by Julie Whitefeather

This week New Attitude looks at what happens when developers burn down the barn and then look for a place to put the horse, and don’t give a beloved intellectual property it’s due.

read on…

Un-plausible Deniability

“…we didn’t listen. I think we were a little too arrogant as a company. We thought we knew what was best as a company, and we should have listened more. That’s really the biggest lesson we’ve learned as a company in the last eight years. Listening to our customers is everything.” – John Smedley on the Launch of Star Wars Galaxies

I chose to revisit this quote by John Smedley from last weeks columns, not because I have run out of ideas, but rather I am constantly amazed that a lesson in marketing that should seem patently obvious seems to escape developers time and time again. I realize that not ever game developer can be Activision/Blizzard or SOE; and obviously not every studio can be headed up by a Rob Pardo or a John Smedley. But there are some lessons that would seem to be incredibly obvious at this stage in the game and yet it rears its head time and time again.

Going to Hellgate in a handbasket…

While I was busy upgrading computers last week (as was obvious in last weeks column) in order to play Age of Conan at some manageable rate of frames per second, I noticed something else that seems to have once again reared its ugly head with the release of yet another “triple A” title - companies that turn a deaf ear to their customers. A few weeks back, as the result of a bit of impulse shopping, I decided to try out Hellgate: London. Mind you this is now significantly after Flagship Studio’s “I’m going to London” marketing blitz. You would think that most of the significant bugs would have been worked out of the game by now. But that is not the case. Initially I thought it was my computer that was at fault when I noticed that trying to control mouse movements in the game was like pushing an elephant across the rug on its nose. Then I talked to someone I know with a 3ghz over-clocked computer, a videocard that would make most gamers weep with envy and enough ram to hold the library of congress. Even that system had the same problem. How did customer support at Flagship Studios handle the problem on its boards? By continually denying the problem even exists.

Mad as hell…

In a recent article over at mmorpg.com entitled “Anatomy of a Launch” Mathew Reuther, the author, put it quite succinctly when he wrote the following:

“MMO gamers have perhaps allowed companies to treat them poorly in the past. (For this we have nobody to blame but our MMO-addict selves.) As a result it seems that companies believe no matter how badly things go wrong in the beginning there are always more customers where the ones who got away came from.” – Mathew Reuther, mmorpg.com

For the most part we live in an economy when disposable income is a lot less disposable. But if recent history has taught us anything, that is when times are tough good old fashion escapism still sells well, whether is in the form of movies or videogames. But I still wonder how long this attitude can persist before gamers, like the Howard Beale character in the movie “Network”, look out from behind our computer screens and yell I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE.

Timing is everything…

When it comes to the entertainment industry, timing is everything (or close to it) and I don’t mean how well someone tells a joke. There is a reason that a movie will release on a Wednesday rather than a Friday, and it isn’t because the distributor just managed to get the delivery trucks on the road just a bit earlier. More than one politician has won office because where wasn’t any competition. Right now we are in a bit of a gaming slump when it comes to the release of MMOs. Expansions for games like EQ2 and WoW have been out for some time, and even the free updates by games like Lord of the Rings Online are getting a bit long in the tooth. It’s the perfect time to release a new game if you are shooting for a second quarter release.

But even the most desperate gamer who has been around for awhile is still able to rattle off the titles of games that launched (or ended up on) on such shaky ground they make California look like the Rock of Gibraltar…games like Anarchy Online, Star Wars Galaxy, Vanguard and even EQ2. Not every company is able to pull their virtual fat out of the fire like SOE did with EQ2. As Funcom should have learned with Anarchy Online and Brad McQuaid, who originally brought us Vanguard, can attest to – once the number of players starts into a free fall all the good faith efforts in the world aren’t going to bring all back.

Simply put, some developers seem to have established a “let the barn burn down and then try and find a place for the horse” sort of mentality. The place for attention to customers, for listening to what they have to say and making your product meet their needs, isn’t AFTER the fact. The time to start listening is before the game even hits the shelves. Yet this rarely seems to happen these days.

 More bugs than Orkin…

Go take a look at Mathew Reuther’s articles “Anatomy of a Launch” over at mmorpg.com. You can find them here: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?FEATURE=1986&GAME=191&BHCP=1&bhcp=1

 When it comes to the launch of the Age of Conan, even if the product itself ship looked great leaving the shipping docks, the launch itself has seen more bugs than Orkin. This wouldn’t be half so bad if there weren’t such in incredible lack of anything resembling communication between Funcom and the gaming community. Right now there is a dearth of any communication by anything other than canned responses and the silence is starting to speak volumes.

Who’s kidding who?

It was just a matter of days ago that Funcom announced that it had “shipped” one million copies of Age of Conan. Shipped?Shipped where? Down the hall? Next door? Across the street?” Shipped doesn’t mean sold and it doesn’t equate to long term subscribers. Come on Funcom…as my dear departed mother used to say, “you can’t kid and old kidder.”

You think I’m mad now? Wait…

The simple fact of the matter is that the Conan stories are a great intellectual property. Even for those, like me, who were never big fans of the books but love the movies, this still holds true. In a recent interview Hugh Jackman, the actor who portrayed Wolverine in the recent X-men movies, talked about who fortunate he was that he had done a good job. He realized the Wolverine is a beloved character and he was certain that had he done a bad job all of those people who loved the Wolverine character would have spit on him if they saw him coming down the street.

So I will leave you all with a message of my own to Funcom:

Dear Funcom,

Gamers love the Conan character and the stories – DON’T MESS IT UP.  Get your act together. A good launch doesn’t just mean a polished game. You have to pay attention to the customers as well. Talk to us. Let us know what you think about issues that fill the forums. Communicate. Don’t get it wrong. What if you do get it wrong? You think gamers who get mistreated are mad now? Just wait until you mess up one of their favorite stories…

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather