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Customer Service Jeopardizes Online Gaming?
Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for their new opinion piece suggesting poor customer service infrastructure is the biggest obstacle to to the growth of online gaming. According to the piece: "The biggest threat to online games today is the industry's neglect of the customer - usually a subscriber. How can a group so focused on giving the customer what they want, fulfilling their inner desires and fantasies in an online game be accused of neglecting this customer?" The writer also advocates partnering with an external subscription management solution if it makes sense, saying: "..overlooking those operational details that support the subscriber (billing, authentication, marketing, etc.) can mean the difference between disaster and success - even for a very good game."
I always thought other annoying players would be the biggest obstacle to MMORPG success.
--Moo.
One of my biggest complaints about Ultima Online was that they never sent out any notifications that your subscription was about to expire. They just left it to you to remember to pay them more money as needed.
I wasn't a hardcore gamer so I would easily forget about such things as I did have many other aspects of my life that didn't revolve around the game.
It always bugged me that they couldn't bother to setup a small machine with a 20 line perl script to churn out e-mails.
A year ago I forgot to pay and when I went to logon my account was dead, so I just said screw it and uninstalled it. The in-game problems were enough to make me want to quit, but that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
This article is quite true and I can support it with experience. I used to play Ultima Online and had been a long time player. I was part of the PVP (player vs player) niche of the game. While it is true that we were the minority, we still payed our monthly fee and deserved to have fun. Gradually over the years, the developers continued to make changes forcing PVPers to quit. Instead of listening to the overwhelming cries to make a server just for us, they continued to make the game cater to people who enjoyed farming gold and items. The casual PVPer was left in the dust
To make a long story short, they did try to make a server just for us, but they failed to listen to what the PVP customers were trying to tell them. We wanted casual PVP; we didn't want to spend 10 hours a day trying to farm gold and items in order to compete! So because of developer ignorance and failure to listen to customers, they've all but lost their PVP minority. Now the difference between UO and Everquest is minimal and UO's days are quite numbered now that SWG and FFXI are rolling in.
If they wanted to save their game and make it unique they should have offered what no other game had: casual PVP. But it seemed they were more concerned with the short term business model than the long term business model. Drop an insignificant minority here, gain some newbies there, raise subscription rates for 3 months. Seems okay on the surface, but by shunning long time players and relying on a constant flow of newbies, your game is destined to fail.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Until corporate accounting evolves to properly label customer service as a means for profit rather than expense, this will always be a problem.
On rare occasion, I've had a company blow me away with tremendous customer service, and that almost guarantees I'll be a repeat customer. At least, I'll think of that company, again. Customer service really should be viewed as advertising, where it is the company's chance to define their image to customers. Even though the total number of people exposed are few, the power of word-of-mouth should not be underestimated.
The last couple of times I've bought from lesser-known retailers listed at Pricewatch, I'll do a google search for "company-xyz sucks OR 'poor service'", for example. The results can be suprising and help me determine whether a vendor is an acceptable risk.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Bravo! That was some great detective work there.
In other news, the Earth is a sphere, light is really fast and snails have shells.
Among the other leading causes of of customer dissatisfaction are:
1) Lack of Content
2) 4 bazillion patches a day
3) Easily hacked game servers
4) Exorbitant monthly rates while providing very little actual "service"
5) Server instability
6) the color yellow
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Why should gaming customer service be any different than regular software customer service? We all know regular software customer service is frustrating with the wait times, automated email responders and general lack of any real help unless you pay for it. I'm sure a lot of it is outsourced anyway since the entire point is pinching every single cent out of the end user and offering nothing back unless you squeeze it out of them.
My local isp's customer service is in a different state and they never know shit about current network outages and/or issues so as a gamer myself I just can't see why it would be any different for games themselves.
Isn't it fact that the games themselves these days are rushed out the door in beta and sometimes alpha states? They release and patch later and offer no help to their customers. They also outgross most big business in the process. Where can I signup to fuck people over like this and become a millionaire?
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
I remember when I used to play on an unofficial Ultima Online shard
Origin: before continuing please note
Back to us...
I can remember playing on this unofficial UO shard. There the Admins tought the following things:
What is my point with this rant?
I arrive to it in a minute.
Before that experience I loathed Ultima Online since it was sucking my friends in and I found myself alone... but when I started playing it on Christmas, I managed to understand why they liked it, and I began mining, hacking, chopping stuff for hours like them because I wanted my PC become stronger, and I wished to do quests with them.
I also found a very good game guild, I also found "my role" in there and my "part". Everyone else liked my PC and we exchanged our stuff, I repaired stuff for them and they gave me ingots... so I became part of that world.
Unfortunately the Game masters were too much involved in making the game a "continuous experimentation in serverside scripting", a "living lab of game design failures and unfixed bugs", and a "political chess game".
They managed to ruin an otherwise good experience.
Why?
Poor communication, poor understanding, and a really scarce level of humilty.
This is what happens with nowadays companies.
Why, for example, my "railroad transportation authority" has to put loud, clearchannel/disco music at the train stations (yes, in Italy we have Clearchannel radio stations... I am not surprised by it). Does it enhace the service or is it only eye candy?
Is it
"I am slashbot, hear me roar!"
Here's what killed UO for me.
Macroing.
That's it. Macroing. It made the game completely un-fun.
Whenever I think about MMORPGs, I think about the music industry. There are so many similarities, buggy software, restrictive service for exorbantant monthly fees...
.hack, an anime show. The technology isn't at that point yet, but it wouldn't hurt if the developers could make a little effort to make things more interesting. The MMORPG community needs a savior like Apple was the online music community. And I am by no means suggesting that you have a pay-per-game system, just a more innovative system that would attract more gamers.
The only company, in my opinion that has gotten online gaming right is Blizzard, you buy the game (right...buy...) they provide Battle.net for FREE. hmm. what a novel concept. I would think that most gamers switch from game to game every few months, yes some games last more than others but it is often too much effort to switch gaming services. When I think about what I want in an MMORPG, i think (nerd alert...) of
Macroing.
That's it. Macroing. It made the game completely un-fun.
Actually macros can be very useful since UO's skill system is lame. I think that a good MMORPG skill has to reward you for doing MANY DIFFERENT THINGS, and not the same stuff again and again like Everquest's Timesinks.
But anyway, this is a company trying to hook you by compelling you to spend more time online in building up one strong character.
I think that a succesful MMORPG would reward people playing many different characters and try many different strategies. Hope to see one MMORPG like that coming out soon.
"I am slashbot, hear me roar!"
Now, skip down to the bottom of the article:
A subscription management software provider recommending that people spend a lot of money on subscription management software. Who'd have thought?Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
I mean, honestly, how many times does news of a game coming out happen and people start asking when the Linux or Mac version is going to come out and gets met with silence? Gives you a real warm feeling about wanting to do business with that publisher in the future.
Help us build a better map!
Here's what killed UO for me.
Macroing.
Macros make MMORPGs fun. Without them, you'd actually have to waste your time clicking on the tree ten-thousand times. With a macro, you can let the computer do the repetitive, boring, tedious tasks while you're at work, and then have fun playing the game when you get home.
If a task in a game can be reliably done with a non-intelligent macro, that task is only worthy of a non-intelligent being.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
If a game requires you to have a non-intelligent macro in order to advance, that's a game I would like to leave only to non-intelligent beings O:)
"I am slashbot, hear me roar!"
Exactly. Also, the macroing killed the fun because the designers just "gave up" and let everyone macro up their 7xGM chars, and then assumed that everyone would do this, so any future improvements relied on that. Lame, lame, lame.
But the real problem is that CS in an online game is, believe it or not, hard. Reasons for this:
So, yes, CS is hard. Everyone hates you - the customers, the pencil-pushing-penny-pinchers, everyone. Do companies owe us good CS for our money? Yes, of course. For our $14.95 a month, we should be getting the same sort of CS we get from the phone company, the cable company, plumbers, banks, mechanics.......
must be the great customer service.
I knew there was an explanation somewhere.
Why don't games have moderated server? Or a better way to find people you've played with before.
A blog I run for the wealth
What are you talking about? I asked for a blow job from a Playboy centerfold when I was 13, and I've been put on hold for the last 15 years. I think it's time for a management change.
I think this point is well made and needs to be taken seriously by the game companies. I've played a lot of MMOs, and even the new SWG title doesn't seem to have improved upon it.
As if they didn't know they'd have 130k subscribers in the first week, the response time for an in-game ticket filed currently runs between 1 & 2 days. Generally the response is "It's a known bug, sorry, can't help you".
Even when you lose items to a known bug, they won't always make it right, opting instead to say "You'll be able to get those items from your vendor when the bug is fixed. Sorry, no ETA".
At least in EQ the "Game Masters" could materialize in front of you and looked sufficiently godlike. In SWG they are just a voice on the chat-channel (when you finally get them).
"At least in EQ the "Game Masters" could materialize in front of you and looked sufficiently godlike. In SWG they are just a voice on the chat-channel (when you finally get them)."
I think they took a cue from DAoC on that one. A considerable amount of time was wasted in EQ CS by having to wait for your machine to zone, wait to do this and that, and generally figure out what was going on by going there. Yeah, you lose that personal touch sometimes, but the intent is to make the process more efficient (especially given that they are woefully understaffed).
Note that DAoC GMs CAN manifest a physical presence if necessary. They appear as some sort of glowy crystal.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?