It is a public secret that the relation between players and Kabam are not well. Every gaming company knows commercial succes is based on word of mouth. Kabam has done a lot to increase customer satisfaction. There is more transparency, more player-mod interaction and more communication. But can Kabam do more?
From my experience with another gaming company who experienced the same problems, I could witness some good practises regarding player-mod communication I wish to share.
- Hold regular Q&A's. Players have questions, I see them all the time in this forum category and others. It is very frustrating for players to not get an answer and very time-consuming for mods to repeat (often the same) answers. So I suggest to A. hold regular Q&A sessions, B. make a forum archive with all those Q&A sessions and C. make a sticky in General Discussion with FAQ. Q&A sessions in the other gaming company were done by top content makers and yearly, the CEO himself. Players would be able to post questions in the forums and the mods would answer them. It cut down the clutter in the forums and this type of engagement with the player base was universally well-liked.
- Focus on quick-fixes. To the astonishment of that other gaming company, quick-fixes were very popular, often more popular than big updates. The game is often riddled with small nuisances which can be quickly fixed. In MCOC, this could be stat-changes, small boosts to ability performance or small reworks of old champions. These are often fixes that take little time and money but increase customer satisfaction a lot. Everyone wins! Make the patch notes as important as any other big update and establish an archive for players to consult.
- More player input. Currently, there is a beta programme but this is only accessible for top players. While this is better than nothing, it risks alienating players who are maybe not as famous but have equally good ideas, or content that is custom-made for these top players while not taking medium to low players into account. I suggest to make a sticky where regular players can suggest their own quick fixes. Credit changes to the game that are made thanks to player suggestions. If you give players a feeling their suggestions can become reality, it will encourage dedication to players to really try to make this game better. This will spark creativity and perhaps, inspires Kabam of that one big score.
Discuss.
