By Steve West 11/05/07 Charlie Oscar Delta: The Power Of The Community
The gaming industry has a love/hate relationship with community websites, mostly hate due to the unforgiving commentary so often seen by anonymous posters. While the troubles with community sites are a valid complaint, the truth is they can be extremely important to the success of a game. After all, these are the people who will be buying those games. But more than that, these are the players that will champion the latest FPS title and convince every adult shopping at Wal-Mart this holiday season that “Title X” is the game to get as a gift. Activision has been stepping up to the plate, and offering their own community sites to fans. We’ll see how well the Guitar Hero III one does, but Charlieoscardelta.com for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a bona fide hit.
According to a press release today the community site for COD4 has seen over 500,000 gamers join in the frenzy of online marketing. Because that’s what this is. This isn’t free stuff and information because you’re cool enough to register. Activision can get all of that out to news outlets with a simple email. Instead they enlisted the help of Streetwise Concepts and Culture, a marketing agency that specializes in the youth market. With Streetwise behind the project, CharlieOscarDelta.com became a way for fans to join together and give direct feedback to the developers working on the title. By extension Activision expanded its marketing power for Modern Warfare exponentially.
The power of the gaming community is enormous. We do spend a large chunk of our time online debating with friend and foe about upcoming titles. CharlieOscarDelta.com leveraged that power by giving gamers access to the developers, setting up a one-stop shop for all things COD4, and giving fans a voice – albeit a tiny one when it comes down to it – in how the final game turns out. I’ve read postings about how horrible blogs and fan sites are for their misinformation, which is a valid point. But that’s not the reason for their existence. Developers need to stop fighting against the hated “blogosphere” (that is a horrific term) and begin to embrace what makes them so powerful.
I was passed a bit of information that came from the community aspect that probably displays the power of the community better than any stats Activision could provide. An MLG gamer who goes by the tag of N0M4D is famous for being so damned good, but having no hands. He plays on a modified gamepad with his face. Due to his feedback to Infinity Ward, the first patch for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare will include a new control scheme called “N0M4D Scheme.” It takes a voice out there to get changes to games made, just like any aspect of our society. And if you don’t see the value in the community, then you’re going to lose when it comes time to balance the books.
“Jon’s Gaming Blog” may only get 4,000 hits in a month, but Jon and his cronies could have cost a publisher $200,000+ in sales with some bad mouthing of a title. When a company like Activision steps in to take over the community aspect of their game, they have far more control on what direction the hype goes. This can be the difference between success and failure.
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