My Conclusions about the Firaxis-Community relations

[CharlesUFarley]

Originally posted by XPav
Is that evidence good enough for you? Do you understand that there isn't anyone there to provide good southern suckup paragraphs for whiny people on forums?

If you were the manager of a store, and I spent thousands of dollars in your store, and was a regular customer, and you called me a "whiner" I'd knock you out. Simple as that. I pay Firaxis and expect results. If I don't get results I refund my product, and so does every other displeased consumer, then they *lose* money.

Charles.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by CharlesUFarley
If you were the manager of a store, and I spent thousands of dollars in your store

you have spent thousands of dollars on firaxis games?

[Libertarian]

I don't buy the argument that Firaxis' website is hosted by Infogrames, and therefore Firaxis is relieved from developing it. Our website is hosted by Innerhost, but we do not depend on Innerhost to develop our site.

As I see it, the role of Infogrames is, or ought to be, to provide support. That is, people who have problems with installation and the like, ought to have a facilitated means by which to contact Infogrames and get their problems solved.

The role of Firaxis, however, is, or ought to be, to harvest whatever game improvement ideas it can from the gaming community. This can only benefit them. Even if they discard most of the ideas they harvest, they might likely get the one or two ideas that, if implemented, can salvage a game that will otherwise turn people off. Late game tedium, for example, could well be responsible for most of the negative word-of-mouth that Firaxis will endure.

"Oh, you have Civ3? How is it?"

"Well, it has a lot of potential, but sometimes my late game turns can take two, three, maybe four hours. So that's a drag."

"Huh!? Wow, sorry. I don't have the time or patience for that."

In harvesting feedback, Firaxis isn't dealing with a thousand voices bringing a thousand unique concepts, the way Infogrames is with support. Of the thousand, perhaps half or more are begging for group movement and sensible activation sequencing. Addressing a single concern, voiced by a majority (or in this case, a near unanimity) is certainly a cost effective way to make your game more playable and therefore more sellable.

By setting up a venue on their website by which they post information on their progress vis-a-vis forthcoming patches, they can allay the concerns of the vast majority of their customers simply by acknowledging that they are aware of the problems and acknowledging as well that the suggestions for improvements have merit. They needn't give time delivery details. I agree that that would be a mistake. But they ought at least to give acknowledgment that they are addressing, or attempting to address, problems.

It's a simple forumula that doesn't require additional staff or time: acknowledge, reassure, and thank. These are equally as efficient as ignore, confuse, and brush off.

[Golgo13]

Lib, I'm not sure if your post was in response to my post. I just want to clarify it anyway. Firaxis definitely bears some responsibility as the developer for dealing with its customers. However, I think that Infogrames has mysteriously escaped any criticism in these forums. I also believe they have more responsibility with regards to this issue than everyone realizes. Regardless of who is to blame, there is a glaring communication problem. The guys at Firaxis have been nice enough to respond in these forums (let's face it they aren't obligated to) to some of the questions, but there should be a much larger response posted on Civ3.com (which they should feel obligated to do). The whole argument about raising expectations by addressing bugs or additional features is ridiculous. Prior to a games release companies have no problem speculating what features will be in a game. They aren't afraid to build hype to sell their game, why should they be afraid to talk about what bugs/features will be addressed after they already have our money?

[CharlesUFarley]

Originally posted by MarkG
you have spent thousands of dollars on firaxis games?

I think you know what I mean. Thanks but no thanks.

Charles.