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With the recent relaunch of Capcom-Unity, in all of its legit social-network glory, we got a chance to sit down with one of the community team members of Capcom, Seth Killian. As expected, he’s a total badass when it comes to Street Fighter, and an equal badass when it comes to serving the Capcom community

So, intrigued with the new design, including Facebook-esque depth, complete with image uploading, blogging and friends lists, we hounded the ever-busy dude to pull away from the keyboard/joystick to answer a few questions about the future of the social networking site, how they feel it will affect the industry, and a couple other tidbits of Capcom goodies.

Check out Killian’s killer interview:

We’ll get the simple stuff out of the way: give us a
debrief on who you are, exactly, and what you do for Capcom.

I’m Seth Killian. Mr role in these parts would be “Senior Manager, Community.” I get up to a lot of other internal shenanigans as well, mostly fighting-game related, but that’s another life.

The new Capcom-Unity just launched, and it looks really awesome. It’s almost as in-depth as a MySpace or Facebook.Who decided that Capcom was going to be the place to be for gamers, and why?

Mostly Capcom just got a lot cooler in the past few years, and have made a big push to engage and empower their fans. One part of that was hiring me–I’m a huge and lifelong Capcom fan (particularly Street Fighter, which I’ve traveled around the world to play).

We know we’re not Facebook, but we’ve tried to borrow a few of their fun parts while keeping a distinctly Capcom flavor, adding some bonuses (like our point system–wait to see what we do with that!), and empowering our users to share Capcom-related awesomeness with one another.

The response has been–literally–overwhelming. I really can’t keep up with all the solid gold the community has been churning out with only a few days after playing with some of our new tools…

It’s obviously early, but it already looks fully fleshed out. Groups,friends lists, Gamercard integration, personal messaging, profiles with blogs, image galleries, video uploads… What could possibly be left, and when can we look forward to seeing it?

Actually there’s a page that publicly tracks a bunch of top-line stuff, though there’s a lot that’s unannounced as well. Here’s the public page:

http://status.capcom-unity.com/

The unannounced stuff is… unannounced, but actually awesome. Like, not marketing-speak awesome, but actually awesome. Basically I wanted to do the kind of thing I would have loved as a giant fan before I worked here, and that’s what you’ll see coming out. My favorite feature in particular is coming really soon, and it’s totally unlike anything anyone else is doing, game publisher or otherwise. Full of win!

You mentioned the Lifetime Points aren’t being used for anything just yet, but they’re going to be spendable. What can we expect the community to be doing to rack up points, and what are they going to be exchanging them for?

There are a few obvious things that rack up the points–basically just getting involved, adding content, doing the kinds of things that add value to the site. I also hand out a few special awards myself for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence, and there are a few hidden features where people can score points as well (but those are hidden).

As for what you can spend them on, near term, it’s simple stuff like titles, special on-site abilities, as well discounts on actual Capcom games + other stuff from the Capcom store. Beyond that, see above for my favorite new feature of the site. I mean points are fun all by themselves, but I was excited about tying them to other rewards, both virtual and real.

Stuff like that is also potentially a factor in things like deciding which of our community superstars get invited to our special press events, etc. We brought 5 people out (all expenses paid) for our big Las Vegas press event (CAPTIVATE08), and obviously involvement and contribution was a big part of our decision in who to pick. A lot of that is now tied to points, so they definitely factor in.

So members can be flown in to Vegas. Awesome! What other benefits can the community look forward to as a member of Capcom-Unity besides “talk to folks about videogames”?

Well I think it’s a pretty fun place to be–I wish I could just hang out here most days. We’re not trying to buy friends, but in addition to just being a great place, there will be some actual rewards as described above (and more, of course).

Do you think you’re starting something with this? Do you expect other publishers and developers to follow suit and make their own social network?

If they are smart, then probably, yes. But their sites will be filled with crappy, non-Capcom properties.

In all seriousness though, most other companies that do “community” stuff a) seem basically like tools of the marketing overlords b) have very brand-centric approaches. While we get in-depth on specific titles, one of the best things here is the cross-pollination between a lot of successful Capcom franchises. We all love different Capcom games, but we also just love CAPCOM. Also we don’t have specific guys jerking our chains, so I think we have more freedom to have a little fun instead of just re-posting press releases.

If they do play copycat, what will Capcom do to ensure they’ve got the coolest possible hangout?

Mostly we will keep making awesome games. As I said, we can learn from social networking sites, but we are basically a game company, so we will rise and fall on the greatness of our games. Fortunately with stuff like RE5, SFIV, Dark Void, and Bionic Commando coming, plus fun stuff like the new Mega Man, we’re in great shape.

I also think that for fans interested in getting real answers from actual humans, and having their good ideas make real impacts on the future games, this is the place to be. Where else are you gonna find like real executives with thousands of posts, or a company that makes game-release decisions based on direct fan feedback in our forums, etc? We’ll just continue doing good stuff here, and I hope people notice and get involved.

It looks like Capcom will be doing exactly that. We’re stoked to see the community evolve. We’ll be keeping a keen eye on the blog, the community, and where it goes from here. Thanks so much for squeezing us in between global Street Fighter ass-whoopin’ sessions, and creating a community site that’s sure to inspire future developers.