Greetings fellow Urdnot. As the only businessman on Tuchanka, I've been asked by Wrex to explain Bioware's management and PR messaging of the current controversy over the endings.
Let's begin with last fall's script leak. Whereas any krogan businessman would just headbutt the creator of the leak and then face the consequences head on this was not possible for humans. So they used what the Krogan School of Business refers to as the 3Ds of the Salarian Strategy,
- Deny the script was current
- Deceive by saying that there were many unique endings that would be relevant to choices made by Shepard
- Decry your critics saying they needed to judge the finished product
And then the game dropped and the storm began.
Since that time we've seen three successive messages from the human company.
In the first days the message was "Thank you for your feedback, We are sure its great. We stand by our endings as a rewarding end to Shepard's journey". As it became clear that this opinion was not a small minority of people that had finished the game they had to face growing outrage that the leak was in fact representative of the game and that their customers realized the they had been "salarianed".
More confused than the first asari that ventured off Thessia was when seeing a male, Bioware hunkered down for the weekend and they came out with the 'Artistic Integrity' message. All of a sudden the ending of Mass Effect 3 was art, like the ending of the Great Gatsby. This only enraged the customers more, because not only were they being called stupid and unsophisticated, most of them knew that Mass Effect from the beginning is a fusion of several popular Science Fiction and Fantasy Influences. How can a whelp\\s crude collage, no matter how good, be compared to a master's creation. I like to call this phase "confused asari grasping at rods".
BW eventually realized that people hate art snobs and stopped this, unless you're a hipster but then you get head-butted by krogan. However they continued to decry their detractors as self-entitled brats, encouraged by the sychophantic game media that they had in their pocket. On Tuchanka we call this " a Turian asking the volus for an opinion". As you can expect, this only enraged them more. The angry customers did a very smart un-krogan thing and channelled their rage into raising money for their buying entertainment for their sick whelps, thus helping to debunk the label.
So yesterday in the face of failure,came Bioware's latest message. "We made the endings to be memorable and stir debate amongst our fans." To a krogan this appears to be the statement of a bloodraging idiot. To an angry human, it seems arrogant and presumptuous. Once again fans who didn't like the ending just werent thinking.
So fellow krogan what is the lesson in all this? Do not "salarian" your customers. Do not act like confused asari. Do not be the arrogant turian who asks a volus for a compliment.
In short, face your problems like a krogan charge into them and headbutt them into oblivion.
****THURSDAY UPDATE****
And now to update the situation:
After the imagination 'talking point' was issued Tuesday, the bloodrage amongst fans seemed to have calmed down. Bioware settled into a strategy popular taught at asari public relations academies. This "listening their rage away" method is practiced everywhere in the galaxy. However it's most well known practitioner is none other than the asari Consort. Many a krogan mercenary's blood rage has been subdued by this method. I wouldn't know personally about her services but I've heard from a friend who used to frequent her establishment before the krogan rebellions and before Sha'ira moved upmarket to the Presidium. He tells me that unlike ME3 there are always happy endings at Sha'ira's.
And then an app was released today that poured fuel onto the fan rage once again. This was definitely a failure of management. It was a foolish decision to allow maker of the app to release it at this point. I am beginning to wonder if there's anyone at the controls or if the entire Bioware ship is adrift.
Update *** Monday 03-19 ***
Greetings class, It seems that I can't go fishing for the weekend without all hell breaking loose. Between Hudson's non-statement, the inflamatory tweet of Sunday evening and the subsequent firestorm and retraction we've much to talk about. However, I've not read the statement because PR statements make my blood rage. This evening we will reconvene the class with a special guest lecturer to parse the statements sentence by sentence.
What I will say for the moment is that it's clear that Bioware is in a confused panic. Individuals may be fighting a pitched battle to assign blame or emerge as winners in all this. It is like the Bloodpack when the Weyrlock clan was eliminated. Omega was a total disaster for months, who knew that vorcha fight for leadership by marking territory like varren. Ratch's Wares needed to cancel several weapons buying trips to Omega after our buyer slipped on vorcha excrement and broke his hump outside of Afterlife.
==== Wednesday 03-21 ====
And a special guest lecture Re: Bioware founder's statement.
social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9927711/9#10399704
==== Weekend Update ====
The nature of PR in a game developer and how it caused BW grief.
social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9927711/12#10570015
==== Update ====
Media relations workshop, Do Interviews, Fight Better.
social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9927711/13#10783953
==== A Word From Our Sponsor and Response ====
Morlan's Famous Game Studio.
social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9927711/14#10925999
==== Where's Hudson and Walters? ====
social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9927711/14#11288996
==== Full Disclosure ====
social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9927711/15#11685829
==== Artistic Integrity ====
social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9927711/16#11731329
==== Full Circle ====
Sharing a Singular Moment
social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9927711/16#11910365
Modifié par tamperous, 07 mai 2012 - 03:35 .
Retour en haut
