"Ins and Outs", continued (page 2 of 2)

12pm onwards - After the initial conference call / email-responding / forum-checking – my workload is done on an ad hoc basis. Depending on what is currently happing within the game, my workload / content changes.

So for example: when we released Giga Final Part 1 the majority of my work was based on that, with other smaller projects done in-between. Work would range from writing several different newsletters, arranging exclusive placement of the patch with specific websites, helping production with the patch notes / installer, writing news blasts for community portals / press websites, making a variety of different assets (screenshots, videos etc.) ready for the press release, answering specific questions on the forums etc.

All those different tasks have to be done for every major announcement within the game. So I was tasked with similar jobs for the launch Giga Final Part 2, the new RF Online website, the up-coming server merge and any other major announcements.

When - on the rare occasion we don’t have any major updates coming - my time is spent writing the bi-monthly community newsletter, writing features like this one, checking the Codemasters Code M email inbox, taking additional screenshots, working on new website content, events and whatever else I can do to help boost the game’s awareness and improve the mood within the community. Our community team also get deeply involved in all the general COG marketing efforts, working on our events, brainstorming ideas for future promotions, preparing presentations for various departments / meetings and liasing with our foreign territory offices to make sure everyone has everything they need and are up to speed.

Rather than work on one thing at a time, I have the bad habit of working on about ten things at once, which not only slows my computer down to a halt, (my Internet Explorer alone has around thirty tabs open at one time), but also means I often get a bit…confused. This can lead to some rather funny news pieces being sent for approval and some rather strange comments coming back from our web editor.

While some of these tasks seem relatively easy and not time consuming in the slightest, (a newsletter? I could write a newsletter in five minutes) – when working on the “inside” your perception quickly changes. I’ll give you an example:

All of Codemasters newsletters have to be pre-booked into an Excel-based schedule and each community manager (both COG and Offline) has to book their respective newsletters into that schedule. Now for RF Online I try and get at least one newsletter into the schedule per month, with ad-hoc newsletters scheduled in for special announcements; such as the new website mail out for example.

Marketing must approve the newsletter and then the English copy approved by our Editor. Once the English copy is finalised, due to Codemasters operating games in both North America and Europe, every newsletter needs to be translated into five different languages; Spanish, Italian, French, German and Dutch and our translators need at least eight working days to translate the copy. This means that eight days earlier than it is scheduled for release, the newsletter has to be written and approved. Add onto that a day for our web development team to design and implement all the text and then an additional two days for all the different approvals - that’s eleven working days, which is more than two weeks!

What this means for the Community Manager is that we have to almost write our newsletters based around events that have not even taken place yet. For example: I held a “Make Me Pretty” competition on the RF Online forums some time back, (it’s a long story). All of the copy for the newsletter that was scheduled to go out after that competition had finished, was written just after the competition had started; meaning the actual copy was just full of placeholders – which I then had to get translated when I had the information available to me. Oh boy, and don’t even get me started on the plain text newsletters…*shakes head*.

So as you can see, the work community managers within Codemasters do is a lot more than just browse forums. We mix and dabble in a whole selection of different areas within the business and we ALWAYS have something to keep us occupied.

So how do I become a Community Manager?

Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer to this question. Instead of me lying and telling you exactly how to break into the games industry and specifically Online Gaming Community Management, I’ll tell you how I found myself doing it and then hopefully that will inspire you in some way to achieve something similar for yourself.

So where do I begin?

First and foremost, I’m a university dropout. Yup, university wasn’t for me. I knew that I wanted to break into the games industry but the course that I was taking just didn’t sit right; so after my first year I decided to take my credits and leave, (I don’t advise this to anyone by the way).

It was in the period between leaving university and deciding what I wanted to do next that I landed my first job within the game industry. That job was a ‘Database Admin / QA Tester’ for Lionhead Studios on their massive title ‘Black and White 2’ (BW2). Getting that job was complete luck by the way – I just happened to send in my CV (resume) at the right time.

As the position was only on a three-month contract, I left Lionhead after BW2 was launched and went to work for Electronic Arts, again as a QA Tester. After a few months at EA I joined Codemasters in their QA department. From there I then moved across to the position I hold now.

Luckily for me, I have been running community-based websites in my spare time for the past few years anyway (don’t worry, I’m not going to plug them), so it was something physical I could demonstrate and discuss while in the interview. There are no specific qualifications for running online communities, so the more hands-on experience you can demonstrate, the better.

Obviously a community manager needs to be able to communicate extremely well – especially written communication skills. I think one of the other most important things - within Codemasters anyway – is finding someone who plays A LOT of games. The prospective candidate needs to have an appreciation of the business they are working in and the mentality of the customers they will be communicating information to. So keep playing those games! :D

If you can get yourself into an existing MMO operator / developer in QA or as a GM, (Game Master) that could lead you onto something more along the lines of community management. I think the main thing to take into consideration, is that – while more and more MMO games are being developed – there are still only a select few companies that actually operate them and are in need of a community team. Therefore candidates are more than likely going to need to relocate to another city, or in some cases another country.

If you have any questions, please respond to the article and I’ll do my best to answer them. Based on how well this article is received – I’ll come back and give you a more in-depth look into other areas of community management I’ve not yet touched on (and there are quite a few).

- Kyle Rowley
RF Online Community Manager