Community Relations Archive

Just received via e-mail:

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Dear Star Wars Galaxies Player,

Recently Sony Online Entertainment sent you an email stating that 30 days of additional service was added to your Star Wars Galaxies™ account. Unfortunately, this email was sent to you in error. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

We want to thank you for joining the Star Wars Galaxies™ community and look forward to servicing you in the future.

Sincerely,

The Star Wars Galaxies Station Billing Team

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Yes, of course that's the way to handle it. Well done, Sony. But wouldn't it have been more accurate to say:

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Dear Star Wars Galaxies Player,

Recently,we almost did something nice for the people who keepus in business. Unfortunately, that glimmer of humanity was a total mistake and has since been snuffed out so that no one will ever accidentally mistake us for taking an interest in customer satisfaction again. We sincerely apologize for briefly deluding you, and will now go back to being the pecuniary parsimonious penurious peopleyou always knew we were.

We want to thank you for shoveling $180 a year per account into our fat wallets so that we may continue to provide you with the same mindless repetitive gameplay to which you've grown accustomed.

Bugger off,

The Star Wars Galaxies Station Billing Team

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Honesty is really the best policy, yes?

As an endnote, I feel compelled to mention that I am usuallythe last person to gripe about customer service. The CSteam really has their hands full, and the devs have done a lot to meet reasonable requests for content, while trying to fix unwieldy code and rebalance the game.

But come on. Any way you slice it, the problems with this game have been a frustration to those of us who've been here since the beginning, who've endured the unplayable moments and continually tried to contribute to the community. For Sony to apparently acknowledge this, then turn around a few days later and take it back...well, that just seems a bit over the line. Even if it was an error, just let it be a happy one, and deal with it. It's hard enough to keep players from migrating to other MMO games withoutthe insult ofwithdrawing what seemed like an olive branch.

At issue is not the hard-working developers or the down-in-the-trenches CSRs, but thedesk-jockey tie rackswith their charts and spreadsheets, who console themselves that customers will always grumble no matter what you do. That's probablytrue, but some of us don't grumble much until something really stupid happens. Like Sony giveth-ing, then taketh-ing away. And then City of Heroes and World of Warcraft and Project Entropia and The Matrix Online all seem to have a little more appeal.

Z

P.S. Whoever one-starred me, get over it.