Read This Before Complaining
April 16, 2019 7:11AM
edited April 2019
(Disclaimer, none of this is my work. I just really wanted to show everyone this amazing post. Full credit goes to, u/NickF-Rotmg from reddit.)
My career has me doing things like manipulate eccomerce upsells at checkout, or tweak the timing and frequency of abandoned cart emails. I measure clicks and conversions and analyze at what point did you elect not to buy the thing. I manipulate behavior on a handful of websites. You've probably spent money on one of them.
100% confirmed whales are in segmented and analyzed separately than the people who only buy those $10 packs of shards. Math geeks have done their spreadsheet work. They have accurate models in place for their predictions like "well, based on what we've seen before, the top .x% of our spending base is likely to chase this and require a $x00-$x00 spend to get the character".
How do you think EA subcontracting CG happened? How do you think the deal was closed? How do you think the top sales person (or contracted seller) positioned CG? Graphic design and programming first? Probably not. Probably analytic and financial aptitude. Their name is CAPITAL games. Like working CAPITAL. Capital means money. ((EDIT: I am wrong here, webu and varax123 are right :/r/SWGalaxyOfHeroes/comments/bc90mk/i_work_in_analytics_and_am_shocked_at_the/ekpqcft?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x . Adjust this sentiment to: "the highest paid people in that building sell themselves this way in interviews and salary negotiations." ))
Incensed complainers try to saber rattle like CG risks alienating the money. But the financials come back up OVER AND OVER AND OVER. The numbers have been run, the transactions measured. Multimillion dollar businesses are not run by a handful of scheming greedy actors. Upper management makes decisions based on the financial security of (1) themselves and their families (2) shareholders, stakeholders and employees. Presenting a distorted reality about how it's all gonna crash if they keep acting greedy is not objective.
The reddit rage is old-hat at this point. Every emotional, incensed, adversarial post actually achieves the opposite of it's intent. Smart, good-hearted, rational video game developers reach the conclusion "eh, they just complain about everything we do".
So you're not a whale, you're not getting Malak. Don't worry, next rollout will be timed to maximize the spend of the big dolphin bucket. The one after that, small dolphin and expert F2P player. And it's going to work. The numbers don't lie.
The solution if you're smart enough, is to password protect transactions on your phone and give your password to a loved one. Farm less characters (only certain factions?) and accept that the anxiety chemicals your brain is producing comes from "maintaining a level of play". Try it. Leave trash on defense in arena for 3 days. Stop chasing the meta. You will never catch up, you will never get "ahead".
Remember, you downloaded this free pleasant distraction because you like remembering Star Wars. The secret to winning is not caring. See how high you can rank with your f2p Jawas.
Hope this helps.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SWGalaxyOfHeroes/comments/bc90mk/i_work_in_analytics_and_am_shocked_at_the/ekpqcft?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x
My career has me doing things like manipulate eccomerce upsells at checkout, or tweak the timing and frequency of abandoned cart emails. I measure clicks and conversions and analyze at what point did you elect not to buy the thing. I manipulate behavior on a handful of websites. You've probably spent money on one of them.
100% confirmed whales are in segmented and analyzed separately than the people who only buy those $10 packs of shards. Math geeks have done their spreadsheet work. They have accurate models in place for their predictions like "well, based on what we've seen before, the top .x% of our spending base is likely to chase this and require a $x00-$x00 spend to get the character".
How do you think EA subcontracting CG happened? How do you think the deal was closed? How do you think the top sales person (or contracted seller) positioned CG? Graphic design and programming first? Probably not. Probably analytic and financial aptitude. Their name is CAPITAL games. Like working CAPITAL. Capital means money. ((EDIT: I am wrong here, webu and varax123 are right :/r/SWGalaxyOfHeroes/comments/bc90mk/i_work_in_analytics_and_am_shocked_at_the/ekpqcft?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x . Adjust this sentiment to: "the highest paid people in that building sell themselves this way in interviews and salary negotiations." ))
Incensed complainers try to saber rattle like CG risks alienating the money. But the financials come back up OVER AND OVER AND OVER. The numbers have been run, the transactions measured. Multimillion dollar businesses are not run by a handful of scheming greedy actors. Upper management makes decisions based on the financial security of (1) themselves and their families (2) shareholders, stakeholders and employees. Presenting a distorted reality about how it's all gonna crash if they keep acting greedy is not objective.
The reddit rage is old-hat at this point. Every emotional, incensed, adversarial post actually achieves the opposite of it's intent. Smart, good-hearted, rational video game developers reach the conclusion "eh, they just complain about everything we do".
So you're not a whale, you're not getting Malak. Don't worry, next rollout will be timed to maximize the spend of the big dolphin bucket. The one after that, small dolphin and expert F2P player. And it's going to work. The numbers don't lie.
The solution if you're smart enough, is to password protect transactions on your phone and give your password to a loved one. Farm less characters (only certain factions?) and accept that the anxiety chemicals your brain is producing comes from "maintaining a level of play". Try it. Leave trash on defense in arena for 3 days. Stop chasing the meta. You will never catch up, you will never get "ahead".
Remember, you downloaded this free pleasant distraction because you like remembering Star Wars. The secret to winning is not caring. See how high you can rank with your f2p Jawas.
Hope this helps.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SWGalaxyOfHeroes/comments/bc90mk/i_work_in_analytics_and_am_shocked_at_the/ekpqcft?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x
Post edited by SemiGod on
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Replies
What he's talking about is done regardless as to how predatory the business practices are.
We perform similar levels of insight but we care about customer satisfaction, loyalty & long term sustainability as core metrics we need to consider. Making the most money in the very short term is a perfectly legitimate strategy, but other methods can or could increase total revenue with a different approach.
This issue isn't the execution & the methodology behind the decisions (it's common practice), but the direction which has been set & the values held.
My guess - and its just a guess - is they recently (around time of zombie nerf or GG release) had a meeting with the EA beancounters that caused their numerous punitive actions. EAs Star Wars Contract is coming up and they want to show Dinsey they can bang out the bucks.
We have the same devs, but they are behaving differently. That says "The boss came and we had a meeting!" to me.
/speculation over (but hey, I'm really just feigning humility - this or something very close is exactly what happened).
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They have had dominate metas before. What I dont recall is target nerfs/buffs done after the fact to disable certain teams in arena. That is new. Finn, zombie, Malak and Bastille buffs, etc. Finn was an extremely consistant counter-meta team. They didnt just hit him with the nerf bat - they gave him the Apocalypse Now treatment.
But that did not destroy him in arena - where crystals are earned. I know their stated reason for his recent change was P3 of HSTR but they could have done it other ways. They wanted to remove his arena viability. And They did.
Im not talking about the recent Finn nerf. And as one who was running Finn in arena when they reworded his lead to avoid fixing the expose bug back in April/May of 2017, I can say with full confidence that how they handled it was - in fact - a legit nerf that affected not only arena, but every other aspect of the game at the time.
I knw you were not complaining about the recent nerf. But you were trying to compare the old nerf to the new one. They do not compare.
Where did i say there has been the same level of outrage over every major release, or that the fact that every major release or change has been accompanied by outrage delegitimises such outrage?
At most i'm implying that an outraged (portion of the) playerbase isn't a problem for ea/cg, regardless of whether said outrage is legit/has merit. You can draw your own conclusions based on that.
i'm sorry, but that clearly doesn't imply that every major release is accompanied by the same level of outrage. I'm just stating a fact that every major release is accompanied by outrage.
As i said, you can draw your own conclusions based on that fact, if it in your opinion delegitimizes the outrage then i don't know what to tell you. Apparantly you think being outraged whenever there's a change or a major character release deligitimizes being outraged. That's not something i said or implied, that's just you drawing your own conclusion based on what i said.
On top of that, there's the reality that just because you get these toons unlocked with your $60 mega-packs or whatever, there's no real way to gear them up outside of spending more $$. You're going to hit a stun cuff wall, you know that place on the new toons between G8 and G9 where you need two of them... not to worry, for another $25 you can get one of those five new toons to G9. You know, at some point people just shrug and say, "Whatever."
That spells disaster to the higher ups, who put more pressure on a development team to generate more money in the 2019FY than in the 2018FY, etc. etc. It just isn't sustainable. A person shouldn't spend $10 or $20 a month a game and still not be getting anywhere. And I mean literally, $20 a month won't get you anything, it might get you 55 shards of something you need six times more of, or it might by you a single piece of gear that bumps one of your toons to G10. But that's about it. Meaningless, really.
"The more you tighten your grip EA, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
I’m not here to defend the Malak release as I totally agree that it was predatory.
I’m here to say 2 things:
1. Every single update, I read about how this game is on its last legs. And then the developers double down and release new content that proves this theory wrong.
2. By this point in the game, no one should be surprised to see a release structure like this. Just as they continue to produce more content, they also continue to create new ways of monetizing that content. We should all expect it.
A snake will always act like a snake, we are the fools if we expect anything different.
As the OP was suggesting - the metrics tell the story. If each release leads to more and more screams on the forums (but also leads to increased profit over the last release) then the release is considered a success.
Do you think that makes them a predatory company? If so, are you surprised? Did you honestly think that they were here with player satisfaction as goal #1 until this release changed your mind?
All of us sitting back here screaming that they should have done things differently are doing so with no data to back us up.
Threats of “I’m going to quit spending over this one” are meaningless when their quarterly earnings show even more profit.
Cries of “you’re going to kill the game for real this time” are met with laughter.
That’s just the reality here. And we all know the rules of the game by now, which are “all rules are subject to change to maximize profit”.
Just know what you’re getting into and enjoy the game for what it is. Or walk away and quit if you can’t handle it anymore. Either way, don’t expect it to change.
Most players understand the game's need to create income. The game was making money 3 years ago - long before the single-character dominant meta and before they would lie to our faces.
I've seen more launch players (and whales) leave this game in the past few months than ever before - even more than mod-gate. It's not showing up in the player numbers (yet) because they haven't abandoned those accounts - they simply passed them on to others, in various ways.
But it will show up in the financials. Unfortunately, most of us will be long gone, so CG simply trt to fleece a new batch of whales who might not be wise to CG's deceptive practices.
The entire issue for me boils down to one false premise - CG presumes they have to "force" people to spend. The fact is I spent much more on this game when I didn't feel like I was being lead around by the nose. I enjoyed supporting the game I liked playing. I (and many other long-time players) STOPPED spending when CG started prescribing play. When the the direct meta manipulation was obvious and the clear micromanaging of it through nerfs and new releases.
CG underestimates Star Wars fans. Most would support the game out of enjoyment. Instead, they choose to manipulate and deceive. Which makes many of us (at least those who don't have addiction issues) do the opposite - take our money elsewhere.
Oh sure, we'll still play and post on the forums (maybe thousands of times). But they could have had a sustainable player base - and a much larger one, that would have done their marketing for them. Instead they are preying on addicts and quick turn over in the player base.
I have a large extended family (30+ coming over for Easter this Sunday) - all huge Star Wars fans. Many, much younger than I (most, in CG's target demographic) - none play this game. A few have and quit. But when I'm asked, I deter them - especially for the past 20 months. That wasn't always the case. Nor did it need to be.
CG made that choice for me - by taking choices away from us in the game
In game guild: TNR Uprising
I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
*This space left intentionally blank*
Padme/Amidala. Bail Organa. Mon Mothma. Jar Jar Binks. Admiral Piett. Jabba The Hutt. Bib Fortuna. General Hux. Supreme Leader Snoke. Maz Kanata.
There's 10 characters right there that appear in two or more Saga films who aren't in the game yet. And I haven't even touched on the other films or TV shows.
Oh and Owen and Beru Lars technically appear in two or more Saga films, too. Although quite what you'd do with them for this game, I dunno.
You are Very focused on the same level of outraged part . I think they are more focused on the "This game has always been this way and every major release the players are outraged.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
Statements like this could be seen to trivialise complaints.
"if it in your opinion delegitimizes the outrage then i don't know what to tell you"
Could you let them know why you made a statement about every release having outrage and the game always being this way . Was it in solidarity for the complainers or was it this happens every time get over it.
Why don't you tell them what you are implying rather than letting them guess and you saying that's not it lol.
Dont forget freed nadd, calo nord, darth bane, darth zannah, Vitiate, Lord Kaan (brotherhood of darkness), darth krayt, Atris, Darth Bandon, Saul Karath, Chuundar, jedi exile, atton, bao-dur, handmaiden, mandalore, hanharr, mira, vrook, kavar, vash and many more also didnt touch movies but most where from kotor 1 and 2 with a few sith scattered like some of the first sith lords and a few luke fought in the extended universe plus the creator of the rule of 2 and his apprentice
I'm not really implying anything, I'm just stating what i believe to be a fact. My opinion on the matter is irrelevant anyway. People can make up their own minds, it doesn't matter if they think my comment was in solidarity or to tell them to get over it.