“Ah... but you have forums!” I hear the cry.

“Yes but...”

“And your developer reads those forums!”It insists......

Communication is key is the point I’m trying to make through my end-of-exams-celebrations/hangover. For as long as I’ve been playing games I have listened, reasoned, discussed and argued over what I think is the best direction for whatever game was the flavour at that time. My adversaries and I would clash on a multitude of things – server configs, graphics settings, tactics, bug fixes, patches, kits, hardware, in-game IQ... you name it I’ve probably managed a reasoned (haha) discussion about it with someone over the last few years. But it gets you thinking – if you had the chance to sit down and talk to a developer instead of your clan mate, precisely what would you say to get your point across? And conversely, if you were a developer, how could you take one persons opinion and balance it against another, and still make the right decisions about your game to make sure your consumer base finds it appealing enough to shell out their cash? What about ensuring the game has longevity and substance for those of us who see gaming as a little more than a fun time-waster?

Games like Bad Company 2 have suffered through lack of functionality. Could proper communication revitalise the community?

Ur doin it rong!

Let me just make my position clear, as if I haven’t already. I’m very disappointed with the way things are right now, not just in Bad Company 2, but in all recent games. I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know everything about what happened between the gamers and the developers for every game that’s come out in the last few years, because I certainly haven’t been involved in that way. I abhor forums by their very nature as I feel that there is no way to truly discuss what could be considered as ‘important’ aspects of a game without being overrun by ten times more posts about fairly minor issues that dilute and detract from your point. Its like - you had a point, but now 100 people have posted since 5 minutes ago and your thread just left the front page... oh well, maybe a sneaky dev looked at my thread but didn’t reply, right? Wrong.

Your post left the front page because you probably put together a consistent and well-thought out post which you felt addressed some flaws in game play, for example, and you maybe even suggested ways the flaws could be improved upon. But there’s so many people using the forums at once, every one of them with their own unique insight into a minor bug which overall has been pointed out 10 times already today. So your post didn’t get read and you probably wasted your time right there, good game. But that is a typical experience on a gaming forum for any hyped release these days, it’s no wonder games are released for sale at full price when they are practically still in pre-beta with some of the basics missing, like a working server browser, for example. Developers either ran out of time under pressure from the publisher, or they didn’t ask the audience what they wanted, so ended up with an unfinished game and literally thousands of unhappy players spamming forums about practically every aspect of its development.

I mean, recently we’ve seen some rather public failings haven’t we? Infinity Ward, for example, dropped the ball in a big way when they took their successful Call of Duty series and destroyed the winning formula with IWnet, a peer-to-peer networking protocol for Modern Warfare 2 which is for the most part the exact opposite of what any sane gamer wants to see in a spec sheet for any game, never mind an FPS previously based on an engine where phenomenal animations and lighting led the way. Its ability to handle complex A.I., amazing sound, depth of field and dynamic bullet penetration at a blistering frame rate cannot be ignored. Better still, it runs beautifully over a network, leading Call of Duty to be one of the most successful online experiences ever seen in gaming. I’m willing to bet that if IW had posed the question “We are considering moving your online multiplayer a peer-to-peer solution, what do you think?”, the backlash that would have ensued would have been even bigger than what actually happened. It’s a shame to think that if the developers had actually asked the questions of the gaming community who it was built for before major design decisions such at that were made, then Modern Warfare 2 maybe wouldn’t have died as hard as it did after the hype had succumbed to sobering reality and people realised what they’d paid £50 for.

The question remains though, is that what a developer should be encouraging? Isn’t there a better way to cut the wheat from the chaff and find out what your community wants before they release a game? Seems like common sense to me, but not all developers are guilty of believing their own hype.

Ur doin it rite!

S2 Games seemed to have got it right and got their community on their side far more effectively. I am not familiar with Heroes of Newerth, but from what I’ve heard about the extended beta period, the game has seen a huge improvement from build 1 to build whatever it’s on now. They got people interested in the game by creating a Facebook fan page knowing there would be fans directly from DotA, Warcraft 3 and of course, word of mouth. Knowing that the game was going to go into a campaign of extended beta development before a retail release was set, it took off in a way that only Facebook pages can. Anyone who signed up for pre-sales of HoN got some extra in-game titbits as well as more beta keys to give to friends. Pretty clever, wouldn’t you agree? They realised they would have a ready-made fan base from DotA and Warcraft 3 and exploited one of the most popular websites in the world to give information to the community along with their website. They gave their community of clans and guilds the chance to get everyone involved from the beginning, resulting in over 2.5 million registered signups for the beta. A beta lasting months instead of weeks, with concentrated development in tandem with your communities’ feedback? Well played, S2, well played.

S2 seem to be ‘doin it rite’, but what about FPS games developers. What about the specifics of what can actually make or break a game in the FPS market? What of the tens of thousands of competitive players who may be a minority count, but who tend to convey the biggest problems more accurately and certainly help ensure a games longevity through building communities, clans and play tournaments and competitions? How do you get feedback from these guys and implement their needs in an effort to retain them or steal them from a competitor, whilst still keeping your majority happy with bombastic explosions and eye candy?

S2 Games seem to have got thier communication game sorted - 2.5 million people registered for the extended beta.

Can I just make a suggestion? First thing you might want to consider, Mr Games Developer, is actually talking to the gamers. It seems so obvious to me that I can’t understand why eSports development seems to cover everything but this. If you’re building a new Battlefield game, then you have the Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 1942 community, centred around major tournament organisations like ESL, working together in their own little community, complaining and grumbling about bugs and missing features, but having no real way to let their voice be heard, regardless of how important their point is. It’s the same for all games. Tek9, Crossfire, Cadred, ESports Heaven, CEVO, CPL, Clanbase, ESL... there’s loads of them, all catering for competitive gamers. Don’t tell me, Mr Games Developer, that you have all the answers. Don’t tell me you don’t know where to find us, because we can tell you that we’ve been damn well trying to get your attention. And don’t tell me that ‘you got our backs’ when you clearly don’t.

The subject of communication is something that irks me – it’s so important to open up a dialogue with the competitive community early on in games development. Whether it be via a invite-only administration such as the COD4 Alliance, or via a series of live webcasts for gamers, or even through agreeing to do interviews and be published in on eSports coverage sites like Cadred, there is plenty of better ways to engage with your community that Twitter and forums. If a developer would endeavour to discuss the basics of functionality and feature requests with gamers early on in development rather than later, then I believe you will end up with far more gamers actually interested and, dare I say it, excited about your new game. You stood out from the crowd and you gave your paying customers a chance to tell you what it is they want. I am not naive enough to infer that this process wouldn’t be a bumpy one, but I would literally put my house on gamers appreciating developers far more as a result, and then we wouldn’t really need any of those thinly-veiled digs at your paying customers on Twitter, now would we Mr Games Developer?

The bottom line is there does seem to be a steady decline in useful communication between gamers and developers and I do feel that this decline is being reflected in the quality of game play we’re seeing in newer titles such as Bad Company 2. We seem to have forgotten that most people play games for the game play, and when the game play and functionality loses its importance for whatever reason, everyone suffers as a result. IW did demonstrate that you can be financially successful in the short term by hyping your game like an action movie, but look at the aftermath? I don’t need to tell you what has gone on over at Infinity Ward, but you’ll be hard pushed to find someone who has anything good to say about them anymore, and far less anyone else who actually takes MW2 seriously, so flawed and badly supported it has been after release.

It’s hard to be pro-active as a gamer because gamers want to build communities round their game of choice. They want to make videos, play competitions, play without cheaters, go to LANs, play for fun, and play with friends. When a game developer doesn’t make themselves approachable or attempts any sort of discussion with their consumers other than to let them know how great it is, you can bet your bottom dollar you’re going to end up disappointed. I believe it’s time for devs to consider competitive gamers more closely. The public is easily swayed these days, we saw that with MW2. A couple of nice videos of some explosions and helicopters bursting into flames, and your average Xbox player nearly pooped an entire block of flats. Any developer should be savvy enough to know they’re going to make money out of almost any big-budget release these days, but only S2 Games seem to have been clever enough to realise that there is a huge community of gamers out there with a voice that needs to be heard if you want to keep them as customers.

Until someone sees the light and finally gets their act together in this respect, I would be surprised if we ever see an FPS game really hit the heights of CounterStrike or Quake again.