Now, according to Joystiq.com the guy who compiled the Twitter directory of video game companies using Twitter.com
is someone who “knows more about social networking in gaming
communities than the rest of us combined”, this said it seems a little
post about video game companies not using social media
written by Sam Houston was heard loud and clear by the video game
industry. Over 36 companies to be precise are now active on Twitter, including Microsoft (XBOX), Capcom,Treyarch
and many others. Based on the original post it is easy to see why, it
details much of what many other industries are starting to wake up to.
I am interested to see how this Twitter trend will continue to
evolve amongst the video game community, the majority of Twitter
updates sent out by these accounts such as the official Star Wars the Old Republic Twitter
seem to have offered no value out to the Twitter community, they follow
absolutely noone and are followed by 431, and again CCPGames have a
Twitter account which follows 0 people and is followed by 188 people.
But something that caught me out slightly was out of the 96 people/
corporate broadcasters using Twitter, who work for these video games
companies 91 actually “follow” people, although this may sound
promising but a lot of them are simply “corporate broadcasters”, and
some of them including @veronica share followers from previous projects
such as Tekzilla, Mahalo Daily and CNET’s Buzz Out Loud.
It completly loses me on how the video game companies have
acknowledged the presence of social media, yet can only deem it use as
a broadcast rather then a conversation mechanism, and the majority of
the accounts that take part in conversation publish about 10-15 updates
before letting the account become dormant, but still garners followers.
It clearly suggests an unwelcoming approach which is only followed by
people who want to “know something quicker then RSS or press release”.
It’s one foot in the door for the video game companies who at least
I guess make their account and then as Twitter begins to grow into the
“mainstream” they may consider being more active on it, I am just
slightly dismayed to see bloggers such as Sam Houston
who obviously has a very influential blog get their articles read,
acted up but never followed through! When will the video games industry
act on asserting more power in social media?
Email me at:
joshchandler@technologygazette.com
Find out more about me here:
http://joshchandlerblog.com/about/
