Appreciating The Game & Company

[maxlance]

This is a follow-up to a player post weeks ago I can't recall regarding his harsh beef about Cyberstep's "slaggard" treatment at fixing his free pleasure. It's slightly lengthy so you've been advised.

First, let's cut Cyberstep and other on-line entertainment firms more than little slack for providing a generally thankless public a free-to-play product that they can expect small profit from at the get-go and not quitting out of frustration after the first few dry months. Most unsung projects do. A lot "most".

This is not to say problems and issues shouldn't be reported, but game developers are not trained poodles who jump at an issue at the snap of one's fingers. Being on a game product team is often a thankless crap shoot at cracking a profit, much less fame and fortune. Each from a crew of often less than a hundred has a assigned task you must meet or stall the team. Stall the program. Think humiliation. Some issues leave you only taking cat-naps through the week. You have deadlines that has your wives and girlfriends wondering whether you're two-timing. On top of that, only a small fraction of those using your product are going to give you thanks while the majority tends to chew you out for hundreds of different coding issues on programs that rival the complexity of those used in space probe systems. And till your product scores big, you're paid peanuts for providing players free thrills. Try that with other products out there.

Today when I skim various on-line game blogs and forums I'm dismayed at the gripes and complaints from those not paying a penny for their on-line thrills. I'm talking unreasonable demands and expectations. Even if you pay for online games, you're supposedly sharp enough to know what you're getting into by the nature of the beast, bugs and all. People did not carp like this on the first on-line RPGs in the late '90s. We took it that we were on the bleeding edge of a whole new entertainment realm so we took the bugs and crashes and stalls in stride. We were all defacto beta testers of a new age and we understood that and restrained from giving the developers much grief. Today, we have a severe crippling entitlement mentality particularly in the Western world when we demand that our entertainment come as free as rain and perfect as driven snow and you're an ugly lazy SOB if you trip a step and not make it so yesterday. Professional developers try not to think "ingrate" from such harsh criticism. That feedback tone effects response. Ditto that squared.

I'm not asking anyone to turn into Cyberstep cheerleaders (or any other online entertainment firm) or turn a cheek to the problems, but to expect that there will be minor and major issues in projects like this that are born with far more hope than expectation of turning a profit or breaking even. Especially one straddling that very difficult frontier outside their domestic market. Issue feedback is very important to development teams, but -- compliments -- taste far sweeter to them and energizes their passion to get things right. And trust me, they do listen to how their products are received and what players think of them by country, and like kudos, undue criticism can be downright near personal. And again, feedback tone effects response.

All I ask is to send game entertainment companies a thank you email once a while (IN CARE OF!) their development and creative teams. They'll really appreciate it. And you will too.

I apologize for being long and in no way I'm a preacher. I'm just speaking my own mind, and in addition to my sent email, I here openly give you teams at Cyberstep my highest gratitude and regard for providing me hours of engaging entertainment.

Max

[Rebecca]

K here's the problem

Cyberstep, through other games, is known to have the ideology of “screw the players as long as someone charges me money". It takes at least months for them to respond to any individual concerns you have, with a one liner "we will take a look into the issue you presented", close the case, and never bother with it ever again.

Only time they actively care about patching something up quickly, is if the bug directly related to their profit. Say, if I were to open a topic showing legit way to generate free oc through in game bug, well, expect them to immediately close down the server and patch that bug up. Any other concerns, as long as it benefit the players, can go to hell to the bottom of the priority list.This is, of course, until people can no longer tolerate the bs that comes out, stop charging and quit, do they actually think something is wrong and something should be done about it.

[GasaiYuno]

K here's the problem

Cyberstep, through other games, is known to have the ideology of “screw the players as long as someone charges me money". It takes at least months for them to respond to any individual concerns you have, with a one liner "we will take a look into the issue you presented", close the case, and never bother with it ever again.

Only time they actively care about patching something up quickly, is if the bug directly related to their profit. Say, if I were to open a topic showing legit way to generate free oc through in game bug, well, expect them to immediately close down the server and patch that bug up. Any other concerns, as long as it benefit the players, can go to hell to the bottom of the priority list.This is, of course, until people can no longer tolerate the bs that comes out, stop charging and quit, do they actually think something is wrong and something should be done about it.

^like Rebecca says

yeah, cyberstep is the main problem here
(talking about my experience with them in cosmic break)

[Otonashi]

First encounter with CS, the reason for their reputation has been fairly obvious.

I mean, they don't have to give up what we ask for, as long as they reply and communicate with us. At least some reaction to the two petition threads would be greatly appreciated.

[Deathy]

don't forget how they remove stuff from the NA version of the game that JP fully supports, heck even the JP has people on the forums, and the GM haven't been active as they were in the Alpha/CBT forum were.

only reason most people stick around to help other, or they have friend on here.

[Jung]

I'm not a fan of the mentality, "it's free, so treat the players like sh*t." Quite frankly, if it's a company looking to keep its playerbase/customers for cash shop, even if it's free it will attempt to keep its players around. CS? CS doesn't even make their presence anywhere. Yeah, they showed up for a fairly pointless event once, but ultimately the attitude has been:

Forums? No response.
Player suggestions? Once, in regards to the bazaar and then (very) minor points.
Cash shop? Yes! Buy the gacha. Roll the gacha. Spend spend spend!

Hey, I'll support CS and send an email if I can actually get something back from them, the staff, other than a CS (cash shop) cow looking to eat weeb wallets. Even Riot Game's LoL community has multiple representatives responding to a F2P millions-playerbase - we have what, 1000~ here, and not 1 rep of any sort has anything to say to us 2-3 weeks in. Quite frankly, in the CS community here in particular, we're not talking with an entitled attitude. We have legitimate reasons of pessimism from past experiences with CS, as well as the reality of a silent GM and mod team. I mean, forums alone, we have some spam bot that comes and attacks with threads that don't get deleted until days later. Honestly, if we had in-game bots, I wouldn't be surprised that you could get away with it because of the lack of attention.

And of course, these are simply my thoughts.

Edit add: I mean, think about the first event - a month sale. I wouldn't be surprised that they closed the game after the highest density of cash shop sales.

[Leafay]

Gee, I wonder just how many gamers EVER send thank yous for freebie treats! My check is in the mail! But I've no friends who'd turn down a free Harley just because it had crooked handbars! You make do with free!

"Feedback tone affects response" LOL! MY Macys manager aunt would say that's what keeps sane customer service reps sane, by politely pushing ranters who don't have a grip on what prioritizing problems are to the back burner. Companies don't go out of their way to drop a profit and go out of business, and if Cyberstep's English section looks slaggard at responding, I'm pretty sure there's a "feedback tone" reason for it. Like who needs the attitude? What would be REALLY telling is seeing if the Japanese customers have as many gripes and response!

[Rebecca]

Today's update is a perfect example of how much of a dam this company gives to the player

[InuYoukai`]

I study about computer and stuff.... so, I totally agreed with OP.
But at the same time, I also agreed with others. Everyone is right here.

No matter how hard your work is, ppl will only want to see the result... they don't give a sh*t about your progress. I know that feel, and feels. Ppl will keep bashing you, but it's doesn't mean you should stop giving all. You already choose your path, your work, your career. You need to like it, love it, while at the same time you hate it, despise your work. I know that feels. It's not something new for me, if I need to sleep at the office for 3 days or almost a week straight.

But, yeah... To tell the truth, I'm not actually mind spending on this game.. but at least, make it worth~=. =" Because in my country, those C is not really cheap.. that's why, I'm gonna keep playing this game, for all the money I already spend, and the money I'm gonna spend. I used to play CB, since the early release, until it becomes so quiet...

Even I sometimes hate this game, but that doesn't mean CC didn't tried their best, they always trying their best. I'm kinda in the same boat with all this ppl, that's why I know(I can already feel the pressure). And that's why, I'll keep cheering from the shadow~> ‿‿<