Corporate apologies in gaming

Thurthorad

https://massivelyop.com/2018/12/13/vague-patch-notes-the-taxonomy-of-corporate-apologies-in-video-games/

Just wanted to share this excellent article from MassivelyOP.

I think DB have shown all of these response types over the years. What first got me to spend money on the game was their willingness to take it on the chin for stuff that went wrong. Ah those golden days of yore...

(CSF) Jesus Is Lord [••••]

Interesting article, i think db does more along the lines of bribing players, and they have done all 3 types of apologies. Still an interesting article.

Bigstupidgrin

All the recent AAA video game developer debacles sure puts DB in perspective.

Thurthorad

A ‘AAA’ game title developer can make mistakes and not have to worry too much about consequences. But games with persistent development models such as MMOs or games like this one have to be a lot more savvy about apologies.

If I buy a single player game and it’s buggy or it’s not very good it’s no major loss to the company, they have my money already. The cost/benefit analysis of whether to make good is less favourable to the consumer.

But DB depends on people spending week after week and when they behave poorly it must affect their bottom line immediately and dramatically. I’m still upset months later about a terrible CS interaction and it has definitely impacted on my spending since. I almost abandoned the game too, but after a break made my peace with it.

And I am sure I am not alone in this. If DB want to survive they cannot be anything but generous in their CS responses.

Dirk Gunderson

Thurthorad wrote: »

A ‘AAA’ game title developer can make mistakes and not have to worry too much about consequences. But games with persistent development models such as MMOs or games like this one have to be a lot more savvy about apologies.

If I buy a single player game and it’s buggy or it’s not very good it’s no major loss to the company, they have my money already. The cost/benefit analysis of whether to make good is less favourable to the consumer.

But DB depends on people spending week after week and when they behave poorly it must affect their bottom line immediately and dramatically. I’m still upset months later about a terrible CS interaction and it has definitely impacted on my spending since. I almost abandoned the game too, but after a break made my peace with it.

And I am sure I am not alone in this. If DB want to survive they cannot be anything but generous in their CS responses.

That’s a good point, though I would add that traditional developers are not completely insulated from poor behavior...case in point: EA. With all of the obvious cash-grabs they have tried pull off in recent years, their name is turning into mud in the gaming community. They live off of annual FIFA releases (I saw somewhere that 40% of their revenue is from just the FIFA series) and do their best to ruin everything else with micro transactions and bad design. They killed the wildly popular Mass Effect IP and continually release ever-poorer Star Wars games...two franchises that should be printing money, thatare actually dead or dying. It sounds like Battlefield is going the same way, too. Bethesda and Ubisoft have had similar complaints leveled against them (especially with Fallout 76) and Activision has also done their fair share of tone-deafness when it comes to business practices.

That being said, AAA developers have time on their side - they can release a bad game with pay-to-win micro transactions, make a poor apology, do little to nothing, and then hope people forget it all happened over the next couple years of development for the next game. For example, people seemed surprised that Fallout 76 was buggy at launch even though that happened with Fallout 4 (with 76’s frame rate bug on PC apparently identical to the same one from 4 a couple years ago). Games like Timelines don’t enjoy that same delay between problems and future purchases.

Jim Steele

I love the “We’re sorry you noticed this.” ha ha. Musketeer La Forge Gate springs to mind.

Jim

Vreenak9

Jim Steele wrote: »

I love the “We’re sorry you noticed this.” ha ha. Musketeer La Forge Gate springs to mind.

Jim

Heyy @Jim Steele what was Musketeer La Forge Gate?

(CSF) Jesus Is Lord [••••]

Vreenak9 wrote: »

Jim Steele wrote: »

I love the “We’re sorry you noticed this.” ha ha. Musketeer La Forge Gate springs to mind.

Jim

Heyy @Jim Steele what was Musketeer La Forge Gate?

When DB released a cheesy holo character pack and the new featured gold wasnt even in the loot table. People like SilverRose and Frank did (dont quote me) $1000s of pulls and he never dropped. Db then admitted about the goof up (forgot how their apology was but im guessing it was one of the 'we are sorry you noticed this' apologies) and then proceeded to give away a number of copies to certain players. Mind you players like SilverRose and Frank who spent the most to discover he wasnt in the loot table DIDN'T EVEN GET FULLY FUSED COPIES of Muskateer La Forge. My experience with this pack was as follows: i bought 2 10x packs, a fleet mate bought 1...CS gave my fleetmate 2 copies of Muskateer La Forge, and gave me 1. I told CS about it and they gave me an extra copy...i was pretty happy and proceeded to get his DYC and citation him to 5/5. He was my first fully fused non mega event recurring legendary character.

Vreenak9

That sounds awfull. But i admit i'm envy. Working on him right now. Maybe my next goal for citadations. I need the high Security. One or two stars would be nice.

(CSF) Jesus Is Lord [••••]

Vreenak9 wrote: »

That sounds awfull. But i admit i'm envy. Working on him right now. Maybe my next goal for citadations. I need the high Security. One or two stars would be nice.

Yeah he was also my first over 1000 eng base character too!! Good crew member!!