Class specific Community Managers

[Diograo]

how it does not help?
I work with advisory services to companies for 10 years, and one thing I've learned: product quality, good service and customer satisfaction is the tripod support of any company worth its name.
This "position" suggested by Arch will help to build a better game (product quality) increasing the satisfaction of all customers and even improving services to some (like you said, only a small fraction comes in contact with the company).
I'm sure if well implemented, this idea would bring a win-win scenario for everyone: company, employees/developers, players/customers.

[Archimtiros]

A good idea, but unlikely because money.

That would be 11 extra people on staff at (the very least) $7.25 an hour, 40 hours a week, for a grand total of an extra $12,760 being allotted to payroll costs every single month, or $153,120 a year.

Yeah, yeah, they're rolling in dough or whatever people will counter with, but they have no incentive to do that other than the fact that it sounds like a good idea :/

Oh I know, I mentioned earlier that there is no financial incentive which ultimately makes the idea not worthwhile; unless it was simply embraced beyond financial gain by the company, which frankly it wouldn't be. I think it is still an interesting concept though.

Money runs everything, and no company spends money unless they absolutely have to, or it has the potential to make them more.

[Strafir]

The more I think about this topic, the more convinced I become that the ultimate downfall of this would be the players rather than the company. We live in an era of extreme entitlement where a lot of players are convinced that because they pay a monthly fee to play a game that they suddenly qualify and have fully understand the process of developing a game. People actually take personal offense if something they suggest, however dumb it might be, doesn't get picked up.

Before this could be announced something needs to happen to make people understand that paying a monthly fee doesn't suddenly qualify you as a game developer and that 99% of your ideas are probably dumb as hell and should be kept to yourself - and that's okay. Going apeshit over stuff you only understand on a very primitive level isn't rational.

Being innovative usually comes with risks but is still necessary if you want to keep improving your product which definitely isn't news for a company like blizzard. However, something like this would obviously take a relatively long time to get implemented properly and I'm not sure what blizzards long term plans are right now since D3 is tanking harder than ever, Starcraft is no-where near most other esports and the whole titan thing had to be scrapped. Who knows what the long term plans for the higher ups of the company are.

[Archimtiros]

Lol it is?
http://www.esportsearnings.com/games Looks to me like SC2 is barely behind LoL, and 3rd place isn't exactly bad, considering it is a completely different type of game (RTS v Moba). Diablo 3 will always be on its up's and down's; but I guarantee you World of Warcraft isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and I'm not going to talk about Titan.

Still, I think you misconstrue the point to this. I'll agree people get too self entitled, thinking their ideas are better than everyone elses; but the point behind this isn't primarily to incorporate player ideas into the game. It is to develop and nurture an effective feedback system, to assist in better dialogue between players and the game staff.

If you don't think that game design is affected by the players, you are absolutely kidding yourself. Issue is that right now it works like dropping ideas in a suggestion box, and nobody knows when or how things will be received. Likewise, issues and complaints are handled the same way, simply overloading the box with angry notes until someone takes notice and comments.

This suggestion establishes a reoccurring dialogue, which everyone would benefit from greatly. Designers can push controversial ideas like giving tanking abilities to Warriors, or emphasizing Earthquake; but they don't have the time to sit down and talk about it, and they absolutely don't have time to collect, read and respond to consolidated feedback from the players. Instead they might hear from a handful who are prominent.

A clear example is the Earthquake controversy for Elemental Shamans. The ability is almost universally disliked and overwhelming amounts of tweets and forum posts support that claim, while only one theorycrafter actively supports the ability. The designers are much more likely to look at this, because it is a well written and heavily trafficked article on a popular media site, written by a well known player.

Should the designers only listen to this person then, because he is well known and respected? Because he has the loudest voice, so to speak?
Unfortunately what you don't realize is that player, for all his grandeur, has not done a single bit of raid testing, bringing his practical experience with the ability to zero. If he is the only one whose feedback is accepted, simply because he is the most well known, or has the prettiest mathy post; your feedback system is sorely imbalanced.

I realize I am rambling here, but the point I get to is that their team could greatly benefit from someone to act as a buffer, both engaging the community with a reoccurring dialogue and making sure designers get the full picture rather than a piece of the puzzle as perceived by a popular blogger, streamer or loud forum poster. The street of course works both ways too, with that community representative informing the community of the designers intent without letting wild speculation turn into disgruntled finger pointing.