It can be difficult depending on your audience, such as with Activision Blizzard games, where the active and vocal members are usually teenage boys who suffer a deadly case of "entitlement" syndrome.  In this instances, it's difficult to see the real problems amongst the garbage.  However, ignoring your fan base entirely - like EA Games or Activision Blizzard - isn't the answer, and leads to things like World of Warcraft, where the developer changes to fundamentals of the game every 12 months in attempt to appease their player base and keep them paying.

Ultimately, it boils down the kind of community that people want and foster.  EA Games are basically entirely absent from their games' communities, and largely leave the community alone.  This is both good and bad; it evolves naturally, however an easily devolve into the DotA Community.  I think the ideal community is something akin to Stardock's approach; interact with your community, however make sure the forum goes understand who's pulling the strings.

If I managed a community, I'd be very intolerant of the "I paid my money, DO AS I SAY" entitlement garbage, as well as the "THIS GAME ISN'T AS GOOD AS [Nosteligc Game]!" crap.  I'd come down like a fucking shower of meteors on this type of behaviour.  Eventually, the only people I hadn't banned would be the ones providing good feedback, and fostering a good, well mannered community.  I'm in the "my forums, my rules" school of thought.  As far as I'm concerned, posting on the forum is not a right, and I'm only too happy to shut up those who don't contribute positively.

With some poster that go apeshit, you just need to slap them on the wrist or confront them and they learn to mind, like me.  Others can be intolerable no matter what.  I think Stardock does a good job of handling the board with allowing people to express themselves while keeping the true riff raff out.

Iron Kaiser sounds like the name of a bad ass heel Wrestler form the early 80's!  Rowdy Rodey Piper *YAY* takes on his nemesis, the furer of fisticuffs, the archduke of anarchy, the Iron Kaiser! *BOOO*

It's kind of like running for President.  When you win everyone says you had the best communications strategy, are a great orator, et cetera... the exact same behavior and you lose, you "didn't connect with the American people." 

When your games were flying high, I looked at your company like IronKaiser; I said, "Wow, there's a company that really knows how to connect and be open with its fans to get feedback.  They really get the Internet and they're gonna profit from it."  Then one game comes out wrong and the chorus changes to, "Well of course you're not supposed to listen to the forums!"

I think the article is mostly bull. Honestly, with that look on life why would you ever risk anything. There are good and bad posts on a forum, but if you make a game for the grown ups its no problem to discuss in your forum. Stardock is proof of that. After the famous launch of Elemental I think that the frog had a few posts that were a little over the top, but that didnt ruin the forum or the company. Its over now. Some people left and a lot stayed. That was because of the game, not the forum posts.

The people on the forum actually tried to warn about releasing Elemental early. I have seen so many indepth posts on this forum and on civfanatics, that there really is no argument. The players have a lot of great input to give. You just have to ignore some troglodytes

This is awesome.

Agreed - check the forum regularly even though I'm not playing right now. Like to keep tabs on the development and the frank input and feedback from the devs is much appreciated. And the generally mature level of discussion on the forum by most. Keep it up.

I've actually been working to convince the CEO of the startup I'm at to take a more proactive role on customer engagement. Even when done poorly or infrequently, it's an incredible marketing tool. Customers tend to understand how valuable CEO time is, and they react incredibly positively to even limited comment.

Frankly, I think you (Brad) in particular do an excellent job of marketing your games and that part of the success comes from your willingness to dive right in.

Now, that's not to say I don't think there are boneheaded decisions made (Elemental Army in particular) but overall the direction is excellent. 

One of the big advantages of direct and frequent engagement with customers is the flexibility it gives you when you screw up. When customers keep in mind that there are actual people making the product, as opposed to a monolithic corporation, it tends to generate a willingness to cut the company some slack when a failure occurs. That lets you attempt to maximize good outcomes, rather than forcing you to attempt to minimize bad ones. A secondary element of customer engagement is a willingness to expend significant resources on rectifying issues with long term support of products. Valve was a real pioneer in this area, but companies like Stardock and Paradox have made it a key selling point for their games; it might not be perfect at release, but it'll be excellent in a few years.

Blizzard is a great case in point. Their entire reputation is staked to making excellent games. That's led them to become incredibly conservative; if a game isn't perfect, they cancel or delay it. The worry for them is that if they lose their reputation, they'll also take a significant hit to market share on their next release, hurting them in the future. They handle this in part through demonstrated dedication in patching, which gives them some brand durability, but it's something that's always at the back of their minds, hurting innovation.

Creative Assembly is another excellent study. The release of Empire Total War poisoned their community, and led a number of fans to view future releases in a negative light. Since they engage poorly, if at all, with the community, they've had little chance to bounce back. That one poor release simultaneously guaranteed that future games would have their acceptable quality bar raised, while lowering the tolerance of the fan base to even minor irritations in game design or play. Furthermore, they entirely lack a reputation for long term support of their products. Not a positive outcome, and one that is almost certain to have an impact on the profitability of the company as a whole in the medium term, unless they drop out an incredible game with Shogun 2. 

Paradox is a case in the other direction. Direct, regular and extensive community engagement meant that even games that were poorly received (at least on release), such as Victoria 1 & 2, Rome and HoI3, have scarcely damaged brand value. Another significant source of brand durability is the demonstrated commitment to long term support of products; the V2 release was poor, but most players stuck around for V2 1.2, which dramatically improved things, and are generally positive about the future of the game. Same for HoI3. It's also clear that there is a strong bias in favor of innovation, what with the sheer breadth of categories their first and third party games catalog spans. 

So, yeah, in the end community engagement and a reputation for extensive post release support are essential elements in creating brand durability for gaming companies. Brand durability allows significantly more innovation and a more tolerant fan base. It might not maximize short term profits or be an entirely effective use of every second of the CEO's time, but it's an incredible tool for ensuring the survival of a gaming company in the face of the inevitable poor release. 

Since Stardock was one of the first companies to make brand durability a major element of its goings on, and since you (Brad) appear to have been a leading force in that early recognition and implementation for the company, Stardock and you deserve a lot of credit. 

Now just can the "woe is poor little me, nerds are pissing in my cheerios!" journal posts and you'll get the Achievement "Marketing God". 

MxM111, I completely disagree with you here. In general, Stardock has made heroic strides to address community concerns and has gone out of its way to make it right for the overwhelmingly vast majority of their customers. It is odd that after everything people still ignore everything Stardock has accomplished since the release of Elemental. I could understand the frustration back in September, but now in February it just seems a bit on the petty side. You state that Stardock somehow lacks respect for its customers, yet when looking at the game industry in general, it is a rarity for a game developer to put the amount of effort or funding into making up for a rocky launch. Many developers have taken the ship and forget philosophy with their titles, and yet, you like many others claim that ,simply because of a rocky launch and sticking to a business time table over the concerns of beta testers, Stardock showed a lack of respect for the community at large. The community here is awesome, and it is a real pleasure to be able to interact with a group of developers who seem to genuinely care about their relationship with their community. I for one am really happy to be a member of this community, and love that there are so many passionate and cool people who inhabit these forums.

I guess this is a bit like the difference between the journey and the destination.   Both are important, but it's fun being part of anyway.  I'll settle for a great game for FE and the next standalone, even if it doesn't lead to mega MoM or HOMM2 status.

Best regards,
Steven.