EA/Bioware in Full PR Damage Control Mode v3 *UPDATED 5/7/12, 12:34 PM UTC/GMT -4 hours*

Something new on Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai...ible-no-good-very-bad-reputation-with-gamers/
Nathan S. comment is interesting too.
D3xter comment has some nice insight. EA tries to copy with Origin Steam but they don't get it. Valve has a complete different culture.

First off, I would like to express my gratitude to BaChuck for being the OP and organizer of this thread. Hopefully it won't take up too much of his time. Secondly, I am currently on an information/opinion gathering mission concerning two issues. 1. Should we try to lessen our participation and the participation of others in Mass Effect 3's multiplayer? We all know EA looks at the multiplayer numbers, and I don't want them to be under the impression that they can just use multiplayer to replace any fans they lost because of this whole controversy. Secondly, was that whole dispute between HTL and the FB group ever resolved? I'm part of both, so I would like to hear that both are now coordinating their efforts. Sorry if I'm bringing up old issues, they've just been on my mind.

Well, I've been avoiding multiplayer as it is,both because I want their numbers to be lower and because even that is depressing for me, when I know how the setting is completely destroyed at the end. Personally, I do believe that cutting our play of MP altogether would be a good thing, but it's also something that would be a sacrifice for a lot of people, so I'm not going to ask them to do that if they don't want to, at least beyond a "hey, we'd appreciate it, but we don't want you to feel forced".

From what

From what I understand, the FB dude has completely stopped responding to requests for a dialogue about what's going on. More importantly, the post about what's "official" and what isn't has been added to the "ABOUT" section of the FB page.

Just my opinion, but it looks to me like he's determined to rule Retake with an iron fist and control every bit of information and press coverage. As I said in the thread about the mess, he should be ashamed of himself.

So he's trying to be the leader of the movement, when we already decided there wouldn't be a leader or leaders, but organizers across all sites in Retake's favor?

Just because he started the FB page before any of the sites popped up doesn't mean he gets to decide who is actually retaking Mass Effect.

MP with the folks in retake has just about been the only thing making me forget the ending. The least I can ask for anyone is just not to do any more business with EA/Bioware until they change their attitudes. That means buy used if you want one of their games, and dont get dlc/perform microtransactions with real money.

Just because it would be a great idea to boycott all their products, doesnt mean we have to stop enjoying ourselves too. Just my 2 cents

Apparently there's a new crisis at hand for Bioware, concerning the new patch for SW:TOR, the so called 1.2 Legacy patch. This patch was meant to give a fresh restart to the game, which its lack of endgame content and the limited functions on PvP made many people unsub. They have announced it during TOR guild summit early March (if i remember correctly). It was a warm welcomed move. This patch will add some new highly anticipated (and much needed) features and new content to the game, enhancing the end game experience and, among other things, offer Ranked Warzones. This was exactly what the large SW:TOR PvP community expected to come. Many people resubed to be ready for the patch. Just about 12 hours before the patch was deployed (yesterday) they announced that they will not release the Ranked PvP feature because it was, according to them, not working properly.
After that announcement and a few problems with the installation of the new patch caused a new Bioware forum rage over the SW:TOR forums with many people angrily claiming they have quitted the game and left for good. That rage seems to have worried Bioware so their answer was an offer to any existing subscriber with at least one level capped character (level cap is 50) a whole free month of play. In addition they offer any former and currently unsubscribed player a 7 day free pass without requiring them to resub. Looking to the forums there it seems that the rage of the PvPers continues and was added by few subscribers that do not have a level 50 character, thus not eligible for the free month, to explode too.

Now you have it. The official Bioware forums are in flames due to the known reason and they managed to spark a fire on their flagship MMO too. Looks like Bioware is having a lot of pressure in all fronts due to their unfulfilling promises and childish handling on bad situations. And if Bioware bleeds, EA bleeds too, especially for a game EA funded at least 200 M $ for its development. It is vital for both EA and Bioware to keep good numbers on SW:TOR subscriptions or they ll take another blow.

This added pressure might benefit our cause since i believe they should take some action on closing fast those bleeding fronts.

I haven't played TOR, but I've sorta been following it since launch, and I did read the patch notes for 1.2. They added *a ton* of new gear, locations, and functionality, and it seems a bit silly to ragequit over PvP ranks when I'm sure it's something they'll have fixed and in-game as soon as they can. They've got a large team working on TOR, and from what I've seen, things get addressed fairly quickly.

I find it odd that "the official Bioware forums are in flames" over one feature getting delayed. Other MMO's have sometimes made promises that took months (or sometimes much longer) to get squared away, so why is delaying one small part of a huge update such a big deal?

Maybe the TOR players are sensing the blood in the water from the ME3 fiasco and it's producing a stronger reaction than it normally would?

@SeventyOne

That's really interesting. That's a very telling event. I caught a link to the TOR thread on Bioware's forums last night, and it looked like they had 101 pages in a day, with some reporting what sounded like the account server was being overloaded.

This following up on that indicates that there's a catastrophic number of unsub's happening, and that BiowareEA is in full panic mode. To put this in scope...

They're giving away easily millions of dollars or more in revenue, plus they still have to pay Lucas Arts their cut even if they're not getting revenue for it, and they still have to pay all of the costs. It's not impossible for this to be 20 or 30 million dollars in costs.

That's unprecedented, something really had them worried.

@jimbo32

Have you played many MMO's? Once you hit the level cap, if there's not a constant influx of content, the MMO gets boring really fast. Especially for PvP's. TOR already has issues that would make it a less than ideal environment for MMO players, it's not surprising that they're revolting. It happened with Star Wars Galaxies too, this kind of frustration leading to a rapid mass exodus.

Keep in mind too, one of the defining features of Star Wars is galatic conflict, this is a draw for many, and it sounds like it's lacking.

Anyway Bioware seems to think is big enough to offer the subscribers a month for free. This is not an action you see every day. So this PvP issue must have hit them really hard to try and maintain their subscription numbers with that offer. As a former SW:TOR player i think most of the things that came with 1.2 should be there at launch. As for the PvP issue i m not a fan of PvPing so i can not really tell if this was really so important for PvPers that made them ragequit. The one thing i keep in this story is that there is a new wound in Bioware, for the moment.

For EA customers are a necessary evil. Getting their money is good, interacting with them is bad.
As pointed here http://www.computerandvideogames.com/262497/valve-refuses-to-sell-out-on-stock-market/, EA real "customers" to appease are the shareholders.

How other gaming companies handle fan outrages:
http://www.destructoid.com/why-bioware-should-change-the-mass-effect-3-ending-225222.phtml
2nd paragraph after the Liara picture (about CCP Game).
MMORPG need the whole time interaction with the customer. This questions how EA/Bioware will handle things in SWTOR, even smaller incident like special quests that bug out. No immediate assistance and the forum first burn and then need to give out free subscription time?

Here is a personal example from Everquest II:
Last year there was a live event (quests that happen only once in the history of a server) to unlock a portal. The final quest triggered after a number prerequisite quests that players did. The final quest was able to trigger anytime around the clock, depending on the players progress. Since there were many players online and doing this quest there were a number of instances of the same zone.
The bug was, if in any zone the final mob was killed, it despawned in all other zones. Only players in the zone that killed first were able to finish this quests. Hundreds of players didn't get the update. The petition system was flooded with request for assistance with a broken quest. 5 minutes later one of the game developer came online (normally petitions will be handled by game masters, and broken quest updates take a day to get fixed).
He apologized for the inconvenience, offered that he will flag the quest as finished (to get the rewards). Every participant that needed the quest updated had to send a personal tell to him. Since he was using a live gm session to update the quest, it took some time. My turn was after 2h. But all players waited civil and calm till it was their turn. In the end everyone was happy.

@@Gatt9

I haven't played *many* MMO's, no. But I have played some (I'm still a mod on guildwarsguru).

Serious PvP'ers are notoriously hard to please, and in a lot of MMO's they seem to be a serious vocal minority. From my experience, they can be sort of similar to the pro-ending trolls on BSN. While there aren't all that many of them compared to the general population, they can make a lot of noise. It may just be a couple of guilds from TOR causing all the drama.

The funny thing is, I don't think TOR will ever be a "serious" PvP MMO, and I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that most of the people that are looking for that will leave for GW2 whenever that finally launches anyway.

Good Morning, Afternoon, and Evening (here) All,

Another fairly quiet PR day (though there is some interesting stuff I'm seeing in the thread just above me that I'm looking forward to reading ) . This eveing I had an opportunity to enjoy the fan made ending videos posted on page one which I would have totally preferred over the ending on my DD version.

Only a few things I found today to share. The BBB opinion is getting some mixed press and some great fan comments. I’ll only make note of one article that demonstrates to me one of the real central issues of this whole situation (and the disconnect much of the gaming media has developed with the customers).

Here’s the article:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/04/did-bioware-actually-lie-about-the-ending-to-mass-effect-3.ars?comments=1&start=160#comments-bar

And here is the quote by the author:

In any case, a mature gamer should know that statements made about a game that's still in development are often aspirational and should always be taken with a grain of salt. The best laid development plans often have to be revised and thrown out as the actual street date for a game approaches. Being optimistic about how the final product will come together is not the same as outright lying about your goals.

In other words, smart readers should add the clause "We plan to..." in front of any statement a developer or publisher makes about a game that's still in development. Trust me, you'll be a lot less disappointed in your games if you do.

What the author seems to be saying in so many words is that it is perfectly acceptable for designers to make any outrageous or misleading claims as to the content of their games since customers should be mature enough not to believe them. Not exactly the relationship I’d like with companies I do business with.

While I understand this thesis from a PR perspective as it pertains to what is called “fluff” (i.e. A claim that “our product will make you happy/popular/witty/etc.” which is subjective and impossible to metric), it is a fairly irresponsible commentary when it comes to specific claims by producers to consumers (i.e. “Our clock will work even if your house looses power” or “our fire alarm will activate if it detects smoke”). The reason for limiting such specific disingenuous statements is a simple one. In the scheme as to who is in a better position to adjudicate if the product actually does X or Y it is the designer and not the customer who has access to the product until it enters the marketplace.

At best, the author in the last paragraph would have been better served to say:

In other words, smart producers should add the clause "We plan to..." in front of any statement a developer or publisher makes about a game that's still in development. Trust me, they’ll be a lot less disappointed in their customer reactions if they do.

Ultimately, by making the plethora of specific claims (a number of which turned out to be untrue) and then failing to walk back any of those claims before release, at least two of Bioware’s primary writers have sacrificed their future credibility and greatly contributed to the disconnect that now exists between the company and a significant portion of their most devoted customers. In Sum, it is not the responsibility of those customers (mature or no) to try and parse facts from fiction from remarks made by people who are in control of the product they are selling.

Next, I strongly recommend that everyone interested in the on-going Forbes analysis take a peek at today’s article. Mr. Kain once again delivers a solid piece not only discussing the current troubles EA is having with fan base trust, but he also gives a much-appreciated view of his own perspective on business/consumer relations.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/04/12/does-ea-deserve-its-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-reputation-with-gamers/

Last, but certainly not least. Mr. Gamble gave a quick interview to eurogamer.net on 4/11/12 that contained another of those quotes that leaves me scratching my head over EA/Bioware’s PR responses and wondering if the coffee urn was in charge of PR yesterday.

Here’s the article:

www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-04-11-mass-effect-3-extended-cut-adds-player-personalisation-to-endings

And in reference to why Bioware didn’t do more detailed endings of a 5 year, three part RPG year trilogy that had a hugely invested fan base, Mr. Gamble simply explained:

It wasn’t in the game because we didn’t know there was such a huge demand for it, to be honest with you.

If I was the one PR guy that survived the SeaWorld disaster, I’d go find the coffee urn and punch it in the percolator. While Mr. Gamble’s comment certainly wasn’t meant to be an insult, there is no good way to read this. It means: 1) (if taken at face value) The writers were so disconnected with their fan/customer base that they had no real idea what those fans ultimately expected in their product; 2) (also taken at face value) The writers simply weren’t smart enough to think they had to give closure to their epic story or 3) (if you believe this is simply PR spin) Bioware’s writers are ready to make any excuse (no matter how silly-sounding) to tout this product’s validity as opposed to simply acknowledging the far more likely scenarios of things like resource/time limitations, a communication disconnect with customers, etc. caused this mess to the media.

Once again, it is bad PR spin as the comment just has no up side. From a personal perspective, I’ve read a number of things posted by Mr. Gamble and he seems like a smart man. I choose to believe he (and a number of other writers on this project) knew good and well what the customers wanted before launch. It’s a shame that in order to continue to protect this product (and ultimately the corporate core) they now have to come out and make statements falling on their swords like this.

Stay well, stay civil, stay strong, stay informed and use your voice! Typing away, with you all, continuing to
Hold the Line

Thanks for the insight @atghunter . I particularly liked this quote in the comments of the first article:

"bully pulpit" is a very apt term, I thought. Plus it made me chuckle, so it gets bonus points.

And I think Gamble's quote is taken from the PAX panel. Or he used the same phrase twice, which is even more ridiculous. "Oh, so you didn't know that there'd be a demand for what you've been saying for months would be in the game? Makes perfect sense."

Hey, atghunter. Great stuff as usual.

Just thought I'd also point out this rather boneheaded comment made by Stanley Woo a couple hours ago.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/11340267&lf=8

A good read from Atghunter as always. Back in SW:TOR, it seems that the free month offer have helped to narrow the damage to the PvPers. Their forums have calmed a bit. Still this offer makes surprized me a lot. Are they really in such a bad position subscriptions wise?
As for the comment Gambles made it seems another PR BS to me, targeted, as someone said, outside of BSN. I ve also seen some responses of Stanley Woo in a discussion about the same article Atghunter commented.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/Mas...lowed/ARE-THEY-REALLY-SERIOUS-11340267-1.html

Opening Post:

Woo posts:

and after many posts:

Do his answers make any sense?

Edit: GrubFisher got it first

Mr. Woo's answers are never designed to make sense, they're designed to deride opponents of BiowareEA's buisness policies. You should've seen the posts where he basically called me "Cheap" for protesting the Day 1 DLC. Post after post about the "Poor hard done to developers" and how "Some people just think they should get everything for free", along with a few personal attacks when I didn't cave.

Sadly, I missed one of them, but whatever it was he originally posted got him a full page of other posters telling him he was out of line. He had edited it before I saw it, but I must've hit pretty close to home.

I find it hard to believe that Mr. Woo is really so obtuse so as to think that the ending mess boils down to a simple difference of opinion. Why they just can't admit that they f#cked up is beyond me - do they not realize how far that would go towards diffusing all of the EA/BioWare disgust and anger?

Here's a question for you @atghunter. In your estimation, are they past the point of no return as far as sticking to their guns? Or is there still room for some serious throat exposing?

Edit:
(To clarify, I don't believe they will admit to screwing up, I'm just wondering if there would still be time for it (from a PR perspective) if they were so inclined.)

TBH, and @atghunter please correct me if I'm wrong, I suspect they won't admit to it because they fear exposure to lawsuits at this point. If they confess that they misrepresented the endings in any way, or admit that it's not possible to get the best ending through single player only, a lawyer could use that to generate a class action based on the premise that purchasing decisions were made on information they knew to be false when they made the statements.

Further, there's the relationship with the NFL and FIFA to consider. Both of them are highly protective of the integrity of their brands, and were EA to admit to misrepresenting ME, it could jepordize those licenses as well. Especially since the NFL has only been giving EA extensions, which indicates they're hesitant to be partnered with them.

EA's in a really tough spot right now, I doubt the conversations with Lucas Arts are all that pleasant, and I'd imagine that the NFL and FIFA are a bit unhappy as well, especially with the Worst Company award. It's also quite possible that the "Entitled" and "Whiner" stuff is causing a concern amongst it's partners, most of whom are very respectful of their fans.

There's so much going on right now, and so very many facets to consider. EA's really jepordized it's future with Mass Effect 3 and it's followup responses.