Don't hire a Community Manager....

[Cipacadrinho 390]

... hire a Product Manager instead.

 

Let me explain why:

 

The dev team, basically the coders, are the talent right? You cant have the talent manage the business side of things too. Is how you end up with delays and tensions between members of the team which influence how they work alongside one another.  You need to give them "a common enemy".

 

They need someone with authority that can set goals for  them and make sure those goals are met and have the knowledge and will to make hard decisions if needed to get that done.

 

If the new owner has someone that is doing this role but they did not made it public then please make it so that we can pester them and not the coders anymore.

 

If there is not such a person then we have a problem no wonder things are slow.

 

Even if Samool is a god manager (not saying he is not saying he is not either) just the fact that he has to split his time doing the manager part of things and then try to get some peace and quiet to try and code but oh wait 3 minutes in he gets a new msg about some other managerial side of things ###### he has to deal with, will seriously burn him out.

 

Managing and coding are full time jobs one person cannot do them.

 

So the game needs a Product manager that can talk to the devs and ask what they need in order to have peace of mind and a good pace for developing while also making sure those needs are met but also monitoring and pushing that the deadlines and goals are always met.

 

And sine the game community is small they can get the community manager job too and that will actually help them in their Product Manager job since they will know what the players have a problem with what the devs have a problem with while being in a position to find and implement solutions that could hopefully please them both.

 

You dont even need to spend money just hire some uni students working on their PhD in management and game developments so they can add to their CV that they were Product Manager for an  MMO before finishing uni.

 

Heck we might be able to hire more of them to do that we will have 3 managers/1 dev ration that should do it:)

 

 

[wipeout 1,355]

"You dont even need to spend money just hire some uni students working on their PhD in management and game developments so they can add to their CV that they were Product Manager for an  MMO before finishing uni."

That line we often used with idea's like this in the past for various different positions be it more devs art guy community manager you name the position and there is most likely a forum post somewhere saying something like your post with that exact line in it

In the past a few were taken on but nothing ever much came from it back then but i do agree they do need someone who isnt a dev who is in such a position that also doesnt have a invested interest in having a dev game account to do stuff in there and strictly focuses on the business side of things and has someone else who focuses on the game and customer side who then reports to that person

[Archaed 2,280]

They have one. Samool is the product manager. It's literally his title

Edited September 9, 2021 by Archaed

[Cipacadrinho 390]

18 hours ago, Archaed said:

They have one. Samool is the product manager. It's literally his title

 

Samool has the skills and the knowledge to be a very good developer i just said in my original post: dont have the talent manage the company/product/band/relationship etc.

[elentari 2,660]

Hire a Product Manager. Hire a Community Manager. Hire a Public Relations Manager.

Hire a Marketing Manager. 

Hire a lot of people else this game isn't going anywhere. This is the byproduct of having an understaffed volunteer based team. Eventually the boat gets too creaky and leaky if you don't have enough sailors to patch it up and keep it going. 

[Archaed 2,280]

1 hour ago, elentari said:

Hire a Product Manager. Hire a Community Manager. Hire a Public Relations Manager.

Hire a Marketing Manager. 

Some of those are wholly unnecessary. 

 

I'd say "hire the 50 developers you need to keep up with  the expectations of players" 

[Cipacadrinho 390]

Yes but those 5 or 25 or 50 or 500 developers would still have to be guided and acountable to someone.

 

Puting one of them in charge like it is now it only means that person has to split their time and attention so instead of being very good at one of them they are probably struggling to keep them both afloat or worse gave up on doing that, went numb and stopped caring.

 

L.E. Bottom line is that you cannot be both their friend and their boss and Samool is in the position of having to be their boss and set deadlines and maybe make sure some of them stop slacking while still having to go and do the buddy dev part few minutes later.

 

So if they are a group of friends then the management part suffers because noone is strict with their friends right? And if they are not friends then working on the actual projects is gonna be very hard since everyone would hate his guts right?

 

So you cannot have the same person do these two very important jobs that often are supposed to be at odds with one another: classic project manager asking for more content faster in convo with the leader of the actual dev team that has to tell him to F off they need the extra time to get the job done properly, but when they are the same person this whole dynamic does not exist so there is no productive back and forth just coders being pestered by players to put this very X specific thing they want. Theres no filter.

 

Edited September 10, 2021 by Cipacadrinho

[Archaed 2,280]

6 minutes ago, Cipacadrinho said:

Yes but those 5 or 25 or 50 or 500 developers would still have to be guided and acountable to someone.

 

Puting one of them in charge like it is now it only means that person has to split their time and attention so instead of being very good at one of them they are probably struggling to keep them both afloat or worse gave up on doing that, went numb and stopped caring.

I just want you to realise this suggestions is to demote Samool and hire a replacement. 

 

something I think is not what this board is for

[Cipacadrinho 390]

In a pure technical sense you are right it can be interpreted that way.

 

But not because he is doing something wrong but because half of his job is in direct conflict with his other half of the same job.

 

He cannot play both bad cop and good cop at the same time.