Quote:
Originally Posted by Madfish
I try to see luthiers post positive as well.
There is one thing some people seem to forget though: relations. Relationship management with customers and fans is so important and so extremely easy to do.
You don't need to go to the end of the world. Just take 10 minutes a day and prepare something. A small post or save these 10 minutes and give a more detailed post once a week etc.
How long does it take you to upload a screenshot? To say: "hey we're working on this and that - the problem was crazy but we're finally making progress folks! cheer for us  "
Answer: it's not even taking you 5 minutes. If you think highly of your product and your loyal fans then this is not something crazy to do!
The problem I see with many russian developers is: You guys s**k (are bad) at communicating and marketing. You're friendly folks so please don't hide that from us. It's sets a very negative mood and that is not what the game or your work deserves.
Nothing is perfect - be open to admit flaws and try to push the limits forward.
At least that is my opinion |
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Hayward
The reason they're not doing it is because they probably assume their customers are not children who need to be told every 10 minutes that we're not there yet. Crazy, I know.
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Oh how very kind of you to call me a child just because I ask for and advise a professional company with more than a dozen employees, engaged in making a game for an global audience, to actually do some customer relationship management.
What you just stated only leaves the explanation of a lack of real life experience. Because in my real life information management is a key quality of personal and business scenarios.
Let me tell you one thing. In the world of (especially working) adults communication is just a very, very important thing these days. And contrary to your, not well thought through, statement it is not that important with kids. It gets more and more important the higher you climb the "ladder". The more responsability you have.
Further, if you would really read my post (sadly you didn't, at least it appears that way) you'd understand that I didn't ask them for a status update every 5 minutes.
All I'm asking for is a little respect and professionalism.
Where I'm coming from there is a saying: Kunde ist König (customer is king) and I need to abide by it, and I do so willingly, to keep my clients happy and guess what: they are happy when I tell them specific dates, when I inform them of problems, when I tell them when these problems will be solved and that I'm working on it, when I give them status updates etc. - especially if they paid for the product already! Something that is now different from before, when CloD wasn't released yet.
In other words: it's professional and ethically correct to inform the community and your customers. Also it's very, very positive for your companies image. Who will really trust a company programming a game if they can't even use a simple internet forum or upload images? Right: no one. Because they appear lazy and, excuse me, stupid, if they can't even interact with a simple tool like a forum. Also there shouldn't be a language barrier either - you can't write code in russian so they must have guys who are able to speak english. And even if they posted in russian - I bet the community would find people willing to translate. But right now they ignore their clients and fans - a fatal mistake.
Also you don't sell an unfinished product and then save 5 or 10 minutes each day in a full development team of a dozen guys or way more. Their team has enough productive hours each day - if one of them would take only 10 minutes to inform the community it wouldn't affect their development at all.
So before you start calling people childish you might take that advice yourself and actually stop being one in the first place.
