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Do the Ends Justify the Means?
Douhk
Member Posts: 1,019
Something that I'm finding very interesting around these forums (though it's a debate that's been dwindling since launch, it seems to be resprouting at what I'd consider now AoC's turning point) is the discussion of FC's business practices. It is no secret; FC has a horrible business practice, and that is not what I wish to discuss. They have outright lied multiple times, and anyone who has been following the game can see this. I wish to discuss, do the ends justify the means?
Take everything said below just for arguement's sake; it is in no way meant to be a (exact) representation of FC or AoC:
First, let's say a company, we'll call them CBA, says that their game, we'll call it ABC, will be the greatest game of all time, and will be leaps and bounds ahead of it's competitors. It launches, it isn't, and some could even consider it at a primal state in comparison to other AAA MMOs currently in the market. In response, CBA says, "Oh no no no, you guys seem to misunderstand. We said ABC will be the greatest game of all time. It isn't yet." Of course, the playerbase feels ratted out, and rightfully so; CBA twisted words and pretends to have done no such thing. Six months later, ABC is leaps and bounds greater than it was at launch; it becomes a fantastic game, and is (close to) the state that it was originally promised. We'll say that CBA had no choice but to launch the game unfinished, the reasons beyond this do not matter as it is beyond what my point I'm trying to make. CBA had two options; either A.) Create mass propaganda for their game in hopes of gaining a large amount of box sales (knowing of the large amount of player's they would probably upset because of this) in order to fix their game and, in turn, hopefully gain back subs over time or B.) Launch with complete honesty about their game, meaning that the game would appear mediocre compared to other games, but the company could slowly build their game over time to what they originally promised (in the case of B, substantially higher standards).
So, putting it in easier terms rather than "Do the ends justify the means", would company CBA been better off going with plan A or plan B?
If only SW:TOR could be this epic...
Comments
B
I enjoyed your post but these is a bit of a difference between your example and FunCom, it's slight but it's there.
FunCom didn't promise that AoC would be the best game ever, they promised that certain things would be implemented in-game at launch....they weren't, the said that AoC will have features that most MMO's don't have....it doesn't, and i believe this to be the issue most gamers have...it's basically an unfinished product that looks,feels and acts unfinished.
It's like riding a bicycle with one pedal missing, can you still ride it? sure...but it isn't going to be much fun.
Developers are rushing titles out the door to beat others to the post, while i don't agree with this it still happens...FunCom was no exception, now they have a lot of back peddling to do...on that bicycle with one pedal.
Plan B
Although Plan A would still work, I think that Plan B would end them up with more subs in the long term.
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Guys! I'm hopelessly lost in a mountain of mole hills! Them damn moles!
Better off? B is the ONLY answer to choose. It's not about what to do to get money, it's not about how to screw the consumer, or how to trick us. It's about ethical and moral obligations to other human beings. I am so tried of everyone screwing everyone because they think it's the way capitalisim has to be, capitalizing on the opportunity to make a buck. It's about an idea, creating something that people can honestly want and enjoy, not being duped into doing so via advertising or marketing "genius." It's so sad that so many are so ready to take money from anyone anyway they can. The fact that any business can continue to act they way Funcom does, or the banks do, or the lenders, or the CEOs, is disgusting to me. Humans need to stop raping humans for their money.
A dyslexic man walked into a bra.
Hmm... I think you are missing the point of my interpretation, but I think alot of people would without further explanation because of how poorly I explained that.
First of all, let me say that I did not mean for my example to be a representation of FC, it was meant to resemble it. My post was not created to point out something that I believe is completely factual (FC's actual business practice being dishonest, that is) but the ethics behind it (whether FC was justified), if that makes any sense. So, when company CBA says that their game would be the best game ever but ended up completely the opposite, I did not mean for CBA to be FC, just a close representation. That was basically why I used CBA and ABC instead of FC and AoC, to get what I want to discuss out there instead of a completely different subject altogether.
Heh, it is not like FC is the only company doing this, SOE, and Mythic isn't better. They also cut things at the last moment, release the games way too early and so on. I guess they can't afford to let the game develop 6 months more because times are hard right now.
And it is call marketing, not lying. Rule #1: never trust a salesperson, they couldn't tell a truth if their life depended on it.
Still, I will not avoid any game because it launched bad if it is good now, that would be punish me not them (ok, maybe both).
And off course the companies could do like Turbine did with LOTRO, fix the bugg but start with no content at launch and later patch it in but that didn't really work that great either, LOTRO isn't that big of a game.
The lession is probably that you shouldn't hype your game until just a few days before the release.
Let me tell you what...that's never going to end. Money corrupts.
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Guys! I'm hopelessly lost in a mountain of mole hills! Them damn moles!
That right there. It would give them all the time in the world without having to deal with too much pressure. When it comes down to it...it's our own faults that games get pushed out like they do. "Come on! Get the game out the door! We want it now! Hurry hurry hurry!". And then we hype ourselves up and set ourselves up for disappointment. The only way to avoid that is to announce the game maybe 3 months before launch. Then you might have a chance to survive.
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Guys! I'm hopelessly lost in a mountain of mole hills! Them damn moles!
Let me tell you what...that's never going to end. Money corrupts.
Money only corrupts the weak.
A dyslexic man walked into a bra.
Let me tell you what...that's never going to end. Money corrupts.
Money only corrupts the weak.
Heh...you'd be surprised.
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Guys! I'm hopelessly lost in a mountain of mole hills! Them damn moles!
Let me tell you what...that's never going to end. Money corrupts.
Money only corrupts the weak.
Heh...you'd be surprised.
No, I wouldn't. If you are corrupted by such feeble things, you are a weak minded individual. Just because it was not as obvious before the money corrupted them, the weakness had always been present, lurking.
A dyslexic man walked into a bra.
Let me tell you what...that's never going to end. Money corrupts.
Money only corrupts the weak.
Heh...you'd be surprised.
No, I wouldn't. If you are corrupted by such feeble things, you are a weak minded individual. Just because it was not as obvious before the money corrupted them, the weakness had always been present, lurking.
Maybe it's not that their weak minded...but rather average minded.
And it takes a strong mind to avoid corruption. I think you are being a little closed minded. For some reason we humans think that we are indistructible...that we have the will power to fight. It only takes one slip up to show us how wrong we were. All I'm saying is that you are acting like superman...and your expectations are way too high.
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Guys! I'm hopelessly lost in a mountain of mole hills! Them damn moles!
Let me tell you what...that's never going to end. Money corrupts.
Money only corrupts the weak.
Heh...you'd be surprised.
No, I wouldn't. If you are corrupted by such feeble things, you are a weak minded individual. Just because it was not as obvious before the money corrupted them, the weakness had always been present, lurking.
Maybe it's not that their weak minded...but rather average minded.
And it takes a strong mind to avoid corruption. I think you are being a little closed minded. For some reason we humans think that we are indistructible...that we have the will power to fight. It only takes one slip up to show us how wrong we were. All I'm saying is that you are acting like superman...and your expectations are way too high.
Expecting lowly things from other humans only returns that which I expect. I have high hopes for our species. I don't expect us to be feeble, idiotic, war craving, money hungry fools, regardless of what history shows. I expect more because of the rare few who have shown true triumph over the cravings of the mundane and basic. I said nothing about how I act. Maybe I am easily corruptable as well, making me weak minded.
After all, Kierkegaard wrote some of the most profound religious examinations, and what it meant to be a true christian. He then could not say those words himself, that he was a true christian, for they meant too much and he was not worthy of such. Did that make him a hypocrite? Maybe. Did it devalue anything he wrote? No,
We should expect the best, as a few in history have shown us what we can do. To expect less is ignorant, and only hurts us.
A dyslexic man walked into a bra.
Is calling a lie marketting make it justified? Not asking this as if I disagree with you, but in hopes that you go a little more in-depth with what you said; you were getting onto a very good point.
Plan B.
And to the OP: you have a enter key, use it.
Let me tell you what...that's never going to end. Money corrupts.
Money only corrupts the weak.
Heh...you'd be surprised.
No, I wouldn't. If you are corrupted by such feeble things, you are a weak minded individual. Just because it was not as obvious before the money corrupted them, the weakness had always been present, lurking.
Maybe it's not that their weak minded...but rather average minded.
And it takes a strong mind to avoid corruption. I think you are being a little closed minded. For some reason we humans think that we are indistructible...that we have the will power to fight. It only takes one slip up to show us how wrong we were. All I'm saying is that you are acting like superman...and your expectations are way too high.
Expecting lowly things from other humans only returns that which I expect. I have high hopes for our species. I don't expect us to be feeble, idiotic, war craving, money hungry fools, regardless of what history shows. I expect more because of the rare few who have shown true triumph over the cravings of the mundane and basic. I said nothing about how I act. Maybe I am easily corruptable as well, making me weak minded.
After all, Kierkegaard wrote some of the most profound religious examinations, and what it meant to be a true christian. He then could not say those words himself, that he was a true christian, for they meant too much and he was not worthy of such. Did that make him a hypocrite? Maybe. Did it devalue anything he wrote? No,
We should expect the best, as a few in history have shown us what we can do. To expect less is ignorant, and only hurts us.
My god. Why do people come on a video game forum and babble about philosophy in an attempt to make themselves look more sophisticated.
Seriously we're here to talk about games, not some philosophers reflections on whatever it was he thought was important at the time. I'm happy for you that you can regurgitate that prose, but at the same time, you would do better to say more with less words in a fashion that people will even bother to read.
Nice question OP but maybe it should have been in the overall general forum.
While drinking my coffee I had a little fun running a simple 13 month numbergame on 3 different scenarios.
Now to have a little numberfun I need to make a lot of assumptions lacking hard facts
I have put subscriber value at $10 to take into consideration the added costs of a live game (support staff, servers, payment system etc.)
I put the box value at $12 for the first 6 months and half after that. (Funcom said that they got about 20% of the total boxvalue so something similar should be valid for CBA-games)
I also assumed that the base company (management, developers etc.) remained the same during the period therefore not taking those costs into account.
Potential customers, given high hardware req and the MMO segment being rather small compared to other games, I put this number at 1.5 mill. and out of those not all will consider a "new" game.
OK for those that need a screenshot (or it didnt happen) here is a link to a pdf file with these simple numbers.
Simply put: Scenario 1 is the worst possible case for CBA-games and scenario 2 would take one hell of a miracle if they had to make more money than with scenario 3.
I voted for plan B
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)
Let me tell you what...that's never going to end. Money corrupts.
Money only corrupts the weak.
Heh...you'd be surprised.
No, I wouldn't. If you are corrupted by such feeble things, you are a weak minded individual. Just because it was not as obvious before the money corrupted them, the weakness had always been present, lurking.
Maybe it's not that their weak minded...but rather average minded.
And it takes a strong mind to avoid corruption. I think you are being a little closed minded. For some reason we humans think that we are indistructible...that we have the will power to fight. It only takes one slip up to show us how wrong we were. All I'm saying is that you are acting like superman...and your expectations are way too high.
Expecting lowly things from other humans only returns that which I expect. I have high hopes for our species. I don't expect us to be feeble, idiotic, war craving, money hungry fools, regardless of what history shows. I expect more because of the rare few who have shown true triumph over the cravings of the mundane and basic. I said nothing about how I act. Maybe I am easily corruptable as well, making me weak minded.
After all, Kierkegaard wrote some of the most profound religious examinations, and what it meant to be a true christian. He then could not say those words himself, that he was a true christian, for they meant too much and he was not worthy of such. Did that make him a hypocrite? Maybe. Did it devalue anything he wrote? No,
We should expect the best, as a few in history have shown us what we can do. To expect less is ignorant, and only hurts us.
My god. Why do people come on a video game forum and babble about philosophy in an attempt to make themselves look more sophisticated.
Seriously we're here to talk about games, not some philosophers reflections on whatever it was he thought was important at the time. I'm happy for you that you can regurgitate that prose, but at the same time, you would do better to say more with less words in a fashion that people will even bother to read.
What he said. Ironically noby wants to talk games in the game forums. This place is pathetic.
I guess its all in the eye of the beholder.
Posting a whinepost about a thread that doesnt interest you, in the exact same thread, seems rather pathetic to me.
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)
Hmm, well i would say B.
But its a complicated thing.
And there are many mmo companys out there that behave strange, Not only Funcom made a mistake, look at SOE they have made many more mistakes i would say they are the worst company.
I heard about Coadmasters, who bann people for no reason.
I read about somebody that got banned from Archlord by Coadmasters, first they got no respones from them when they asked why they got banned and a day or something before the bann they bought chantras (some kind of in game item) with there visa card, and after the mysterious bann they asked for a refund and they got no answear from Coadmasters.
After this i checked around a bit and it seems that Coadmasters have banned alot of people for no reason.
And i cant say that Mythic are a good company either.
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Bear Grylls : I need to get out of this frozen hellhole!
Bear Grylls : (Holds a beetle in his hand) 4 times more protein then Beef
Blasphemy
I pick Plan C
Unless you are a former employee of Funcom you wouldn't know what the hell they choose to do. I don't think you have a right to judge either. Perhaps Plan C was the best decision they could have made.
Plan A is hardly likely... Otherwise why not just make a crappy game with graphics and zones which would take less than five years to make and work their magical and evil "propraganda" tactics to try to sell that PoS. Then take the money and run.
Plan B... is not realistic either. "Buy Our Okay Game and See Where It Is In 6 Months Time!" Right. Their supporters would pull the plug on the game altogether. Or wait another few months? Do you really think they had that choice without losing supporters and funds?
Plan A and Plan B are out so now... Here are two more options.
Plan C... Continue with the release of the game. In hopes that given more time your dream can still become a success.
Plan D... No Game. Your dream will never happen and your years of hard work were a complete waste of time.
So now that we're being realistic, which would you choose now?
OriginalForm, I made a response to one of the others who posted here with a similar thought process, your missing the point of my post. It was not meant to be a representation of the company, only a vague resemblance. I don't wish to discuss what the company in itself did or did not do (because yes, I realize I have no clue what exactly the reasoning was behind anything, as I am not a FC employee) but, if company CBA was left with one situation or the other, which would have been the wisest for the company.
Perhaps I should have posted this in general discussion... the only reason I put it in the AoC forums is because it was fitting to everything that's been going on with the company.
If you had posted it in general forums it would have been moved to AoC forums. Same as several other threads in the past that relate to specific mmos. You had it in the right spot.
And no, I don't think the ends justify the means, especially in AoC's case. A foundation built on filth will always be filth at its core. Just look at the mentality the game has bred in its 'fans' - they are all the end result of a process that began with arrogence, dishonesty and corruption.
Waiting for: A skill-based MMO with Freedom and Consequence.
Woe to thee, the pierce-ed.
You GOT it, General Forums.
ANother thing, stop bumping your own threads. It's kind of low.
To be honest, I could care less where this thread is; I'm responding to people as they post. Sorry if you misinterpreted that. It actually annoys me when an OP doesn't respond back to it's posters. It's like, "why did you make the thread in the first place?", y'know?