When it comes to the computing gaming industry and communications, there’s a very sorry picture lying before us in 2015. The industry as a whole has an extremely immature reputation and this applies to gamers, gaming publications, gaming journalists and game developers. There’s a toxic pile of cack in front of them that far too many are happy to pour oil onto the fire of.
The industry as a whole could do far worse than to take a step back and look at how Linden Lab have approached community relationships over the years. Linden Lab have certainly not always got it right, indeed at times they have got it very wrong, the communication blackout being one glaring example. However at no point in the history of Second Life have I ever witnessed anything close to the sorry state that the computer gaming industry currently finds itself in.
There was a time when the official forums were far more vitriolic. Office hours inworld could get vitriolic.The Jira could get vitriolic and of course the blog post comments could get vitriolic. Linden Lab cut off some of those vitriolic sources by removing those communication channels. That wasn’t the smartest move and in some cases it appeared as if Linden Lab were burying their heads in the sand. Recently Linden Lab have vastly improved their communications, brought back some of those communication channels, engaged with their community and it’s working well.
Ok when Rod Humble was interviewed by Draxtor Despres he was quoted as saying :
I come from gaming communities, where I was running a gaming community, I received three death threats in a day! I’ve never received three death threats in a day from Second Life users, I’ve only received only one death threat here. And that was from a guy who got banned, you know, he was angry.
We shouldn’t make light of death threats but I think this puts into context some of the levels of vitriol that have been around. When Second Life did receive vitriolic comments they were more measured than what we see in the computer gaming industry. When I was more of a git in the forums, blog posts and office hours, the idea of threatening en employee would never have been on my or pretty much anyone else’s radar.
I used to point out in the Second Life forums that the levels of vitriol were tame compared to other forums. This tells me two things, one that I’d accepted that vitriolic behaviour was something of a norm and two, that I thought the level of vitriol aimed at Linden Lab was at an acceptable level. As I’ve aged, I’m puzzled as to why I accepted this behaviour as being part and parcel of online communities.
However Linden Lab largely continued to engage, to talk, to try and work around the noise. As I’ve said, sometimes they took extreme measures, but Linden Lab’s employees in public remained professional, courteous and engaging. That’s not something you could say about the computer gaming industry.
I’ve never seen a Linden launching a public vitriolic attack on their customers. I’ve never seen a Linden label their customers “Basement dwellers” or any other such insulting nonsense. I don’t know what they said in private, I know there was talk of wackadoodles, but in public, Linden Lab employees kept their chins up and engaged.
I’ve also never saw Linden Lab court controversy in order to drum up business. Let’s face it, some of the actions of computer gaming journalists and developers is done in relation to chase that root of all evil, money. An article that is controversial is likely to generate more clicks, more comments, more retweets and more advertising revenue. The same goes for developers who wouldn’t be able to buy the sort of advertising space that controversial tweets and articles generate. This is a very sorry state of affairs.
One of my favourite articles on community engagement came not from Linden Lab, but from Eric Ries, who was a co-founder of IMVU : The cardinal sin of community management. That post deals with community engagement and why you shouldn’t dismiss some of your more vocal critics as trolls and noise because if you can get them onside they can become some of your most staunch defenders.
I don’t know if Second Life has avoided a lot of the vicious hate because it attracted an older crowd. I don’t know if Linden Lab have been more professional to their customers because they have a more diverse workforce, I’ve been at many a meeting with a senior Linden who is female. The pictures on their website suggest their workforce is quite diverse, although I don’t have numbers to hand, they even welcome dogs in the office!
The computer gaming industry needs to grow up and grow up fast. They could do with more Moms to keep people in order. That’s not because keeping order is a Mom role, it’s because the shocking lack of female representation appears to be an obvious thorn in the side of the industry and they could kill two birds with one stone by employing Moms. Indeed if they employed more older Moms or even Grandmothers they could kill three birds with one stone by addressing the rancid stench of ageism that exists.
Leadership and responsibility here needs to come from the top, from the developers, the journalists and the publications first and then when that’s dealt with, the gamers themselves are far more likely to behave more respectfully. There’s a very deep, dark and rancid festering sore far too close to the heart of the computer gaming industry, they could do a lot worse than watch how a virtual world creator such as Linden Lab have dealt with their community.
As I said, Linden Lab haven’t got everything right and their users can and do fly off the handle, but the discussions are often a lot more sensible than we see from the computer gaming industry.
Applause!
Excellent and very well put!!!!
Indeed, as usual an excellent post.