Behind the Buzztime Curtain: How Do You Guys Come Up With This Stuff?

1) You know what we should do? No, seriously... this is an awesome idea...

2) I was talking to a group of players and here's something we definitely need to consider...

3) The players think we're crazy and, after hearing them out, I tend to agree...

I also get asked some pretty interesting, insightful and, sometimes, amusing questions including things like "What does your office look like?" (Answer: "An office - complete with cubicles and office machinery.") and "Whose brilliant idea was it to take the clues out of Countdown for that really awful week in August 2008?!?!" (Answer: "Not mine.")

There are some questions that come up that I thought would be great to address via blog in a series we'll call Behind the Buzztime Curtain. Welcome to the first installment, featuring the burning question: How do you guys come up with this stuff? (In this instance we’ll assume “stuff” means “your new game sand products”.)

The answer is pretty simple actually: We listen to – in no particular order -- our players, the world around us, and our instincts.

Let's break it down: We get hundreds of e-mails, Facebook comments, private messages and even old-fashioned letters every weekfrom players, telling us whatthey like and (more importantly) what they don't like. And you guys are vocal! We take your feedback, then ask questions and figure out ways to balance the current player base's wants and needs against our second influencer: the world around us.

Being Red isn't just about getting totalk with players about our games. Every day I peruse blogs, news sites, magazine articles, forums and social media sites looking for the things thatpeople are talking about, I search Twitter and Facebookfor chatter about our games and watch the topics that are trending in the newsin general and the gaming world specifically. Add this insight into the feedback we get fromplayers and we've alreadygot a pretty good formulafor success. Once I get that feedback processed and balanced out, I share share share with the people who actually make the magic happen around here.

Enter our product and development teams. These are the people whotake myrun-on sentences and over-enthusiastic rantings and apply their talent and instincts toturn itinto a game or product. Now don't get me wrong -- I am one of many people feeding the information machine: Sarge, our Sports Guru and Rags, our Cards Guru add their own brand of brainpower to the mix. Add in our producers, editors,and marketingteamandyou've got a lot of people with a lot of the aforementioned instinctweighing in.

The result: some of the coolest products coming out of Buzztime in quite a while. (Pat collective backs here). In the last year, this collaboration has inspired Player Reward Cards, the Mobile Playmaker, Trendalicious Trivia and countless behind-the-scenes tools built for site managers and staff. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

Almost a dozen paragraphs later, I’ll summarize my point in one sentence: We “come up with this stuff” thanks to you, our awareness of the world, and a good dose of instinct. Do we always hit it out of the park? No… and thank goodness, because those mistakes have made us better listeners, both to ourselves and to our players. Don’t believe me? Just watch what we’ve got planned for you next!

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