Game Publisher Stardock Apologizes To Its Customers For Releasing A Subpar Game... By Giving Them Its Latest Game Free
from the well-played,-sir dept
One of the best things you can do for your business is have the guts to stand up and take full responsibility for your screwups. Too often, businesses tend to minimize their errors or sweep the screwup under the rug. This works right up until the public notices and when they do, there's all kinds of hell to pay. Word spreads fast on the internet, much faster than most companies seem to realize.On the bright side, good news travels equally fast when companies do the right thing and take care of their customers. This is one of those all-too-rare occasions when a company goes above and beyond what anyone expects and turns customers into lifelong fans.
The Consumerist has an amazing story of customer service gone exactly right. The company is Stardock, the publisher behind "Elemental: War of Magic," a strategy game that was released as a buggy mess a couple of years back. This (unfortunately) isn't unusual. Games get rushed to market for several reasons and end users are left to either deal with something nearly unplayable or install patch after patch to get their brand new purchase up and running. So, while screwed up releases may not be unusual, what followed absolutely is. Customers who purchased "Elemental" received a letter from the CEO of Stardock that not only apologized for releasing a lousy game, but actually offered something way more valuable than lip service:
Dear Stardock customer,Not only is it highly unusual for developers to apologize for crafting an underpar game, it's even more unusual for them to take the extra step and offer their latest game absolutely free. Wardell takes advantage of the technology at hand to keep the affected users from having to make any effort on their part to get their replacement game ("It's already been added to your account...")
My name is Brad Wardell. I’m the President & CEO of Stardock. Two years ago, you bought a game from us called Elemental: War of Magic. We had great hopes and ambitions for that game but, in the end, it just wasn’t a very good game.
Elemental was an expensive game. You probably paid $50 or more for it. And you trusted us to deliver to you a good game. $50 is a lot of money and companies have a moral obligation to deliver what they say they’re going to deliver and frankly, Stardock failed to deliver the game we said we were going to deliver…
Its design just wasn’t adequate to make it into the kind of game it should be. So we decided to start over. From scratch. We made a new game called Fallen Enchantress.
So even though it’s been two years, we haven’t forgotten about you. This week, we released Fallen Enchantress. It is a vastly better game and, we believe, lives up to the expectations set for the original Elemental. This game is yours. Free. It’s already been added to your account…
Thank you for being our customers and your patience.
Sincerely,
Brad Wardell
President & CEO
Stardock
bwardell@stardock.com
@draginol http://www.twitter.com/draginol
Stardock realizes that each game its customers purchase takes a bit of their time and money, and both commodities are in limited supply. This gesture doesn't ask for any more of those two commodities, and goes a long way towards securing something else only available in limited quantities: trust.
Wardell and Stardock are investing in their own future by taking care of their customers now. By doing the unexpected, fans who were burned by "Elemental" will be more likely to take a look at Stardock's upcoming offerings. And even if they felt "Elemental" wasn't that bad, hey... free game! How often does that happen? Either way, a ton of goodwill and positive word-of-mouth is being generated, something no company can purchase.
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Filed Under: customer service, elemental, games, surprises, video games
Companies: stardock
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They threw the entire MMO for free for a year (Or close to it) while they rebuilt the entire game from the ground up because the quality was sub-par.
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Company good, Wardell....enh
Look up his recent lawsuit with a former employee, and the postings he made on forums saying he's a sexist, crude jerk - and has no plans to change.
I pointed out to him on twitter that his public perception was dropping fast during his forum offensive against the former employee. he promptly blocked me (his right) and suddenly my twitter account was mysteriously suspended. I never was able to find out why, but it's an amazing coincidence.
stardock. good company. treats customers right. makes good games, generally. run by a total jerk.
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Well...
Skip forward to Sins of a Solar Empire, the first big foray they made into games (and the last one I paid much attention to) and they did it again. We have Starcraft, we have Supreme Commander, etc. RTS games set in space are nothing new, nor is the 3-faction standard nor the scroll-in-and-out bit. What Sins did well is, strangely enough, putting space combat IN SPACE. Starcraft? Either on a planet or on a station. SupCom? Again, planetside. Frankly the main feature for me of Sins was to finally play a space-based RTS that was all actually in fucking space. What a concept! Of course, it also didn't hurt that they made the game so easy to mod. Why anyone releases a game with code in place specifically to PREVENT modding is beyond me. I can understand not wanting to ADD modding capability, but Christ, why would you ever, EVER remove it?!
So anyhow...honestly, I'll probably give this new game a shot. My experience with Stardock has always been good, and to see them admit a mistake is always a plus.
Also, to comment #3 up there, it wouldn't work. Stardock has their own steam-like platform called Impulse. My bet is that it's probably added to the Impulse account of people who bought the previous game. Impulse is a rather unique variation-on-a-theme of Steam. As far as I know (I don't use either of them, or Origin, or any other DRM-masked-as-an-updater system) the main difference is that Impulse doesn't stop you from playing your games when you're offline. Imagine that!
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Also, Stardock's first foray was really Galactic Civ 1 and 2. GalCiv 2 was an amazing game. I also enjoy Sins of a Solar Empire.
I can verify the validity of this email. I received one and logged into my account on Stardock's website. It is indeed there for me to download. I haven't tried it yet so I can't say if its any good or not. I can only assume it is much better than the original, though that is not saying much. I wouldn't say the original was bad due to "bugs", I would say it just plane wasn't any fun. This gesture by Stardock has somewhat restored my faith in them as a developer. I'm still upset about them selling impulse to Gamestop though.
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More where that ccame from
Apologize and waive the monthly fees.
Setup a solid communication channel with the fans.
Rebuild the game from the ground up.
The key part here is the constant communication with the fans. Apologising will only hold up the fans from leaving long enough to hear your next statement. It must be followed by concrete actions that engages the audience and demonstrate a will to change rather than simply giving people a cookie. I'm not saying that Stardock is wrong, just that i feel it may be lacking in effort if its not followed by strong PR to engage the fans.
The ultimate phoenix down for FFXIV, in my own FFXIV player opinion won't simply be the rebuilt version of the game, but the support of the fans generated by all the PR efforts and tools.
There is a lot of lessons learned in there.
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Wanna connect with fans, Stardock? Offer a demo or something before I pirate it to see if it's worth throwing my money at.
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Perhaps I'm used to GOG where I'm willing to risk $10 that looks not as polished as this, or playing a demo to get the feel of a game, or an entitled jerk like most gamers appear to be these days, but I'm saying if Stardock want to take the next step to appeal to gamers and potential buyers - release a demo to people who you haven't burnt before.
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We do our best and hope it's good enough
We like money. Giving this (much better) game is going to cost us sales because those folks that bought WoM would likely buy this game. But more than liking money, we want to hotbed "that Guy".
FE is a great game. It's a game we are proud of. And Stardock is a placeI can be proud of to work for.
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Re: We do our best and hope it's good enough
Hotbed? Is that a verb I haven't heard before, or a typo, or what?
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