Social networking is everywhere; Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn and Bebo are just a few of the most prominent. Entire communities are housed in these worlds, with all participants sharing information on one topic or another. ArenaNet and its community teams have readily embraced such social networking, but is it really reaping rewards?
At present, ArenaNet tends to communicate on three fronts; through their official website, Twitter and Facebook. Amidst all this, Reddit and fan forums such as Guild Wars 2 Guru can be seen as sub groups that ArenaNet regularly and directly interact with, though primarily to clarify rather than disseminate information. The addition of the official Guild Wars 2 forum has further extended their reach, providing AreanNet (when it fully launches) a prominent outlet to really engage with their community.
I do however have concerns with their prominent use of social networking, the primary concern being that not everyone buys into or takes part in social networking. No one can deny the potential reach of social networking (this year alone, Twitter is expected to reach 500 million registered users and Facebook 1 billion) but beginning to dissect how ArenaNet’s physical Followers and Likes affect Guild Wars 2 and its sales is incredibly difficult.
At present, ArenaNet and Guild Wars 2 have over half a million Likes on Facebook and 103,000 Followers on Twitter, with regular interaction from the community team to see that their numbers are ever increasing. What this all fails to demonstrate is the duplication between one individual who uses both Twitter and Facebook (and thus follows both) but also those that Follow/Like but have no active interest, those that Follow/Like for no other reason than to show support (again with no active interest) and those who don’t use either.
The use of these two fronts as a method of communication and inevitably as a means of promoting the game, to turn such Follows and Likes into sales (realistically it is surely the only purpose), is potentially a shrewd move and one evidently being exploited, but I can’t help but fear that this is at the expense of all those who don’t take part and whom have no interest in social networking.
During the first Beta Weekend Event for all those that pre-purchased the game, many of the updates on the status of the servers only went out via Twitter with a very late announcement in the technical area of the official forum (that many people couldn’t access). So why didn’t ArenaNet provide communication by the one method they knew would get the message out; Email.
It is unquestionable that the community managers spend a great deal of time drumming up business for ArenaNet through this social interaction, but would it have been an overly difficult task for one of the community managers to draft and email all those that pre-purchased?
Twitter is undoubtedly quick but as mentioned previously is limited to those that actively follow it and only so much can be said in a single tweet. Countless times during the weekend did I read of people saying the likes of “What’s happening with the servers?” “What did the tweet say?” “I can’t find the tweet” or “Can you link me to the tweet?” all this only serving to frustrate those seeking answers.
In ArenaNet’s defence their official website does have a Twitter Feed that shows you their latest tweet the problem with this however, is that instinctively I’m not sure many players or individuals seeking a status update would gravitate towards the developer site, but instead would seek answers on the game site, which doesn’t provide the same.
Perhaps I’m a stickler for the traditional, but I feel that there is a disjointed approach at the moment to the way that ArenaNet are handling their communication. It is almost as if users are being forced to Follow and Like their product (and thus sign in to both Twitter and Facebook) just to keep pace of any developments, rather than social networking accompanying traditional methods. Surely the focus should be:
- Official post on www.guildwars2.com (containing a link to an announcement and discussion thread on the official forum)
- Simultaneous Email sent to all users who have pre-purchased or subscribed to Guild Wars 2 updates, informing them of a new blog post and its subject.
- Simultaneous Tweet directing followers to the official post.
- Simultaneous Facebook announcement directing users to the official post.
Anything outside of these circumstances, such as minor community interaction (releasing unique concept art, or linking to a fan article) can remain within the confines of either Twitter or Facebook to the benefit of those who follow either.
While all this may appear time and potentially cost intensive, is it surely not the best way of ensuring a consistent approach to delivering news and updates, leaving customers and fans confident that all is being done to get the message out, rather than the current segregation that is occurring to anyone on the outside of such social networks.
What are your views on ArenaNet's use of social networking?
Comments
A very interesting article. I agree completely, of course, being one of those who is not on any social media outlets.
I know that when I was in game and got kicked out due to the server going down, my first place to look was the game site. I found nothing so I then went to the Beta Forums. It took some time, but finally I found something that said it would take half an hour for the servers to come up again.
I will say that I never thought of checking my email. Its kind of funny, but email has kind of become the snail mail of the 21st century. I recognize that the social networking sites are takeing over, but I do think that for something like this, they should at least provide some kind of official announcements that are time stamped and updated on a regular basis on their home site for the game.
Now if I only I could get those darn kids to turn down that noise they call music! (I feel like such an old crank, but its who I am :) )
Galen
Galen
Very good points. I have had the same feeling about how this has been handled so far. There is no one place to go for info, but instead I check twitter, FB and the forums for info and still I end up feeling like I might be missing something.
The Idea about bringing different communities together is great, but its should be done around one clear and central hub (www.guildwars2.com imo) that will hold all the info. The spider sits in the middle of the net, he isn't spread out all over it in bits (unless he met a particularly viscous fly).
Semper Dius
I think the way Arenanet handled the server failure this past beta weekend is indicative of the quality their customers can and should expect going forward, for good or ill. I say this because they have spent considerable time establishing the communication systems they have chosen, with leadership that controls how the developer/client interface should be handled. Companies, like individuals, are often slow to change, even in the face of their own failure. From the outside it may seem simple enough to have issued a mass email notice as a convenience; but, that obviously was not part of their selected protocols.
I think this has more to do with interface design and communicative procedure than anything else. I found many of the interfaces in the game unduly obfuscating (like the overflow server system for example); so, I don't expect their promotional/informational interfaces to be less obfuscating. The fact that the popular option of a Tweet was chosen over a proven option like email or a game site/forum post is analogous to choosing popular MMO death penalty mechanics over proven e-sport death mechanics which have no penalty. The team is obviously prone to choosing the most popular option over the simplest option with no regard for how that may effect the intuitive experience of their clients.
That being said, a traditional beta is a great place to make huge mistakes and correct them. Hopefully, Arenanet has spent some time assessing their own performance as communicators and have planned to make corrections.
They haven't launched their new site yet. Official forums are not officially out either. It would be nice if those came sooner rather than later ofc.
Also, those information spread fast through different media, and you might not get the message that instant, but you can get all the info following just one, like fan forums.
A bit more time is needed for all these things to come into place, the game hasn't even launched yet. You make good points though.
Email has a number of technical issues compared to social networking. Namely, it takes TIME to send 100k emails. Either you do it yourself, taxing your own company's bandwidth, or you pay a provider to batch them out for you. Either way, it takes a significant amount of time before they are all sent. With Twitter or Facebook, you post it and anyone that cares is notified (or can go look for it) within a matter of seconds (maybe minutes under heavy load). For an issue that might only affect people for a matter of minutes or a few short hours, emailing a large number of people is not practical. Finally, I have seen a lot of consumers that protect their email fervently and don't want to receive random updates. They want to keep their email pretty clean, only hearing about major things like expansions, account issues, etc. If you start sending them even an email every week, that they didn't explicitly subscribe to, they will get very irate.
The beauty of social media, which also serves as it's evil side, is that while not everyone may have adopted a twitter name or be on Facebook there is a better than average chance they know someone that has.
GW2 has benefited from a lot of word-of-mouth positive press. I don't necessarily see Anet staging a launch party in Times Square or maybe having a Mountain Dew flavor named after them. Then again, who knows what their PR Department will do to push the envelope.
I don't have a Facebook or a Twitter account and I was one of the many missing out on some of the valuable informative tweets etc. I have learned since, however, to watch their Facebook and Twitter posts for news (without creating an account of course).
I checked out Pintrest when ArenaNet announced they were adding them to their social networking news outlets. It looks like a neat idea for a site, but like Facebook, it is obviously a total data mining operation - something old codgers like me tend to sniff in the wind and circle around.
Why didn't they send an email? From what I have heard, young people (high school and college) don't use email much. It's too slow. Text/twitter/facebook is how they communicate now. I can almost guarantee that this is one big reason why there is a shift away from email.
Some excellent points from you all. DrunknGod, you make a very valid one of word of mouth and the positive effects that brings. Social Networking has very much pushed this, inevitably they are communicating daily with a total of 600,000 individuals. This in many ways is a good thing.
I'm not sure it is even a generational thing, I personally don't use Facebook and really dislike it (my list of complaints would need its own book) and I'm 27. I've also only just signed up to Twitter which I've found I do like much more.
I live by email and still find it the most reliable.
I think it's just a reflection of how communication technology is changing. Back when companies first started using email to communicate extensively, people complained about having to set up email accounts. Now practically everyone has one and they don't even think twice about it. Instead they're complaining that they have to set up Twitter accounts (although as Sylvinstar points out, you don't even need to set up a Twitter account to see the Tweets). In 10 years we'll all be complaining about having to install holographic butlers instead! What? I can dream can't I?
Lets look at email vs. Twitter though. If all you're sending out is a short status update, then Twitter just makes far more sense. It's quick and uses practically no bandwidth. Compare that to sending emails out to everyone and you're looking at a process that takes hours and uses far more resources. We saw how long it took to get emails out to everyone for the first BWE, and that was only people who prepurchased. If it was everyone who had signed up for news...well, you do the math. You'll also invariably end up with people asking "Why haven't I gotten my email yet?" given the time it takes for the process to complete. I can understand people not wanting to create Facebook accounts. Most of the time I wish I hadn't either.
All that being said however, I do agree that any news or updates that are sent out by social media should also be posted on the games site simultaneously, or as close to it as possible.
Email also has the problem of throttling, which facebook and twitter do not suffer from. Both SWTOR and GW2 ran into issues with having to stagger emails for invites etc. in batches, or services like gmail would flag them as spammers and delay or abandon delivery. Email for hundreds of thousands is simply not viable, if you want to get the word out quickly.
They could do a better job of getting status reports like these up on their official forums quicker though.
Back when Twitter was first created, it was originally intended as a widget for lazy bloggers who wanted to post updates to their site, but keep them short and simple between longer posts. The widget obviously still exists, but the way people use the service has changed dramatically.
There's nothing wrong with that, at least on the surface. But when it comes to using it as a quick alert system for fans, I think game developers need to insure that those fans only need to keep track of a single site vs. following multiple services. Twitter and Facebook feeds should be easily found on the official site, along with longer news posts in other words.
With GW2, fans basically have to follow multiple websites at once to obtain basic information:
While keeping each of those areas updated along with official forums helps insure that information is reaching all parts of the community, it would still serve fans better to have a centralized location to find information.
To be honest, the shotgun approach to information dissemination is why there are currently so many fan sites that are basically a massive news feed. ArenaNet isn't providing a solid aggregate service for finding all info in one place, so it's been up to the fans to do it for them.
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