Top 10 examples and anti-examples of developer-audience interaction: Part Two
Hello! We continue to talk about the developers and their approaches to interacting with the audience. The first part of the article can be read here .
Earlier we touched on some interesting examples from the gaming industry, but almost all of the listed companies were not too large. Compared to the giants that are represented in this part, they can generally be considered indie developers. It just so happened that in this article, not just big companies were selected, but, with a few exceptions, the leaders in the cybersport area. From this the size of the material has increased somewhat, but I think it will not be boring to read.
Title: CD Projekt RED
Founded: 2002
Famous Games: The Witcher Series
Authors rating: 5/5
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CD Projekt RED was founded in February 2002 primarily to develop games based on the series of novels The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski. This studio is known to all thanks to its gorgeous trilogy. Players love CD Projekt RED not only for the high quality of the projects, but also for the respect for the audience. CDPR has a lot of credibility. The studio constantly informs the community about its life in various ways, for example, through publications on the Youtube channel and on pages in social networks. Their forum also invariably remains active, and developers often participate in discussions.
For the rest, the studio does nothing supernatural. She is simply loved for well-developed projects and great add-ons, each of which can be given off as a separate game. In addition, the games of the company are always extremely reasonable prices (especially for Russia) and a lot of free additional content.
The only sin in the account of CD Projekt RED is a small scandal with a reduction in graphics in The Witcher 3. The release version is quite different in terms of graphics from what was shown in the trailer. At first, the developers claimed that the graphics would be no worse than those presented in the announcements, but then they surrendered. Co-founder and CEO of CD Projekt RED, Marcin Ivinsky, nevertheless acknowledged the differences between the final version and the trailer shown at the VGX 2013 ceremony, and explained where they came from. All because of the multiplatform and game optimization. CD Projekt RED intentionally took this step to ensure a comfortable game on consoles, without creating separate versions for each platform. Thus, the owners of the PC had to do without high-quality reflections, effects and other things on a par with the owners of consoles. At the moment, a group of modders is working on a modification that will return the Witcher to the original look, and the CDPR does not interfere with this. At the same time, if Ubisoft was blown to pieces for similar reasons (see the stories related to Watch Dogs and Tom Clancy's The Division), then CDPR was only slightly scolded and forgiven, since the game is great anyway. This is the strength of community loyalty.
The new story of CD Projekt RED is connected with the Gwent card game and the promising Cyberpunk 2077 project. The audience is already supporting the studio in its new endeavors, forgives the Gwent single-player shifts, and is pleased with the developers' statement that microtranslations are not their way. In short, the community at CD Projekt RED is now very strong and will be able to withstand more than one onslaught of problems.
CD Projekt RED in the natural environment
Name: Paradox Interactive
Founded: 1998
Famous Games: Europa Universalis Series, Hearts of Iron Series
Authors rating: 4/5
Paradox Interactive is a Swedish company based in Stockholm that develops computer games, mainly global historical strategies. It was founded in 1998, and began to publish games independently in 2012, when the company split into Paradox Development Studio and Paradox Interactive.
Paradox is primarily known for its Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron series. The themes of strategies differ, but the management of the economy, trade, geopolitics, diplomacy and technological development remains unchanged. Paradox Interactive developers pay special attention to the history of mankind, demonstrating a reasonable commitment to actual accuracy.
What is the Paradox Interactive community built on? As in the case of Amplitude Software from the first part of the article, these are mods and a narrow audience target. Global strategies are a specific genre, and the community is very dense and closed.
In studio games, traditionally strong emphasis is placed on modding. It is strongly encouraged: for example, when describing changes, developers list including all new features that were added specifically for modders (new script commands, tools, etc.). They even take the most distinguished modders to work, and some have become nothing more than game directors of individual projects. For example, Martin Anvard under the nickname Wiz worked on one major mod for Europa Universalis IV, then he was offered to join the development team, then he was transferred to Stellaris, where the developer and received the lead of the project. Or the Scotsman under the nickname DDRJake - he became famous for combining exploits and ingenious tactics in Europa Universalis IV, achieving bizarre results. Now DDRJake also heads one of the projects. In addition, developers sometimes stream Twitch broadcasts of their multiplayer battles, playing in any of the most popular mods. At the same time, they get posts on the forum during these events, where they discuss the progress of the multiplayer campaign together with users.
The forum weekly spread diaries of developers for each of the key projects. As a rule, the diaries describe the current development processes (innovations in mechanics, in the balance, in the map of the game world, etc.).
The company is also famous for its regular DLC, so they almost always have something to announce. Every week, fans get new information, discuss it and get answers to their questions. It comes to the fact that if the diaries of developers for some reason do not go on time, the forum is overflowing with indignant messages. Moreover, like Amlpitude Software, the studioâs forum has an extensive section for user suggestions, and often reasoned arguments are taken into account until changes are made to the game. The content of the most successful mods is also sometimes inserted into the official versions in agreement with the authors.
The only problem that has arisen for Paradox Interactive in all this time is the reaction of the community to a sudden price increase. The story is very famous. In May 2017, prices for games increased by about 30-50%. A company spokesman said that such changes were necessary due to the fact that prices for games from Paradox for a long time remained unchanged, despite inflation and other external factors. The community response has been very mixed. Especially the players were outraged by the increase in prices for old projects. After this, the ratings of the games publishers plummeted. Europa Universalis 4 and Crusader Kings 2 were in the zone of negative ratings, and Twitter was filled with negative reviews about the working studio.
Name: id Software
Founded: 1991
Famous Games: Doom Series, Quake Series
Authors rating: 4/5
When writing a section on id Software, I ran into the problem of an âold companyâ. id are at the origin of the game era: they were part of the dawn era of the gaming industry and made a huge contribution to it themselves. id Software communicated with the community even when the communication was reduced to e-mail correspondence. What is considered to work with the community? Chatting with players on the first Doom servers? Work id Software with the audience and the press during the era of "cruelty in games"? Or the creation of cyberspace at the dawn of Quake? I decided not to go that far, but to dwell on the latest events related to the studio. But a small historical reference will still be.
The merits of id Software in front of the eSports community are huge. The first Doom tournaments were held in 1994, and even then they gathered a large number of people. After the success of the first online battles and slaughterhouses on Doom's servers, Microsoft connected to the process and wanted to position Windows as the leading gaming platform. In the period from 1994 to 1996, computer clubs were opened in the USA, championships and network battles were organized. The behavior of the then heads of the studio (Carmack and Romero) formed the emotional background of the community. They were young, bright and very emotional people who turned the room with computers into a boiling cauldron. At that time, representatives of id Software behaved as if they were in their own office: they cursed, shouted, accompanied their actions with comments addressed to opponents, etc. That was how the joke community formed. People liked the process of playing together and the feeling of belonging to a single culture, while the developers at that time were leaders of this culture and were fully committed to communicating with the community. Let me remind you that John Romero was fired from the studio in August 1996 and did all his most odious tricks in ION Storm, so we will not consider them for âworking with the communityâ. Finally, Quake opened the era of modding and gave birth to a huge online community, whose members not only played and communicated with each other, but also developed new levels and modifications to their favorite games on a voluntary-free basis.
Quake 3 Arena can be considered as the peak of cyber-sports activity. By the time Quake 2 maximally accumulated the community, which included players, creators of maps and mods. The third part of Quake fully focused on eSports and multiplayer, which gave a very strong growth of the online community. id Software communicated perfectly with the audience and constantly provided support. The studio regularly hosted championships, competitions for creating maps and mods. By the way, around some mods, for example, Defrag, separate communities began to appear. After that, id Software moved away from multiplayer projects and began 15 years of single player development: Doom 3 in 2004, then Rage in 2011, then Doom in 2016. Yes, all these were great games, and they were even played on the network, but the level of activity was not the same as in Quake 3.
The modern QuakeCon community
But let's go back to 2013, when John Carmack left id Software, and the company for four years already became part of ZeniMax Media. According to the contract, Bethesda Softworks will publish all games id Software except for those that fall under the agreement on the publication with other companies. Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software, commented on the acquisition act: âCollaboration with a smart publisher such as Bethesda Softworks was a unique opportunity in which the interests of the studio and the publisher would be completely the same in the development and marketing of our games. In addition, we now have financial and business resources to support the future development of id Software; this is a huge advantage that will lead to more and more good games for our fans. â However, many community members and developers have been negative about buying; among the latter was, for example, John Romero. It was believed that id Software will change a lot for the worse. But after this event in the studio, as if something clicked and after a long development (and several restarts) Doom came out in 2016, and now in the beta test is Quake Champions.
The single-player Doom campaign has received a lot of rave reviews.
The fact that Doom's multiplayer pre-release received negative user ratings does not mean that the multiplayer in the game is bad. Players just waited for a single player campaign, which would be the whole essence of the game. After the studio made the network DLCs free, there was a fairly large increase in activity. The community praised a large number of modes: unlike, for example, Unreal Tournament, in Doom, players try different modes, and each has fans. But Doom was just a training session before the new entry into the multiplayer arenas. At E3 in 2016, the company announced Quake Champions.
Return of the legend of arena shooters
Quake Champions began to push the whole community of arena shooters. Unreal Tournament 4 is still in alpha test, Overwatch is too bright and casual for many, LawBreakers turned out to be too ambiguous. Against this background, many "old men" with pleasure began to return to the saint of all the saints in the world of classic shooters. If someone does not know, the game is now in early access, after which it will be free. Yes, there are all the sins of modern gamedev in the form of blocked characters, skins and lutboks, but all this is done without kinking, you can perfectly play without in-game purchases. In addition, many players immediately bought full access, which opens up all current and future characters.
id software immediately launched a powerful public relations company, during which it began to attract new players. There was a standard work on all social networks, the press wrote reviews, the number of reviews on Steam grew. But while the reviews were mostly negative. The game was scolded for performance, netcode, for a small number of modes. But the most resent new players, training for which was absent in principle. You could go to the server and easily get to the pro-players. The system ranked participants only by the level of the profile, which depended on the number of battles (in fact, on the time spent in the game). There was no training, games with bots, too. It is clear that this is an early version, but novice players did not expect this at all. At the same time, according to reviews from professionals, the game is just as likely designed for a beginner, since the ability and balance of the appearance of weapons simply does not allow to do such terrible things, like, for example, running through respawns.
QuakeCon 2017 was very impressive.
And what about pro-players? id Software approached work with its target audience well, it became clear during the closed test. For example, the top player Cypher was invited to test during the first IEM tournament (Intel Extreme Masters). Cypher spoke positively about the game and gave its feedback to the developers about the game mechanics. In general, id Software constantly mentions that they listen to pro-players and take their opinions into account. Members of the audience, such as Cypher, Polosatiy and AGENT, spoke positively about the game and about working with the community of pro-players in general, although their outlook on things might change from patch to patch.
Name: Blizzard Entertaiment
Founded: 1991
Famous Games: Starcraft Series, Warcraft Series, Diablo Series
Authors rating: 4/5
The famous Orc statue near Blizzard headquarters in Irvine, California
Blizzard Entertainment is another e-sports giant that currently controls two disciplines: Starcraft and Overwatch. In contrast to Vavle, Blizzard has chosen a completely different way of development and communication with its community. The studio has a huge community that has grown since the days of the online battles of Warcraft 2, and Blizzard does a great job with this community. Before proceeding with the analysis of the company and its work with the players, I want to warn you that I will not consider World of Warcraft in detail. Firstly, the IMO community is a whole separate direction, and in such a tenacious game like WOW, it is also very difficult. In addition, I have never played this game, which means I could not adequately analyze all aspects.
Community life, as usual, began with the editors of maps and mods. In WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness was a handy map editor that allowed fans to create their own scripts and thereby secured interest in the project for a few more years. By sending the game to release, Blizzard, of course, was counting on sales of more than 100,000 copies per year (such results achieved by WarCraft: Orcs & Humans). But what was the surprise of the leadership, when the second part of the saga about the war of orcs and people sold over a million copies. Gamers around the world played the game, participated in LAN-tournaments, created their own campaigns and texture packs that changed the look of the usual game. At the same time, there was a lack of an element that would tie the whole community together. This element was the Battle.net portal.
Battle.net was launched on November 30, 1996, simultaneously with the release of the role-playing game Diablo. Battle.net was the first online gaming platform built right into the games in which it is used, which was different from the approach of other companies using external interfaces. This feature, along with the simplicity of creating accounts and the absence of subscription fees, contributed to the growth of Battle.net popularity among players. This had a significant impact on Diablo sales and subsequent Blizzard games. The successful launch of Battle.net has prompted other companies to start developing their own online platforms while borrowing many features and interfaces. And this is 1996! Who then could seriously think that all online in the future will be built on such services? Blizzard could. And at the moment Battle.net is one of the most popular gaming networks in the world, second only to Steam.
Until the 2000s, network activity among gamers was not yet very developed. Not everyone had access to the Internet, communication was expensive, and LAN battles were popular. Battle.net made a very strong breakthrough between 1998 and 2000, when two hits were released: Diablo 2 and Starcraft. By the way, the StarCraft professional gaming community is one of the largest in the world. Since 2002, pro-gamers began to unite in teams sponsored by large companies. Most of the battles at that time took place on Battle.Net, where players created interest groups.
And here we again return to the topic of map editors. Starcraft came with the StarEdit campaign editor. The editor trigger system allowed users to completely change maps and create their own map scripts. The StarCraft community has created new editors and features that make it even more serious to change the game. Microstar even sold CDs with new levels created with StarEdit, but had to stop it after Blizzard won a lawsuit in a lawsuit against these sales. The gaming community also released its own map editors (StarCraft X-tra Editor, StarForge, and SCMDraft). They allow you to do things that the official editor is not capable of: for example, âcombiningâ several fields of minerals and buildings with each other, changing the colors of players, using hidden AI scripts, preventing other users from extracting resources from maps (music, etc.) .), play dimensionless sound files directly from the StarCraft disc, change the text color and compress the cards created in these editors. The most extensive areas of application of such editors include the ability to create users of new sprites, sprites for units and prohibited units. Some additional maps and campaigns, including StarCraft: Insurrection and StarCraft: Retribution, were issued by third-party developers for commercial distribution. The company retained the same approach with the support of the Diablo 2 player community, where the number of mods grew by leaps and bounds and some of them overgrown with their own community.
Cooperative mod for Starcraft. One example of successful and active modification.
From the very beginning, Blizzard has embarked on support and communication with the community. The studio encouraged cardmakers, fan fiction authors, artists, and other active community members. Until now, the forum dedicated to the work of fans is very active and often you can see the comments and ratings of developers in it. The company after the release of Diablo realized that they have a million audience, and in this audience - the strength and the key to success. It was necessary to consolidate the community even more tightly, and BlizzCon became the catalyst for this process.
In 2004, World of Warcraft came out, which remained one of the main MMO games for a decade, and in 2005 the first BlizzCon took place.
BlizzCon gathers players and developers in one place. Developers make announcements of new projects, talk about the development process and hold contests. Players support their favorite company, participate in global events, make cosplay, etc. With the help of BlizzCon, Blizzard has created a certain culture that develops around their projects. For example, everyone present receives a "set of souvenirs" in which you can find a wide variety of items devoted to games from Blizzard. At BlizzCon in 2005, these were the access codes for creating a game animal satellite in World of Warcraft - the murloc. In addition, passwords for the closed beta test of new games were also heard: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade in 2005, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King in 2007 and StarCraft II in 2008.
At the same time, even before the release of Heroes of the Storm, the studio often linked projects together. For example, on October 21, 2011, the company announced a campaign: those who bought a one-year subscription to World of Warcraft will be given the opportunity to play Diablo III for free. Such synergy is constantly observed in the products of the company and it reached its peak in Heroes of the Storm, where the developers combined the heroes of all their universes, which caused wild delight among the fans. In general, Blizzard pays a lot of attention to the community and constantly listens to the players. Patches are made as quickly as possible, and the errors are repaired in the first place, those that most rested on the fans. This approach still holds when everyone plays Hearthstone and Overwatch. Of course, not all solutions are successful. Many studio games are based on a fine balance of the gameplay, and, according to a number of top players, Blizzard made mistakes during the StarCraft era: Brood war and often spoiled their own projects. But the studio itself considers this a development and, probably, in some ways they are right.
We now turn to the most important thing - cybersport. For over 15 years, Blizzard Entertainment has been one of the main driving forces in the world of eSports. At the same time, unlike Valve (well, I canât not compare them!), For eSports, specific persons are responsible for it. They are known, their work is open and in many respects based on interaction with the professional community. However, at the moment their actions cause a flurry of criticism.
For example, Blizzard fans still wonder how the corporation has managed to miss the emergence of the MOBA trend.Since DotA, this genre has grown so much that it began to attract more players than the game itself from Blizzard. A cyber sports scene with professional teams and leagues has formed around the map. In 2012, DotA: Allstars became the World Cyber ââGames World Cup advertising discipline, which turned out to be a landmark event for fans. While Blizzard ignored the birth of MOBA, Riot Games and Valve took advantage of its absentmindedness. First released in 2009, League of Legends, the most popular eSports discipline in the world. Well, Valve made a bet on the already promoted brand.
Blizzard has always selectively worked with the gaming community, but in matters of eSports its managers are often deaf, blind and catastrophically slow. The corporation is not at all interested in the life of teams and players - unlike the same Riot Games, which checks all the conditions of contracts and requires strict adherence to tournament regulations from organizations. If the management team does not fulfill obligations to the players, then participation in professional tournaments is out of the question. If Riot Games itself pays salaries to participants of tournaments, and Valve allows you to earn money by selling autographs and stickers (The Internationa tournaments set records in prize money), then Blizzard copes with organizational duties only in North America. There the company holds tournaments among universities, and once a year they organize a festival BlizzCon,which at the same time serves as a platform for the world championships and an exhibition of the latest gaming innovations. Outside the United States, the company's activity is minimal. In-game problems Blizzard solves reluctantly and for a long time. The company could not enter Region Lock into StarCraft II for several years (which is why players from South Korea won almost all major tournaments), as well as quotas for Europeans and Americans for the World Championships. Probably, problems in this area are associated with a lack of interest on the part of the company. According to one of the founders of Blizzard, Allen Adham (Allen Adham), the company has never created a game that was originally focused on eSports. Moreover, the success of StarCraft multiplayer was a surprise for Blizzard. âWe never imagined what StarCraft would be. We were surprised at this, like everyone else, âsaid Allen Adham.Outside the United States, the company's activity is minimal. In-game problems Blizzard solves reluctantly and for a long time. The company could not enter Region Lock into StarCraft II for several years (which is why players from South Korea won almost all major tournaments), as well as quotas for Europeans and Americans for the World Championships. Probably, problems in this area are associated with a lack of interest on the part of the company. According to one of the founders of Blizzard, Allen Adham (Allen Adham), the company has never created a game that was originally focused on eSports. Moreover, the success of StarCraft multiplayer was a surprise for Blizzard. âWe never imagined what StarCraft would be. We were surprised at this, like everyone else, âsaid Allen Adham.Outside the United States, the company's activity is minimal. In-game problems Blizzard solves reluctantly and for a long time. The company could not enter Region Lock into StarCraft II for several years (which is why players from South Korea won almost all major tournaments), as well as quotas for Europeans and Americans for the World Championships. Probably, problems in this area are associated with a lack of interest on the part of the company. According to one of the founders of Blizzard, Allen Adham (Allen Adham), the company has never created a game that was originally focused on eSports. Moreover, the success of StarCraft multiplayer was a surprise for Blizzard. âWe never imagined what StarCraft would be. We were surprised at this, like everyone else, âsaid Allen Adham.The company could not enter Region Lock into StarCraft II for several years (which is why players from South Korea won almost all major tournaments), as well as quotas for Europeans and Americans for the World Championships. Probably, problems in this area are associated with a lack of interest on the part of the company. According to one of the founders of Blizzard, Allen Adham (Allen Adham), the company has never created a game that was originally focused on eSports. Moreover, the success of StarCraft multiplayer was a surprise for Blizzard. âWe never imagined what StarCraft would be. We were surprised at this, like everyone else, âsaid Allen Adham.The company could not enter Region Lock into StarCraft II for several years (which is why players from South Korea won almost all major tournaments), as well as quotas for Europeans and Americans for the World Championships. Probably, problems in this area are associated with a lack of interest on the part of the company. According to one of the founders of Blizzard, Allen Adham (Allen Adham), the company has never created a game that was originally focused on eSports. Moreover, the success of StarCraft multiplayer was a surprise for Blizzard. âWe never imagined what StarCraft would be. We were surprised at this, like everyone else, âsaid Allen Adham.Problems in this area are associated with a lack of interest on the part of the company. According to one of the founders of Blizzard, Allen Adham (Allen Adham), the company has never created a game that was originally focused on eSports. Moreover, the success of StarCraft multiplayer was a surprise for Blizzard. âWe never imagined what StarCraft would be. We were surprised at this, like everyone else, âsaid Allen Adham.Problems in this area are associated with a lack of interest on the part of the company. According to one of the founders of Blizzard, Allen Adham (Allen Adham), the company has never created a game that was originally focused on eSports. Moreover, the success of StarCraft multiplayer was a surprise for Blizzard. âWe never imagined what StarCraft would be. We were surprised at this, like everyone else, âsaid Allen Adham.
Blizzard
Now the best e-sports prospects at Overwatch. The company constantly releases fresh patches, works on updating graphics, and even teaches rude users to cultural chat conversations. While Overwatch has no direct competitors. The game is not similar to Dota 2, League of Legends or Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, so it has good chances to stake out a place in the cyberspace scene. In November, Esports Charts published the final statistics for the BlizzCon 2017 audience. It showed that the most popular Blizzard discipline is Overwatch. In sum, the Overwatch Cup final between the USA and South Korea was watched by 840 thousand people, of which 607 thousand were Chinese spectators. In this case, the game at the moment there are several problems that draws the attention of the community of players. For example, Overwatch is hard to watch a manwho knows nothing about the game. This is said from the first tournament. Despite the fact that the regime has already been completed, the global picture has not changed much: many elements remain on the screen that are incomprehensible to the viewer, and at the same time the whole action takes place at a rapid pace. At the moment, the main task of the company is to support and develop the Overwatch League.
Long-awaited Overwatch League.
In the end, Blizzard is probably one of the best companies in terms of communication with the community. At the same time the audience at the studio is huge and very different. Blizzard has to take into account the wishes of the old players, to attract new games to the games, to create e-sports events. Yes, it is difficult, yes, the result is not perfect, but from the point of view of the gaming community, Blizzard is the best.
Name: Valve
Founded: 1996
Famous games: Half-life series, Portal series, Counter-Strike series Authors
rating: 2/5
Valve is probably even more famous studio than id Software, because they are the authors of the Half-life series, Counter Strike and the Steam distribution system. About Vavle, you can write a separate article, so much this company has influenced the gaming market. As in the case of id Software, we will not talk about the company's early activities, when the Vavle community was completely offline. I will look at two parts of the Vavle audience: the eSports community (CS, Dota) and the Half-life community, which is now waiting for what is known. This is a million audience with which Valve has to work and take into account its desires. How successfully does the company cope with such pressure of the public? The exact number of employees Valve is unknown, but it does not exactly go beyond 300-400 people. How many of them are responsible for communicating with the audience,which already has several million people? Let's try to figure it out.
We start, perhaps, from 2007. It was then that Steam became a truly social platform: there was a major update of the client, in which communities, chats, statuses and everything needed for good communication were added. By that time, Vavle already had a huge community. 2007 was a turning point - there was a transition from singles to multiplayer, from a closed offline community to a huge and live online. On October 9, 2007, Valve released The Orange Box, which included the following games: Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2. The compilation was simultaneously delivered for the PC, PS 3 and Xbox 360. Team Fortress 2 is the first massively multiplayer game from Vavle, which started making money on Luthboxes when this word did not exist. Generally,For Vavle, 2007 is something like a detachment of the third stage of a rocket, after which movement starts at maximum speed and only forward.
After 2007, the community began to break up into separate groups. Most people played Team Fortress 2, despite the fact that the game was still paid. Team Fortress 2 for several years held the position of the most popular multiplayer game on Steam. Much of what we are seeing on Steam now first appeared in Team Fortress 2: achievements (with weapon awards!), Steam inventory, trading, and more. The first profit Vavle, not related to Steam and sales of games, respectively, brought the very notorious caps from TF. In 2010, Mann-Conomy was updated, in which the Mann Co. store (for trade in TF2 items), the Steam wallet and the exchange system were introduced. Many believe that it was from this update that the game slid down and became a âtrading-head-up simulatorâ, but for Valve this is an important point:starting with him, the economic mechanisms of the company reached a new level.
Team Fortress 2 impressed everyone with its unique style. Unfortunately, now the game is very deteriorated in visual terms, partly due to the huge number of game items.
By 2010, Vavle was winning online with another game line - Left 4 Dead. The first part came out in 2008 and was well received by critics, but this success turned out to be only a preparation for the boom that the second part caused after its release in 2010. Let me remind you that by that time for five years Counter-Strike: Source was the first on the online (by the way, a global update was released on June 23, 2010, transferring the game to a more modern version of the Source engine). Later, in 2011, the magnificent Portal 2 was released, which also supported multiplayer, but in the form of co-op. Why am I all this?And besides, in 2011, Valve won all the top positions in the number of players in games. This is a huge audience, which already then began to turn into an uncontrollable beast. However, the audience analysis should be done separately for each game project, but for now we are simply preparing the data.
The usual situation in 2011. The first three top games - games from Valve
August 26, 2011 released the first official trailer for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Almost simultaneously with the early news-announcements of the game, information appeared that Valve developers invited the best cybersportsmen playing Counter-Strike to test the new part. After a year of closed beta test, the game was released in 2012, and the era of CS: GO began. CS: GO, like its predecessors Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Source, is a cyber discipline. Major tournaments, which are held with the support of Valve, are the largest of all represented. The first such tournament, DreamHack Winter 2013, had a prize pool of $ 250,000.
On August 14, 2013, the game received a global update of Arms Deal, in which collections with various colorings (âskinsâ) for weapons were added. Such a coloring can be obtained in various ways: at the end of a match, a random player drops a âdropâ - a coloring; You can also buy a key and case in the game or on the trading floor. Yes, the cases that appeared in CS: GO have already been worked out in TF2, but the scale was greater and the consequences of entering them in such a popular game turned out to be much more serious.
After the Arms Deal update, the CS: GO community has changed beyond recognition.
Total: by 2013, we counted two games that supported and fully realized the economic potential of the Steam community. There were enough dissatisfied ones, there were often problems with cheating when shopping, and yet, around CS and TF, trading communities, trading platforms, roulette sites and other phenomena were born, in light of which games are no longer perceived as just games.
But Valve and this was not enough. Even before 2013, the company became interested in a popular modification for Warcraft - DotA. Valve's interest in the acquisition of Defense of the Ancients broke out when several experienced employees of the company, including Team Fortress designer Robin Volcker, became fans of the modification and active players. Valve contacted IceFrog via email with the intention of learning about his future plans for the game and subsequently hired him to lead the development of the DotA continuation. IceFrog first announced this in October 2009 on its blog. Dota 2 was announced on Game Informer in October 2010. The announcement of the upcoming release led to a sharp jump in interest in the game, which caused an overload and failure of Game Informer servers.
Valve immediately set out to build a close relationship with the Dota community, without scaring half the players with a sequel. To do this, they arranged in 2011 for The International - the official championship in Dota 2, where the main prize was a million dollars. In total, sixteen teams participated in the event. To this event, Valve tied another gift to Dota 2 fans - a full-length documentary film about the litigation of three favorite players on the way to The International. Among these three was the Ukrainian Danil âDendiâ Ishutin, whose team eventually took the top prize. The film was received very warmly by both fans and most critics, even those who have nothing to do with the gaming industry. The studio did its best to attract fans of the âoldâ DotA.
Let me remind you that in 2011 TF2 has already switched to FTP rails. This caused outrage among a large number of players, since the game was instantly flooded with beginners, who did not always behave adequately. The âcap-and-sellâ style of the game (chat messages, in-game shopping offers, IDLE servers for dropping items, etc.) also irritated the community more and more. A year later, in April 2012, Gabe Newell announced a new distribution model, Dota 2 - free-to-play. The cornerstone of the development of the game was to be the contribution of the gaming community. Notice: behind every Vavle hit is a community. At the moment, even some of the content is generated by fans. But back to DotA 2.
Starting in 2013, DotA 2 becomes the main game of Valve. Gabe Newell personally opens the International Championships, and relatively recently during a question-answer session on Reddit, he called Dota 2 his favorite multiplayer project. Above DotA 2 there are a lot more people working on than CS: GO, and Valveâs activity is most visible there. Partly active work on this project is due to the extremely democratic structure of the company; we'll talk about it later. At first, most of the employees in the team considered DotA 2 to be a strange project, but gradually more and more Valve developers guessed it and connected to the development of the popular MOBA today. In February 2017, Gabe, speaking of the inner workings of Vavle, noted the following: âWe are not limited by money, but by the number of hours per day. In fact,each of us votes for what is of great importance to our users, simply choosing which project to work on. In other words, none of those whom you saw today (support Steam, VR, CS: GO, Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2), does not engage in their project because someone told him. Everyone is working on a particular product because it believes that it is he who will give the most to our users. Our employees are constantly switching from project to project. âwhat exactly he will give most to our users. Our employees are constantly switching from project to project. âwhat exactly he will give most to our users. Our employees are constantly switching from project to project. â
Versions of employees about the organizational structure of Vavle (taken from the leadership for new employees). Probably the closest to the true picture number 4
From here all the advantages of Vavle as a company and all the disadvantages as the center of the community follow. You understand: in Vavle there is no SMM department or a PR director. Yes, there are people who participate in The International or write patch-notes, but all this is anarchic and not centralized. Because of this structure and principles of doing business, Valveâs main problem is the closeness of the community and the uneven support of top projects.
Despite the fact that Dota 2 is the most active project of Valve, by 2017 it has accumulated a huge number of problems, work on which is moving very slowly despite constant requests from the community. The audience of the game stopped growing at the beginning of 2016, and since then Dota 2 gradually began to lose players. The International tournaments have attracted enormous attention with their millions of funds, but this does not prevent Valve from being flippant with its product. First there were no major tournaments, then there were three, then two, this season the score went to dozens. After each world championship Valve change the rules of the game and are in no hurry to inform the organizers of the tournament about this. This approach has repeatedly spawned conflicts in the schedule, when the announcement of the next tournament from Valve literally put an end to the plans of the organizers and teams,forcing on the go to adapt to the dates of the competition. Organizers at the same time suffer not only from schedule changes. First, they took away the opportunity to sell tickets for DotaTV, and then completely deprived of exclusive broadcasting rights. The situation with the broadcasts has generated a real drama in the community, which still cares for the minds. The last nail in the coffin closes poor communication between developers and players. While Blizzard programmers and designers get new ideas from communicating with gamers, and Ubisoft catches bugs in Rainbow Six Siege, reading regular topics, Valve fans celebrate every tweet on official accounts or the appearance of people who are somehow connected with the company on Reddit. Such a relationship can not be called close, and it hurts everyone. Professionals before this season did not knowby what principle are direct invitations distributed to The International, and ordinary players could not track the progress of work on the game. It is difficult to say how many times the developers kept silent, failing all the deadlines.
The International ,
After the release of Dota 2, developer activity in TF2 and CS: GO did not decrease, but some changes began to be observed. In TF2, there was a greater emphasis on updates related to community items, while in CS: GO, problems related to the balance of the game, bugs and cheaters increased. Some bugs were not corrected for half a year, although the entire CS community viper reported to Vavle about them. Moreover, bugs even made their way to Major CS tournaments. In my opinion, the recent case became the apogee of this story, when at the PGL Major Krakow tournament the rules were supplemented with an âagreement not to use a bugâ. Valve gathered an emergency meeting of participants, at which they were asked not to use the bug with squatting and jumping in the tournament (you can jump up to look at the obstacle, and you will not be seen yourself). Representatives of the company saidthat they do not have the technical ability to eliminate the bug before the end of the tournament, so they rely on the fair play of the teams themselves. After that, the developers advised the players to adapt to the âskill-demandingâ maneuver and avoid places in which you can view the positions of the enemy by jumping.
In addition, the problem remained cheaters. Almost all negative CS: GO reviews are related to cheaters. In February 2017, the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gambler community launched the #FIXCSGO campaign. With the help of the distribution of the hashtag, players want to draw the attention of Valve to the problem of cheaters and the modernization of Valve Anti-Cheat. Many streamers and video bloggers joined the campaign. Some played with private cheats on the stream to show the inappropriateness of Valve's anti-cheat. Access to such programs is provided to a limited number of people, and the system is not able to detect them. However, the actions of streamers caused the opposite effect. Regular players after watching the broadcasts began to massively buy private cheats, because of which there were even more offenders on the servers. Valve has not voiced its position on this state of affairs.
So we found the source of the problems and resentment of the community: Vavle voiced nothing. And this year, Gabe Newell explained why they do that. Next, I will give the full text of the answer to this question, since it is very important (translation is taken from Shazoo):
After what Valve arranged in 2007-2008, the players were on edge. Everyone was waiting for the game that can not be called. Everyone was waiting for at least something that would contain the number 3 in the title. But soon the company went into multiplayer, and endless waiting swallowed everything. When in August 2017 at the next International Vavle announced their game Artifact, the reaction of the public sounded like this: âAaaa !!! Ouuuuuuu .... ". These were the lively emotions of thousands of people who were at the biggest competition in Dota and were not happy about the new game in their favorite universe. Because Valve is waiting for another - because the studio itself gave us real wonders of the gaming industry. And here we still hope for the next miracle, and Valve, like some mystical magicians, is sitting in his fortress, creating new masterpieces and not saying anything about it. And unfortunatelyThis situation will not change. Valve is no longer the company whose head may suddenly appear at Sony conference and make a surprise announcement or emotionally talk about its new game at E3. Valve is a completely unique business structure, which itself has become hostage to its success and its organizational laws.
Gabe Newell cannot gather all the top managers for the morning meeting and say: âToday we are launching the development of our most anticipated project! Steve, organize the designers! Bill, pick up the marketing group, the announcement in a week. Ted, take any money, but return our writers! â Gabe can not do so because with such actions he will destroy the structure that he created 15 years. So do not expect anything from Valve - most likely it will not.
Sometimes the discontent of the Valve community is concentrated in powerful energy whirls
The study of gaming communities is a very interesting occupation, since such structures are very inconstant and often give surprises. At the moment, anyone, even a small developer, knows that it is impossible to make a successful game without working with the players themselves. You can not just throw the game on the market and leave it to the audience. We need continuous support, constant communication with the players. And, maybe, sometimes it makes sense to compromise, because without a community your projects are dead.
In the comments to the last article there were wishes to highlight the work with the community at such studios as Epic Games, Piranha Games, Respawn Entertainment and others. Unfortunately, the New Year is approaching all inevitable and the time is tight on all fronts, so we had to limit ourselves to the âhottestâ game studios. In any case, if you liked this cycle of articles, we can continue it next year.
Earlier we touched on some interesting examples from the gaming industry, but almost all of the listed companies were not too large. Compared to the giants that are represented in this part, they can generally be considered indie developers. It just so happened that in this article, not just big companies were selected, but, with a few exceptions, the leaders in the cybersport area. From this the size of the material has increased somewhat, but I think it will not be boring to read.
Title: CD Projekt RED
Founded: 2002
Famous Games: The Witcher Series
Authors rating: 5/5
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CD Projekt RED was founded in February 2002 primarily to develop games based on the series of novels The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski. This studio is known to all thanks to its gorgeous trilogy. Players love CD Projekt RED not only for the high quality of the projects, but also for the respect for the audience. CDPR has a lot of credibility. The studio constantly informs the community about its life in various ways, for example, through publications on the Youtube channel and on pages in social networks. Their forum also invariably remains active, and developers often participate in discussions.
For the rest, the studio does nothing supernatural. She is simply loved for well-developed projects and great add-ons, each of which can be given off as a separate game. In addition, the games of the company are always extremely reasonable prices (especially for Russia) and a lot of free additional content.
The only sin in the account of CD Projekt RED is a small scandal with a reduction in graphics in The Witcher 3. The release version is quite different in terms of graphics from what was shown in the trailer. At first, the developers claimed that the graphics would be no worse than those presented in the announcements, but then they surrendered. Co-founder and CEO of CD Projekt RED, Marcin Ivinsky, nevertheless acknowledged the differences between the final version and the trailer shown at the VGX 2013 ceremony, and explained where they came from. All because of the multiplatform and game optimization. CD Projekt RED intentionally took this step to ensure a comfortable game on consoles, without creating separate versions for each platform. Thus, the owners of the PC had to do without high-quality reflections, effects and other things on a par with the owners of consoles. At the moment, a group of modders is working on a modification that will return the Witcher to the original look, and the CDPR does not interfere with this. At the same time, if Ubisoft was blown to pieces for similar reasons (see the stories related to Watch Dogs and Tom Clancy's The Division), then CDPR was only slightly scolded and forgiven, since the game is great anyway. This is the strength of community loyalty.
The new story of CD Projekt RED is connected with the Gwent card game and the promising Cyberpunk 2077 project. The audience is already supporting the studio in its new endeavors, forgives the Gwent single-player shifts, and is pleased with the developers' statement that microtranslations are not their way. In short, the community at CD Projekt RED is now very strong and will be able to withstand more than one onslaught of problems.
CD Projekt RED in the natural environment
Name: Paradox Interactive
Founded: 1998
Famous Games: Europa Universalis Series, Hearts of Iron Series
Authors rating: 4/5
Paradox Interactive is a Swedish company based in Stockholm that develops computer games, mainly global historical strategies. It was founded in 1998, and began to publish games independently in 2012, when the company split into Paradox Development Studio and Paradox Interactive.
Paradox is primarily known for its Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron series. The themes of strategies differ, but the management of the economy, trade, geopolitics, diplomacy and technological development remains unchanged. Paradox Interactive developers pay special attention to the history of mankind, demonstrating a reasonable commitment to actual accuracy.
What is the Paradox Interactive community built on? As in the case of Amplitude Software from the first part of the article, these are mods and a narrow audience target. Global strategies are a specific genre, and the community is very dense and closed.
In studio games, traditionally strong emphasis is placed on modding. It is strongly encouraged: for example, when describing changes, developers list including all new features that were added specifically for modders (new script commands, tools, etc.). They even take the most distinguished modders to work, and some have become nothing more than game directors of individual projects. For example, Martin Anvard under the nickname Wiz worked on one major mod for Europa Universalis IV, then he was offered to join the development team, then he was transferred to Stellaris, where the developer and received the lead of the project. Or the Scotsman under the nickname DDRJake - he became famous for combining exploits and ingenious tactics in Europa Universalis IV, achieving bizarre results. Now DDRJake also heads one of the projects. In addition, developers sometimes stream Twitch broadcasts of their multiplayer battles, playing in any of the most popular mods. At the same time, they get posts on the forum during these events, where they discuss the progress of the multiplayer campaign together with users.
The forum weekly spread diaries of developers for each of the key projects. As a rule, the diaries describe the current development processes (innovations in mechanics, in the balance, in the map of the game world, etc.).
The company is also famous for its regular DLC, so they almost always have something to announce. Every week, fans get new information, discuss it and get answers to their questions. It comes to the fact that if the diaries of developers for some reason do not go on time, the forum is overflowing with indignant messages. Moreover, like Amlpitude Software, the studioâs forum has an extensive section for user suggestions, and often reasoned arguments are taken into account until changes are made to the game. The content of the most successful mods is also sometimes inserted into the official versions in agreement with the authors.
The only problem that has arisen for Paradox Interactive in all this time is the reaction of the community to a sudden price increase. The story is very famous. In May 2017, prices for games increased by about 30-50%. A company spokesman said that such changes were necessary due to the fact that prices for games from Paradox for a long time remained unchanged, despite inflation and other external factors. The community response has been very mixed. Especially the players were outraged by the increase in prices for old projects. After this, the ratings of the games publishers plummeted. Europa Universalis 4 and Crusader Kings 2 were in the zone of negative ratings, and Twitter was filled with negative reviews about the working studio.
- It's sad to see that Paradox Interactive behaves so badly, I am disappointed. (community member)
- It was planned for some time, but I agree that the moment was chosen poorly and we had little contact with the players. But at the same time, the definition of "trash" is somewhat over the top . (CEO Paradox Fredrick Wester)After some time, FrĂŠdĂŠric wrote a letter to the community in which he said that he had considered his step and reaction of the community, after which he decided to return the prices to the previous level. In addition, he expressed his opinion about the company's paid DLC. Translation of the letter can be read here . People like Paradox Interactive for such gestures: for the fact that the CEO can turn to the community and promise to read the letters and feedback from the participants; for the fact that top developers take part in discussions on forums and listen to the opinions of active players. In addition, such an attentive approach to the genre, like that of Paradox Interactive, you will not find in anybody, and for this they are also loved and respected.
Name: id Software
Founded: 1991
Famous Games: Doom Series, Quake Series
Authors rating: 4/5
When writing a section on id Software, I ran into the problem of an âold companyâ. id are at the origin of the game era: they were part of the dawn era of the gaming industry and made a huge contribution to it themselves. id Software communicated with the community even when the communication was reduced to e-mail correspondence. What is considered to work with the community? Chatting with players on the first Doom servers? Work id Software with the audience and the press during the era of "cruelty in games"? Or the creation of cyberspace at the dawn of Quake? I decided not to go that far, but to dwell on the latest events related to the studio. But a small historical reference will still be.
The merits of id Software in front of the eSports community are huge. The first Doom tournaments were held in 1994, and even then they gathered a large number of people. After the success of the first online battles and slaughterhouses on Doom's servers, Microsoft connected to the process and wanted to position Windows as the leading gaming platform. In the period from 1994 to 1996, computer clubs were opened in the USA, championships and network battles were organized. The behavior of the then heads of the studio (Carmack and Romero) formed the emotional background of the community. They were young, bright and very emotional people who turned the room with computers into a boiling cauldron. At that time, representatives of id Software behaved as if they were in their own office: they cursed, shouted, accompanied their actions with comments addressed to opponents, etc. That was how the joke community formed. People liked the process of playing together and the feeling of belonging to a single culture, while the developers at that time were leaders of this culture and were fully committed to communicating with the community. Let me remind you that John Romero was fired from the studio in August 1996 and did all his most odious tricks in ION Storm, so we will not consider them for âworking with the communityâ. Finally, Quake opened the era of modding and gave birth to a huge online community, whose members not only played and communicated with each other, but also developed new levels and modifications to their favorite games on a voluntary-free basis.
Quake 3 Arena can be considered as the peak of cyber-sports activity. By the time Quake 2 maximally accumulated the community, which included players, creators of maps and mods. The third part of Quake fully focused on eSports and multiplayer, which gave a very strong growth of the online community. id Software communicated perfectly with the audience and constantly provided support. The studio regularly hosted championships, competitions for creating maps and mods. By the way, around some mods, for example, Defrag, separate communities began to appear. After that, id Software moved away from multiplayer projects and began 15 years of single player development: Doom 3 in 2004, then Rage in 2011, then Doom in 2016. Yes, all these were great games, and they were even played on the network, but the level of activity was not the same as in Quake 3.
The modern QuakeCon community
But let's go back to 2013, when John Carmack left id Software, and the company for four years already became part of ZeniMax Media. According to the contract, Bethesda Softworks will publish all games id Software except for those that fall under the agreement on the publication with other companies. Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software, commented on the acquisition act: âCollaboration with a smart publisher such as Bethesda Softworks was a unique opportunity in which the interests of the studio and the publisher would be completely the same in the development and marketing of our games. In addition, we now have financial and business resources to support the future development of id Software; this is a huge advantage that will lead to more and more good games for our fans. â However, many community members and developers have been negative about buying; among the latter was, for example, John Romero. It was believed that id Software will change a lot for the worse. But after this event in the studio, as if something clicked and after a long development (and several restarts) Doom came out in 2016, and now in the beta test is Quake Champions.
The single-player Doom campaign has received a lot of rave reviews.
The fact that Doom's multiplayer pre-release received negative user ratings does not mean that the multiplayer in the game is bad. Players just waited for a single player campaign, which would be the whole essence of the game. After the studio made the network DLCs free, there was a fairly large increase in activity. The community praised a large number of modes: unlike, for example, Unreal Tournament, in Doom, players try different modes, and each has fans. But Doom was just a training session before the new entry into the multiplayer arenas. At E3 in 2016, the company announced Quake Champions.
Return of the legend of arena shooters
Quake Champions began to push the whole community of arena shooters. Unreal Tournament 4 is still in alpha test, Overwatch is too bright and casual for many, LawBreakers turned out to be too ambiguous. Against this background, many "old men" with pleasure began to return to the saint of all the saints in the world of classic shooters. If someone does not know, the game is now in early access, after which it will be free. Yes, there are all the sins of modern gamedev in the form of blocked characters, skins and lutboks, but all this is done without kinking, you can perfectly play without in-game purchases. In addition, many players immediately bought full access, which opens up all current and future characters.
id software immediately launched a powerful public relations company, during which it began to attract new players. There was a standard work on all social networks, the press wrote reviews, the number of reviews on Steam grew. But while the reviews were mostly negative. The game was scolded for performance, netcode, for a small number of modes. But the most resent new players, training for which was absent in principle. You could go to the server and easily get to the pro-players. The system ranked participants only by the level of the profile, which depended on the number of battles (in fact, on the time spent in the game). There was no training, games with bots, too. It is clear that this is an early version, but novice players did not expect this at all. At the same time, according to reviews from professionals, the game is just as likely designed for a beginner, since the ability and balance of the appearance of weapons simply does not allow to do such terrible things, like, for example, running through respawns.
QuakeCon 2017 was very impressive.
And what about pro-players? id Software approached work with its target audience well, it became clear during the closed test. For example, the top player Cypher was invited to test during the first IEM tournament (Intel Extreme Masters). Cypher spoke positively about the game and gave its feedback to the developers about the game mechanics. In general, id Software constantly mentions that they listen to pro-players and take their opinions into account. Members of the audience, such as Cypher, Polosatiy and AGENT, spoke positively about the game and about working with the community of pro-players in general, although their outlook on things might change from patch to patch.
In the right [side is moving Quake Champions], and, of course, it is good that they attract cybersportsmen. Developers, of course, will do what they want, and everyone will have to adapt to it, nothing can be done. But the developers really listen to cybersportsmen. Invite them to visit, take to the state.The development team, by the way, includes pro-player John "ZeRo4" Hill, who is responsible for the cybersport part as a whole. Despite this, there were more negative comments, especially about the balance of the game and the organization of tournaments. So, before the Quake World Championship tournament, developers released a patch that weakened the Clutch character a lot. This happened one day before a major tournament, and players who trained with this character began to urgently change their tactics, although the developers said that the community itself voted to release this patch. Particularly strongly this moment criticized the Russian top player Cooller. In addition, Cooller and several other pro-players spoke negatively about the qualifying match system, as many members of the community did not send an invitation to the championship of their level. After the first tournaments from the pro-players began to receive more negative feedback about the fact that their opinions do not take into account, despite the statements of the developers.
- Nikolay âAGENTâ Maiorov
Developers listen to us, but they do it in their own way.
- Alexey âCypherâ Januszewski
As for the interaction with the players, the developers do not communicate with me personally. Maybe they are not expecting from us, the players of the initiative. Occasionally I communicate with Zero4, we can discuss some points, but again, he is not responsible for developing the game.I remind you: the game has not yet been released. In fact, we have a large playable beta version with its own problems and flaws. If we look more broadly at the studio approach, then by and large we see a calm, serious work with the community. Yes, there are mistakes, shortcomings, but the work of id Software, on the example of Quake Champions, is the interaction of professionals from the side of development and professionals from the community. The game is only open for six months, and many championships have already been played, a huge number of battles have been held, dozens of patches have been made. Quake is back, and this time on his side all the power of modern social media and online communities, which can make the title very popular.
- Anton âCOOLLERZâ Singov
Name: Blizzard Entertaiment
Founded: 1991
Famous Games: Starcraft Series, Warcraft Series, Diablo Series
Authors rating: 4/5
The famous Orc statue near Blizzard headquarters in Irvine, California
Blizzard Entertainment is another e-sports giant that currently controls two disciplines: Starcraft and Overwatch. In contrast to Vavle, Blizzard has chosen a completely different way of development and communication with its community. The studio has a huge community that has grown since the days of the online battles of Warcraft 2, and Blizzard does a great job with this community. Before proceeding with the analysis of the company and its work with the players, I want to warn you that I will not consider World of Warcraft in detail. Firstly, the IMO community is a whole separate direction, and in such a tenacious game like WOW, it is also very difficult. In addition, I have never played this game, which means I could not adequately analyze all aspects.
Community life, as usual, began with the editors of maps and mods. In WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness was a handy map editor that allowed fans to create their own scripts and thereby secured interest in the project for a few more years. By sending the game to release, Blizzard, of course, was counting on sales of more than 100,000 copies per year (such results achieved by WarCraft: Orcs & Humans). But what was the surprise of the leadership, when the second part of the saga about the war of orcs and people sold over a million copies. Gamers around the world played the game, participated in LAN-tournaments, created their own campaigns and texture packs that changed the look of the usual game. At the same time, there was a lack of an element that would tie the whole community together. This element was the Battle.net portal.
Battle.net was launched on November 30, 1996, simultaneously with the release of the role-playing game Diablo. Battle.net was the first online gaming platform built right into the games in which it is used, which was different from the approach of other companies using external interfaces. This feature, along with the simplicity of creating accounts and the absence of subscription fees, contributed to the growth of Battle.net popularity among players. This had a significant impact on Diablo sales and subsequent Blizzard games. The successful launch of Battle.net has prompted other companies to start developing their own online platforms while borrowing many features and interfaces. And this is 1996! Who then could seriously think that all online in the future will be built on such services? Blizzard could. And at the moment Battle.net is one of the most popular gaming networks in the world, second only to Steam.
Until the 2000s, network activity among gamers was not yet very developed. Not everyone had access to the Internet, communication was expensive, and LAN battles were popular. Battle.net made a very strong breakthrough between 1998 and 2000, when two hits were released: Diablo 2 and Starcraft. By the way, the StarCraft professional gaming community is one of the largest in the world. Since 2002, pro-gamers began to unite in teams sponsored by large companies. Most of the battles at that time took place on Battle.Net, where players created interest groups.
And here we again return to the topic of map editors. Starcraft came with the StarEdit campaign editor. The editor trigger system allowed users to completely change maps and create their own map scripts. The StarCraft community has created new editors and features that make it even more serious to change the game. Microstar even sold CDs with new levels created with StarEdit, but had to stop it after Blizzard won a lawsuit in a lawsuit against these sales. The gaming community also released its own map editors (StarCraft X-tra Editor, StarForge, and SCMDraft). They allow you to do things that the official editor is not capable of: for example, âcombiningâ several fields of minerals and buildings with each other, changing the colors of players, using hidden AI scripts, preventing other users from extracting resources from maps (music, etc.) .), play dimensionless sound files directly from the StarCraft disc, change the text color and compress the cards created in these editors. The most extensive areas of application of such editors include the ability to create users of new sprites, sprites for units and prohibited units. Some additional maps and campaigns, including StarCraft: Insurrection and StarCraft: Retribution, were issued by third-party developers for commercial distribution. The company retained the same approach with the support of the Diablo 2 player community, where the number of mods grew by leaps and bounds and some of them overgrown with their own community.
Cooperative mod for Starcraft. One example of successful and active modification.
From the very beginning, Blizzard has embarked on support and communication with the community. The studio encouraged cardmakers, fan fiction authors, artists, and other active community members. Until now, the forum dedicated to the work of fans is very active and often you can see the comments and ratings of developers in it. The company after the release of Diablo realized that they have a million audience, and in this audience - the strength and the key to success. It was necessary to consolidate the community even more tightly, and BlizzCon became the catalyst for this process.
In 2004, World of Warcraft came out, which remained one of the main MMO games for a decade, and in 2005 the first BlizzCon took place.
BlizzCon gathers players and developers in one place. Developers make announcements of new projects, talk about the development process and hold contests. Players support their favorite company, participate in global events, make cosplay, etc. With the help of BlizzCon, Blizzard has created a certain culture that develops around their projects. For example, everyone present receives a "set of souvenirs" in which you can find a wide variety of items devoted to games from Blizzard. At BlizzCon in 2005, these were the access codes for creating a game animal satellite in World of Warcraft - the murloc. In addition, passwords for the closed beta test of new games were also heard: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade in 2005, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King in 2007 and StarCraft II in 2008.
At the same time, even before the release of Heroes of the Storm, the studio often linked projects together. For example, on October 21, 2011, the company announced a campaign: those who bought a one-year subscription to World of Warcraft will be given the opportunity to play Diablo III for free. Such synergy is constantly observed in the products of the company and it reached its peak in Heroes of the Storm, where the developers combined the heroes of all their universes, which caused wild delight among the fans. In general, Blizzard pays a lot of attention to the community and constantly listens to the players. Patches are made as quickly as possible, and the errors are repaired in the first place, those that most rested on the fans. This approach still holds when everyone plays Hearthstone and Overwatch. Of course, not all solutions are successful. Many studio games are based on a fine balance of the gameplay, and, according to a number of top players, Blizzard made mistakes during the StarCraft era: Brood war and often spoiled their own projects. But the studio itself considers this a development and, probably, in some ways they are right.
We now turn to the most important thing - cybersport. For over 15 years, Blizzard Entertainment has been one of the main driving forces in the world of eSports. At the same time, unlike Valve (well, I canât not compare them!), For eSports, specific persons are responsible for it. They are known, their work is open and in many respects based on interaction with the professional community. However, at the moment their actions cause a flurry of criticism.
For example, Blizzard fans still wonder how the corporation has managed to miss the emergence of the MOBA trend.Since DotA, this genre has grown so much that it began to attract more players than the game itself from Blizzard. A cyber sports scene with professional teams and leagues has formed around the map. In 2012, DotA: Allstars became the World Cyber ââGames World Cup advertising discipline, which turned out to be a landmark event for fans. While Blizzard ignored the birth of MOBA, Riot Games and Valve took advantage of its absentmindedness. First released in 2009, League of Legends, the most popular eSports discipline in the world. Well, Valve made a bet on the already promoted brand.
Blizzard has always selectively worked with the gaming community, but in matters of eSports its managers are often deaf, blind and catastrophically slow. The corporation is not at all interested in the life of teams and players - unlike the same Riot Games, which checks all the conditions of contracts and requires strict adherence to tournament regulations from organizations. If the management team does not fulfill obligations to the players, then participation in professional tournaments is out of the question. If Riot Games itself pays salaries to participants of tournaments, and Valve allows you to earn money by selling autographs and stickers (The Internationa tournaments set records in prize money), then Blizzard copes with organizational duties only in North America. There the company holds tournaments among universities, and once a year they organize a festival BlizzCon,which at the same time serves as a platform for the world championships and an exhibition of the latest gaming innovations. Outside the United States, the company's activity is minimal. In-game problems Blizzard solves reluctantly and for a long time. The company could not enter Region Lock into StarCraft II for several years (which is why players from South Korea won almost all major tournaments), as well as quotas for Europeans and Americans for the World Championships. Probably, problems in this area are associated with a lack of interest on the part of the company. According to one of the founders of Blizzard, Allen Adham (Allen Adham), the company has never created a game that was originally focused on eSports. Moreover, the success of StarCraft multiplayer was a surprise for Blizzard. âWe never imagined what StarCraft would be. We were surprised at this, like everyone else, âsaid Allen Adham.Outside the United States, the company's activity is minimal. In-game problems Blizzard solves reluctantly and for a long time. The company could not enter Region Lock into StarCraft II for several years (which is why players from South Korea won almost all major tournaments), as well as quotas for Europeans and Americans for the World Championships. Probably, problems in this area are associated with a lack of interest on the part of the company. According to one of the founders of Blizzard, Allen Adham (Allen Adham), the company has never created a game that was originally focused on eSports. Moreover, the success of StarCraft multiplayer was a surprise for Blizzard. âWe never imagined what StarCraft would be. We were surprised at this, like everyone else, âsaid Allen Adham.Outside the United States, the company's activity is minimal. In-game problems Blizzard solves reluctantly and for a long time. The company could not enter Region Lock into StarCraft II for several years (which is why players from South Korea won almost all major tournaments), as well as quotas for Europeans and Americans for the World Championships. Probably, problems in this area are associated with a lack of interest on the part of the company. According to one of the founders of Blizzard, Allen Adham (Allen Adham), the company has never created a game that was originally focused on eSports. Moreover, the success of StarCraft multiplayer was a surprise for Blizzard. âWe never imagined what StarCraft would be. We were surprised at this, like everyone else, âsaid Allen Adham.The company could not enter Region Lock into StarCraft II for several years (which is why players from South Korea won almost all major tournaments), as well as quotas for Europeans and Americans for the World Championships. Probably, problems in this area are associated with a lack of interest on the part of the company. According to one of the founders of Blizzard, Allen Adham (Allen Adham), the company has never created a game that was originally focused on eSports. Moreover, the success of StarCraft multiplayer was a surprise for Blizzard. âWe never imagined what StarCraft would be. We were surprised at this, like everyone else, âsaid Allen Adham.The company could not enter Region Lock into StarCraft II for several years (which is why players from South Korea won almost all major tournaments), as well as quotas for Europeans and Americans for the World Championships. Probably, problems in this area are associated with a lack of interest on the part of the company. According to one of the founders of Blizzard, Allen Adham (Allen Adham), the company has never created a game that was originally focused on eSports. Moreover, the success of StarCraft multiplayer was a surprise for Blizzard. âWe never imagined what StarCraft would be. We were surprised at this, like everyone else, âsaid Allen Adham.Problems in this area are associated with a lack of interest on the part of the company. According to one of the founders of Blizzard, Allen Adham (Allen Adham), the company has never created a game that was originally focused on eSports. Moreover, the success of StarCraft multiplayer was a surprise for Blizzard. âWe never imagined what StarCraft would be. We were surprised at this, like everyone else, âsaid Allen Adham.Problems in this area are associated with a lack of interest on the part of the company. According to one of the founders of Blizzard, Allen Adham (Allen Adham), the company has never created a game that was originally focused on eSports. Moreover, the success of StarCraft multiplayer was a surprise for Blizzard. âWe never imagined what StarCraft would be. We were surprised at this, like everyone else, âsaid Allen Adham.
Blizzard
Now the best e-sports prospects at Overwatch. The company constantly releases fresh patches, works on updating graphics, and even teaches rude users to cultural chat conversations. While Overwatch has no direct competitors. The game is not similar to Dota 2, League of Legends or Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, so it has good chances to stake out a place in the cyberspace scene. In November, Esports Charts published the final statistics for the BlizzCon 2017 audience. It showed that the most popular Blizzard discipline is Overwatch. In sum, the Overwatch Cup final between the USA and South Korea was watched by 840 thousand people, of which 607 thousand were Chinese spectators. In this case, the game at the moment there are several problems that draws the attention of the community of players. For example, Overwatch is hard to watch a manwho knows nothing about the game. This is said from the first tournament. Despite the fact that the regime has already been completed, the global picture has not changed much: many elements remain on the screen that are incomprehensible to the viewer, and at the same time the whole action takes place at a rapid pace. At the moment, the main task of the company is to support and develop the Overwatch League.
Long-awaited Overwatch League.
In the end, Blizzard is probably one of the best companies in terms of communication with the community. At the same time the audience at the studio is huge and very different. Blizzard has to take into account the wishes of the old players, to attract new games to the games, to create e-sports events. Yes, it is difficult, yes, the result is not perfect, but from the point of view of the gaming community, Blizzard is the best.
Name: Valve
Founded: 1996
Famous games: Half-life series, Portal series, Counter-Strike series Authors
rating: 2/5
Valve is probably even more famous studio than id Software, because they are the authors of the Half-life series, Counter Strike and the Steam distribution system. About Vavle, you can write a separate article, so much this company has influenced the gaming market. As in the case of id Software, we will not talk about the company's early activities, when the Vavle community was completely offline. I will look at two parts of the Vavle audience: the eSports community (CS, Dota) and the Half-life community, which is now waiting for what is known. This is a million audience with which Valve has to work and take into account its desires. How successfully does the company cope with such pressure of the public? The exact number of employees Valve is unknown, but it does not exactly go beyond 300-400 people. How many of them are responsible for communicating with the audience,which already has several million people? Let's try to figure it out.
We start, perhaps, from 2007. It was then that Steam became a truly social platform: there was a major update of the client, in which communities, chats, statuses and everything needed for good communication were added. By that time, Vavle already had a huge community. 2007 was a turning point - there was a transition from singles to multiplayer, from a closed offline community to a huge and live online. On October 9, 2007, Valve released The Orange Box, which included the following games: Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2. The compilation was simultaneously delivered for the PC, PS 3 and Xbox 360. Team Fortress 2 is the first massively multiplayer game from Vavle, which started making money on Luthboxes when this word did not exist. Generally,For Vavle, 2007 is something like a detachment of the third stage of a rocket, after which movement starts at maximum speed and only forward.
After 2007, the community began to break up into separate groups. Most people played Team Fortress 2, despite the fact that the game was still paid. Team Fortress 2 for several years held the position of the most popular multiplayer game on Steam. Much of what we are seeing on Steam now first appeared in Team Fortress 2: achievements (with weapon awards!), Steam inventory, trading, and more. The first profit Vavle, not related to Steam and sales of games, respectively, brought the very notorious caps from TF. In 2010, Mann-Conomy was updated, in which the Mann Co. store (for trade in TF2 items), the Steam wallet and the exchange system were introduced. Many believe that it was from this update that the game slid down and became a âtrading-head-up simulatorâ, but for Valve this is an important point:starting with him, the economic mechanisms of the company reached a new level.
Team Fortress 2 impressed everyone with its unique style. Unfortunately, now the game is very deteriorated in visual terms, partly due to the huge number of game items.
By 2010, Vavle was winning online with another game line - Left 4 Dead. The first part came out in 2008 and was well received by critics, but this success turned out to be only a preparation for the boom that the second part caused after its release in 2010. Let me remind you that by that time for five years Counter-Strike: Source was the first on the online (by the way, a global update was released on June 23, 2010, transferring the game to a more modern version of the Source engine). Later, in 2011, the magnificent Portal 2 was released, which also supported multiplayer, but in the form of co-op. Why am I all this?And besides, in 2011, Valve won all the top positions in the number of players in games. This is a huge audience, which already then began to turn into an uncontrollable beast. However, the audience analysis should be done separately for each game project, but for now we are simply preparing the data.
The usual situation in 2011. The first three top games - games from Valve
August 26, 2011 released the first official trailer for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Almost simultaneously with the early news-announcements of the game, information appeared that Valve developers invited the best cybersportsmen playing Counter-Strike to test the new part. After a year of closed beta test, the game was released in 2012, and the era of CS: GO began. CS: GO, like its predecessors Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Source, is a cyber discipline. Major tournaments, which are held with the support of Valve, are the largest of all represented. The first such tournament, DreamHack Winter 2013, had a prize pool of $ 250,000.
On August 14, 2013, the game received a global update of Arms Deal, in which collections with various colorings (âskinsâ) for weapons were added. Such a coloring can be obtained in various ways: at the end of a match, a random player drops a âdropâ - a coloring; You can also buy a key and case in the game or on the trading floor. Yes, the cases that appeared in CS: GO have already been worked out in TF2, but the scale was greater and the consequences of entering them in such a popular game turned out to be much more serious.
After the Arms Deal update, the CS: GO community has changed beyond recognition.
Total: by 2013, we counted two games that supported and fully realized the economic potential of the Steam community. There were enough dissatisfied ones, there were often problems with cheating when shopping, and yet, around CS and TF, trading communities, trading platforms, roulette sites and other phenomena were born, in light of which games are no longer perceived as just games.
But Valve and this was not enough. Even before 2013, the company became interested in a popular modification for Warcraft - DotA. Valve's interest in the acquisition of Defense of the Ancients broke out when several experienced employees of the company, including Team Fortress designer Robin Volcker, became fans of the modification and active players. Valve contacted IceFrog via email with the intention of learning about his future plans for the game and subsequently hired him to lead the development of the DotA continuation. IceFrog first announced this in October 2009 on its blog. Dota 2 was announced on Game Informer in October 2010. The announcement of the upcoming release led to a sharp jump in interest in the game, which caused an overload and failure of Game Informer servers.
Valve immediately set out to build a close relationship with the Dota community, without scaring half the players with a sequel. To do this, they arranged in 2011 for The International - the official championship in Dota 2, where the main prize was a million dollars. In total, sixteen teams participated in the event. To this event, Valve tied another gift to Dota 2 fans - a full-length documentary film about the litigation of three favorite players on the way to The International. Among these three was the Ukrainian Danil âDendiâ Ishutin, whose team eventually took the top prize. The film was received very warmly by both fans and most critics, even those who have nothing to do with the gaming industry. The studio did its best to attract fans of the âoldâ DotA.
Let me remind you that in 2011 TF2 has already switched to FTP rails. This caused outrage among a large number of players, since the game was instantly flooded with beginners, who did not always behave adequately. The âcap-and-sellâ style of the game (chat messages, in-game shopping offers, IDLE servers for dropping items, etc.) also irritated the community more and more. A year later, in April 2012, Gabe Newell announced a new distribution model, Dota 2 - free-to-play. The cornerstone of the development of the game was to be the contribution of the gaming community. Notice: behind every Vavle hit is a community. At the moment, even some of the content is generated by fans. But back to DotA 2.
Starting in 2013, DotA 2 becomes the main game of Valve. Gabe Newell personally opens the International Championships, and relatively recently during a question-answer session on Reddit, he called Dota 2 his favorite multiplayer project. Above DotA 2 there are a lot more people working on than CS: GO, and Valveâs activity is most visible there. Partly active work on this project is due to the extremely democratic structure of the company; we'll talk about it later. At first, most of the employees in the team considered DotA 2 to be a strange project, but gradually more and more Valve developers guessed it and connected to the development of the popular MOBA today. In February 2017, Gabe, speaking of the inner workings of Vavle, noted the following: âWe are not limited by money, but by the number of hours per day. In fact,each of us votes for what is of great importance to our users, simply choosing which project to work on. In other words, none of those whom you saw today (support Steam, VR, CS: GO, Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2), does not engage in their project because someone told him. Everyone is working on a particular product because it believes that it is he who will give the most to our users. Our employees are constantly switching from project to project. âwhat exactly he will give most to our users. Our employees are constantly switching from project to project. âwhat exactly he will give most to our users. Our employees are constantly switching from project to project. â
Versions of employees about the organizational structure of Vavle (taken from the leadership for new employees). Probably the closest to the true picture number 4
From here all the advantages of Vavle as a company and all the disadvantages as the center of the community follow. You understand: in Vavle there is no SMM department or a PR director. Yes, there are people who participate in The International or write patch-notes, but all this is anarchic and not centralized. Because of this structure and principles of doing business, Valveâs main problem is the closeness of the community and the uneven support of top projects.
Despite the fact that Dota 2 is the most active project of Valve, by 2017 it has accumulated a huge number of problems, work on which is moving very slowly despite constant requests from the community. The audience of the game stopped growing at the beginning of 2016, and since then Dota 2 gradually began to lose players. The International tournaments have attracted enormous attention with their millions of funds, but this does not prevent Valve from being flippant with its product. First there were no major tournaments, then there were three, then two, this season the score went to dozens. After each world championship Valve change the rules of the game and are in no hurry to inform the organizers of the tournament about this. This approach has repeatedly spawned conflicts in the schedule, when the announcement of the next tournament from Valve literally put an end to the plans of the organizers and teams,forcing on the go to adapt to the dates of the competition. Organizers at the same time suffer not only from schedule changes. First, they took away the opportunity to sell tickets for DotaTV, and then completely deprived of exclusive broadcasting rights. The situation with the broadcasts has generated a real drama in the community, which still cares for the minds. The last nail in the coffin closes poor communication between developers and players. While Blizzard programmers and designers get new ideas from communicating with gamers, and Ubisoft catches bugs in Rainbow Six Siege, reading regular topics, Valve fans celebrate every tweet on official accounts or the appearance of people who are somehow connected with the company on Reddit. Such a relationship can not be called close, and it hurts everyone. Professionals before this season did not knowby what principle are direct invitations distributed to The International, and ordinary players could not track the progress of work on the game. It is difficult to say how many times the developers kept silent, failing all the deadlines.
The International ,
After the release of Dota 2, developer activity in TF2 and CS: GO did not decrease, but some changes began to be observed. In TF2, there was a greater emphasis on updates related to community items, while in CS: GO, problems related to the balance of the game, bugs and cheaters increased. Some bugs were not corrected for half a year, although the entire CS community viper reported to Vavle about them. Moreover, bugs even made their way to Major CS tournaments. In my opinion, the recent case became the apogee of this story, when at the PGL Major Krakow tournament the rules were supplemented with an âagreement not to use a bugâ. Valve gathered an emergency meeting of participants, at which they were asked not to use the bug with squatting and jumping in the tournament (you can jump up to look at the obstacle, and you will not be seen yourself). Representatives of the company saidthat they do not have the technical ability to eliminate the bug before the end of the tournament, so they rely on the fair play of the teams themselves. After that, the developers advised the players to adapt to the âskill-demandingâ maneuver and avoid places in which you can view the positions of the enemy by jumping.
In addition, the problem remained cheaters. Almost all negative CS: GO reviews are related to cheaters. In February 2017, the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gambler community launched the #FIXCSGO campaign. With the help of the distribution of the hashtag, players want to draw the attention of Valve to the problem of cheaters and the modernization of Valve Anti-Cheat. Many streamers and video bloggers joined the campaign. Some played with private cheats on the stream to show the inappropriateness of Valve's anti-cheat. Access to such programs is provided to a limited number of people, and the system is not able to detect them. However, the actions of streamers caused the opposite effect. Regular players after watching the broadcasts began to massively buy private cheats, because of which there were even more offenders on the servers. Valve has not voiced its position on this state of affairs.
So we found the source of the problems and resentment of the community: Vavle voiced nothing. And this year, Gabe Newell explained why they do that. Next, I will give the full text of the answer to this question, since it is very important (translation is taken from Shazoo):
- Hi Gabe, why Valve does not communicate with the community about the developed games / applications, like other companies?It is sad to watch social networking studios. The latest YouTube video was posted 10 months ago. Gabe Newell's latest tweet - in 2016. The studio does not lead the official twitter. That's the whole Vavle in terms of communication. We do not know what they are doing, and then the women - and Vavle announces a card game based on Dota. Then again silence - and suddenly a small studio ClockStone releases Bridge Constructor Portal with the explicit support of Valve. All this, as I have already said, is the result of Valveâs democratic (and from the point of view of many, even anarchic) ââstructures. Valve employees, like ships in a huge sea, move on their tables with wheels (see the instructions for beginners Valve employees) and create interest groups, the result of which can be either zero or just another breakthrough. Valve is constantly experimenting:here you can remember Steam Link, Steam Machines, VR and more. All these ideas appear as suddenly as they fade. But that's not what millions of players expect from Vavle. And here we come to the last problem - waiting.
â , . , , . . . â , . , Steam â , . , . â , . -, Valve . . , , . , .
After what Valve arranged in 2007-2008, the players were on edge. Everyone was waiting for the game that can not be called. Everyone was waiting for at least something that would contain the number 3 in the title. But soon the company went into multiplayer, and endless waiting swallowed everything. When in August 2017 at the next International Vavle announced their game Artifact, the reaction of the public sounded like this: âAaaa !!! Ouuuuuuu .... ". These were the lively emotions of thousands of people who were at the biggest competition in Dota and were not happy about the new game in their favorite universe. Because Valve is waiting for another - because the studio itself gave us real wonders of the gaming industry. And here we still hope for the next miracle, and Valve, like some mystical magicians, is sitting in his fortress, creating new masterpieces and not saying anything about it. And unfortunatelyThis situation will not change. Valve is no longer the company whose head may suddenly appear at Sony conference and make a surprise announcement or emotionally talk about its new game at E3. Valve is a completely unique business structure, which itself has become hostage to its success and its organizational laws.
Gabe Newell cannot gather all the top managers for the morning meeting and say: âToday we are launching the development of our most anticipated project! Steve, organize the designers! Bill, pick up the marketing group, the announcement in a week. Ted, take any money, but return our writers! â Gabe can not do so because with such actions he will destroy the structure that he created 15 years. So do not expect anything from Valve - most likely it will not.
Sometimes the discontent of the Valve community is concentrated in powerful energy whirls
Conclusion
The study of gaming communities is a very interesting occupation, since such structures are very inconstant and often give surprises. At the moment, anyone, even a small developer, knows that it is impossible to make a successful game without working with the players themselves. You can not just throw the game on the market and leave it to the audience. We need continuous support, constant communication with the players. And, maybe, sometimes it makes sense to compromise, because without a community your projects are dead.
In the comments to the last article there were wishes to highlight the work with the community at such studios as Epic Games, Piranha Games, Respawn Entertainment and others. Unfortunately, the New Year is approaching all inevitable and the time is tight on all fronts, so we had to limit ourselves to the âhottestâ game studios. In any case, if you liked this cycle of articles, we can continue it next year.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/345586/
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