This whole Ocean Marketing thing has me flummoxed. Now, it’s certainly well known that I have no problem bringing down the hammer on customers who think their purchase entitles them to abuse me. But the whole thing I got out of the Ocean Marketing thing was that this guy clearly didn’t like the people he was supposed to be serving. It doesn’t make sense to me.
People who make stuff inherently want customers to be happy. It’s not just a financial transactions, it’s important that they be happy.
When it became clear that Elemental: War of Magic was a big disappointment to people, it wasn’t enough to just “make good” on it (i.e. fix it). It was important to us that our customers like us and the only way to do that was to not just give away some freebies but deliver something that was good to the point that people would go “Woha, they did me right.”
The motivation is that customer happiness matters. If you’re just a stock holder, maybe you don’t care. But if you’re actually involved in producing, publishing, marketing, etc. the people you are doing that for matter a lot. Otherwise, why bother?
I think you have to be smart enough to know your limitations. Don't go into public relations if you have an ego and can't communicate well with the punters, get someone who can do it for you.
Kerry Packer once had an interview with someone asking him how he became the richest man in Australia. He said he wasn't successful because he was smart, he was successful because he hired smart people.
The Gaming community are a loyal bunch, but if you do the wrong thing by them ... hell has no fury like a gamer scorned
There is probably truth to that. When I read the story about Infogrames suing the kid who modded Civilization and then showed them what he did, I was pretty angry. I boycotted Infogrames after that. Civ IV seems to be a different publisher, so I got back in after that.
I have no problem with Electronic Arts, Stardock, or anybody banning somebody from their forums who thinks they can give you $30 and now you're their slave for life. But still, you have an image problem. You treat a customer bad, even if they are a first-class a-hole and deserve it, a ding to your public image is the risk you take. Somebody like me who's been there will probably quickly realize that guy's an a-hole and I would never hold it against the company--in fact, I'm probably more likely to disrespect the company for being cowards if they DON'T tell the guy to screw off. But that's not to say there aren't a number of other people out there who don't get it. That's where the risk is.
The guy who interacted with Ocean gave no indication whatsoever he was an a-hole. Paul @ Ocean must have interacted with another a-hole and took it out on this guy instead. A full-time marketing guy should have more emotional intelligence and know better than that by now. And that's where I find grounds in firing Paul: a complete and utter lack of emotional intelligence.
"The problem with self made me is too often they worship their own creator." Samuel Clemens
I guess I wasn't that surprised. The gaming market demands all sorts of secondary and tertiary businesses, and there's no guarantee the people running them really put customer happiness at the forefront. (Or even know what they're honestly doing.) I'd point to all the terrible 3rd party vendors for controllers and hardware extras, many of which are fly-by-night operations. They're just fulfilling a market demand, there's no real guarantee they will embody the higher ideals of gaming customer service (such as the kind devs try to embody and gamers judge them by.)
If the guy hadn't dared the consumer to test just how much the internet pays attention to stuff like this, this would just be your average dick CS/PR cautionary tale on some forum. But he explicitly called out some of the biggest names in gaming journalism. And if there's one thing the internet loves, it's a good dog pile.
He wasn't making the stuff, he was just selling it. There's a huge difference there.
One comment of my own: I am much more willing to give a company a second chance if it has proven that it at least tries to do the right things, to both customers and employees (worker and consumer rights are big issues with me). If a company has a reputation for milking its customers unfairly and/or mistreating its workers, I am less likely to forgive mistakes. This is why I have a decent-sized list of companies I won't support.
Usually the public can tell the difference between a legitimate gripe and an entitled twit.
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