Asherons Call: Jessica Mulligan on Gamasutra

For those who've never visited Gamasutra.com, its a great site for "industry" people. But, every once in a while there's something there we gamers might enjoy.

This week, Jessica Mulligan, Executive Producer of AC1 and AC2 published an extensive article on [i]Managing an Online Game Post-Launch[/i], something I'm sure many of us feel game developers could use help in.

[i]The point person on these principles and processes is your community management, specifically the lead CRM.

If there is one thing players hate to see on message board postings, it is a communiqué from the developers or company signed "From the <game name> Live Team." Nothing is quite so impersonal or non-interactive as a faceless, human-less message. This whole industry is based on interactivity, with the game and between the people who play it, make it, and publish it. With the human touch so important a factor, why would anyone go out of his/her way to de-humanize the process?

Amazingly, that is exactly what many online game publishers and developers do, in spite of the abundance of publicly available evidence that it does not work and that the players dislike it. You need the human touch.

[/I]You'll have to register at Gamasutra, but the read itself is worth the free registration.