Wikis

Software: MediaWiki, and PmWiki

I’m going to bet that most gamers don’t read the user manual that comes with their game. We expect to get it, but we don’t actually read it. What if you took your user manual online and used a wiki to construct and update it? I know this may sound crazy, but stay with me for a minute and hear me out.

Over the years, I found some user manuals oddly worded. I know this is done to save space and meet the manual’s space constraints. If you took your manual online, this wouldn’t be an issue. You could update the manual with new content if the game has downloadable content added in the future. You could even leave the wiki open to your community and have them lend a hand in its construction. You can add audio and video to your wiki user manual that you couldn’t have on the standard manual that we all receive in our games.

Taking your user manual online through a wiki is going to save you money and get your community participating. Lastly, try and customize your wiki as much as possible and add your own personal twist to it. Let your company’s colors shine through.

Turbine's MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online

I've heard a rumor that Lord of the Rings Online was going to attempt this, but so far it’s just a rumor. This may still sound like a crazy idea, but just like the person (team) that came up with the idea for the mini-PC game box that is standard on retail shelves today, it just may be ahead of its time. If you find that the two wikis above don’t meet your needs, then tryout WikiMatrix, which allows you to compare all the different wikis out on the market based on your needs or a custom search.

Message Boards

Software: vBulletin

Message boards can help you build a community around your game. Just like a blog, message boards are great for communicating with your audience and launching community initiatives. Whether you hold a contest to name a character in your game or writing dialogue for the game, remember to always keep the community in the forefront and show off the work of everyone.

As long as you are giving a reason for the community to keep coming back, they will and support your game in the process. Posting announcements, FAQs and news to a message board is fine, but anything beyond that and a blog might be a better medium for the content. Gastronaut Studios, Infinite Interactive, Project Offset and Lionhead Studios are using message boards to connect with their global audience.

Podcasts

Software: GarageBand (Mac), Audacity (PC), or your in-house audio studio

Podcasts are an interesting medium, as they haven’t gone beyond the radio show style format for the most part. With many popular games like Halo having book and movie deals attached to them, maybe the podcast novel isn’t far behind. Taking a side story from your game and podcasting it would be a way to show off the story telling ability of your team as well as their imagination.

Alternatively, you could simply take the novel you have and podcast it chapter-by-chapter and provide another way for your fans to connect with your product. Not everyone likes to or has the time to read, but most have one or two hours that they need to fill as they commute to work or school.

Once the podcast is recorded and finalized, you can post it to iTunes and your own website. Insomniac Games’ podcast Full Moon is taking off and the gaming community is enjoying what they have to say. The podcast isn’t strictly about games they are working on, but about the gaming industry from a developer’s perspective.

Video

Websites: YouTube, Revver, Soapbox, and Grouper

When most executives talk about putting video out on the web, they usually want a one off video that gets them noticed, if they are lucky, and that’s it. Some want a string of videos produced that have no continuity to them. However, I’m here to tell you that this is not the way to go about it. Producing videos like that is like only buying one month of ad space in Game Informer magazine and hoping that carries you until the release of your game and beyond.

Creating a series of videos based on your game is a better avenue to pursue and one that’s investing in your long-term success. Your series can focus on one character or a group of characters from your game. The videos can explore the back-story of your character(s) or explain something hinted at in your game but never explained. Better yet, the videos could be a mini-continuation of your story a la version 1.5 that keeps your audience engaged in your plot until the sequel comes out.

How you go about your series is up to you and based on not just what you want to do, but what can you afford to do time and money wise. Just make sure your story has a beginning, middle and end, and that it’s connected to your video game. If I watch your video and can’t tell that it’s related to your video game, what value is it to me as a fan?

Ubisoft's Rayman Raving Rabbids

You might also want to check out Lightreading.com’s Web Video Cheat sheet article, which has a list of over 70 video sites. Sometimes taking your video to a niche site might yield a higher return on investment than just placing it with all the usual suspects. Would you rather be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond? Ubisoft’s Rayman Raving Rabbids Valentines Video was a funny way to use their characters in video.