Where does the buck stop?

[EnderV]

<variously edited>
Thank you for all of your posts but most sound like excuses and symantics to me...

I believe the developers are at the top. Without them there is no game period. Sure production and distribution are two parts in the process. However, who chose Atari to distribute in North America? Let me rephrase my working relationship to make a better example. If I send a patient to another Dr. for a referral and the other Dr. screws up it is my fault for choosing that specialist to send my patient to. It is also my job to check those "partners" for quality and to follow up to make sure the process is going well.


I do not blame Paradox for everything, but I do blame them for not atleast keeping on top of the situation and notifying those who buy their products. I own almost all of their games and I am a big fan.

I think the people at Paradox could have made a couple of key phone calls and relayed the information to ease their customers minds.

Good grief.
Referals are entirely inappopriate comaprison here.
- the customer doesn't deal with Paradox, they don't even deal with Atari for the matter.
- the chain of request goes - EB (or Amazon or whoever else) says to Atari how many copies they want. Atari doesn't even ask Paradox to print/duplicate the copies or whatever. All Paradox did was send them gold copy and a manual. Should I blame a particular artist that I can't get his/her book/CD/DVD here because after all it was him/her who picked up the production company (s)he signed for?

If you, as a doc would come up with a super-pil, or a super-machine to cure cancer, but someone in Kenya would not be able to get it there, would you say it's your fault? Or the company who you sold the patent/rights to and is producing it? Or the company that actually sells the stuff?

You should realize that Paradox is essentialy selling IP (one, single copy of the game and the manual) to other people who on-sell the IP and take care of copying, shipping, printing and all that "mundane" stuff.

It's a questionable whether you should even blame Atari, as it is quite concievable (and no evidence to the contrary has been produced) that they do have enough copies around, but the retailers didn't expect it to sell as much as it did and as they (quite sensibly) don't want to hold 10, 000 copies of a game that's never gonna sell (See Peter E. story about ET cartridges ) they ordered only a few.

V.

 

[unmerged(30722)]

The man made a direct request, I attempted to fulfill his request to the best of my ability. And would pointing out the lack of relevancy of another's post make one's own post irrelevant? Cheers!

Nonsense.
Have a group of people decided that Peter Ebbesen's post is poetry?
It seems to be attached as a signature everywhere.

 

[Moltke]

Nonsense.
Have a group of people decided that Peter Ebbesen's post is poetry?
It seems to be attached as a signature everywhere.

Many of his posts are sort of lyrical, so I suppose so.

 

[Dracleath]

Considering the debacles that were the north america crusader kings and victoria releases I think the release is going well...

Hey, I'm glad the interest is there for this and I hope with the money they make off this game they can make a new EU or victoria. Obviously EB and strategy first underestimated demand. Good. I'd rather that be the case than for them to have plenty of copies on the shelf and no one be buying it.

 

[Svend Karlson]

Thank you for all of your posts but most sound like excuses and symantics to me...

I believe the developers are at the top. Without them there is no game period. Sure production and distribution are two parts in the process. However, who chose Atari to distribute in North America?

Believing something, does not make it true. I am sorry DAK, but you are not displaying any understanding, or inclination to learn, about the way the IT and specifically the Computer game industry works.

On the basis of what knowledge do you dismiss other's explanations as 'excuses and symantics' and yet take your own remote analogies as robustly applicable?

All you have displayed, is an assumption based on very limited knowledge of the way the business operates. Note that I cannot say with absolute certainty that Paradox do not own part responsibility for the short delay in US release, because I do not have access to the kind of information that would let me make that conclusion. Do you? No

 

[MAC]

Well, its true that most is only assumption from own experience.
Unfortunately most publishers are pretty incompetent when it comes to "niche" titles. So if Atari messed it up you can blame Paradox for choosing Atari. But to be honest even I would have underestimated the success of HOI2. But it seems they totally slept on this release :wacko:

 

[DaleDVM]

Well I knew this would draw out the fans of the company...

It appears most of you who are responding haven't even bothered to read the entire thread. Which means you won't see this either...

I don't care if you know all about the hierarchy of game developement and distribution. I find it highly unlikely that Atari or the game stores hired Paradox to make this game. No Paradox chose Atari to get the game ready for distribution. I think it would have been in their best interest to follow up with them and communicate with their fans after they saw things were not going smoothly.

All it would have taken from the developers would be about 10 minutes of phone calls and a public post explaining the real situation on the ground.

All of you people who think this was just a case of too few copies to go around are badly mistaken. This game isn't sold out... it never showed up at all. The only people I have seen with a confirmed copy got it online. It never showed up in any store that I am aware of. If it did, I would have had the first copy, as I reserved one long ago.

To all of the fanboys who are so insulted by my post. I am sorry I hurt your feelings. Pointing out a little mismanagement in the release of this game is not the end of the world either. If you would like I could prescribe some Valium for you when you read the threads.

 

[Maximilian I]

Well I knew this would draw out the fans of the company...

It appears most of you who are responding haven't even bothered to read the entire thread. Which means you won't see this either...

I don't care if you know all about the hierarchy of game developement and distribution. I find it highly unlikely that Atari or the game stores hired Paradox to make this game. No Paradox chose Atari to get the game ready for distribution. I think it would have been in their best interest to follow up with them and communicate with their fans after they saw things were not going smoothly.

All it would have taken from the developers would be about 10 minutes of phone calls and a public post explaining the real situation on the ground.

All of you people who think this was just a case of too few copies to go around are badly mistaken. This game isn't sold out... it never showed up at all. The only people I have seen with a confirmed copy got it online. It never showed up in any store that I am aware of. If it did, I would have had the first copy, as I reserved one long ago.

To all of the fanboys who are so insulted by my post. I am sorry I hurt your feelings. Pointing out a little mismanagement in the release of this game is not the end of the world either. If you would like I could prescribe some Valium for you when you read the threads.

the problem is prolly simple as that: nobody expected that level of interest for hoi2.

 

[Darkrenown]

All of you people who think this was just a case of too few copies to go around are badly mistaken. This game isn't sold out... it never showed up at all. The only people I have seen with a confirmed copy got it online.

So again, how if this the direct fault of Paradox? They cannot force stores to order copies of their game.

 

[MAC]

DAK,
I wouldnt dare to teach you details about your business.
Would make no sense because I simply dont know how your business works in detail. And its the same with you, I hope you can see it.

I assume its a fact that you have never worked at a publisher or elsewise in the gaming industry. Point is that for us gamers this is a hobby. We would expect everybody working in the gaming industry being a dedicated gamer - but in fact this is untrue. Dont tell me that anybody who chooses the health care sector to work in is someone who loves to help other people and its not at all about making bucks. Selling game "units" is a business as selling any other "unit" of some stock.

So from my assumption the mistake was that probably (as usual for niche titles chances are high the people working with the title have not too much clue about it) the people at Atari made a weak forecast. They produced only a few copies for NA (can you blame them for not wanting to sit on a huge pile of a game that they think does not sell?) and got fully surprised by the flood of orders (to some degree understandeable but not in the actual dimension). They probably are reproducing right now and the problem will be solved in a week...

Also the question is how much the big game resellers come into play here.
If they made preorders to cover the demand the forecast should have been higher (if a low forecast is the reason of the debacle).

I don't care if you know all about the hierarchy of game developement and distribution. I find it highly unlikely that Atari or the game stores hired Paradox to make this game. No Paradox chose Atari to get the game ready for distribution. I think it would have been in their best interest to follow up with them and communicate with their fans after they saw things were not going smoothly.

Ah well, sure some truth in it (I too do not understand the dimension of the mistake made) but if you would work at Paradox you have not that much influence on this decision. The point is that Atari would have to cover the cost if they produce a huge amount of CDs no one wants to buy. So you really gonna tell them how they have to risk their money?
The point is also that it takes some time to reproduce the CDs, covers and manuals - so what can Paradox fix now that the mistake happened?

All it would have taken from the developers would be about 10 minutes of phone calls and a public post explaining the real situation on the ground.

One thing I can assure you: Its not as easy as you expect

I d too like to see an official post about this instead of just making assumptions, though. From Paradox and from Atari ( even though from own experience 90% of those statements are not covering what actually happened and just trying to calm the crowd )

All of you people who think this was just a case of too few copies to go around are badly mistaken. This game isn't sold out... it never showed up at all. The only people I have seen with a confirmed copy got it online. It never showed up in any store that I am aware of. If it did, I would have had the first copy, as I reserved one long ago.

My assumption would be the big resellers ordered few copies.
Suddenly tons of orders come in online and some preorders from shops (but since people expect the game to actually arrive not that many preordered or the employees of the shops expected a few copies to arrive and did not tell the HQ whats going on because they expected them to be sufficient).
They decide to please first the ones who order online and to not deliver to the stores (or just small numbers because the demand in the stores seemed lower as the online demand) and hammer Atari with huge repeat orders. The guys at Atari are fully surprised and not much prepared and try hecticly to reproduce.

This scenario happened in the company I worked for with several blockbusters.
But luckily we were a world wide operating publisher who actually signed most titles as world wide publishing deal. So even though when we were cought by surprise we had the chance to at least grab a few thousand copies from the UK or another country the english version was not yet sold out and throw them on the local market while reproducing the localized version

Yes we sucked - and not the developing studio.

 

[Kevin Mc Carthy]

I doubt that anybody outside of a Paradox employee, if even they, will ever know full story. What I find interesting is that I could order War In the Pacific from Matrix, download it, install it (with an activation key of course) and play it while I waited for my physical copy to arrive. Of course a broadband connection is required. Right now, from public statements Paradox is not able/comfortable with this type of sales strategy.

There appear to be pluses and minuses for companies like Paradox regarding profit vs. piracy in INTERNET download, distributors, eshops, etc. There is also the trade between selling all/most of your copies yourselves vs. having it a #4 on Amazon, even briefly.

In any case, it is of course their company, I just Beta tested HOI2. Their livelihoods are on the chopping block, mine is not. I assume in a few weeks/months Paradox will take stock of ALL the hits and misses of this release in an internal AAR and move on.

 

[Chris8b]

Well I knew this would draw out the fans of the company...

...

To all of the fanboys who are so insulted by my post. I am sorry I hurt your feelings. Pointing out a little mismanagement in the release of this game is not the end of the world either. If you would like I could prescribe some Valium for you when you read the threads.

So now you resort to ad hominem to make your argument?

I guess your initial "I sit and wait to be flamed..." should have been evidence enough that your post was little more than a troll, but thank you for confirming it. It's clear you don't want any real discussion of responsibility for the situation when you dismiss those that counter your points as "fanboys."

Go troll elsewhere, please.

-C

 

[Grosshaus]

I doubt that anybody outside of a Paradox employee, if even they, will ever know full story. What I find interesting is that I could order War In the Pacific from Matrix, download it, install it (with an activation key of course) and play it while I waited for my physical copy to arrive. Of course a broadband connection is required. Right now, from public statements Paradox is not able/comfortable with this type of sales strategy.

Actually if you check the irc interview they basically said they might be interested and are looking into it.

 

[unmerged(14393)]

Anyone who has ever been involved in a business that requires the "help" of publishers knows that it is indeed hell on earth.
The publishing industry is filled with bloodsucking incompetent leeches....and for that incompetent bloodsucking "service" they provide they charge you a fortune.

I don´t know if it is Ataris fault or not. But I had a huge craving for publishing bashing, and this thread opened up a window for it.

 

[Kevin Mc Carthy]

Actually if you check the irc interview they basically said they might be interested and are looking into it.

I stand corrected on this point... I think the rest are valid.

 

[unmerged(30722)]

Plenty of blame to go around with this release.

Dak, If I hadn't witnessed the aborted debacle called HOI1 I wouldn't be too concerned about all these delays.
Besides, you should rest on your laurels....
You have got the closest thing that comes to an official explanantion and apology from Paradox. And that is the wrath and full attention of the more literate members of the forum, the moderator (shudder) and the Beta team (praise be) and other supporters (fawn, fawn).
You obviously hit on a raw nerve when you humbly asked for an official explanantion about the delay in shipping and the big guns were deployed to halt a flanking movement.
Congratulations. You should consider yourself honored to be flamed.

 

[Kriegsspieler]

This situation resembles the problems that small, independent book publishers have in getting their stuff into stores. With Barnes & Noble and Borders strsngling the US retail market (there are similar chains in Canada and Germany, I know, but I can't remember their names ATM), smaller companies have zero leverage with respect to distribution. The fact that Borders and Barnes and Noble even place books from smaller publishers on their shelves at all is something of a minor miracle (I guess they have to fill all that shelf space with something! ) -- but the trend is obviously not favorable to smaller publishers.
The parallel here with Paradox's predicament should be obvious, I think.

 

[Svend Karlson]

Well I knew this would draw out the fans of the company...

To all of the fanboys who are so insulted by my post. I am sorry I hurt your feelings. Pointing out a little mismanagement in the release of this game is not the end of the world either.

DAK, I couldn't care less if Paradox were actually responsible for the delays in distrubuting the game.

What I object to is your black and white, "this is who's fault it is" approach, bereft of the benefit of any real knowledge, about Atari, about Paradox, about game publishing or distribution in general.

Your gross simplifcation, wild conjecture and unrelated analogies, combined with instanct dismissal of counter-arguments, fail to put across a sensible position.

Do you really think I, and others, are too blind or stupid to see your wisdom? Do you think, just maybe, there could be another reason?

 

[Moltke]

DAK, I couldn't care less if Paradox were actually responsible for the delays in distrubuting the game.

What I object to is your black and white, "this is who's fault it is" approach, bereft of the benefit of any real knowledge, about Atari, about Paradox, about game publishing or distribution in general.
[/I]

Exactly my sentiments. In the absence of knowledge and facts about the situation, his argument amounts to little more than childish rantings.

This guy seems to think Johan has hoarded all copies of HOI2 under his bed...