Community Managers and Slow News Drama

https://twitter.com/LD2K/status/766428278072631296

Who hired these people? Seriously, they expect us to possibly pay $100 for a video game that we barely know anything about and then they come out with stuff like this. The unprofessionalism is crazy.

They keep saying the news is coming, the news is coming.... where is the news? We're less than a month from release. They wouldn't even speak at Gamescom on the 2K livestream and had a broken demo that people couldn't play. If this is their idea of creating 'hype', then I have no idea what they're doing.

This game most be absolutley game changing if they're risking holding out this long on releasing news.

Wow. That's pretty pathetic, and highly unprofessional.

I'm not saying that there isn't some great news coming, because I certainly believe there could be. But that's a terrible way to treat your fans, who have every right to feel slighted by the fact that the preview season has mostly consisted of hyping up the pre-order bonuses and not much else. Unbelievable.

It's called getting cocky, and to them they have earned it. They are the ONLY basketball title because of the dominance they have displayed (and capitalized on what EA failed to do). The way they act will not impact sales of the game, it's really crappy of them however. As I was reading through the tweets, I couldn't help but get the feeling that bullying was taking place along with the teasing.

He has a point, it has been like this for a while. It doesn't mean I find it fair, but anyways, I wanna see those "tears of joy" on my face.

The trailer dropped late, but there were developer blogs and other tidbits released throughout the preview season. I'm certainly hoping I'll like the previews and info to come, but the attitude is a bit on the nose, all the same.

Even though the do have a point and the gameplay gets released every year this late, they are paid to not do exactly this.

With what Ronnie said about next week, they should have just said "Stay tuned for next week, exciting stuff incoming." and that's it.

Agreed. Something along the lines of that, or "Big stuff coming next week, we're confident you'll find it worth the wait" would've been a lot classier.

All that said, if 2K were to look for new community managers let me know...

That's hilarious. Shake's video was winey. I would have linked him to baby bottles.

A random thought just popped in my head. 2K has absolutely nothing to lose with EA not competing on release day. Not only that, but with EA most likely dropping their game next year, the earlier 2K reveals information, the earlier EA has a chance to try and incorporate something similar. Especially when that is what 2K has done in the past when EA dropped early info.

That's hilarious. Shake's video was winey. I would have linked him to baby bottles.

A random thought just popped in my head. 2K has absolutely nothing to lose with EA not competing on release day. Not only that, but with EA most likely dropping their game next year, the earlier 2K reveals information, the earlier EA has a chance to try and incorporate something similar. Especially when that is what 2K has done in the past when EA dropped early info.

https://twitter.com/Ronnie2K/status/766635922255253505

So these are the people you want informing people of info and basically running the 2K social media... absolute dickheads. I don't know how these muppets were hired.

Its hard to choose between Ronnie and LD2K which one is the biggest degenerate.

This job is useless...
We have a Community Manager too at our office : "thanx for the retweets/mentions", "have a nice week-end", "hey look at that, it's pretty awesome"... useless

Its hard to choose between Ronnie and LD2K which one is the biggest degenerate.

LD2K at least didn't publicly like porn on his work twitter.

Ronnie 2k has always been a dick munch... He gets paid a handsome salary to annoy the shit out of already pissed off 2k "fans"...

All of this with community guys on their board, pathetic.
At the end they will show some average trailer or gameplay (game between ronnie and the other dude with their stupid comments) and most of you will buy their product. This is how it works, no matter how much unpro they are. Just to remind you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zauNBszCS4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzoTKjNKgWo

What did he say? The tweet has been deleted

What did he say? The tweet has been deleted

He replied to a tweet that was complaining about the lack of news. In the reply he sent a link to an amazon of boxes of tissues, hilarious right?

Following up on my initial reaction, it is worth noting that community managers are only human, and are prone to errors in judgement and emotional reactions, the same as the rest of us. They probably do have to deal with a lot of really nasty and hateful Tweets and posts on other social media outlets, and while it would be better not to engage with some of those people, the temptation would probably be pretty high. There have been people who we've banned here who have ended up sending me very nasty emails and whatnot, and it's been tempting to respond with snark or whatever. Bottom line though, you just don't want to stoop to that level.

I do also understand some of the responses to the negativity, because I can kind of relate. The NLSC has been around for 20 years now, 15 of which I've been running the site. A lot of people have said nice things about the site over the years, which makes me feel good about the content we provide, and the work we do as a community. It leads me to believe we have a good thing going here. When someone then comes along with a negative remark about the site - even if they have a valid point, but have used an impolite or unpleasant tone - it's easy to get defensive, point to the positive track record, and fire back at the naysayer for daring to have a different opinion and failing to shower us with gushing praise. It's just something you have to handle with more grace though, especially when you're putting out a product people are dropping money on as Visual Concepts is. While you'd like all feedback to be phrased as constructively and politely as possible, sometimes you have to filter out anger and insults to get to the valid point. Of course, if 99.9% of the feedback is ranting insults, valid points are going to get lost, and then that's on the consumer for their lack of eloquence and maturity.

Something that was brought up on a new episode of the Press Row Podcast that I think rings very true is that the community guys do have a habit of basking in the glory of NBA 2K's success (see LD2K's "blood, sweat, and tears" Tweet, if it's still there), but then deflecting criticism and negative feedback by stressing that they're not on the development team. They're also very quick to tout positive buzz about the game, which is only natural, but are equally slow to acknowledge criticism, or in cases like this, respond to it unprofessionally. There's also a tendency to um and ah, or remain completely silence, when there's bad news to deliver. The issues with Crew mode would be an example of that.

On top of making it seem like they have little regard for their most loyal customers, it's also doing a disservice to the developers who are working 17 hour days on the game: taking credit for their work, throwing them under the bus when things go wrong, and also making the whole brand look bad. The fact that the Tweet has been deleted suggests to me that either someone at Visual Concepts has pulled LD2K aside and said "That really doesn't make us look good, we shouldn't be talking to our fans that way", or he's had a moment of self-awareness, which perhaps suggests he was having a bad day and had a knee-jerk reaction. Or, since he has had some back and forth with that particular YouTuber, maybe it was just a joke that bombed badly. Either way, it was a poor decision.

It won't affect the success of NBA 2K, nor should it. A blunder by a community manager shouldn't undermine the hard work being put in by developers. But you've got to have a bit more professionalism, and respect for your userbase than that. Acknowledge the complaint, provide an explanation, stand by the product you have faith in: "I get your frustration, I can't give you any information because I'm not authorised to do that, but previews are coming in [timeframe] and we know you're going to be impressed". "We know we've been quiet, but big news is coming next week, and we're confident it'll blow you away". Some may call it political correctness, but personally, I call it having class and professionalism; a way to respond to the criticism without being condescending, while also defending and showing pride in the product.