Ok, so I first saw the "Join the Army" link and said, hrm...could be fun. Now I look at it like a crack addict as its completely fun and addicting.
But, the more I participated the more I came to the realization that Stardock is a marketing genius. All of the activities that receive "points" are for marketing!
Ok, all of those sound neat...but how does it effect you and why should you help?
Ok, those two points sound good for Stardock...but what does it have to do with *me*
So does that sound good you to? Yes? Then get out there and go tell the mountain!
Or go back in time and never initiate the contest to begin with!
But, more seriously, if I were wearing the Big Hat, I'd just let the thing go on without promoting it anymore in the hope that people would forget about it -- possibly removing or reducing the size of the forum icon over some pretext or other -- with damage control statements prepped (along the lines of "OH GOD IT'S A MONSTER AND WE HAD NO IDEA, WE'LL KILL IT NOW, KK SOZ" if general feedback and press are both poor, or "LOL SHUT UP MORAN CONTEST IS GR8 H8R" if press views it negatively but general internetters view it positively) and ready to go if it starts getting bad press.
Whatever damage or good that has been done has been done, in my opinion, and it's now more a question of dealing with any potential fallout.
Now, that's if I were wearing the Big Hat. But I don't have access to whatever polls the Big Hat might have access to, so it could be that the contest is being viewed rather favorably by the internets population and is mostly generating content rather than wishlist spam and rampant 'me too-ing'. Odds are that it isn't, but that's the price you pay for being, uh, special.
Can't really do much that way now, with the contest started up and prizes to be handed out, it's locked in. It's too late this time.
Next time? Hopefully things are different.
(I will say that another concern about doing this now is that it puts pressure on them for an August release that didn't exist before. If it turns out they're wrong and the game isn't ready for that release, do they have to push it anyway because the hype created by the army has forced the issue?)
No, this will not happen. The game will come out when Brad decides its ready. Period.
If you look at what people have been getting points for in Elemental Army so far you will see there has been little to no spam or misrepresentation of information that I have seen.
Step 1: we're Stardock, we're so nice. Gamers bill of rights, nice DRM, bad monopolies etc.
Step 2: test our game for us and give us all your ideas.
Step 3: join our army and promote our game for us.
What's next?
Step 4: Our competitors are so evil, maybe you should DESTROY THEM!
Step 5: Stardock should run your country, go my pretties! start the revolution!
Step 6: The World.
I'm not fooled! I do wish id thought of it though.
I, for one, welcome our new overlords. All hail Frogboy!
What gets points != what is done in the hopes of getting points
This short termist Elemental Army campaign is so totally at odds with the careful and sensitive long term development strategy of this company. I hope that I can be excused a little cognitive dissonance in attempting to understand how one company could have such contradictory, concurrent, strategies.
If you guys want to see some real developer suckering you need to check this out:
http://www.leagueoflegends.com/referrals/invite
"Wow! I only have to get 5000 players to donate about twenty+ hours each and I'll get the game for free!"
Worst incentives ever.
this is just a short term promotion, relax and it will be over before you know it and all that will be around to show from it are happy people with prizes. As an admin in the system I can tell you I have not seen a single instance of people spamming forums, rejected or otherwise. Things that have been rejected have mainly been for stuff (generally on these forums) that have been deemed to trivial/not enough content for points.
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