Dragon Age 3 and Bioware's Community Management.

I am an avid fan of the Dragon Age franchise, and when I discovered that Dragon Age 3 had been announced, I rushed to the Bioware website to read for myself what had been announced. Whilst reading the letter from Mark Darrah, the Executive Producer for Dragon Age, which he posted on the Dragon Age 3 website, I read an interesting section which stuck in my mind for a long time. I first read the letter on the day it was released (I forget the date), and in the letter, Mark says how they have been trawling through forums and blogs to find what people wanted to changed for Dragon Age 3. This was mainly done bacause of a huge public backlash at Dragon Age 2, where people felt the game was sloppy, lazy, too small and too different from Dragon Age: Origins. Because of this forum trawling Mark referred to, a new game engine is being used and huge efforts are being made to rectify the unique approach to a dark fantasy game and create something the fans will like and enjoy.

After reading about community management and game masters, it occurred to me that the job of reading through all the forum posts and blogs is down to the community management, which is a good example (I believe) of where community management could have saved a great franchise from a sad death.

BioWare | Dragon Age III, 2013. BioWare.com [online] Available at: <http://dragonage.bioware.com/inquisition/> [Accessed 13 February 2013 ].