动物。

短吻鳄一经发布，该消息就在游戏论坛上公示，粉丝会对开发者的反馈表示感谢，确信设计团队不仅听取社区的意见还能够做出回应。

事实上，新功能和内容通常都会在晚上推出。当Lee早上开始工作时，已经有了可供设计师开展行动的粉丝反馈。

为减轻工作强度，公司组成了含有10个社区管理员的团队，每款游戏由1到2个人负责。而且，还有一群自愿担任社区管理员的玩家，他们每周会为游戏贡献5到10小时的时间，公司会用虚拟商品和T恤等进行奖励。

而且，频繁举行的活动（游戏邦注：基于每周或每月的活动）会产生更多的粉丝互动。奖品包括用来装饰玩家虚拟水族馆的流行虚拟商品。

现在，公司计划每个月增加2到3款游戏，Lee确信社区管理团队的进一步扩展将是必要的。

她说道：“目前的社区管理员中，有些是来自论坛的用户。他们特别钟爱我们的游戏，而且有着积极的态度，所以我们决定雇佣这些人担任全职员工。”

她猜测，他们将从公司定期举办的活动中选取额外社区管理员，这些活动的内容是邀请活跃用户与设计团队见面并了解游戏背后的开发过程。

她说道：“社区管理在我们公司是个动态的工作。只要我们还在不断发展，就总是需要充满热情的人来同用户进行交流。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The Evolution Of Community Management

Paul Hyman

Not so very long ago, the role of the community manager was to police the game forums — period.

But as gaming has moved from product to service, community managers have grown much more relevant to studios. Today’s community managers wear multiple hats — serving as the liaisons between the gamer and the design teams; contributing to marketing, PR, and customer support and retention efforts; even going out into the field to meet and greet the most ardent fans of the games they represent.

Whether they are employed in the MMO, the social, or the console spaces, community managers confirm that they — and their teams — perform a countless array of functions, frequently 24/7. And they have the tales to confirm it.

Take Valerie Massey, who has been on the job for almost 13 years, first as a player counselor for Ultima Online in 1998 and then, in 2003, as the original community manager for EVE Online. Today she is senior director of community relations for that MMORPG, at Iceland-based CCP Games.

“Back in 1998, we were the front line support,” she recalls. “If a player had problems with the game, they’d contact us and we’d try to resolve their issues.”

Today, Massey has a team of six — and growing — who communicate with EVE Online’s players through message boards and, more recently, through social media like Facebook and Twitter.

“The players tell us what makes them happy, what makes them unhappy, and we relay that information back to the developers,” she explains. “Then the developers will say what they can and cannot do to acquiesce to those requests.”

She calls humor her primary tool: “You need to know when to use it and when not,” she says. “Most importantly, you can’t take gamers’ complaints personally. It’s not about us; it’s just that we’re the first ones in striking distance. Pretty soon you learn to build up a thick skin but, at the same time, you can’t become so disconnected from the game that you don’t feel anything. If you have no passion for the job, your players will see that immediately.”

One of Massey’s biggest PR challenges is the blogs often created by players who “become the voice of authority on the web,” she says. “Where once the industry was covered strictly by professional game journalists, today we need to show bloggers — who may be some kids in their parents’ basements somewhere — the same respect or it can quickly backfire on us. That just shows you how our job is changing with the times.”

While community managers were once known as “forum monkeys” whose job it was to simply moderate the forums “and make sure nobody’s puts any nasty pictures on the message boards,” today they have become an integral part of the design team.

“The designers want to know how the gamers are reacting, but they can’t spend hours each day reading 200-post forum threads,” she says. “So they’ve come to depend on us to read all the feedback, distill it down into a summary, and then tell them what most of the players want and what they don’t want.”

She and her team provide the designers with regular reports and participate in design meetings. She sees much of her effort focusing on player retention, telling the designers what changes the players desire to keep them happy and connected. But when the designers then make unpopular decisions, choosing not to give the players what they want, it becomes the community team’s responsibility to take the heat.

“We are the meat shields,” she says.

That is, perhaps, why Gordon Walton has become one of her inspirations. Walton is VP and executive producer at Playdom, and his keynote recently opened GDC Europe’s Community Management Summit.

Walton called the community manager the designated voice of the entire company, saying that everything a community manager says will be dissected and taken apart by the community. And so he stressed the importance of their working closely with both PR and marketing to make sure messaging is concise and on message.

He concluded his talk with a call-to-arms to community managers to demand their jobs get the recognition he feels they deserve: “It is time for community managers to rise to the occasion. We must educate and we must get active about things. No one is going to hand recognition to you. You have to demand it,” he said.

Massey admits that community management at CCP, which currently produces just one MMO, is simpler than at a studio with multiple games, because a community manager needs to know the inner workings of every single one of their games. All that is about to change, however, when CCP releases its second game — Dust 514, an FPS exclusive to the PlayStation 3.

She anticipates that her team will be involved in promoting the new title, just as it does with EVE Online, generating promotional ideas and contests, working with the various portals to sponsor events, and participating in conventions, like the recent Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle.

As senior community manager at Burbank, CA-based Insomniac Games for a little over five years now, James Stevenson knows very well what it takes to deal with multiple games — 16 console titles, in fact, including the popular Ratchet & Clank series, since the indie developer opened its doors in 1994.

Stevenson says the most important ingredient in a good community manager is “a lot of patience,” especially because much of the time he and his team of five frequently “deal with the vocal minority. They are the most passionate fans, the ones who can either help you reach new heights… or sink you quickly. That’s because, if you do things to what they consider ‘their game’ that they don’t like or don’t understand, they can turn around and bite you, possibly ruining the game by telling a lot of people online that your game isn’t any good.”

And so, Stevenson believes, it is extremely important to maintain a great, long-term relationship with those fans through a variety of mediums — both the long-standing message boards and the new media like Twitter and Facebook.

“We try and respond to just about every question we get,” which requires constant attention to the various inputs that flood in from fans around the globe. “When you’re dealing with all the time zones, someone is always awake, someone is always playing your games, and if something goes wrong, you’ve got to be ready to try and help.”

Sometimes it feels like a 24/7 job, he says, especially when he tries to answer every single Tweet he gets — checking and responding to them before he goes to sleep, and then again first thing in the morning when he wakes up.

Stevenson considers himself on the front line because it is he and his team who are frequently the first to be aware that something is wrong with an Insomniac game.

“We’re the first to see the complaints coming in,” he says, “and that’s when we try to deal with the problem by bringing in the right people and making sure they know what’s going on. We’re also the first to communicate back to the players that everything is under control and there will be a fix coming soon.”

Indeed, when he and his people are wearing their “crisis management hats,” the ability to keep players calm is all-important.

He recalls an incident just recently that involved the beta version of Resistance 3 which launched last month for the PS3. The developers had to shut off the matchmaking function for a few days while a fix was prepared.

“Gamers immediately began complaining,” he says, “and we were responsible for keeping them up-to-date and telling them that we were working on the problem. We were super-responsive, super-fast, and I think people appreciated that.”

One of the most rewarding parts of the job, says Stevenson, is seeing how much impact his team’s input has on the games. For instance, when Resistance 3 was being developed, an extremely hardcore contingent of players was adamant that they didn’t want to play with any special abilities. Ironically, the game was originally intended to be packed with “lots of crazy abilities,” he reveals. And so, Stevenson’s people sat down with the design team… and the result is that gamers who want to play a more skill-based version of the title can now do that.

“We try to offer our suggestions and the players’ feedback when we think it’s appropriate,” he says, “and the result is that I think our fans know that we listen to them and that they have the clout to actually influence the games — not always, but often enough that we have a very devoted fan base. We recognize that without them, we couldn’t be where we are today.”

While Stevenson has had no experience yet with a community built around social games, Insomniac is currently working on a Facebook game. And based on what he hears from friends who are social community managers, he expects the forthcoming audience will be quite different from what he is used to. He says he is preparing himself for the challenge.

“Social games have fan counts that are way bigger than most console games and, because our game will be on Facebook, practically all of our interactions with those fans will be on Facebook,” he says. “While the ultimate principles will be the same in that we will be trying to engage the community, the numbers of interactions will surely be much more than we’ve come to expect.”

Indeed, as CrowdStar’s community manager for the past three years, Yvonne Lee is well aware of the difference between her social gaming audience and those in the MMO and console spaces. Burlingame, CA-based CrowdStar has developed about seven Facebook and iPhone games, with Happy Aquarium being one of its most popular.

“Many of the folks in our community aren’t really gamers — 90 percent of them are casual players, usually stay-at-home mothers and young kids, and so on. But they all use Facebook and so they’ve found our games,” she explains.

And because Facebook games are updated on a daily basis, Lee maintains that her audience is even more active than most MMO and console gamers in shaping the look and feel of CrowdStar’s titles.

For example, the Happy Aquarium community — which numbers about 200,000 monthly active users — started a petition for an alligator to be added to the game, Lee recalls. Two weeks later, the designers released an alligator in seven different colors that turned out to be one of the game’s bestselling animals ever.

As soon as the alligator was posted, it was announced on the game’s forum, and fans were thanked for their feedback, confirming the fact that the design team not only listens to the community but encourages input.

Indeed, new features and content are usually pushed at night and so, by the time Lee comes to work in the morning, there is already fan feedback that the designers can act on.

Facilitating the communication is a team of 10 community managers — one or two for each game — plus a group of volunteer community managers who enthusiastically donate five to 10 hours a week of their time and are rewarded with virtual goods, T-shirts, and mugs.

Additionally, frequent contests — both on a weekly and a monthly basis — generate even more fan interaction. Prizes include popular virtual goods used to decorate gamers’ virtual aquariums.

Now that the company is planning on adding two to three games per month, Lee is certain that further expansion of the community management team will be necessary.

“A few of our current community managers today are actually power users from the forum,” she says. “They were so super-passionate about our games and had such positive attitudes that we decided to hire them full-time.”

She suspects that additional community managers might be found at some of the company’s regularly-held events where power users are invited to come meet the design team, hang out, and get a peek at the behind-the-scenes goings-on of game development.

“Community management is a dynamic effort at our company,” she says, “and, as long as we keep expanding, there will always be a need for enthusiastic people to communicate with our audience.” (Source: Gamasutra)