As seen over at Keen and Graev.
The EA Mythic community team now has a new member - Robert Mull - a former brand guru at WotC. This is exciting news for the Warhammer community to know that there is someone finally at the head of the community relations ship after the departure of longtime WAR community manager Richard Duffek. Not that James has been doing a bad job - far from it. But I think from a continuity and planning standpoint, a leader for the team was needed. So here’s a bit of the announcement and then a few of my thoughts:
Greetings All,
I’m Robert Mull, the new Community Relations Director for EA Mythic. I oversee the work our team of Community Coordinators do for Warhammer Online (James Nichols), Dark Age of Camelot (Missy Hatch and Joanne Laroche) and Ultima Online (Jeremy Dalberg). They are a great team and I am lucky to have inherited them.
As a gamer who got his start in MMOs with the Ultima Online beta, being allowed to support the same community that made that game so enjoyable to me is a real pleasure and I feel like I have come full circle. Since then a decade has passed and I have played countless MMOs. A few of these became part of my daily routine for years as I worked to found guilds, build cities, run player-events, engage in pvp conflicts, roleplay, and be an active member of the gaming community. While the games have changed over the years, the real draw for me has always been the people. A strong well-supported community makes good games great.
Prior to coming to EA Mythic, I worked at Wizards of the Coast supporting brands such as Avalon Hill, Axis & Allies, Dreamblade, Duel Masters and other products. I learned many lessons there that I have brought with me to EA Mythic, but first and foremost is that you have to be honest and open with your community.
In the coming months you will be hearing much more from me. I want to continue and extend the reputation EA Mythic has built for integrity, honesty and quality in community and customer support. Our job here is to be the voice of the community inside EA Mythic and the voice of the people working hard at EA Mythic to the community. The Community Relations team is a feedback loop and our goal is making the community better, day by day. I, for one, take that job very seriously and enjoy it immensely.
I look forward to talking to you all on the boards and at Road Trips, conventions and other public events.-
Bob
1. Obviously Bob is overseeing the entire Community team for EA Mythic which I’m sure is a huge job. As Keen notes in his comments, you have to wonder what role Bob will have in the Warhammer community specifically. Will a “middle manager” role be filled, or will it essentially be James running the show under Bob’s guidance? I would assume (I know, I know…) that a larger percentage of Bob’s time would be dedicated to the WAR community given that it’s the flagship product coming down the pipeline. There will be a lot of communication and community building to be done pre-launch and in the weeks and months following. DAoC already has two coordinators as opposed to one for WAR, and it’s community is pretty well established. Same for UO which is even older and I suspect doesn’t need near the community TLC that WAR will demand pre and post launch.
2. I’m glad to know just a bit about his gaming background. To know that he’s been around the genre and actively playing games online for as long as I have is comforting in a way. He’s essentially like most of us - a gamer at heart who has been actively involved in various roles over the years in MMOs. And as a guy whose work focuses on people all day every day, and does a lot of communicating as part of that, I can appreciate the fact that he loves the people aspect of the genre. You have to if you are going to be the main mouthpiece and focal point for EA Mythic not just for Warhammer, but all of the communities in their stable.
3. WotC and “open and honest”. In a way I’m glad Bob’s got a background from WotC. That company has put out a lot of creative and awesome games over the years. The most recent one to get me addicted was Dreamblade coming off the 2006 GenCon (sadly it only survived for the year). What I will say is that WotC are gurus at Marketing and branding their stuff, and they have some pretty great community tools in place via the web. They also show up on force at the various Cons each year. With Bob having worked on the Dreamblade brand along with Axis and Allies (a long-time favorite), I have high hopes that he can leverage that experience here with an IP that’s certainly deserving. As far as being “open and honest” - I absolutely hope so. I think the WAR community will demand it and I frankly think it’s the only way a community person would ever succeed - don’t BS your fanbase.
I think that overall this announcement is a great thing and the tone of what Bob has written here gives me hope that the guy not only knows what he’s doing but is passionate and connected to the material he’s dealing with. Welcome and I look forward to hearing more about what the WAR community team will do via the Herald and the fansites.
Tags: EA/Mythic, Warhammer
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