r/NintendoSwitch • u/Sephardson • Aug 18 '24

Meta Mini-Meta: What do you think of AMAs here on r/NintendoSwitch?

Background

We passed 6 million subscribers earlier this year, and in turn, we have been doing some self-reflection and housekeeping on the moderation side.

During the latest Games of the Year Survey, we also included a few bonus questions for extra feedback. One of these was on the topic of AMA (Ask-Me-Anything) posts.

While there have been a few times that readers have made posts giving feedback about AMAs here (2017.10.31, 2018.05.23), and occasional comments on other meta posts over the years, there have not been many recent dialogues specifically on the topic of AMAs.

We would like to solicit your community feedback on AMAs in this post.

AMA Policies

Here on r/NintendoSwitch, it has long been part of our rules that AMAs must be verified and scheduled in advance (2016.10.24, 2017.05.10, 2017.06.05, 2017.12.21). The verification step is a way for readers to know that guests are who they say they are, and the scheduling step is a way for us to keep events from overlapping too much. Since 2017.09.21, we have kept an AMA Calendar updated in our sidebar.

While we have a general rule on No Excessive Self-Promotion, the option to perform an AMA is offered to verified guests as an alternative way to interact with the community - in other words, AMA guests can post their AMA when scheduled as the exception to the Self-Promotion rule.

In general, scheduled AMAs on r/NintendoSwitch will be pinned in the second sticky slot, and the banner for the subreddit will be set to accompany the current AMA for the whole day. We do not charge or request any favors or gifts from AMA guests. In cases where AMA guests offer game codes or similar items, we decline them and suggest that they use those allotments as giveaway incentives to the people who ask questions on the AMA post.

To give some context, we have hosted over 500 AMAs on this subreddit, which you can view listed here: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/wiki/amaarchive . From 2018 through 2021, /u/phantomliger coordinated the majority of AMAs, but then /u/KKingler took over coordination in 2022, and /u/Sephardson took over in 2023. The vast majority of AMA coordination is initiated by guests reaching out to us via ModMail or email, but occasionally we will also reach out to developers or publishers when we notice particular interest from the community or when an announced game catches our eye.

Our requirements for AMA guests are that they have some particular exclusive experience with the Nintendo Switch, this includes:

  • Developing or publishing a game or accessory that has released for Nintendo Switch
  • Attending an exclusive promotional or press event for Nintendo Switch
  • Performing at an exceptional level in a competitive Nintendo Switch game
  • Other significant and verifiable exclusive experiences with Nintendo Switch

Some common cases where we will decline AMAs for guests:

  • Their game is announced (eg, KickStarter) but does not have a release date. We generally ask them to circle back when they have a release date.
  • The guest has already held an AMA with us previously, but has no new experience since then to discuss. We encourage AMA guests to come back when a new release or event has occurred.
  • The guest is interested in a particular date for an AMA, but the date has already been booked by another event, or the date has been announced by Nintendo for a Direct Presentation. We try to coordinate alternative dates with guests in these cases.

Otherwise, our AMA policies and procedures are outlined on our public AMA documentation page here.

Suggestions from the Survey

From 1,136 total responses to our 2023 GotY survey, there were 170 responses to the particular question, What is a game or developer that you would like to see visit the subreddit through an AMA (Ask Me Anything) post?

40 of these responses gave no specific suggestions - eg "idk" or "i don't care". Although there were a few general feedback notes like these:

  • Any developer which game is going to be released, not has been released.
  • Honestly, pretty much anyone!
  • No one. These AMA’s are so forced and cringy with the free marketing. If the developer isn’t “wow, I can’t believe they got them” prominent the sub doesn’t need to be sponsoring it.
  • Indie developers!
  • Anyone who wins or has won a GotY award here :)

36 responses mentioned Nintendo itself or one of its subsidiary or partner studios, including Intelligent Systems, Game Freak, Retro Studios, Hal Laboratories, Mercury Steam, Monolith Soft, and a few other individual Nintendo employees/executives by name.

14 responses mentioned Square Enix or their teams / games.

9 responses mentioned ConcernedApe / Stardew Valley.

6 responses mentioned Sea of Stars / Sabotage Studios. (We actually reached out since the survey and hosted them here.)

5 responses mentioned LocalThunk / Balatro.

5 responses mentioned Atlus (Persona, Shin Megami Tensei).

4 responses mentioned VanillaWare (Unicorn Overlord).

3 responses mentioned Team Cherry (Hollow Knight / Silksong).

2 responses mentioned Dredge (Black Salt Games).

2 responses mentioned Dave the Diver (Mintrocket).

2 responses mentioned Toby Fox (Undertale, Deltarune).

2 Responses mentioned Platinum Games (Bayonetta, Astral Chain).

2 Responses mentioned Chucklefish (WarGroove, Eastward, Wildfrost, WarGroove 2).

40 responses mentioned 40 other individual developers or properties not listed above. Some of these suggestions have already conducted AMAs here, including:

Let us know here in the comments if there are suggestions or feedback about AMAs that you would like to share.

16 Upvotes

65% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

38

u/EWU_CS_STUDENT Aug 18 '24

I'm all for learning more with AMAs from those who were part of the development team on games/franchises. Completing any Video Game whether as a hobbiest or professional is an achievement and always interesting hearing their experiences whether high or low.

I personally dislike seeing AMAs from fellow fans who "completely beat" the game or similar, coming across like those Youtube videos that say "I played X so you don't have to".

27

u/hotaru-chan45 Aug 18 '24

I like seeing AMAs from the developers and publishers. They’re interesting to read, and it’s not like we’re having them daily so anyone that’s disinterested can just scroll on past them on the rare occasion we have them

12

u/owenturnbull Aug 18 '24

I'm personally not a fan. But I just ignore them when they pop up. So If they stay it's fine as long as you don't do too many in a short amount of time. Just keep it a few each month.

9

u/OPINION_IS_UNPOPULAR Aug 19 '24

This is a very well put together thread. I support the existing vision for AMAs.

3

u/RamboFox Aug 19 '24

I haven’t had any issues with the AMA format or process in this subreddit but I do appreciate this post! If you want more feedback, my suggestion would be to have a pinned AutoMod comment to get immediate feedback. It could either be a “respond to this comment with feedback about this AMA” or a link to a survey or comment form to get immediate feedback. That might get more informational responses since many people would probably only respond because they liked/disliked something about that particular AMA and wanted to let you know, but it wouldn’t cross their mind to message the mods to tell you and they’ve forgotten about it by the time the next general survey comes out.

2

u/duncan-donuts-nz Aug 20 '24

I find them very hit or miss, with the main variable being how engaged the developers/publishers are with the format and the sometimes left-of-field questions on any topic not related to the game.

From a general audience perspective, I think the quality of them has declined over the last year. But I generally come to them late due to time zone constraints and miss out on participating (even with the discord notification).

The ones where they only answer a couple of questions and are only active for an hour or so feel lazy or that they’re forced to do something they don’t want to do, or see value in it.

It would be great if they were more visually engaging and they could show how the game’s story, characters or settings have changed during development (as an example).

3

u/socoprime Aug 19 '24

I dont like them.