EPTThere is a thread, generated by one of your community managers, on the EU forums that's asking for feedback on what "casual gamers like to do". While I may not be a casual gamer, I still have some input on how I think you should prioritize when it comes to new b.net features.
A lot of the casual gamer discussions currently seem to be centered around custom/arcade game functionality and chat/clan features. I don't want to argue against their importance, but rather bring up what I think has been an undertalked and undervalued feature in the discussions:
Shared replay viewing
You'll have to excuse me for not being knowledgeable on whether you've already announced your intent to include this feature. My perception has been that you guys at Blizzard are working off of a priority list, and that shared replay viewing might have slipped down on your priority ladder.
Why is shared replay viewing important?
Talking from personal experience in Brood War: I may have had a circle of 8-10 friends whose only reason for keeping Starcraft installed on their computers, whose only reason for ever logging onto b.net/iccup, whose only reason for occasionally going on Use Map Settings (Arcade) and 3v3 hunters binges, lied in the shared social experience of watching replays together -- and the motivation of playing that naturally sprung up from that very same activity.
At our core, all human beings want to be able to brag about and display our achievements in front of other human beings (especially in front of friends). At some fundamental level you guys at Blizzard understands this, judging by the attention and detail you put into designing your achievement system. But when it comes to providing an easy tool for players to display their in game feats and achievements, I really do think (with all due respect) that you've missed the mark.
Why is shared replay viewing important for the casual gamer?
When I started out playing Starcraft replays didn't exist. However, that was offset by most of my friends and the people who introduced me to the game still actively playing the game. Eventually, those people dropped off one by one; either by moving onto other games or by quitting entirely. Nevertheless, the one way in which those people still retained a connection with the game, was through mine and others' need of bragging and boasting about our feats in the game.
By the time I played my first and only WCG national qualifier in 2003, I was still a rather big noob, and almost all of my friends had quit actively playing the game. I got stomped so hard at that qualifier that I lost the motivation to continue and took up Counterstrike (the game my closest friends had moved onto) instead. From the summer of 2003, to well into 2006, I didn't actively play Starcraft. But yet I still had it installed, still kept following the sccene, and still occasionally went in for Use Map Settings and 3v3 hunters sessions after some of the remaining hardcore player friends of mine invited me onto battle.net to show off their amazing moves against some really good/famous player. In my friend circle, we still downloaded pro replays off of teamliquid/gosugamers and watched/discussed in awe when for example an 8 base ForU built 50 gateways against a 3 base NaDa, but still managed to spectacularly lose the game after throwing 5 maxed armies into NaDas mech composition.
After I began playing again, I'd regularly bring in 5-6 of my friends to watch replays of my D+/C- (not very good) level games. I was essentially a noob, but still there was an immense sense of enjoyment in showcasing a "pimp play" while simultaneously explaining my thought processes in real time. When they'd remark that my minerals were ticking up towards 4000 while performaring said "pimp play", that didn't take away from the enjoyment. I still got to brag, show off and explain the particular game as I saw it and experienced it. Being able to showcase my play to my friends, being able to brag, was in itself enough motivation to keep playing.
And the positive side effect of my need of bragging through showing replays, was that approximately half of my casual friends dabbled in the iccup ladder themselves. Struggling in the D/D- levels, they would still proudly show replays of their wins and "moves" to me and the rest of our friends' circle.
How do you offer advice and improvement today?
Let me contrast the above paragraph by saying how absolutely boring I think it to offer advice and help my friends improve nowadays in battle.net 2.0. Because how would I go about it if I were to offer them advice today? I'd have to somehow (tediously) get a hold of their replays, and either watch those replays all by myself while taking notes (if you can't spontanesouly remark on things while watching, you tend to forget them), or somehow try to synch up our viewing of the same replay. On top of having to watch it all on a fixed speed, merely synching up will not be enough. Our differing computer specifications will have the replays automatically unsynch while viewing them.
Option two is to observe a live 1v1-game between my friend and some opponent. The complication herein lies in finding a suitable and willing opponent of the same skill. In a friend circle, people tend not to be evenly matched. Even if we were to find a suitable 1v1 game, I find this setup extremely tedious, as chatting/discussing while playing live impacts performance and annoys the hell out of the players. Agreeing to observe games between noob friends, feels more like a personal sacrifice than something I'd willingly and gladly do if in a casual social setting (shared replay viewing).
Option three is to play them yourself. Blizzard employees won't be able to imagine how often good players and pro gamers get asked to do this, and to what length we go to find excuses and dodge having to waste our time in this manner. Even if a good friend is asking -- you will 100% be reluctant to do it. It's a complete waste of time for one party. It doesn't foster a positive social experience on battle.net, it only fosters regular players avoiding casual players. The only way in which a progamer feels comfortable doing option three, is by getting paid to do it.
My proudest moment in SC2 was only ever seen by one individual
Eventually as I started improving after coming back to Broodwar, I started facing opponents of name value on iccup. I can't tell you how proud I was facing White-Ra for the first time on the iccup ladder. PvP was my best matchup, and White-Ra kept asking for regame after regame. I remember shaking and literally trembling from excitement because I was able to take games off of this famous player. We sparred for eight straight games and went 4-4.
You can bet your !@# I showed every single one of those games to every single one of my friends. God was I bragging about it. And God did it feel good! I got to offer my own explanation and version of occurrences during the games. I got to explain in detail my thought processes behind what I thought were SUBTLE and genious moves that would never stand a chance of being picked up by a third party caster in today's youtube caster age.
Every single time I played against anyone of note, I showed the replay to my friends. And those replay sessions in turn spawned gaming sessions between the regular and casual gamers.
Contrast all of this with the situation in SC2. The only way in which my friends got to see my games, was if some caster were to pick the replay up from somewhere. The way I'd find out would be either in class at school, or sitting in some form of third party voice chat with friends. "Hey, great game between you and HuK on Husky's channel!". "Hey, funny raging in that day9 daily replay etc etc etc... I'd usually literally have no idea what or which game they were talking about, because those games picked out by casters are picked out of context. I'd face HuK 6 times on the ladder, and one of them would find their way out to Husky or HD. I'd play Brat_OK in multiple BoX sessions during a week, and one of the games would feature on some youtube channel.
I don't know if this goes for other players as well. But before I stopped caring, it used to frustrate me that my friends go by casters' version of things to judge my games. No longer was I the one explaining my thought processes and my ambitions to them, now it was being done by proxy through some caster on youtube.
My proudest moment in SC2 (not necessarily the biggest or most important win) was when I got to face my lifetime idol SlayerS_BoxeR in an online tournament. The feeling I got from playing and beating him was similar to when I faced and beat a notable player like White-Ra for the first time in Broodwar (only multiply that by a hundred). My greatest gaming idol, and I got to play him, I got to beat him in a Bo5.
Only a single one of my friends ever went through the trouble of downloading the replays from me and watching the games all by his own lonesome.
Don't get me wrong. I still proudly declared my victory, and bragged and bragged and bragged in front of all those casual friends that had always been and still were in my social circle. But only one person other than myself has ever seen the proudest games of my SC2 career. Approximately half of them no longer had SC2 installed and couldn't bother (though they owned the game, they got all the occasional SC2 entertainment they needed from streams and youtube casters). Another quarter of them had the game installed, but probably hadn't patched or started the game for well over 1 year. The rest had a current version, but couldn't be bothered downloading them from me and watching the replays by themselves. No caster ever picked up those tournament replays. I never bothered personally promoting myself by uploading replays either. So in end, my proudest moment in your game might as well not existed other than in my consciousness and in my friend's.
Don't lose sight of the important things
While better chat functionality, a flashy arcade system and all that jazz might be good improvements. You need not forget about the basic functionalities that actually keep people logging onto battle.net in the first place. The functionalities that will actually fill those chat channels the community are so intent on you improving. The basic functionalities that actually make people have your game installed on their computers in the first place.
Flashy achievement systems and shiny reward decals might keep people on b.net for 2-3 months longer than normal after game launch. Youtube personalities and casters might do good work in retaining those casuals in the scene as viewers. But they will not help with filling your chat channels nor your arcade games past the initial launch phase. You need a stronger kind of social glue to achieve that sort of longetivity. Every single Broodwar gamer on these forums are singularly responsible for approximately 10 people keeping Broodwar installed on their computers for 10 years. Every single on of those supposed casuals have in turn influenced 2-3 other friends into taking an interest in the game.
Right now I feel as though you have left the power over the casual gamer in the hands of the likes of Husky, Day9 and HD. Their viewers essentially provide for you the perfect definition of the casual gamer. Someone who watches and/or takes interest in Starcraft 2 progaming, while maybe but not necessarily having the game installed. You are in a sense competing with those casters for the attention of the casual gamer. In order for you to bring people back to battle.net, the casual entertainment potential of battle.net needs to outdo whatever these casters can achieve.
If a casual gamer prefers the ease of listening to Husky casting a game on youtube rather than the tedious and boring process of trying to watch a replay on battle.net, you will most likely never have a steady and prospering community socializing over the battle.net 2.0 you designed. No matter how flashy the achievement decals, people will not be sticking around. The social glue of shared experience is a thousand times more potent than whatever an achievement system catered towards the individual can achieve. A thousand times more potent than well designed chat rooms which lack a reason for being frequented.
Excuse me for bringing up a rival company in my closing paragraph, but I need to make the best argument. Valve is a company which has realized that a major reason for the casual gamer to keep a competitive game installed on their computer, is the shared social experience of viewing progamers/friends play the game. Valve treat the casters and streamers both as a competitor, in the sense that they're actively trying to provide a better, more streamlined and social experience through watching ingame; and as an asset in the sense that they allow the casters to cast in the game client. My major point that I want you to take away from this is:
If not for providing a more social, higher quality and synched up viewing experience in the Dota2 game client itself, a large portion of the casual gamers would not even have the game installed on their computers. They are simultaneously outcompeting and adding to the streaming experience.
Now despite all the good they've achieved, there's still the major caveat of not being able to view replays in a shared setting. I'd confidently venture out to claim that Valve would increase replay viewing in their client by a significant factor had they made it a shared experience. And as a result, they would also increase the amount of active casual gamers.
That is what you want to achieve, isn't it?
