Sony Online Entertainment
Sr. Public Relations Manager
In 2005, I was working for Sony Online which made several different massively multiplayer online games (MMOs). These games are only playable online and most characters you interact with are controlled by other real people. As you adventure through these games, you earn items with increasing abilities. It was understood that these items indicated your skill level within the game. However, some would give an item to another player who had not earned it in exchange for in-game currency or real money outside of the game. This was not allowed within our user license agreement.
Some of our developers wanted to change the rules to allow these trades and the company could make money by taking a fee. I ran a survey among our players with this “what if” scenario and the results were mixed with nearly half saying they would leave the game. After I led private discussions with key people at our company, we came together to present a counter proposal; create new servers where players could start new characters and in these worlds, monetary transactions would be allowed and facilitated by the company. Existing servers would remain unaffected.
Some of our developers wanted to change the rules to allow these trades and the company could make money by taking a fee. I ran a survey among our players with this “what if” scenario and the results were mixed with nearly half saying they would leave the game. After I led private discussions with key people at our company, we came together to present a counter proposal; create new servers where players could start new characters and in these worlds, monetary transactions would be allowed and facilitated by the company. Existing servers would remain unaffected.
I then created a communication campaign which included reaching out to our competitors to let them know about our plan as our decision could pressure them to make similar changes. I set up an online Q & A session with our lead developers so they could answer questions from our player community on the day of the announcement. Then I planned a separate Q & A session with the core gaming publications under an embargo; we talked to them the day before our announcement would be made public.
The result was largely positive once the system was launched. Some of our competitors were not happy with our decision but our relationship with them remained strong because we had brought them into our plan early on. This could have been a very messy public relations situation and instead we were able to navigate it to a great success.
Reference - News article in the New York Times where April is quoted.
Reference - News article from GameIndustry.biz one month after the program was launched.
Reference - White Paper about Station Exchange released two years later by Sony Online.
The result was largely positive once the system was launched. Some of our competitors were not happy with our decision but our relationship with them remained strong because we had brought them into our plan early on. This could have been a very messy public relations situation and instead we were able to navigate it to a great success.
Reference - News article in the New York Times where April is quoted.
Reference - News article from GameIndustry.biz one month after the program was launched.
Reference - White Paper about Station Exchange released two years later by Sony Online.