As an Asian person, I honestly despise the activists who disregard thousands of years of Asian history and culture by calling us "white adjacent." Like we somehow don't have our own cultural identity because many of us are hard-working and successful. If you know anything about Asian history in the west, you know they didn't have it easy. They worked dangerous jobs building the railroad. They faced severe discriminations, including but not limited to government legislation that targeted Asian and Asian-Americans. Some where thrown into internment camps because of where their ancestors were from. And yet, they still picked themselves up and worked hard for their children's future. But I guess none of matters since Asian people don't like to be perpetual victims and just want to move on with their lives.
Imagine my surprise when I found out last year that so many white game journalists were actually experts on Journey to the West and chinese literature.
People who call you "white adjacent" are trying to excuse their own laziness. It's actually a logical fallacy known as "No True Scotsman" (you're probably familiar with it already)
I've already sworn off South of Midnight/Avowed until this community manager and Matt Hansen leaves the studio. Then I will continue to boycott any studio that they go to in the future unless they apologize for their racist/sexist remarks. I don't need their games like they need me as a customer.
Hello Oujirou. So I've been a CM for about ten years now, and I've been looking to advance my career for about four years now despite being an experienced CM whose worked for two small to middle sized companies. The issue that companies are having with CMs is a combination of how companies perceive gamers as twitch streamer types, and how social media has become a mix of fake data and bad actors. I think the issue is that HR is used to comms people that are also gamers, but nowadays the best comms people aren't necessarily gamers. Which is why I think that we've gotten so many bad community managers these days since companies aren't familiar with the internet and assume most gamers are on twitch instead of a site like 4chan or GameFAQs. I think that companies need to hire more gamers who can cope with pressure as CMs rather than the best comms person who knows how to speak the best. I think generally there IS a need for CMs although not in the same way it was used 20 years ago. I think the main issue with CMs is that they're basically streamers rather than people with actual experience moderating online discourse. tl;dr the community managers we have right now are spoiled toxic college kids rather than actual gamers, which is the issue. I'd elaborate more, but youtube already deleted my comment for listing the name of my ex-employer so I'll DM you on twitter later. Cheers
You don´t need a business degree to understand rule no.1: make it easy for the customers to give you money and don't chase them out before you got the cash. If your emploees can´t do that fire them as soon as possible.
It blows my mind how terrible a lot of community managers are. Especially when there's a gold standard that Coffee Stain Studios had maintained for years; both Jace and Snutt were awesome guys who really brought the game and community together. But I guess both caring about the product and the community is a lot harder than carrying around a virtue signalling stick and banning anyone who speaks out against "The Message".
HR doesn't care if you do a bad job because in most cases they can't measure success. However, if you have HR that is captured by ideology it will protect people doing a bad job if they fit the ideology.
"We can't succeed because of whitey" "Then why are Asians successful and you're not?" "They're 'white-adjacent'" This is what they actually believe btw
I agree. I don't know what's up with most companies, but they often times send these women out and about as their community managers. Quite often with pronouns in the bio, and they hate gamers. How is that meant to improve your image?
"Don't make flippant political remarks, it's not hard." The sad thing is, it IS hard for these types of people to keep their opinions to themselves. They are correct in thinking they have a right to speak their mind - but they're forgetting the flip side of coin, the *responsibility* to sometimes hold your tongue when it isn't appropriate. They have no self-control and no social skills.
I've had times where I got some minor feedback from the community and realized something was wrong in my code that I needed to fix. If I didn't have that avenue to get feedback from players I would have noticed it AFTER it caused problems to our players. It's so, so important to have that feedback.
Every time I hear about a CM pouring gasoline and lighting a match on the game studio they work for, I recall the video made by that SBI employee where he listed his goals. The last goal on the list was "Burn the games industry to the ground". I may risk delving into conspiracy theory territory here, but considering all the damage SBI and similar "consultation" companies have caused, and how connected they seem to be, I can't help but wonder sometimes if that is actually their aim- destroy and remake in a different form. I have been accused at times of having an overactive imagination, so take it with a grain of salt.
I would not have believed that story was real until I watched the video. I think a lot of people making games don't want to get involved in order to not rock the boat, which lets these activists run rampant. I consider a lot of them to be cultural arsonists that would prefer to burn the industry around them and remake those "less problematic" sections while leaving things they don't like to stay destroyed.
@@OujirouYT Well said. Cultural arsonists is a good term for them. I hope that companies have woken up and that going forward they will purge their ranks of the activists and DEI hires. Hopefully, once the sludge already in the works clears the pipes, the games industry will course correct and we will see more quality games across the board.
"I may risk conspiracy theory territory here" You're not. That's factually what they're doing. This is exactly what the Soviets did in 1918, it's what the fascist regimes of the 1930s did, etc.
I've worked about a decade of customer-facing jobs. It amazes me how these community managers lack basic customer service skills and make no attempt to de-escalate fires.
I still remember when my most played game had a competent comminity manager. Then he left and the whole team went to shit. Yea i'm talking about destiny. Deej was hands down one of the cooler community managers. Now we got activist community managers who wanna push politics into a fucking space magic shooter game.... cant make this shit up, literaly cant
Wow, i am really glad the algorithm is recommending snaller channels with great content. Nice to hear form someone with long term experience in the gaming industry and such an objective and level-headed view of things. No toxic identity politics too. Respect
Notice the TM. Gamers(TM). Means those people are commercial gamers. Not real gamers. The white male comment was from her streaming days. We will never get the full context of the quote. This is just digging up old bones to make a story seem more real.
The only thing that makes sense, and a conclusion i came to quite a while ago, is that profits are no longer the most important thing. Obviously. I think the same 4-5 companies that own chunks of almost every AAA publisher and studio (Blackr0ck, Vanguard, Tencent, ect) make ESG compliance so compelling for the C-suite, that they will actively damage their own revenue to comply.
I'd much rather give feedback directly to the developer than through annoying middle men. Critique and feedback is the lifeblood of any good game, if a community manager is just gonna shut me down as a 'hater', it's not my product it's damaging. The CMs don't seem to understand just how much responsibility they're supposed to have.... or they do and they're just malicious.
Is there any truth to the allegations that a lot of these CMs congregate in the same Discords and basically encourage and sometime pressure each other to behave the way they do?
What would happen, if you work at a service desk and are running around shouting "get the hell out of here"? In the gaming industry you would probably get a raise.
One of the greatest black marks on Helldivers 2 remains its discord. The community managers there are... not great people to deal with, and the fact that they have kept their jobs (except for one, who did the correct thing and apologized and shouldn't have been fired) is just nuts to me.
Whatever happened to “the customer is king”? Obviously you shouldnt overdo it but i feel like if you want our money maybe dont say you hate us. Sounds so obvious, but I guess its not.
A good community manages itself. A lesson a lot of these companies would be wise to learn, let a community member manage the community… Alas… wisdom and learning are not a corporate virtue.
There's a tipping point with that though. A community that grows too large will inevitably become toxic and awful because the more people you have, the higher percentage of those people are awful and toxic in general.
My mainstay live service game has a fantastic community and community manager. But it wasn't always like that. Although, most of the problems they had were simply growing pains when live service games were still in their infancy. A lot of what seems to be going around nowadays seems to be a marriage made in hell between present day activism and ideology and fledgling studios who don't know any better. It something I feel can't live on forever. Survival of the fittest will win out in the end, but it'll mean more layoffs and studio closures in the longrun.
As an Asian person, I honestly despise the activists who disregard thousands of years of Asian history and culture by calling us "white adjacent." Like we somehow don't have our own cultural identity because many of us are hard-working and successful.
If you know anything about Asian history in the west, you know they didn't have it easy. They worked dangerous jobs building the railroad. They faced severe discriminations, including but not limited to government legislation that targeted Asian and Asian-Americans. Some where thrown into internment camps because of where their ancestors were from. And yet, they still picked themselves up and worked hard for their children's future.
But I guess none of matters since Asian people don't like to be perpetual victims and just want to move on with their lives.
Imagine my surprise when I found out last year that so many white game journalists were actually experts on Journey to the West and chinese literature.
"Yeah, you were an oppressed group, but you are not the right kind of repressed group." - Western Activists
People who call you "white adjacent" are trying to excuse their own laziness. It's actually a logical fallacy known as "No True Scotsman" (you're probably familiar with it already)
I've already sworn off South of Midnight/Avowed until this community manager and Matt Hansen leaves the studio. Then I will continue to boycott any studio that they go to in the future unless they apologize for their racist/sexist remarks.
I don't need their games like they need me as a customer.
Hello Oujirou.
So I've been a CM for about ten years now, and I've been looking to advance my career for about four years now despite being an experienced CM whose worked for two small to middle sized companies. The issue that companies are having with CMs is a combination of how companies perceive gamers as twitch streamer types, and how social media has become a mix of fake data and bad actors. I think the issue is that HR is used to comms people that are also gamers, but nowadays the best comms people aren't necessarily gamers. Which is why I think that we've gotten so many bad community managers these days since companies aren't familiar with the internet and assume most gamers are on twitch instead of a site like 4chan or GameFAQs. I think that companies need to hire more gamers who can cope with pressure as CMs rather than the best comms person who knows how to speak the best. I think generally there IS a need for CMs although not in the same way it was used 20 years ago. I think the main issue with CMs is that they're basically streamers rather than people with actual experience moderating online discourse.
tl;dr the community managers we have right now are spoiled toxic college kids rather than actual gamers, which is the issue.
I'd elaborate more, but youtube already deleted my comment for listing the name of my ex-employer so I'll DM you on twitter later. Cheers
You don´t need a business degree to understand rule no.1: make it easy for the customers to give you money and don't chase them out before you got the cash. If your emploees can´t do that fire them as soon as possible.
It blows my mind how terrible a lot of community managers are. Especially when there's a gold standard that Coffee Stain Studios had maintained for years; both Jace and Snutt were awesome guys who really brought the game and community together. But I guess both caring about the product and the community is a lot harder than carrying around a virtue signalling stick and banning anyone who speaks out against "The Message".
But HR agrees with them so nothing will be done
Not to mention CMs are always women and HR are very lenient towards women
HR doesn't care if you do a bad job because in most cases they can't measure success. However, if you have HR that is captured by ideology it will protect people doing a bad job if they fit the ideology.
asian white adjacent? lawl. wtf.
They earn good money, have a low crime rate. Which means they are evil.
"We can't succeed because of whitey"
"Then why are Asians successful and you're not?"
"They're 'white-adjacent'"
This is what they actually believe btw
I agree. I don't know what's up with most companies, but they often times send these women out and about as their community managers. Quite often with pronouns in the bio, and they hate gamers. How is that meant to improve your image?
Easy fix:
1) Don't buy AAA
2) Don't buy games-as-service
3) Go pirate
No CMs needed.
"Don't make flippant political remarks, it's not hard."
The sad thing is, it IS hard for these types of people to keep their opinions to themselves. They are correct in thinking they have a right to speak their mind - but they're forgetting the flip side of coin, the *responsibility* to sometimes hold your tongue when it isn't appropriate. They have no self-control and no social skills.
It is infinitely frustrating to have valuable actionable feedback on a game and have no avenue in which to deliver said feedback to the developers
I've had times where I got some minor feedback from the community and realized something was wrong in my code that I needed to fix. If I didn't have that avenue to get feedback from players I would have noticed it AFTER it caused problems to our players. It's so, so important to have that feedback.
Community manager isnt a job. If an announcement needs to be made, a dev can take 5mins to post. This is just a silicon valley do nothing job.
Every time I hear about a CM pouring gasoline and lighting a match on the game studio they work for, I recall the video made by that SBI employee where he listed his goals. The last goal on the list was "Burn the games industry to the ground". I may risk delving into conspiracy theory territory here, but considering all the damage SBI and similar "consultation" companies have caused, and how connected they seem to be, I can't help but wonder sometimes if that is actually their aim- destroy and remake in a different form. I have been accused at times of having an overactive imagination, so take it with a grain of salt.
I would not have believed that story was real until I watched the video. I think a lot of people making games don't want to get involved in order to not rock the boat, which lets these activists run rampant.
I consider a lot of them to be cultural arsonists that would prefer to burn the industry around them and remake those "less problematic" sections while leaving things they don't like to stay destroyed.
@@OujirouYT Well said. Cultural arsonists is a good term for them. I hope that companies have woken up and that going forward they will purge their ranks of the activists and DEI hires. Hopefully, once the sludge already in the works clears the pipes, the games industry will course correct and we will see more quality games across the board.
"I may risk conspiracy theory territory here"
You're not. That's factually what they're doing. This is exactly what the Soviets did in 1918, it's what the fascist regimes of the 1930s did, etc.
Thier job is to be terminally online, which causes severe brainrot.
I've worked about a decade of customer-facing jobs. It amazes me how these community managers lack basic customer service skills and make no attempt to de-escalate fires.
I still remember when my most played game had a competent comminity manager. Then he left and the whole team went to shit.
Yea i'm talking about destiny.
Deej was hands down one of the cooler community managers. Now we got activist community managers who wanna push politics into a fucking space magic shooter game.... cant make this shit up, literaly cant
They shouldnt be allowed to post any job related content on their social medias. They would be fired so fast if I were in charge.
Wow, i am really glad the algorithm is recommending snaller channels with great content. Nice to hear form someone with long term experience in the gaming industry and such an objective and level-headed view of things. No toxic identity politics too. Respect
Notice the TM. Gamers(TM). Means those people are commercial gamers. Not real gamers.
The white male comment was from her streaming days. We will never get the full context of the quote.
This is just digging up old bones to make a story seem more real.
Roflmao. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure honey. Sure. cOntExT
Personally I don’t see South of Midnight performing very well but I guess we’ll see
Of course it wont
The only thing that makes sense, and a conclusion i came to quite a while ago, is that profits are no longer the most important thing. Obviously. I think the same 4-5 companies that own chunks of almost every AAA publisher and studio (Blackr0ck, Vanguard, Tencent, ect) make ESG compliance so compelling for the C-suite, that they will actively damage their own revenue to comply.
I'd much rather give feedback directly to the developer than through annoying middle men.
Critique and feedback is the lifeblood of any good game, if a community manager is just gonna shut me down as a 'hater', it's not my product it's damaging.
The CMs don't seem to understand just how much responsibility they're supposed to have.... or they do and they're just malicious.
Is there any truth to the allegations that a lot of these CMs congregate in the same Discords and basically encourage and sometime pressure each other to behave the way they do?
What would happen, if you work at a service desk and are running around shouting "get the hell out of here"? In the gaming industry you would probably get a raise.
One of the greatest black marks on Helldivers 2 remains its discord. The community managers there are... not great people to deal with, and the fact that they have kept their jobs (except for one, who did the correct thing and apologized and shouldn't have been fired) is just nuts to me.
Why do companies need community managers in the first place?
Anyone still remember Dina Number 9? Because Inafune's inaction made his scam game reveal itself as fast it could with the help of that idiot.
So i dont really play games anymore or do social media, is a "community manager" basically a monetized version of a reddit mod?
A hilariously accurate way of saying it.
This game was made by a company that hates gamers, why would their community manager be different?
Whatever happened to “the customer is king”? Obviously you shouldnt overdo it but i feel like if you want our money maybe dont say you hate us. Sounds so obvious, but I guess its not.
Imagine saying the other way around?
You don't fix injustice with more injustice. I'm sure everyone knows this?
A good community manages itself.
A lesson a lot of these companies would be wise to learn, let a community member manage the community…
Alas… wisdom and learning are not a corporate virtue.
There's a tipping point with that though. A community that grows too large will inevitably become toxic and awful because the more people you have, the higher percentage of those people are awful and toxic in general.
@@MisterZimbabweand that's why you have community managers, it's their job to calm or cut off the toxicity.
@@MisterZimbabwe Maybe just let people have their own little niches then...
@@Wolfe2ev0 outside my control, people will flock to what appeals to them for whatever reason. Believe me, I enjoy my cozy niche hobbies too
0:45 i used to play yoville lol
My mainstay live service game has a fantastic community and community manager. But it wasn't always like that. Although, most of the problems they had were simply growing pains when live service games were still in their infancy. A lot of what seems to be going around nowadays seems to be a marriage made in hell between present day activism and ideology and fledgling studios who don't know any better. It something I feel can't live on forever. Survival of the fittest will win out in the end, but it'll mean more layoffs and studio closures in the longrun.