CA response

[Tullaris]

I've been watching how this thread has developed and I just wanted to add a couple of thoughts. I'm splitting it into 2 because they're separate issues, and it might be easier to read this way.

Part 1, the moral dimension

Part 2, the spin dimension

Excellent post! Exactly how I feel. Especially on the moral dimension.

It looks like they know that a lot of customers got burned with Rome II. That's why they made the pre-order bonus extra BIG to sway us to fall into the same trap. One whole faction out of five as preorder bonus is effectively 20% of the content, since every faction is going to be very different to play with.

CA made the decision to increase the bait to get us to preorder.

All this mumbojumbo about budgets and return on investment is ofcourse . They planned this from day 1. You can't have a separate team just for one faction. That's not how software works. Are you going to tell me the modelers, artists and programmers that worked on the other four factions were not involved with Chaos? What a joke. They need to be integrated in the whole software package / databases / tables, etc.

They want as many preorders as possible. This worked for Rome II, which probably made it's most money from preorders. Can't imagine anyone buying that broken mess after launch date, except people who never read reviews.

CA really has a couple of higher level managers with disgusting business ethics. This is a textbook case of a game not made out of passion but made for cash. Just like EA and it's franchises. Its fitting that the IP owner Games Workshop is ran in the exact same way and its business has rightly been shrinking because of its same rotten attitude. This is not Sega. This is a kind of corporate culture you see more and more in Britain. It's what you get when you become a public company which only wants to achieve short term financial targets, and not long term growth.

If CA really wants to bring TW to a next level it must insert patience, quality and passion in it's games again, this will take time and a lot of money. Quick cash = shiny graphics, produced trailers and DLC whoring. The signs are all over. In the long run investors are worse off, but the fund managers will have cashed their gains and be long gone from the stock (I know cos I actually work as a fundmanager).

And ofcourse I know money must be earned, that they are not making these games for charity. I am just saying that CA is behaving as a company with too many short term financial targets. They want to achieve this years earnings and revenue targets, and forget the whole picture. Plan for five years. Get raving reviews. Build customer loyalty. You will earn a lot more money than baiting your customers into preordering every release and than launching bugged and rushed games.

Remember that for the Rome launch they hired all these expensive actors to make all these BUZZ videos to get people to preorder? Remember?? Mark Strong, Brian Blessed. They spent all this money on marketing to get people to preorder. They could have used that money to get a decent AI programmer, but they didn't, cos they are ran for cash.

[Person012345]

Part 2, the spin dimension

Let me just add a couple of realistic notes about this "buy it and refund it if you don't like it" line. It sounds good, doesn't it. Taht's because they know it sounds good. It's supposed to.

This is the first line of every salesman. Seriously! This is basic sales 101. Whatever it takes, make the sale. Get your foot in the door, tell the customer what they want to hear and close the deal. I have no doubt that if you want a refund and you've only played 2 hours, you will get one. They know this but they're counting on human behaviour. The reality is that most of us, when we've bought something, unless it is truly broken, won't bother looking for a refund. We shrug it off and tell ourselves we won't be fooled next time...until we are. Sales psychology, nothing more.

Secondly, watching let's play vids and testing the game for 2 hours - again, it sounds reasonable. Well, I got suckered into buying Atilla - not because I thought I'd be able to get a refund but because of the Let's Play vids etc.

I don't want to waste time discussing the pro's and cons of Attila BUT what is true is that it takes 20 plus hours of hands on game play before you really can get to grips with a TW game and see where the bugs and faults are. Two hours of game play is not going to be enough. Similarly just watching someone else play...seriously, who has time to sit through a 20-40 hour campaign? And even if the reviewer spots bugs and comments on them, you still can't assess how annoying/ disruptive they are until you actually play and encounter them yourself.

Finally, ask yourself what review "score" would Warhammer TW need for you to buy it. For me it'd be 8.7 and above. However, another bit of psychology, ask yourself, if you've already bought a game and reviews come out that rate the game LOWER than that score, how low does the review score have to be for you to ask for a refund. For me the number is 8. For most people the number will be significantly lower than the first - see my first point - if a product has been paid for and isn't completely screwed up, people don't erturn them.

At the end of the day getting sales before the product is out is better for every manufacturer, always. And they will do everything they can to maximise that number.

The letters from CA were interesting. They seemed sincere. But bottom line they were marketing. Clever marketing, but marketing nonetheless. They wouldn't be anything else and we shouldn't expect anything else from this relationship - they're a company trying to sell us something.

thank you for takign the time to read this.

The point about sales psychology - that is entirely on the buyer. If you're not an idiot and have some self control, it'll be fine. Sure, maybe for creative assembly it'll work out for the best because people are idiots, but everyone who's not an idiot and sticks to the plan is fine.

Saying "what score would it need" is silly, I don't rely on an arbitrary number to decide whether I should buy something. I find people who generally share my outlooks and opinions on videogames and then I read or listen to what they have to say about it. 2 Hours will be plenty enough for me to load up a few single battles, max out stacks and see if the battle feels right. Aside from that I'll be relying on things that people like angry joe and other youtubers I trust have to say about how the game plays. If it sounds good then I will play for myself. And sure, maybe that will be the wrong call, but it would be the wrong call whether I pre-ordered or didn't, because if I didn't preorder then those reviews are all I have to go on anyway, I'd just be having to shell out extra for chaos if I liked it.

[Totalheadache]

The point about sales psychology - that is entirely on the buyer. If you're not an idiot and have some self control, it'll be fine. Sure, maybe for creative assembly it'll work out for the best because people are idiots, but everyone who's not an idiot and sticks to the plan is fine.

Saying "what score would it need" is silly, I don't rely on an arbitrary number to decide whether I should buy something. I find people who generally share my outlooks and opinions on videogames and then I read or listen to what they have to say about it. 2 Hours will be plenty enough for me to load up a few single battles, max out stacks and see if the battle feels right. Aside from that I'll be relying on things that people like angry joe and other youtubers I trust have to say about how the game plays. If it sounds good then I will play for myself. And sure, maybe that will be the wrong call, but it would be the wrong call whether I pre-ordered or didn't, because if I didn't preorder then those reviews are all I have to go on anyway, I'd just be having to shell out extra for chaos if I liked it.

Sorry but if you think you can decide whether a TW game is good after 2 hours or so you are doing it wrong. No offence.

But yeah Angry Joe is generally spot on with his reviews!

[DavidtheDuke]

Sorry but if you think you can decide whether a TW game is good after 2 hours or so you are doing it wrong. No offence.

But yeah Angry Joe is generally spot on with his reviews!

Actually I would've found alot wrong w/ Rome 2 in 2 hours, but maybe not everything to actually refund. I'm definitely going to play as much of the 2 hours as I can on steam, however I am going to then watch LPs and get community impressions, I can't do everything in those two.

[Person012345]

Sorry but if you think you can decide whether a TW game is good after 2 hours or so you are doing it wrong. No offence.

But yeah Angry Joe is generally spot on with his reviews!

Why would I take offense, that has nothing to do with what I said. I said 2 hours is plenty to load up a few single battles and decide if they feel good. If the unit sizes are inadequate and it ends up looking like a little skirmish, if the fights are way too fast, if there are major problems with the battles they should become apparent within a few large battles. As for the campaign, and the general feel of the overall game then no, sure you can't tell in 2 hours which is the point of the review part. I just have specific things I want to test in my 2 hours to make sure that those hold up to my standard.

[Aquila_Mars]

Actually I would've found alot wrong w/ Rome 2 in 2 hours,

Thats because there was nothing right about rome 2

[Tullaris]

Also you have to play more than two hours to realize the campaign AI is completely retarded. And even more: remember the politics screen in Rome II? It was completely unconsequential. It looked interesting but there was no relevant mechanic. It's inclusion was purely cosmetic. A trick. That tells you enough on how they work and think.

The memories and disappointment of Rome II make me sick, I was so hyped for that game! I'm launching up Shogun 2 as we speak to make me feel better again. Shogun 2 is a proper game and the last good TW game they released. The look and feel of the game are spot on and the game WORKS.

[craziii]

I've been watching how this thread has developed and I just wanted to add a couple of thoughts. I'm splitting it into 2 because they're separate issues, and it might be easier to read this way.

Part 1, the moral dimension

Part 2, the spin dimension
Secondly, watching let's play vids and testing the game for 2 hours - again, it sounds reasonable. Well, I got suckered into buying Atilla - not because I thought I'd be able to get a refund but because of the Let's Play vids etc.

I don't want to waste time discussing the pro's and cons of Attila BUT what is true is that it takes 20 plus hours of hands on game play before you really can get to grips with a TW game and see where the bugs and faults are. Two hours of game play is not going to be enough. Similarly just watching someone else play...seriously, who has time to sit through a 20-40 hour campaign? And even if the reviewer spots bugs and comments on them, you still can't assess how annoying/ disruptive they are until you actually play and encounter them yourself.

Finally, ask yourself what review "score" would Warhammer TW need for you to buy it. For me it'd be 8.7 and above

if you don't like attila, the best TW game to date, you should just stop buying tw games altogether. I am not kidding. save your money, why waste it? use it for something else.

if watching streams and youtube fan reviews is not enough for you to make up your mind, why is a 8.7 avg review score enough for you? do you know what this makes you look like? do you???

your entire moral part makes no sense in light of the above. maybe you should have made a simple list of the major things/faults you don't like about attila that you couldn't find out from the streams and fan reviews. that is actually really important as to why you would dismiss the streams or fan reviews. your arbitrary 8.7 still doesn't make sense however.

So, companies have budgets and revenue projections, but CA releaseed the DLC due to... goodwill? Anyway, why Chaos was chosen as the pre-order DLC is obvious, if we take into account the previous TW titles and have some basic knowledge about marketing. CA considers pre-ordering as particularly important to her profits, more important, in fact, than the rest of DLCs, so they always use as a pre-order DLC the coolest, the most popular faction, second only to the "protagonist' (Rome, WRE, Empire for R2, TWA and TWW respectively). Consequently, in Rome II, Sparta and the rest of the greek factions were made DLCs, while in Attila we had the Vikings forefathers. It was a fortunate for CA coincidence that neither of these factions played a significant role in the political and military events during the time-periods their games concerned. It just happened that Sparta and Vikings are much more popular than the "antagonists", such as Carthage or the Huns, so nobody could complain that CA cut out an essential faction from the main game. It was the perfect mix, popular but not "essential". Unfortunately for CA, that's not the case for the WH universe, where, due to the lack of any "Sparta" or "Vikings", they had to cut out the second most popular faction, which is also the main antagonist, the Chaos hordes.

the response clearly stated why they did it, please read it before you decide to respond you may not like it or don't believe ca, but that is fine, it is up to you. but at the very least read the damn thing and understand it before you talk about it.

[Abdülmecid I]

the response clearly stated why they did it, please read it before you decide to respond you may not like it or don't believe ca, but that is fine, it is up to you. but at the very least read the damn thing and understand it before you talk about it.

I think the fact that I had quoted Border Patrol's post made it clear I was referring to his response and not CA's, whose contradicting points I had already shown in my previous post in the thread. BTW, no need to be passive-aggressive, I'm not going to get upset by such an obvious trolling attempt...

[hep]

I personally don't think I could judge whether a game is buggy or not based on two hours gameplay.

CA have said there is a prologue for each race that conveniently lasts a couple of hours. This will undoubtedly be heavily scripted in both the campaign and battles. Which will hide a lot of the bugs.

I don't think you could start playing the game normally and come across bugs in 2 hours, I think you will have to actually test the game for bugs, by playing custom battles and skipping the storyline straight into the campaign to test the features.

[DavidtheDuke]

I personally don't think I could judge whether a game is buggy or not based on two hours gameplay.

CA have said there is a prologue for each race that conveniently lasts a couple of hours. This will undoubtedly be heavily scripted in both the campaign and battles. Which will hide a lot of the bugs.

I don't think you could start playing the game normally and come across bugs in 2 hours, I think you will have to actually test the game for bugs, by playing custom battles and skipping the storyline straight into the campaign to test the features.

You would have to utilize lets plays and community impressions, which is what you'd have to do whether you had preordered and wanted to use the refund system if needed OR waited to purchase after released.

[craziii]

I think the fact that I had quoted Border Patrol's post made it clear I was referring to his response and not CA's, whose contradicting points I had already shown in my previous post in the thread. BTW, no need to be passive-aggressive, I'm not going to get upset by such an obvious trolling attempt...

ahah. if you read it, then how did you come out with a stupid line like ca release the pre order dlc as good will? ca clearly, very clearly stated why.

You would have to utilize lets plays and community impressions, which is what you'd have to do whether you had preordered and wanted to use the refund system if needed OR waited to purchase after released.

you would think something as simple as that be universal knowledge to gamers.

[DavidtheDuke]

you would think something as simple as that be universal knowledge to gamers.

I don't know why they can't figure this out. This is what you would do with or without the refund system. It's just a way to get around their annoying chao dlc incentive. This way it's relatively risk free.

[Aquila_Mars]

Oh how good the days were when the trolls actually made me laugh. These days, the only ones around are incompetent. Pity, such an art that was!

[Tim_Ward]

It's pretty funny how this "free" pre-order DLC is for a game currently £10-20 above the usual asking price for a new AAA title, and the price will almost certainly back down to £30 within a week of the actual release, as Rome 2 did.

[DavidtheDuke]

It's pretty funny how this "free" pre-order DLC is for a game currently £10-20 above the usual asking price for a new AAA title, and the price will almost certainly back down to £30 within a week of the actual release, as Rome 2 did.

It took way longer than a week for Rome 2 to lower the price for me. I suppose this was specific for the British? That's pretty wonky if that's how they played it out.

[Tim_Ward]

I can't remember the exact details, you could be right.

[Theo]

I don't know why they can't figure this out. This is what you would do with or without the refund system. It's just a way to get around their annoying chao dlc incentive. This way it's relatively risk free.

Thing is most people won't be responsible enough to limit their playtime to just two hours and then watch 40 hours of let's plays. They will go over the two hours and then if the game is shallow of buggy they won't be able to refund so they will go onto forums or reddit and rage instead. But it won't matter because CA will already have their money. It won't directly hurt those of us smart/responsible enough to properly utilize the refund system. But we are a small fraction of the people who buy games (most are probably kids who get their parents to buy their games, thus the lack of an M rating and blood for Warhammer Total War...). So, by pre-ordering, you will still encourage companies to do repeats of Rome II's release. The risk for all gamers is in encouraging companies to continue to neglect to release finished, quality products. Your refund won't matter if the majority of gamers aren't mature enough to utilize it.

Which is why criticizing CA for this pre-order bonus and discouraging people from pre-ordering seems like the better option to me.

[Greasy Dave]

Thanks for the rep guys. I'm glad I was able to strike a chord with you.

@ person012345. Two hours isn't enough for me. It takes me a long time, 100 turns, to explore a campaign and really get to grips with it and the bugs, strengths and weaknesses. For me, that's the most important area of a TW game. That's personal taste, sure.To each his own. But I couldn't make my mind up in 2 hours. If you can, good for you. I thought I could judge from let's plays but found that I couldn't. The first few hours its all novelty. After the novelty wears off and I start getting up close and personal with a game, then I start to see the warts as well as the beauty spots. I'm not going to digress into a critique of Attila- its not appropriate for this thread. BUt that's my personal experience and why Let's plays and 2 hurs game play won't do it for me.

Also, I agree that the "what score would it need" question, if taken literally, is silly. But I didn't mean it literally. I don't buy all games that score higher than 87 on metacritic! But the question is valid as a thought experiment to try to illustrate to people the huge differential between what they demand of products BEFORE they buy them and what they're prepared to put up with once the purchase has been made. It's this psychological gap that CA are banking on with the pre-purchase strategy. Take it only as a thought experiment and try it.

@ thread trolls - I realised long, long ago that life is far too short to get involved in your kind of conversation. So I've no reply I'm afraid. I imagine that's a little disappointing for you. It's not that I don't value your input. It's just that I don't see you valuing mine. Thank you for taking the time to read and offer an opinion on my post though.

[DavidtheDuke]

Thing is most people won't be responsible enough to limit their playtime to just two hours and then watch 40 hours of let's plays. They will go over the two hours and then if the game is shallow of buggy they won't be able to refund so they will go onto forums or reddit and rage instead. But it won't matter because CA will already have their money. It won't directly hurt those of us smart/responsible enough to properly utilize the refund system. But we are a small fraction of the people who buy games (most are probably kids who get their parents to buy their games, thus the lack of an M rating and blood for Warhammer Total War...). So, by pre-ordering, you will still encourage companies to do repeats of Rome II's release. The risk for all gamers is in encouraging companies to continue to neglect to release finished, quality products. Your refund won't matter if the majority of gamers aren't mature enough to utilize it.

Which is why criticizing CA for this pre-order bonus and discouraging people from pre-ordering seems like the better option to me.

I'm not going to tag along with irresponsible, gullible, impulsive people. If they can't hold back that's their fault.