Posts tagged Community

Support of products.

2
1 year ago
by Azrael in , ,

One thing, that really bugs some of us here is the sheer lack of technical support for indie/underground games.

Let me be frank, and cut to the chase: If you don’t want to support your game…don’t release it for sale. Play it by yourself, and keep it to yourself. I know this sounds harsh, but when you release a game, take money for it and do not support it you make it harder for other indies to put their stuff out, and attach a price for it. Monetization is already a big issue with indies, and you stand to make it that much more difficult for the people who are trying hard to make a living at this. I have personally spoken to some dev heads who live in a constant quandry: how should I sell my game? How can I ask for money for this? Creating a game for many of these folks is a labor of love. They have a hard time with coming to terms with figuring out how much someone will pay for it, versus what its worth to them. This becomes an even bigger problem when you deal with a hostile public that has prior experience with poor support from other indies. Everyone more or less accepts that once a AAA house has your money, they have your money. But when a person or a small group have your money…
Why? Because whether or not you have an under $5.00 price point, when you don’t respond to support issues, the person who buys it and cannot run it will scream loud and hard about this. When others see this, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, it will be a weighing factor on whether to not only buy that game, but any other indie title. Let me give you some examples of what I have seen as of late. I wont name names, but…these are real issues I have encountered:

  • Dead or dry forums. (Forums that are neither visited by, or used by the developer who set them up)
  • Going more than 10 business days without any kind of official status for a show stopping bug.
  • Asking for more information from the players, and then not responding with any updates.
  • Blaming the user for their hardware/software.
  • Letting showstopper bugs languish for months.

Keep in mind, I fully understand that devs have lives too. But, community relations with the people who want to enjoy your stuff is paramount. Absolutely paramount. If you can’t handle even visiting your own forums, then you have a problem. So, here are some tips, based on what I have learned about CS, and what I have implemented as policy here for Emerald Kingdom, and all subsequent titles:

  • Release a demo. This is one thing that can save you many a headache. If it wont run for someone in the demo, you know this BEFORE you take their money. You’re still obligated to fix the issue, but more at your leisure. Depending on how critical it is.
  • For any bug that results in someone not being able to play at all (showstoppers), acknowledgment should be made within 2 hours. 6 on the outside. That acknowledgment should contain any request for more information if needed. Status should be provided in 24 hours, and that status should contain when you will next update the status of the issue. This should be no longer than 5 business days. Wash rinse repeat.
  • Check your forums, if you have them, daily, and multiple times. This is what RSS is for, when you get right down to it.
  • Be transparent. If you have forums, asking people to email you only gives you an avenue to procrastinate away from the eyes of your customer pool. Your forums are there so if people are having problems, you can get a bigger picture. All too often I have seen forums that have a faq, no answers from the devs on topics, and a sticky post saying: email us here if you cant solve your problem.
  • Do not ignore your users. Also, do not blame them for issues such as their combination of hardware, or just because they run XP or Win 7/Mac OS and you do not. You can make suggestions, or even recommend. But do not blame people because their computer is not up to your standards. The exception is: if their computer does not meet the minimum reqs, and these have been posted.
  • Show stopping bugs should be fixed within 30 days. No more. You took their money, you owe them a fix so they can play. If fixing the issue is not possible, offer them a refund.
  • Minor bugs and other issues can and should be rolled up into a bigger patch. This is not only standard, but it also gives a good impression to the customers.

In closing, I am not saying don’t charge for your game. I am not saying don’t release your game. I am saying if you release your game, and charge money for it: support it. If you don’t, you are making it harder for each and every other indie community member to get their offerings in front of the very people you just alienated by taking their money and giving them silence in return.
Don’t mistake this for “The customer is always right”. That is not the message here. The message here is: “The customer bought it, and they deserve a working product”

Stamps. Hooray.

Full Speed Ahead:Emerald Kingdom

0
2 years ago
by Azrael in , ,

With WireWorks out in the wild, the time has come to move full speed ahead on our main objective: Emerald Kingdom. Doing a persistent, multiplayer world with new features not found in every other MMORPG has always been our primary goal. WireWorks was necessary to help us get our bearings, and figure out workflow, process and design. While we are still learning new things in these regards, WireWorks has gone a long way to solidifying how we work as a group.

That being said, we have a couple official announcements. We are beginning to build some infrastructure on the emeraldkingdom.com domain:

There is not much there at the moment. Mainly links of interest for now. We are working on applying a uniform styling and UI across emeraldkingdom.com, as well as doublecluepon.com. However, it is a place you should bookmark, and keep tabs on.

It may seem like a jump of the gun, but the bottom line is development, while already brisk and moving quickly, is about to get another shot in the arm. That said, we want to start opening up a bit more, and being more discussion oriented. Another reason is, as WireWorks will be a part of Emerald Kingdom, we will be offering support for it there.

We also want to continue in our tradition of being “open” about how and why we do things, letting people who follow us have a window into our designs and work. While we cannot be everything to everyone, we want to stay true to our mission: creating things which do not suck, and eating our own dog food. We realize we could just disappear for months on end and then show back up when we have something in the can. To a lot of game developers, this may be the norm. For us, we see that from our perspective as leaving out the most important part of the equation: the players.

A big part of continuing this “Open” methodology is the Emerald Kingdom forums. Later today, I will be starting a thread which will outline some of the basic features being planned for Emerald Kingdom v1.0. If you want to know what the plan is, and where we are taking this…the forums will be the first place you should look. But we want you to do more than look. We want you to poke Double Cluepon. We want you to ask questions, make suggestions, and take up our invitation to look through the window into what we are doing.

Next stop on this train is Emerald Kingdom.

All aboard.

Player Punishment.

0
2 years ago
by Azrael in ,

One of the big problems we have with the way most modern games operate  is that it seems to have become the norm, even somewhat fashionable and acceptable to punish players rather than fixing problems. This extends to everything from design flaws to business model flaws.

Indie’s hold an advantage in this regard. Being smaller and without the burden of idiotic policies, they can flex and react to issues much faster than a major corporation. An indie game developer who has developed not only their game, but a vibrant community…has a type of pseudo partnership with the people who play their games. Players in turn, almost always understand that what happens to the company can affect them as well. This can lead to pure magic.

Let’s take a case in point. We found this on Slashdot. It breaks our heart, despite never having played BH. A few days ago, I specifically addressed this very issue when I said: “We want people to pay to enhance their gaming experience, as opposed to wanting people to pay to enable their gaming experience.”. And the issue with EA hits this nail on the head. What’s more telling is that many of the comments from the players to the effect of: if you needed money, we as a group would have stepped up to the plate.

The fact of the matter is, the developer does not “get it”. You can see this from their response:

“We don’t really need money as much as a sustainable business model for the game.”

If you did not do your homework in regard to your business model, your first step is to figure out where you went wrong, without alienating your player base. It might well involve putting more of a financial burden on the players, but a player who loves a game will work with you to make it better. Punishing the player for your mistake is never ever the answer.

At the core of this though, is a much deeper concern. Big dev houses are seeing micro transactional business models as the “new thing”, but they have very little understanding of it. Calling Battlefield: Heroes a MT based game is a bit disingenuous now. Why? Because as we stated earlier: payment should enhance the game play, not enable it. If you want to enable game play via payment, then micro transactional is not for you. In that case, a monthly or other subscription option is the business model you should be using.  B:H has basically lost a lot of value to it’s player base. This is unfortunate. As I said, it breaks our heart to see satisfied players thrown under the bus because someone did not do their homework. But it’s situations like this that have the potential to jade players away from the micro transaction model of payment.

Community is important.

0
2 years ago
by Azrael in ,

Community is one of the key elements in any released game.  A solid community where players participate to do things such as help out others, and keep track of the little bits of history here and there, not to mention report bugs…well, there really is no substitute for that. One of the things I have been investing some serious time in is designing the key bits that will help tie a strong community together. Forums, Policies, etc.

One of the things I am hell bent on doing in the next few months, is putting a community manager into place. Someone who be the first impression for all the people who come to eat at our establishment. This person will not be a nursemaid, or a tyrant…it will be someone who helps us help you. By keeping the community rolling, and being a buffer and more importantly a pass through for information. The developers, the artist, the writers…they all need user input. But it has to be filtered to some effect. If it was not, we will spend all our time answering questions in a forum, and not enough time working on the game itself.

One of the big things we will be looking for is user participation. We want to create a system where vets can help (not school) new folks. We want a system that hopefully sets a baseline for respectful interaction. I know, we are asking for alot. But, while I do not think we can achieve a utopia…I do believe we can achieve a pretty peaceful and respectful community without a lot of fuss. There are plenty of examples out there, of communities that operate like this.

So, look for more community elements coming. We are working hard to bring them into place. Because by establishing a good and solid community, Emerald Kingdom, and in turn, Double Cluepon will be around for years to come. =)

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