Eveconomics

I have been thinking a lot about the how companies like CCP communicate. I have been trying to iterate all the channels of communication that CCP seems to use. However I must admit that off the top of my head, I haven’t been able to list a whole of actual means of communication.

Here’s what I have been able to find:

1. Dev-blogs and other things posted on the information sub-forum
2. Press releases and news-items on the front-page(Often not cross-lined)
3. Live dev-blogs
4. Fanfest
5. Occasional dev(Especially PrismX) posting humorous, yet (occasionally) information forum post

And that’s really it. And even then, there is some flaws with this list:

1. Developer blogs comes in batches every so often, usually around the time of expansions.
2. Press releases and news items are often extremely formal and irrelevant.
3. Live developer blogs are EXTREMELY rare.
4. Fanfest only takes place once a year.
5. Developer sightings on the forum are rare .

What most of these have in common is that their frequency is either predictable or they rarely take place.

To me, the most interesting items are number 3 through 5. First of all, developers postings on the forums are EXTREMELY valuable. God knows that every time a developer posts, god revives a kitten.

Fanfest is an extremely awesome venue and I believe that players and developers alike take a lot with them from fanfest, be it experience, feedback and a sense that CCP is really a very sound bunch of guys. However the major argument against this, would be that only the “elite”/old-school actually attends fanfest(Even if I know that not always to be the case).

Live dev-blogs were a fantastic tool. The barrier to entry is fairly low,  they were posted after they took place, there was two-way communication and it gave people a sense that there was actual people behind the facade(Dare I say marketing?) of CCP. I can’t stress enough how important a medium the live developer blogs are.

In the developer blog section, we have the written kind. These has some benefits compared to the live kind. The fact that they are easily consumable and are accessible to a larger audience. However it often lacks the “personal” touch to it. A technique to make up for this a lot, is for the author to engage in conversation with the readers in the associated thread. However, I find that this is often not the case, and that if it does take place. This gives a very “stiff” touch to it, which I personally find to be sub-optimal.

So what’s the conclusion? Well, with the few paths of communication that CCP has, are irregular in terms of frequency, yet fairly predictable. Some of the more effective means of communication(Live dev-blogs, developers posting on the forum) are slightly more time-intensive. However, the perceived value by the players of EVE is more than enough to warrant it.

Based on this conclusion, I think it’s fair to say that CCP ought to be more active in some sort of communication with their customers. Soon, I’ll be writing finally about how the CSM might be a tool for that.

Tags: Communication

This entry was posted on Friday, August 7th, 2009 at 10:27 am and is filed under EVE Online. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.