Community Relations Archive
Thread: A lesson in Economics and Public Relations
Page 1 of 1
PalMugsy
Thu Apr 14, 2005 2:11 pm
#1
You can read a great deal of complaints on the forums these days over the current state of SWG, and the incoming CU. And you'll find an equal amount of cheery responses from Devs thanking us for our opinions, telling us how much they mean, and then discarding them like a sappy holiday card from a distant relative (But not before removing the money inside).
Two of the most common responses to this behavior are:
"I hate this game, I hate the devs, someone kill me so I'll stop playing"
and:
"Stop whining or leave. No one has made you feel obligated to seek enjoyment from something you've invested hundreds of dollars and hours in"
It's my humble opinion that neither side of this argument (Consumer Rights vs. Consumer Cynicism) really understand why SOE is doing exactly what they're doing and why we get such mixed messages from them.
The first and probably the most likely problem is that SOE isn't just one single entity. It's comprised of many people, all with different motivations, ethics, and attitudes towards the games they are producing. You've got coders, animators, and artists who are, in my experience, very passionate about what they are doing. Then you have the developers guiding them and getting their hands a little dirty figuring out how the game dynammics will actually work. After that, the chain of command gets pretty messy. The upper echelon of the ladder is concerned with the firm, not the product. The suits gather data from skewed surveys and tests and try to decide what decision will earn them the highest long term profit. They hand their orders down the chain and let the devs know it's time stick one to the consumer for the benefit of the firm. Oh, and they have to clean up the mess too.
Example: Combat Upgrade. SWG just isn't pulling in the numbers, and it looks as though we're having some fallout among the veteran players because we keep ignoring key issues that are just too troublesome or unnoticeable to change. Sure we could fix that bug that causes the servers to crash....or we could add some shiny new buttons to make it look better. So here's the plan: We're going to revamp the whole thing. Our veterans are leaving anyways, and there is no way to really pull them back in. To reap as much from the situation as possible, we'll redesign the game and start pushing a lot of PR campaigns showing how nice our product is because it's identical to EQ2.
Once this idea reaches the devs, in so many words, they probably realized how this could be a disaster. But the suits don't really understand game dynamics. It's the devs the designed the genre-breaking ideas present in SWG, and now it's the corporation that's going to change it all because thats what they're non-technical PR department thinks they should do. Then it's the Devs that will get screamed at, and the Devs that will have to try and find a way to make the game work as described.
Our complaints are NOT falling on silent ears. I get the distinct feeling that we're just yelling at the wrong people, and unless you live next to the SOE HQ, you'll probably never get the oppurtunity to complain to the ones that can make the difference.
Then again, maybe the Devs are making these decisions. Maybe the CU was completely their idea. In that case, they should hire someone to tell them the truth about where the current market is at for MMO's. SWG had a unique niche, and the CU is threatening to kick it right out and into the ocean of run-of-the-mill MMO's.
/endrant
Two of the most common responses to this behavior are:
"I hate this game, I hate the devs, someone kill me so I'll stop playing"
and:
"Stop whining or leave. No one has made you feel obligated to seek enjoyment from something you've invested hundreds of dollars and hours in"
It's my humble opinion that neither side of this argument (Consumer Rights vs. Consumer Cynicism) really understand why SOE is doing exactly what they're doing and why we get such mixed messages from them.
The first and probably the most likely problem is that SOE isn't just one single entity. It's comprised of many people, all with different motivations, ethics, and attitudes towards the games they are producing. You've got coders, animators, and artists who are, in my experience, very passionate about what they are doing. Then you have the developers guiding them and getting their hands a little dirty figuring out how the game dynammics will actually work. After that, the chain of command gets pretty messy. The upper echelon of the ladder is concerned with the firm, not the product. The suits gather data from skewed surveys and tests and try to decide what decision will earn them the highest long term profit. They hand their orders down the chain and let the devs know it's time stick one to the consumer for the benefit of the firm. Oh, and they have to clean up the mess too.
Example: Combat Upgrade. SWG just isn't pulling in the numbers, and it looks as though we're having some fallout among the veteran players because we keep ignoring key issues that are just too troublesome or unnoticeable to change. Sure we could fix that bug that causes the servers to crash....or we could add some shiny new buttons to make it look better. So here's the plan: We're going to revamp the whole thing. Our veterans are leaving anyways, and there is no way to really pull them back in. To reap as much from the situation as possible, we'll redesign the game and start pushing a lot of PR campaigns showing how nice our product is because it's identical to EQ2.
Once this idea reaches the devs, in so many words, they probably realized how this could be a disaster. But the suits don't really understand game dynamics. It's the devs the designed the genre-breaking ideas present in SWG, and now it's the corporation that's going to change it all because thats what they're non-technical PR department thinks they should do. Then it's the Devs that will get screamed at, and the Devs that will have to try and find a way to make the game work as described.
Our complaints are NOT falling on silent ears. I get the distinct feeling that we're just yelling at the wrong people, and unless you live next to the SOE HQ, you'll probably never get the oppurtunity to complain to the ones that can make the difference.
Then again, maybe the Devs are making these decisions. Maybe the CU was completely their idea. In that case, they should hire someone to tell them the truth about where the current market is at for MMO's. SWG had a unique niche, and the CU is threatening to kick it right out and into the ocean of run-of-the-mill MMO's.
/endrant
Page 1 of 1