Eep! Sugar Shock!
There is so much love in this room I'm may have to kill myself.
Just because I'm an SOB, I decided I had better throw some counter-spin on all this before people explode from too much happiness.
1. Marketing departments are made up of evil scum. They should all be burned at the stake. Never under any circumstance beleive a word anyone from marketting tells you.
Their job is to tell you what you want to hear. If that involves lying to get you to put money on the table, so be it.
Beleive me, I know.
Now some marketting scum are worse than others.
Hmm, I beleive I said all this awhile back on a NWN forum. Oh well.
We had some marketting scum from different companies come in to our place of business, way back before Y2K (such as it wasn't, because we IT boys and girls did our jobs), and lie to us about their products.
Now, some of the marketting scum only lied a little, and when the brainless wonders that are called 'management' at my place of business told them we wanted software that would do everything including wash the dishes, they laughed and told them it was impossible.
Except the one company who lied the most, and told our morons... er... managers, that their product did all that and more.
The managers - being the clueless dullards they are - nodded happily, and proceeded to sign anything put in front of them.
Several million dollars later, we had... vapourware!
Yes, that is right. We had bought a product that barely existed, and sure as heck didn't do what they claimed.
Of course if the moro... managers had bothered to actually ask anyone with at least two functional braincells and at least half a clue (such as say... one of my cats), if the marketing scum were lying to us, they would have been told "without a doubt".
Instead, we watched for two years while the company struggled to get the product to do a small fraction of what they said it could. And eventually walked away.
So - to prove that they aren't merely occassionally prone to stupidity - the managers contracted another company (that had never worked on a product even vaguely like this, and never on this scale) for more millions of dollars to fix the product.
Eighteen months later they had done NOTHING! And at a mere cost of five million dollars!
One thing we did find out out though, the single person in the country who knows the most about this stellar POS we bought, is one of my co-workers.
Now, lucky girl that she is, she gets to fix this darn thing.
The moral of this portion of the tale:
- if someone from marketting tells you something, it is probably a lie
- if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is too good to be true
2. One of the jobs of VPs, Presidents, and so on, is to LIE!
It is called "damage control".
I have lost count of the times that I have heard this kind of story. And have personally experienced it.
You get frustrated, you call someone, or write a letter. They respond promising you that "yes, this is unacceptable, and steps are already in motion to fix it". And you feel good.
You have been heard! The world will be a better place, and partially, it is because of you!
Problem is, most of the time, time goes by, and nothing has changed. It was all lip service. Or they actually meant it at the time, but it was too much trouble, so...
Been there, done that.
So, the fellow above writes a letter to Strategy First. And apparently the fellow in question is actually a big wheel, not unknown in the business. So the VP decides not to ignore him, he'll call him up and tell him how the world will be a brighter place, tomorrow.
BTW: Do you honestly expect if any of us had wrote such a letter, we would have got a personal phone call from a senior Veep? Only if you are known do you get that kind of treatment.
Usually the sunshine up your butt is a little less personal.
Incidentally, I'm fairly sure that when the person said 'it may all be a lie', he wasn't saying that the original poster was lying. Rather that he was being lied to.
Now, as we all know. Tomorrow never comes.
My friends, keep perspective. Talk is cheap, darn cheap.
Maybe the Veep in question isn't lying. There actually will be change. SF has finally learned an important lesson.
And maybe he wasn't lying then. But a year from now he will have been.
And maybe he was lying through his teeth.
I would strongly suggest a healthy dose of pesimism.
(It is much better to be prepared for the worst, and be pleasantly surprised if you are wrong, than the opposite).
3. On the other hand, past practice seems to be that Paradox will actually - eventually - patch this product up to something close to where we want it to be.
But if I had known about Paradox's tendency to release crap and then make it work, I sure as heck wouldn't have bought the game so fast.
No one to blame but myself for that one though.
4. I seriously beleive that game companies that release crap and patch it, are working on borrowed time. More and more customers are tired of being burned, and so don't buy right away. They instead wait for the reviews. Does PC Gamer (or whoever) think it is good, does word of mouth say it is any good, or does it suck, or is it so buggy that there is no point in buying it now (if ever)?
Not to mention that more and more people feel justified in piracy. Whether one person in a group buys it, and copies it for all his friends, or downloads a ripped copy, or whatever.
"Why should I pay these rip off artists $50+ bucks so I can beta test their software for them? Assuming it even is ever patched to fully functional. Screw them. I'll get it for free, they don't deserve my money."
So yes, maybe in a few years you'll see the case of a company like Paradox releasing an incomplete piece of crap with the intent of patching it up to fully functional later. And lo, there are barely any sales. And the company dies.
I don't see that as a bad thing. In fact I hope and pray it starts to happen, and SOON. Let their corpses be a warning to others. And maybe developers will start to put some quality back in their product again.
5. I give a lot of bonus points to Quicksilver for pushing back the release of MOO3. Sure, some people are impatient for the release, but I personally think - and QS seems to agree - that the impatient complaints of people waiting for something is a lot better than the anger of people that have something, and feel they were ripped off.
After all, if you haven't paid any money yet, then it's just "I want it!"
But if you have paid money, then it's "I bought it! And I'm supposed to be happy that the thing sucks, but it MIGHT be better in a few months? I don't #$%&* think so!!!!"
Or you have a compnay like Matrix Games. They release a good piece of software like Uncommon Valour. Not perfect, but good. I think I only had a couple CTDs, and was generally pretty happy with the thing. And they continuely release a stream of patches, at first to fix the bugs, but of late they have been more to modify features, and adjust play balance, or merely correct historical inaccuracy.
It was a good product when released, and got better. I never felt like I was ripped off.
Not like HoI, where I feel very much I was ripped off. But I see potential, so hope that it lives up to it's promise.
But it will be a plenty cold day in Hades before I can recommend to anyone that they buy HoI.
= = = =
Incidentally, I'm sure this post will tick some people off.
Particularly with my abuse of marketing scum, manager morons, that HoI is not the greatest game that will ever be released in all of time and space, and the suggestion that people who tell you nice things may actually be lying for their own benefit.
Well, too bad.
Life happens, get a helmet.
- - -
There is so much love in this room I'm may have to kill myself.
Just because I'm an SOB, I decided I had better throw some counter-spin on all this before people explode from too much happiness.
1. Marketing departments are made up of evil scum. They should all be burned at the stake. Never under any circumstance beleive a word anyone from marketting tells you.
Their job is to tell you what you want to hear. If that involves lying to get you to put money on the table, so be it.
Beleive me, I know.
Now some marketting scum are worse than others.
Hmm, I beleive I said all this awhile back on a NWN forum. Oh well.
We had some marketting scum from different companies come in to our place of business, way back before Y2K (such as it wasn't, because we IT boys and girls did our jobs), and lie to us about their products.
Now, some of the marketting scum only lied a little, and when the brainless wonders that are called 'management' at my place of business told them we wanted software that would do everything including wash the dishes, they laughed and told them it was impossible.
Except the one company who lied the most, and told our morons... er... managers, that their product did all that and more.
The managers - being the clueless dullards they are - nodded happily, and proceeded to sign anything put in front of them.
Several million dollars later, we had... vapourware!
Yes, that is right. We had bought a product that barely existed, and sure as heck didn't do what they claimed.
Of course if the moro... managers had bothered to actually ask anyone with at least two functional braincells and at least half a clue (such as say... one of my cats), if the marketing scum were lying to us, they would have been told "without a doubt".
Instead, we watched for two years while the company struggled to get the product to do a small fraction of what they said it could. And eventually walked away.
So - to prove that they aren't merely occassionally prone to stupidity - the managers contracted another company (that had never worked on a product even vaguely like this, and never on this scale) for more millions of dollars to fix the product.
Eighteen months later they had done NOTHING! And at a mere cost of five million dollars!
One thing we did find out out though, the single person in the country who knows the most about this stellar POS we bought, is one of my co-workers.
Now, lucky girl that she is, she gets to fix this darn thing.
The moral of this portion of the tale:
- if someone from marketting tells you something, it is probably a lie
- if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is too good to be true
2. One of the jobs of VPs, Presidents, and so on, is to LIE!
It is called "damage control".
I have lost count of the times that I have heard this kind of story. And have personally experienced it.
You get frustrated, you call someone, or write a letter. They respond promising you that "yes, this is unacceptable, and steps are already in motion to fix it". And you feel good.
You have been heard! The world will be a better place, and partially, it is because of you!
Problem is, most of the time, time goes by, and nothing has changed. It was all lip service. Or they actually meant it at the time, but it was too much trouble, so...
Been there, done that.
So, the fellow above writes a letter to Strategy First. And apparently the fellow in question is actually a big wheel, not unknown in the business. So the VP decides not to ignore him, he'll call him up and tell him how the world will be a brighter place, tomorrow.
BTW: Do you honestly expect if any of us had wrote such a letter, we would have got a personal phone call from a senior Veep? Only if you are known do you get that kind of treatment.
Usually the sunshine up your butt is a little less personal.
Incidentally, I'm fairly sure that when the person said 'it may all be a lie', he wasn't saying that the original poster was lying. Rather that he was being lied to.
Now, as we all know. Tomorrow never comes.
My friends, keep perspective. Talk is cheap, darn cheap.
Maybe the Veep in question isn't lying. There actually will be change. SF has finally learned an important lesson.
And maybe he wasn't lying then. But a year from now he will have been.
And maybe he was lying through his teeth.
I would strongly suggest a healthy dose of pesimism.
(It is much better to be prepared for the worst, and be pleasantly surprised if you are wrong, than the opposite).
3. On the other hand, past practice seems to be that Paradox will actually - eventually - patch this product up to something close to where we want it to be.
But if I had known about Paradox's tendency to release crap and then make it work, I sure as heck wouldn't have bought the game so fast.
No one to blame but myself for that one though.
4. I seriously beleive that game companies that release crap and patch it, are working on borrowed time. More and more customers are tired of being burned, and so don't buy right away. They instead wait for the reviews. Does PC Gamer (or whoever) think it is good, does word of mouth say it is any good, or does it suck, or is it so buggy that there is no point in buying it now (if ever)?
Not to mention that more and more people feel justified in piracy. Whether one person in a group buys it, and copies it for all his friends, or downloads a ripped copy, or whatever.
"Why should I pay these rip off artists $50+ bucks so I can beta test their software for them? Assuming it even is ever patched to fully functional. Screw them. I'll get it for free, they don't deserve my money."
So yes, maybe in a few years you'll see the case of a company like Paradox releasing an incomplete piece of crap with the intent of patching it up to fully functional later. And lo, there are barely any sales. And the company dies.
I don't see that as a bad thing. In fact I hope and pray it starts to happen, and SOON. Let their corpses be a warning to others. And maybe developers will start to put some quality back in their product again.
5. I give a lot of bonus points to Quicksilver for pushing back the release of MOO3. Sure, some people are impatient for the release, but I personally think - and QS seems to agree - that the impatient complaints of people waiting for something is a lot better than the anger of people that have something, and feel they were ripped off.
After all, if you haven't paid any money yet, then it's just "I want it!"
But if you have paid money, then it's "I bought it! And I'm supposed to be happy that the thing sucks, but it MIGHT be better in a few months? I don't #$%&* think so!!!!"
Or you have a compnay like Matrix Games. They release a good piece of software like Uncommon Valour. Not perfect, but good. I think I only had a couple CTDs, and was generally pretty happy with the thing. And they continuely release a stream of patches, at first to fix the bugs, but of late they have been more to modify features, and adjust play balance, or merely correct historical inaccuracy.
It was a good product when released, and got better. I never felt like I was ripped off.
Not like HoI, where I feel very much I was ripped off. But I see potential, so hope that it lives up to it's promise.
But it will be a plenty cold day in Hades before I can recommend to anyone that they buy HoI.
= = = =
Incidentally, I'm sure this post will tick some people off.
Particularly with my abuse of marketing scum, manager morons, that HoI is not the greatest game that will ever be released in all of time and space, and the suggestion that people who tell you nice things may actually be lying for their own benefit.
Well, too bad.
Life happens, get a helmet.
- - -
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