We have spent quite a while (=rather many beers) figuring out how the massive trend of communities and social networks should and will change the computer games industry. Significance of this trend should not be underestimated. For example, mobile social networks are one of the fastest growing areas at the moment (according to Tomi T. Ahonen in he’s speech in Helsinki).
I was very happy to read Joshua’s blog where he introduces 80 ways of adding community features to games. Reading the article certainly made us re-think some of the concepts in Gentlemen at Arms. I have listed my favorites and reflected on how we see them fitting to our plans.
- Making a game multiplayer does not qualify for community. Oui! We’ve been thinking a lot about social nature of gaming, be it with your peers in the same space or virtually over the network. We think there’s hell of a lot to improve in this area. We are obsessed to introduce the best and the most innovative multiplayer/social gaming dynamics ever including intra-team and inter-team relations.
- Player-created content (a bit like UGC, but with a twist). We’ll allow our community to design more hordes, levels and stuff. Only the sky is the limit.
- Ranking and “social rating” the players and giving prestige to active ones in all possible occasions within the game and also make the ranking visible to “outsiders” in forms of badges to be integrated to blogs and sites. These will also serve the purpose of marketing and drive more traffic to our pages.
- Game replays and viewing ongoing “tournaments” was something we just discussed over dinner few days ago at KOM. We planned to allow community to follow the ongoing games form the birds eye perspective and give players the possibility to save best moves and situations from the games. Maybe we could even auto-recognize significant events and suggest them to “Top 10 moments”.
- Provided that we are not giving the first game for free, we could actually reward the “winners” with free subscription and this way kind of share the revenue to the users. Affiliate program was also good idea!
- Website, blogs, communities, goodies, giveaways, art, mobile reminders, special minigames and all that stuff. Hell yes!
Joshua starts he’s article by stating that “In the rush to improve the most surface aspect of games – the graphics – other important aspects like building community have been ignored”. I could not agree more. That’s the whole idea behind Herring Rouge Studios. I’m glad to see that somebody else agrees and sees community features as a possibility for indie vendor to rival the big productions.
Tommi, Directeur Général de HRS.
Tags: communities, games, social network
March 16, 2008 at 8:34 pm
[...] From Where I sit wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptFor example, mobile social networks are one of the fastest growing areas at the moment (according to Tomi T….Website, blogs, communities, goodies, giveaways, art, mobile reminders, special minigames and all that stuff…. [...]
March 16, 2008 at 9:45 pm
[...] Original post by Herring Rouge Studios [...]
March 17, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Yep! As the old school sociologists correctly point out, the social structures provided by the authorities (in this case the Game Studio) create the boundaries for the culture amidst them to flourish or wither, not the other way around.
So, as the überlords of our little netherworld, let’s provide the gamers with proper tools, share our knowhow and reward activity, but most of all let the results penetrate the structures, set the course and shape the phenomenon.
I personally find myself continuously disliking the sort of user generated content (which I call candy floss) that is only allowed to have an effect on the gaming experience on the very surface (create your uniform and the looks of your character et cetera). That sort of freedom is false consciousness in a culture doomed to wither amidst structures built so tight they suffocate the very creativeness they claim to breed.
So to put it shortly, instead of repeating the old pattern that is all too afraid of the customers true preferences, let’s create something we simply cannot control.
March 28, 2008 at 8:23 am
Rockstar is launching a web community for GTA IV:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18031