Retention, Part Fourteen: A Brief Note On Forums

By Sanya Weathers

The MMO world – at least its blogosphere – is busy writing about Blizzard’s recent announcement that soon, anyone who wants to post to Blizzard forums is going to be doing so using their real name.

Well, not exactly. The real name in question will be the one on the credit card associated with the account. Better spread the word to all the parents you know who are paying for Junior’s WoW account.

If this system is implemented, and it almost certainly will be (see this link), it will be watched by major media outlets around the country. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and other sites with community components have been long discussing a move like this to elevate the tone of the comments on the articles. They have not yet done so for many reasons, many of which are being mentioned in the discussions about the Blizzard proposal.

But this is not an opinion piece. This is just an article on the things you should know about forums before you open one.

–    The role of forums in retention varies depending on the type of product and how many other channels you have created for feedback and relationship building. If you’ve diffused your community, the forum is a minor consideration. If it’s not possible to play the game without being a part of the forum community, the forum is of enormous value. But as a general rule, your forum lurkers represent 10-20% of your overall population. The number drops the more popular you are. (Blizzard’s forums are probably frequented by a percentage measured in the single digits.) The percentage of posters is between 2-4% of your population, and again, lower the larger the community is.

–    They are few but mighty. Your forum members tend to be highly socially connected, influential in your target market, your most reliable source of income, your most qualified pool of beta testers, and your early adopters.

–    There will be negativity. There is nothing you can do to stop that, even if you require real names and photo ID. There will be people complaining that the forums are negative at the same time that other players accuse you of censorship because you lock too many negative threads. You can’t win. You must find a way to not care.

–    If you do not employ full time (meaning around the clock) moderators, the forums will sometimes be ugly. If you do not employ moderators at all, the forums will be unreadable. If you do not employ reasonable adults with a sense of humor empowered to tell the truth, it will be worse than having no moderators at all.

–    Having forums creates the expectation that you will read the forums. If you don’t prove you’re reading them, your retention among the socially connected influencers does drop measurably. To prove you’re reading and interacting, it helps to provide dev trackers and regular summaries of the discussions and developer interaction, because you are so badly outnumbered that your post will be lost in the crowd.

– A great forum is more fun than almost anything else online.