Branding Communities

The most amazing part about a brand is how well it connects to its consumers and caters it's image in order to make the consumer feel special in their own way.  When we think of brands in a personal sense, we each have our own brands that we as an individual can relate with.  Brands become a part of who we are.  In the modern age of today, brands have to change how they operate and make an attempt in order to make it that we are as much a part of the brand as it is of us.  This can be said even about games and movie publishers.  Certain publishing names in the gaming world gives the user a general idea of what to expect.  Most users that already connect with the publisher within one game that they have published are much more likely to buy more games that are published from the same company.  It used to be that for games, there are a certain amount of in-house testers that feel out bugs etc...  But in today's world we are seeing many more game "brands" reach out and invite the users to test the games while it is still in development, they are taking the initiative in order to create a community behind the games before they are even released.  Thus they create a market for the game and those gamer's experience is passed onto friends and word of mouth / social media makes their market even bigger.  The point I'm trying to get at, is that brand snow have to create a community behind their product, a living, breathing, opinionated community that is no afraid to speak up and let the brand know when they are faltering.