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Comments

Tom Boellstorff

Thanks so much for this great summary of the event! I can't really imagine ever doing this again - I have a whole new level of respect for people who organize conferences on a regular basis (like you). But I really did enjoy the conference and bringing together some new voices with some folks I've admired for years.

Taelos Katran

Thank you Celia for such a thorough recap of this conference. Being an avatar, I can't really attend most of these events. So it is really great being able to read this and other blogs on the topic.

As someone who is a community leader in multiple MMO worlds, I echo your comment about the inherent collision between the leadership of a community, their vision versus those of the MMO service provider. From one perspective a community, or perhaps an amalgam of communities, collectively define a "virtual culture" in a given MMO. Yet anyone who belongs to such a community will also tell you the "impact" the MMO service provider has on their own and their community’s happiness. So yes, the service provider does have an impact and like it or not their policies and decisions make them by proxy a part of the "culture" specific to an MMO.

Note however that the community I belong to exists in multiple MMO worlds. So we believe we have our own culture rooted and defined independent from any of the specific worlds we happen to populate at a given point in time. Therefore, from my perspective, the MMO service provider is a part of our culture that happens to be instantiated in a specific world. The service provider becomes in a sense an "overlord", or perhaps a "slum lord", (their own choice) defined by the decisions and actions they take when interacting (or ignoring) the resident communities in their MMO.

Case in point is the recent closure of Cyan's MO:UL, published for a one year in conjunction with GameTap. As reported elsewhere in this blog the service has now closed. This was a service which had everything going for it. Yet it still failed. If you ask 3 out of 4 URU fans what happened they will tell you that Cyan did not listen to the community. Which I can editorialize as meaning Cyan made decisions as to how to spend their GameTap investment dollars. Those choices were not focused on solidifying and growing the community base. Even though community growth was the metric by which their success was being judged by GameTap. The collective choices had an adverse impact on the community culture which was trying to grow, in spite of the best efforts of the service subscribers, a.k.a. "the community".

What is amazing is how "the community", divorced from their overlord service providers, can continue to exist and even migrate from one MMO world to another. Each time morphing a bit, adapting to the "impact" the new service provider will have upon the community.

Gosh, I am not sure where I am going with this rant. But certainly it all has implication on what a "virtual culture" is. And what "Community management" really means. And what those who are creating and running a game service can learn from the study of each.

ron meiners

Ah, I think that's my cue!

I think you've articulated the intersection where Celia and I come together quite happily and fruitfully: my background is as a practitioner who came more and more to view my role as a participant (albeit, with special status, but that's not unique) in the culture of the community I was "managing". The facets of my soapbox rant(s) have to do with the various aspects of interacting with a culture, and with other cultural leaders and participants, in an online and/or virtual world setting, and how that intersects with the role of a professional trying to merge business objectives with the perceived goals and health of the community.

Sort of, once you really dig into it, so to speak, it's clear that the only meaningful perspective is cultural.

So, I'll be moving south this summer (Hollywood Interactive...), and will look forward to next year's conference! Sounds like this one was very exciting.

Eleri

Sounds like there's some interesting stuff coming out of the ION conference about virtual worlds, too.

Dreamworld

Nice summary, it is important that you broaden your horizons regarding virtual world platforms and have interest into new technology. This aspect is often overlooked and platforms like Second Life are taken as a standard for virtual worlds while they are only the beginning.

Dreamworld

Feel free to come over and visit Dreamworld if you like to discover a new virtual world.

http://www.virtualworld.sl

Dreamworld

Nice summary, it is important that you broaden your horizons regarding virtual world platforms and have interest into new technology. This aspect is often overlooked and platforms like Second Life are taken as a standard for virtual worlds while they are only the beginning.

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