8 réponses à ce sujet

[The Jackal]

 

I never been a fan of Tell Tale 3-4 month wait period. I really dislike they say on their official forums. It's a four to six week wait for video games. It's not. That on there FAQ isn't even official. They can claim its non official its an estimate therefore no bound to it. Last year Wolf Among Us EP2 took four months.

 

It's not even just that. It's the entire time they were completely silent about the issue.  They had time to re-tweet favorable articles in the 4 month period. But they didn't have time to write a small reason why it was taking to long. It wasn't till a reddit user complained on a popular thread. That they finally announced a release date. They replied to the reddit user and community in the same day. I highly suspect the only reason they said anything at all was because of that reddit user.

 

Everything I just explained is in this article.

 

http://www.rockpaper...rst-week-of-feb

 

Imagine my surprise when a DreamFall Chapter (they do espoide gaming. Slammed a recent user and corrected them on the well deserved wait time

 

Fans have been very vocal about the wait time. Do you think corporations have a duty to the fans to inform them about the wait time. Or do you feel the company can do whatever they want.

[Fast Jimmy]

Fans have been very vocal about the wait time. Do you think corporations have a duty to the fans to inform them about the wait time. Or do you feel the company can do whatever they want.

A duty? I think that's a silly word to use in any business conversation. No one is a sworn knight to the realm of video games, duty bound to their honor or some junk like that. It's a business.

Now... it's bad press to not be upfront for when a product will ship, yes. And for those fans who have already paid for the game, such as with their Season Pass program, there even is an argument that the players deserve to have an accurate and predictable deliver date for their product.


But in reality, this isn't ordering a pizza, or buying a widget from Amazon - the hold up is that the product isn't finished yet. Just like you wouldn't have much recourse or a leg to stand on if a builder of a home wasn't finished on time, the same goes for games. If it ain't done, it ain't done. You can bad mouth the developer/builder/what-have-you, you can even boycott them for future products, but in the end there's no contractual, binding force to make the product done when it is promised... and even when there is, taking someone to small claims court over it is both futile and often unproductive.


Should TellTale be more communicative, saying "sorry about the delay guys, we are working really hard to make the best product possible, we don't have a firm date when we expect this out, but please be patient with us" when they know they won't hit their timeline? Sure. But that message gets old after a while and fans will/do want more of an explanation. And if they put out a "we'll have it done in three weeks" message, then they will be backed into a corner if it isn't ready.

I'd rather episodic content developers do what I hope that all developers do - wait until it is ready. If that's six weeks for one episode and six months for another, then that's what they should do.

[The Jackal]

A duty? I think that's a silly word to use in any business conversation. No one is a sworn knight to the realm of video games, duty bound to their honor or some junk like that. It's a business.

Now... it's bad press to not be upfront for when a product will ship, yes. And for those fans who have already paid for the game, such as with their Season Pass program, there even is an argument that the players deserve to have an accurate and predictable deliver date for their product.


But in reality, this isn't ordering a pizza, or buying a widget from Amazon - the hold up is that the product isn't finished yet. Just like you wouldn't have much recourse or a leg to stand on if a builder of a home wasn't finished on time, the same goes for games. If it ain't done, it ain't done. You can bad mouth the developer/builder/what-have-you, you can even boycott them for future products, but in the end there's no contractual, binding force to make the product done when it is promised... and even when there is, taking someone to small claims court over it is both futile and often unproductive.


Should TellTale be more communicative, saying "sorry about the delay guys, we are working really hard to make the best product possible, we don't have a firm date when we expect this out, but please be patient with us" when they know they won't hit their timeline? Sure. But that message gets old after a while and fans will/do want more of an explanation. And if they put out a "we'll have it done in three weeks" message, then they will be backed into a corner if it isn't ready.

I'd rather episodic content developers do what I hope that all developers do - wait until it is ready. If that's six weeks for one episode and six months for another, then that's what they should do.

 

The small thing is. The total of information. For a total of 4 months people on their official forums were begging for any information at all. Everyday people would post there asking about some information. They didn't start asking till two months went by. I disagree a little slightly on the information they shouldn't communicate with their fans because after a while they would have nothing new to say.  How about if a game passes two month mark. Monthly updates that just give a player a "State of the game address" that way at very least they know whats going on.

 

I suppose I have a different way of looking at it. Reading from the article fans were so upset by this they created a topic on reddit that exploded with people sharing those exact same views. If it wasn't for that thread. I don't think they would have responded. It's a problem in my point of view. They should at least for sake of good PR give some type of update even if it is vague. We're expected to buy these games all at once (Least on PC) spending our money up front. They can take their time. I think a certain level of communication is warranted rather then the no communication they are right now.

 

One last other thing. Their support system is a nightmare. There's no phone number to call them if you are having issues with the game. Many people were having issues with the saves on the game. To not being able to install it properly. You have to post on their official forums. From what I understand only a single person is responding to all of those complaints.

 

My main thing is. Customers are comfortable with communication. I never really seen people say "No. I don't want any updates on the game I paid for." they don't give any of that. An example would be the game "Life is Strange" they are able to speak to their fans on steam and twitter. If there is a delay. Everyone knows about it. When the game was set for early this month then they pushed it back to the end of the month. Maybe that's just me though. 

[Liamv2]

Depends. Did they set a release schedule beforehand? If so and it get's delayed they should at least inform the public of the reasons why and a prediction on how long it's been delayed. If there is no release schedule beforehand then they can take as long as they want and not have to say a word. It's the consumer's fault for buying into something before it was finished similar to an early access game.

 

That's just my dumb opinion though i'm not sure on the legality of these things.

[The Jackal]

Depends. Did they set a release schedule beforehand? If so and it get's delayed they should at least inform the public of the reasons why and a prediction on how long it's been delayed. If there is no release schedule beforehand then they can take as long as they want and not have to say a word. It's the consumer's fault for buying into something before it was finished similar to an early access game.

 

That's just my dumb opinion though i'm not sure on the legality of these things.

 

On their forums it says the estimated release date is 4-6 weeks. They haven't released a game in 4 weeks from my understanding in years. It's also called...the un official FAQ. My issue is they misrepresent implying it will only take 4-6 weeks. When in reality it takes 2-4 months as the Dev from DreamFall Chapers pointed out. It's sort of a sticky situation. They do have an estimate..but it's unofficial..

 

So they are not bound to follow it. My question is then. Why even have that up in the first place if they can't follow through on their promise. Aside from that there's no release dates. You can interpret from that what you will.   

[Liamv2]

On their forums it says the estimated release date is 4-6 weeks. They haven't released a game in 4 weeks from my understanding in years. It's also called...the un official FAQ. My issue is they misrepresent implying it will only take 4-6 weeks. When in reality it takes 2-4 months as the Dev from DreamFall Chapers pointed out. It's sort of a sticky situation. They do have an estimate..but it's unofficial..

 

So they are not bound to follow it. My question is then. Why even have that up in the first place if they can't follow through on their promise. Aside from that there's no release dates. You can interpret from that what you will.   

 

The estimated time should be 2-4 months then  Having it at 4-6 weeks is just pointless and will lead to people getting pissy after they cross the time they wrote down.

[The Jackal]

The estimated time should be 2-4 months then  Having it at 4-6 weeks is just pointless and will lead to people getting pissy after they cross the time they wrote down.

 

 

Exactly. They are giving a false misrepresentation they can quickly distance themselves from it by claiming its not "Official" even though its a stickied thread on their official forums. I just want them to be more honest. Leaving that up gives the false impression. People naturally will start to complain when it passes that timeline and it usually does. As Dreamfall Chapter Dev pointed out. It was 4 months for EP2 of Borderlands. 

 

Only thing I want from them is remove that timeline or update it. Give fans more communication even if its once a month in vague details. At least people won't be consonantly checking their forums to find the release date. Not much to ask. I think. 

[TheChris92]

Gonna use Atlus as my example here -- The way I see it is that a publisher shouldn't be hasty with talking about release-dates because they tend to be tricky to uphold, and there are somewhat different working conditions and feelings towards deadlines in opposition to say.. film production. In regards to Atlus, as an example, they tend to be quiet and careful with content they are showing and at best they can offer slated schedules, while understandably this will probably annoy a few consumers if it repeated attempts of sticking by said release fails. The thing is though that it's easier to slate a release because it doesn't neccessarily mean it'll stick, and sometimes more work is required and thus they tend to keep it like that and I don't have too much of a problem with it. The biggest issues would be if the developer was actually promising something, but they aren't promising anything, they are only calculating and measuring their time which is good as long as they let everyone in on it.

 

I will say, however, that I do also enjoy Ragnar Tørnquist's games more than Telltale, played all of the Dreamfall games, but this franchise has a longer history than Telltale and as opposed to Telltale's games it requires that you're familiar with all of it otherwise you won't be able to follow up on anything that is going on.. That is also the biggest issue with Dreamfall being very much overlooked by comparison which of course is a real shame.

[Fast Jimmy]

There are also SEC issues at play. A publicly traded company can't willy-nilly change a game's release date, as it has a large impact on the timing of revenue and sales. I'm not sure how that would play into a developer who works on episodic content, but there could be real legal and regulatory issues with giving dates for releases outside of an unofficial date.

Yes, they should probably no longer say 4-6 weeks. But changing that one thread to then say 2-3 months won't stop people's complaints I don't think.