{"id":1992,"date":"2008-11-13T08:00:04","date_gmt":"2008-11-13T13:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=1992"},"modified":"2008-11-17T10:16:14","modified_gmt":"2008-11-17T15:16:14","slug":"stardock-admits-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=1992","title":{"rendered":"Stardock Admits Mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago Stardock released their 2008 customer report<\/a> (PDF) which discusses, among other things, the current state and future plans for their own content delivery platform, Impulse<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Impulse is the first serious rival to Steam. Not in size (at least not yet) but in functionality and intent. It offers many of the advantages of Steam while avoiding many of the annoyances. The PDF I linked above gives a peek at what they have planned. It’s a long read, but it’s not padded with a lot of touchy-feely PR speak. It is a vessel densely packed with information, and time spent reading it will not be squandered. <\/p>\n

One of the most intriguing things about the report is that it looks at what went wrong with Impulse at launch, what’s been fixed, and what issues still need to be resolved. It reads like an internal memo, but it’s been sent out to all of us so we can see where the company is going with this. This is something I love about Stardock: The ability to appraise and address shortcomings in public. Compare this to how a company like EA or 2kGames approaches criticism: <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Silence.<\/li>\n
  2. Denial that the problem exists.<\/li>\n
  3. Partial quasi-admission of the problem, along with a promise that a fix is on the way, without saying when it will come or what form it will take.<\/li>\n
  4. Release of a slight fix or policy change to address part of the problem, without commenting on their earlier silence or denials and without admitting that any mistakes were made.<\/li>\n
  5. A press release trumpeting their superlative commitment to customer service, even when dealing with stupid non-issues like this one that weren’t that big a deal anyway. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This sort of mindless PR is poisonous to customer relations. This Baghdad Bob<\/a> method of relating to the public is insulting and frustrating for customers because they aren’t really talking to us in those announcements, they are talking to the shareholders. <\/p>\n

    Ann buys a toaster, which turns out to be broken. She returns it to the store and approaches the customer service desk. The person working the counter (who is played by Will Ferrell) doesn’t make eye contact. He’s wide-eyed and slightly manic, just looking out over Ann’s head as if she wasn’t there. <\/p>\n

    ANN: Excuse me? I bought this toaster and it doesn’t work.<\/p>\n

    Will’s eyes look at her nervously. He seems to think if he just keeps smiling she will go away.<\/p>\n

    ANN: Hello? Sir? I’d like to return this toaster.<\/p>\n

    Will picks up the phone and holds it up to his ear in a transparent attempt to pretend he’s too busy to talk. The dial tone can clearly be heard.<\/p>\n

    ANN: (shouting) Hello! I’m returning this broken toaster.<\/p>\n

    Will hangs up the phone and tips the box to glance inside. When he speaks, he talks in a loud voice so that everyone around can hear. <\/p>\n

    WILL: THERE MUST BE SOME MISTAKE MA’AM. THIS TOASTER IS JUST FINE. THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING WITH US AND HAVE A NICE DAY!<\/p>\n

    Ann is flabbergasted. <\/p>\n

    ANN: No. It’s not fine at all. The dial was missing and it blew a fuse as soon as I plugged it in.<\/p>\n

    Will smiles. There is a long pause.<\/p>\n

    ANN: I want to return it.<\/p>\n

    WILL: YES OF COURSE WE ARE HAPPY TO HELP. HERE YOU GO MA’AM.<\/p>\n

    He hands her a new toaster.<\/p>\n

    ANN: But… this is just like the one I’m returning.<\/p>\n

    WILL: WONDERFUL AND HAVE A NICE DAY.<\/p>\n

    Other shoppers are peeking over the shelves to see what the fuss is, which only makes Will more frantic to make it look like nothing is wrong.<\/p>\n

    ANN: I don’t want another broken toaster. I just want my money back.<\/p>\n

    Will smiles. His desperate expression seems to be begging her to leave.<\/p>\n

    ANN: (Raises her voice.) I WANT MY MONEY BACK! <\/p>\n

    He flinches as she raises her voice, although she’s still being quieter than he is. <\/p>\n

    WILL: I AM SORRY YOU FOUND THE UNIT UNSATISFACTORY. OUR PRODUCTS ARE OF THE HIGHEST QUALITY. PLEASE ACCEPT THIS REPLACEMENT UNIT.<\/p>\n

    He hands her another toaster. This one is smaller. <\/p>\n

    ANN: This is worse than the one I bought! <\/p>\n

    More staring from Will.<\/p>\n

    ANN: Give me my money back or I will never shop here agai-<\/p>\n

    Will shouts over her to drown out her voice.<\/p>\n

    WILL: YES AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR BUSINESS MA’AM I’m GLAD WE WERE ABLE TO RESOLVE YOUR PROBLEM.<\/p>\n

    Ann storms out. Will goes back to staring at the horizon.\n<\/p><\/div>\n

    They act like this because they have to. They are publicly traded companies, and publicly traded companies are never allowed to make mistakes, ever. Inevitably, this sort of thinking leads to perpetuating problems instead of fixing them, since every change of policy carries with it an implicit admission that what you were<\/em> doing was wrong. (Otherwise, why did you change?) But this is a flaw with how our investment system works, and applies to a lot more than just videogame publishers. I’m not even qualified to suggest a remedy. I can only point at it and say that a zero-tolerance approach to mistakes is a rotten way to do business. Actually, its a rotten way to do anything.<\/p>\n

    The other major reason they behave this way is because they can. The major gaming press is often deeply dysfunctional and is usually all too happy to repost a press release under the heading of “news”. The perfect example of this is the BioShock debacle<\/a> where players complained about SecuROM, online activations, and limited activations. After months of ignoring them, 2kGames resolved one of the three issues by removing the installation cap. Credulous game journalists then told us all about how the DRM had been “removed”. Their inane cheerleading and parroting of the company line was shameful and a disservice to the industry they cover. (I have yet to see a single retraction or correction, either.) <\/p>\n

    Seeing Stardock engage us directly and speak openly about their shortcomings makes me confident that they’ll actually fix them. <\/p>\n

    The other thing to note is the tone of the report. This report was written by Stardock President Brad Wardel<\/a> himself. The guy who runs the company is the one talking to us, telling us his plans, and making promises. <\/p>\n

    I cannot hope to catalog, much less fix, all of the profound dysfunction in the videogames industry. The best I can do is take note when someone does something right. In many other industries Stardock’s behavior would be common sense, but in the bizzaro world of videogames it makes them some sort of iconoclast. <\/p>\n

    If you want to read it for yourself: Stardock 2008 Customer Report<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A few weeks ago Stardock released their 2008 customer report (PDF) which discusses, among other things, the current state and future plans for their own content delivery platform, Impulse. Impulse is the first serious rival to Steam. Not in size (at least not yet) but in functionality and intent. It offers many of the advantages […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[116,31],"class_list":["post-1992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-videogames","tag-impulse","tag-stardock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}