Harmonizing Community Management: Mastering the Art of Balance
Introduction:
In community management, maintaining engagement with supporters is essential. A community manager serves as a liaison between developers and gamers, addresses community input, and manages expectations effectively. Communicating with supporters is an area where I excel, especially since prior to my role as the Community Manager for The Battle of Polytopia, I was already a fan of the game.
I initially discovered The Battle of Polytopia as an enthusiast of Civilization, another strategy-based game. This happened after I stumbled upon the Midjiwan Discord community, which at that point had less than 100 members. I became the moderator of the community, and eventually the manager, before I was given the chance to establish it as the official Discord community. In 2019, I officially took on the role of Community Manager. From that time to the present, the community has expanded from 2,000 to 46,000!
Having navigated all facets of the community, one of my primary insights is that a significant part of cultivating a robust community atmosphere is finding the right balance between fan contributions and adhering to the team’s creative vision.
Organically listening to community feedback
Gamers deserve to be heard, and community interactions provide new avenues for integrating player feedback into a game. Though player suggestions don’t necessarily have to be incorporated, involving players in the process remains crucial.
A few years back, Polytopia’s Discord community allowed players to elect the moderator for their specific tribe’s Discord channel. Players utilized a random number generator to randomly select the moderator leader of the Bardur tribe. This inspired the development team to choose the leader of the in-game Bardur tribe through a dice roll. It illustrates that by engaging players, they can naturally and significantly impact the game.
Discord serves as a primary tool for updating players and provides immediate access to feedback from numerous supporters; however, extensive fan involvement also entails significant responsibility. This level of interaction necessitates managing conversations and moderation. It is also essential to extend the community beyond a single platform, staying active on social media and emails; in addition to Discord, we utilize Reddit, Instagram, and X. Having a variety of platforms enables intersections that unite different groups of fans. For instance, we frequently share fanart from the Polytopia subreddit on X while discussing game-related news.
A crucial aspect of community management is knowing when to pause discussions, as this helps to maintain harmony between the supporters and the team. When Midjiwan sought community help in creating an in-game language for the ∑∫ỹriȱŋ tribe, several challenges emerged due to the volume of feedback and concerns related to content moderation. In this situation, the best course of action was to politely put a stop to the project.
What’s the takeaway here? Community input is a natural process, and it’s not always a straightforward exchange. We encourage players to collaborate and connect with