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I appreciate the response CA! I was aware Attila didn't sell well comparatively to Rome 2 but I'm glad you managed to find to resources to get Chaos in the game.
The way that CA seem to be doing it with Warhammer and have done with the past few titles, I can buy a fully playable game for a reasonable price and then add to it as I go on. My initial expenditure is less, which on a tight budget can be very important, but over time I get to have a much bigger and more expansive game.
....
Given the alternatives, I prefer the way CA is doing it's DLC.
All the Best,
Welsh Dragon.
This guys has hit the nail on the head! The truth of the matter is that consumers are way more empowered right now than they ever have been before and things are continuing to improve. Steam Refunds, healthy competition in the PC market not to mention the fact that if you find a games business model really untenable then you can just wait 6 months and get the full game plus DLC for half price in a sale means we have way more options than we ever used to.
Its important that we have these open discussions however as it allows us to grow as a community and exercise the voice to effect change that a open free internet has given us.
Lets just for once believe the individuals who speak their mind, rather then to judge them through the opinion we have for the company they work for.
and just wait for more info, because we clearly dont posses even half of the information to judge iff this is a game you like or not.
Im a fan of total war far, far longer then I was interested in the lore of warhammer (never bin a tabletop guy) and Ill just wait and see for more info before I decide to pre-order or not. regardless of free content.
Get 'em boyz!
Dakka dakka dakka!
WAAAGH! THE ORCS!
WAAAGH!
I think the best way to put it is to show us your predictable graphs and power point presentations showing the amount of predicted revenues and profits, the amount of people predicted to buy the first game and the predicted amount of people pre-ordering the game without the Chaos Warriors DLC and after the Chaos Warriors DLC was stated to be part of the pre-ordering cycle.
People are really disappointed, angry and frustrated at how you guys go about making strong points with vague explanations. And thinking to talk to people in the community first before making the decision of adding the Chaos Warriors DLC as a pre-order bonus to people you know will give an insightful answer back, would have made the backlash a lot smaller or non existent.
You have to start taking constructive criticism from outside of the offices. People you know are genuinely interested in the well being of the company and the state of the game and pre-order practices. I am sure you guys at CA know very well the way other companies operate and see if there are any benefits in copying their business practices. Your fans notice that too with the release of your games and the decisions you make on content vs. quality (or quantity vs. quality). We know you need to operate at a surplus. But not being honest from the beginning and being extremely tight lip about the game and the state of the game is hindering the community, hindering your profits and revenues and hindering the trust in the end.
To go with what Welsh Dragon stated: I definitely agree on many of his/her points ( I don't know if you are a man or woman! sorry!) One of the points I do not agree with, is the base game price tag. Consumers of PS4, XBOX 1 and so on, buy their consoles from 300-800$ depending on the time of purchase, etc. They also buy controllers at 50$ to 80$. They also buy games separately and those games are insanely expensive. From 70$ to 150$ depending on what you are adding to the game or if you want to pre-order with all the bonus content, etc. We, the PC gamers have computing machines that are worth between 700$ all the way up to 3000$ or more. Why are they putting the excuse of the price tag of the base game? Console players pay way more for small amounts of content and quality content. A modern example is Destiny. My friend and I bought it and after two weeks we were sick and tired of the small amount of content for the huge price tag. It was worthless. And the game was broken completely at launch and there is no excuse of "well, the specs are different on each PS4". This excuse is simply gone out the window.
The issue of the price tag for me, someone that has 30$ in his bank account because he just bought his first car, is not an issue. We have credit cards. We put a lot of stuff on those credit cards. A 100-150$ game should not be a problem for people to enjoy the game with its full content. To make their point proven and Welsh Dragon's idea of the price tag being too high, you need to show me a graph or list of the countries which buy the most of the Total War games. Tell me their median income, their population of gamers buying Total War games and tell me hard facts. The real information. The empirical information. Then, I will wholeheartedly believe them and actually purchase this game. Not as pre-order, because the carpet burn is still there, but later on. When it is worth the waiting time.
To go with what Welsh Dragon stated: I definitely agree on many of his/her points ( I don't know if you are a man or woman! sorry!) One of the points I do not agree with, is the base game price tag. Consumers of PS4, XBOX 1 and so on, buy their consoles from 300-800$ depending on the time of purchase, etc. They also buy controllers at 50$ to 80$. They also buy games separately and those games are insanely expensive. From 70$ to 150$ depending on what you are adding to the game or if you want to pre-order with all the bonus content, etc. We, the PC gamers have computing machines that are worth between 700$ all the way up to 3000$ or more. Why are they putting the excuse of the price tag of the base game? Console players pay way more for small amounts of content and quality content. A modern example is Destiny. My friend and I bought it and after two weeks we were sick and tired of the small amount of content for the huge price tag. It was worthless. And the game was broken completely at launch and there is no excuse of "well, the specs are different on each PS4". This excuse is simply gone out the window.
The cost of your computer has nothing to do with the expenses put into creating a video game and the profit they desire to gain from said product.
MarcusLivius: You are indeed a lord of entitlement.
Just wanted to say I as a huge warhammer fan, and owner of a lot of the old TW games - you might want to check if you reached the stated goal of "Pre-orders create buzz, improve sales ". When I heard TW:warhammer was comming I was going to preorder it, and might have thrown a copy for xmas for my brother - still dont know what support you will have for coop - so that was unsure yet.
Your decision for the preorder DLC this far from release - have certainly created a lot of buzz - but I have not heard any positive yet- and I know you lost your sale to me at least. To be honest, none of your explanation really address the critiques I have seen online at all. And when you push details about the "planned DLC race before even fleshing out info on the included 4 races, well that just speaks volumes about which order they are made in....
Lost sale, best of luck in the future - maybe I will pick up the "gold edition" in a year or so, when it goes on sale.
Word of advice, the next time you step into a PR nightmare such as this - don't wait too long to answer, but if you do have to wait as long as you did, at the very least be certain you address most of the critique that have been raised and not the PR garbage that we got here
Do you actually think after they have paid for the license to Warhammer with two more games planned in the future they would be inept as to let the first instalment flop? You combine that with the Rome 2 launch disaster.
If they stuff up again the company is done. This needs to be for them, the crowning glory of the Total War franchise. Anything less is inadequate.
I sincerely hope they won't **** it up. But for me, after Empire and Rome 2, their ability to create anything of larger scale that is actually enjoyable at launch carries no promise. I simply don't trust it.
I'll be waiting, then, if the game is good on launch and works just fine, I'll pretend the Chaos day-1-DLC never happened and buy it a month or two down the line - as if it was released then.
Angry Joe. He is in a very direct way the reason why we have this communication from CA directors at all.
Whether or not you agree with his style of delivery or his opinion on games he is highly influential. Proof? Look at his Twitter page from yesterday:
"Guys I'm not letting this Chaos DLC Situation at @SEGA@CAGames Go. I've sent a positive constructive email, we will see if they reply."
24 hours later:
"Got a reply. @TotalWar has officially responded to the Chaos Warrior DLC/Pre-Order Feedback with a Post Here: http://bit.ly/1XPRQXT "
Personally I find it quite insulting to think that the entire community can be in uproar for going on 2 weeks without even a whisper from CA, then one man with a wide platform to other gamers just has to write a polite letter and only then do CA directors sit up and listen.
That says to me that fear of bad PR far outweighs a genuine desire to please fans. Still, I'm glad they eventually deigned to break the silence.
And if you're glad they did, you should really be thanking Joe rather than attributing it 100% to the heartfelt concern of CA seniors.
Hi Fredrin,
I can say that our blog posts were not due to Angry Joe's email(s), they were due to go up today regardless.
Formal disclaimer: any views or opinions expressed here are those of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Creative Assembly or SEGA.
Hi Fredrin,
I can say that our blog posts were not due to Angry Joe's email(s), they were due to go up today regardless.
In which case, I apologize. Feel free to take that post down. The timing just seemed too convenient and... past cynicism is hard to shake off, shall we say
You guys didn't mention why you choose the most iconic races as pre-order DLC? Its total and utter blackmail.
You might have fans here who will just agree with you but you still haven't addressed the issue, just discussed why you need DLC and we get that, people are not trying to stop you from creating DLC content, we dont like having our arms twisted in a pre-order is wwhat this is about and you guys will never have a moral answer for this, its just immoral and taking advantage in everyway.
So to press the issue. We dont want want the best factions behind a pre-order. Go ahead and add a minor faction if you ABSOLUTELY must... but dont you guys keep picking on thats that should be in the game.
Again this is blackmail, dont you guys know your game is PG and aimed at young viewers? What the heck do you think youll be teaching them? Its disgusting and needs to stop. I highly suggest you consider this because i can tell you now, this is what people are unhappy about, it has nothing to do with the games DLC
You guys didn't mention why you choose the most iconic races as pre-order DLC? Its total and utter blackmail.
We did, but totally appreciate it might not make sense to someone who really believes they should be there. Here's the section:
So in TW: Warhammer’s case, we had our four main playable races sorted, and we’ve planned for Chaos to have a big role to play later in the trilogy. But we really wanted Chaos Warriors in the main game, even without DLC – to give a big, bad end of game "boss" enemy Race for all players. But we couldn’t do that within the resources for the main game. So we added it as the pre-order incentive that also gets sold on day one – making Chaos Warriors fully playable but also giving us the extra resources to add them as an Ai race for everyone.
So is adding chaos as a pre-order incentive "cut content"? I think the opposite is true. If we didn't add it to the pre-order, it would have been DLC later on and not in the game at release.
Formal disclaimer: any views or opinions expressed here are those of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Creative Assembly or SEGA.
I'm curious which would have resulted in more pre-orders, higher customer satisfaction and improved public relations for CA Sega.
Scenario A: You announce Warriors of Chaos as DLC that you can get for free if you pre-order or buy after launch. You get 93% dislikes on your reveal and a massive amount of backlash from your customers and consumer advocates.
Scenario B: You announce Warriors of Chaos have been added to the base game because you want to release the best, most complete, highest value product you can for your customers. Everyone loves you. Hype goes through the roof and everyone is talking about WoC as a huge positive instead of another example of cut content and anti-consumer practices in the gaming industry.
When you decided to put the extra resources into Chaos did you have to go back and redo the plot of the game so Chaos were a bigger influence? With Archaon with their leader they seem absolutely integral to the core narrative of the game. Did you previously just plan Green skins and Vampires against Dwafs and Empire?
All that said you can earn back my respect in 2 ways. You want my money, then release the chaos as a playable dlc 6 months after launch. It should not be pre order only. I hate pre ordering games I want to see if the games works before I commit to a game, even more so from people like you.
It is not pre-order only. You can wait until after release to see if reviews are fine and then purchase Chaos. They will just not be free. Still you need to learn to say things in a constructive way.
As a reminder [URL="http://Moderator notice: Feel free to let CA and the communinty know about your opinion. But please refrain from attacking persons and/or groups of people. That includes calling people fanboy, hater, troll or whatever.If you want to respond to someone else's post do so with respect for the opinion of the other."]from this post[/URL] by lordmaximus77
Moderator notice: Feel free to let CA and the communinty know about your opinion. But please refrain from attacking persons and/or groups of people. That includes calling people fanboy, hater, troll or whatever.
If you want to respond to someone else's post do so with respect for the opinion of the other.
Posts edited and deleted.
"The two most common things in the universe are Hydrogen and Stupidity." - Harlan Ellison
"The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously." - Hubert H. Humphrey
"Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.” - George Carlin/Mark Twain
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”–George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.
We did, but totally appreciate it might not make sense to someone who really believes they should be there. Here's the section:
How can we believe this when you did this to Greek factions and Vikings? Do you really think we can believe that statement when there is proof of you guys doing this multiple times in the past?
I'm curious which would have resulted in more pre-orders, higher customer satisfaction and improved public relations for CA Sega.
Scenario A: You announce Warriors of Chaos as DLC that you can get for free if you pre-order or buy after launch. You get 93% dislikes on your reveal and a massive amount of backlash from your customers and consumer advocates.
Scenario B: You announce Warriors of Chaos have been added to the base game because you want to release the best, most complete, highest value product you can for your customers. Everyone loves you. Hype goes through the roof and everyone is talking about WoC as a huge positive instead of another example of cut content and anti-consumer practices in the gaming industry.
I guess we'll never know.
Wow. Scenario B... That might have actually worked!
The only issue is that in order to recoup development costs, they would need to see some return on selling Chaos. In that scenario the only extra cash they'd get would be from people buying the base game and it's harder to quantify what this return will be (and how much of it is attributable to that excellent bit of community karma). I daresay it would outweigh what has been lost from this recent PR disaster though.
I actually think that their best bet would have been to offer either the choice of one or all 4 bonus legendary lords for the announced factions as a preorder bonus. And then release Chaos further down the line as part of a Campaign DLC. No one's going to cry about not getting to play as a bonus Lord at release and this way everyone would be paying for the dev resources put into Chaos, as well as loving the extra bit of campaign context they come with.
This approach would also have been in line with what the majority of people were expecting to happen. So there's apparently a lot to be said for understanding what your fans' expectations are and doing something roughly in line with them (to avoid forum meltdowns, that is).
You'll find 1.1Force is the correct reference. "manipulating their feelings" is exactly this. By picking the most iconic races they are manipulating peoples feelings in "feeling" inclined to pre-order or they they will miss out. Its sad some of you dont understand any of that.
Don't listen to entitled brats CA, make this game with every race, unit, spell, race home land, fully fleshed out races on the campaign map and it will sell. If something is really good, people will buy it because its really good. Just make the warhammer total war trilogy good and you will get ample sales.
PLEASE CA!!! Chaos Warriors need a faction that is not horde only by the time the trilogy is finished! We beg of you!
Just Realized this topic has been viewed more, the topic of " Limiting Race Expansion/ Colonization Expansion" alone than more than half of the stickied things at the top of the forum... I hope you are too CA and I mean that in a positive way from a huge fan!
Please improve sieges! Add racial flavor and ACTUALLY make them "deeper rather than wide" copy and paste with different art needs to go!
Regarding the recent blog post from Mike I understand where they are coming from, I really do. I also understand how hard it is to work to a budget and still keep everyone happy especially with a lot such as us. Here is my suggestion.
There is only a certain amount of info we can gather from watching video's and live streams and listening to other people's opinions on a subject. What I am suggesting is that if you want us to give you serious feedback and make this the best game possible, actually give us a piece of it, give us a demo. It doesn't have to be much. It could be an hour of campaign gameplay with 1 or 2 battles chucked in. It could be the opening tutorial. Surely this couldn't hurt you guys and surely it wouldn't cost a lot on top. Give us something to make an opinion about. Let us get our hands on the new mechanics and feel how the game plays, how the battles fight. That way there is no waiting for patches over the first few weeks. We can help you guys make a better game before you release it.
Like I said it doesn't have to be much but this could really help you guys make the sales you want/need to make. Show us gamer's what you have been working and let us help you improve your finished product so that this doesn't turn into a Rome 2 release. Rome 2 is a very solid game now, but imagine how much better it could have been if you had let us get our hands on a piece of it a couple of months early and actually play test it. Instead of relying on big channels to form an opinion (not so people like Lionheart and Angryjoe who aren't afraid of telling you what's wrong) but people like IGN etc who will play for a few hours and tell us how good it is. I know this is a different genre and totally different game but take a look at Halo 5. They had a Beta nearly 10 months early and look how drastically the game changed from player feedback.
People are always going to be upset about chaos but if you show us how good the game can be before launch maybe some people will be happier to preorder the game. What are your thoughts about this?
Thanks for opening up. The issue you're having is about marketing and timing and locking any type of content behind a pre-order. It puts the risk on the customer when, unfortunately, the risk should remain with you (refund policies are no excuse, is that really your defense? Because it puts forward a possibility of gross failure). If the chaos were unlockable in the campaign but the pre-order gives you early access, completionists and collector types wouldn't feel manipulated. If you want to incentivize pre-ordering, do so with storytelling: have your writers and concept artists cook up prologue comic material, add an in depth behind-the-scenes look, add the soundtrack, provide a featurette that looks ahead as you develop assets for expansions and sequel and maybe compile some type of cinematic lore recap or games work shop documentary primer on the overarching plot of warhammer. Add miniatures or some other added value tie-in to the existing market without compromising the credibility of your content. You are asking us to pay ahead for exclusive access to representations of a fundamental threat (e.g. chaos, duh) without having yet gone at lengths to impress us with the content that actually will be in the game. Not only is the timing wrong but so is asking players to compete for compulsion points (I couldn't afford the pre-order and now my experience is incomplete compared to those who could). This is somewhat aggressive unless you clearly state that the added content is aesthetic only. You've revealed there's more to it and though we might purchase it seperately, if it's inconsequential to the core game and simultaneously requires such assets that it needs its own team, why do it? Why do it when the same money can be withheld for quality assurance and tweaking. If you have the extra money to guatantee quality and the extra is extra, then why not just add chaos as an unlockable component to reward the gamer? My question really is when did it become a good idea to execute an idea beyond your means and rest that burden on the compulsion of eager fans? The relationship between developers and gamers is one of expectations. We're very sensitive to what you project. We've been waiting quite a while for someone to pick up the warhammer license and have certain standards set by the w40k work done by relic and thq. But it doesn't mean we're desperate. There was a time before pre-order exclusives, before rushed and arbitrary DLC turned a franchise into a piecemeal cash grab. Just because it appears the norm now doesn't mean you need to adhere to it. If the first design your people came up with exploded your budget and stretched your assets so far you had to hire out, maybe that was the wrong vision. Space Marine, for the consoles, was not an original story (the themes and story arc are well known, it was just new for the console audience) and it still worked. The multiplayer didn't get a regular installment of maps. All the dlc purely aesthetic and did not impact gameplay. That game holds up to this day as fun and challenging. Even in its repitioin, its a joy. It's OK to make something contained and simple even as long as it's simply good. As archaic as the original dawn of war was, I can still appreciate its charm, a tone and style that was worth its expansions (unveiled and defined at their appripriate time after the core game had done its work). Warhammer and its community are compelled from within with hype. You don't have to hustle the market and you shouldn't water down the focus on the actual game with drama inducing DLC, Pre-order, exclusive, marketing-hocus pocus nonsense. Is the possibility of extra revenue really worth the headache? I mean that's just greed. Warhammer is a long standing franchise with infinite potential. You don't need to rush anything or bait anyone. If it looks like a cash grab, it probably is and then you'll have hell to pay if, after everything, the game itself feels short changed. After Destiny, the world is firmly aware of what a rushed, AAA sucker punch looks like. I firmly believe they got away with it and that makes certain publishers feel they can rush their developers into nonsense behavior. We don't knoiw the whole story on your end, but what does it matter when the pattern is visible. Focus on what we're paying for, focus on a complete experience, silence the distracting talk of extras that don't add anything to the immersion, knowing full well if it does so it should not be an extra. If you want to push pre-orders, use your faces and the existing lore and create hype content with passion as the theme. With these options, the "challenges" you're facing seem besides the point and the strategy you're using can only be interpreted as asking for something you havn't earned because you know gamers and fanboys are possessive by nature. Nobody wants 99% of the game though and no one wants to be coerced into spending money before they know what it's for. Spend a year showing us what's in the works. Use social media to geek out with us. Then when we're sick with hype, let us know there's something extra if we get in early. At least by then when we gloat to our friends we can gloat about what we've seen. Pre-ordering is unnecessary. People only do it when they're enticed to care about who benefits, but we will get the game regardless at some point if we want it. Don't bring up pre-orders unless you're knocking what matters out of the park or you're knocking the pre-order game out of the park. For some reason it's all about lowering expectations these days when it comes to "added value" but all that does is incentivize your customers to grow up and keep their money.
Thanks for taking your time to respond to the backlash, understand it might be difficult to decide on how to handle this type of reaction without sparking more hate, and like you said it doesn't matter what you respond with some people will still be angry.
Anyways I noticed something that wasn't covered in the posts from you CA and that was the reasoning for why you revealed so many details of this DLC before the main factions were fully disclosed. I personally belong to the group of people who doesn't hate DLC with a passion as long as it has good content value.
So to me it seems that the negative reaction might've been reduced slightly had you given us more information on the main 4 factions before the aforementioned Chaos Warriors DLC. So I guess my question is, has your marketing team learned that it might be better to wait with these kind of DLC announcements until closer to release?
I'm definitely going to be supporting this game because I know you want to do it justice. However I think there's valuable lessons to be learned here. Both for the community and CA, hopefully both parties take it to heart.
Thanks for opening up. The issue you're having is about marketing and timing and locking any type of content behind a pre-order. It puts the risk on the customer when, unfortunately, the risk should remain with you (refund policies are no excuse, is that really your defense? Because it puts forward a possibility of gross failure). If the chaos were unlockable in the campaign but the pre-order gives you early access, completionists and collector types wouldn't feel manipulated. If you want to incentivize pre-ordering, do so with storytelling: have your writers and concept artists cook up prologue comic material, add an in depth behind-the-scenes look, add the soundtrack, provide a featurette that looks ahead as you develop assets for expansions and sequel and maybe compile some type of cinematic lore recap or games work shop documentary primer on the overarching plot of warhammer. Add miniatures or some other added value tie-in to the existing market without compromising the credibility of your content. You are asking us to pay ahead for exclusive access to representations of a fundamental threat (e.g. chaos, duh) without having yet gone at lengths to impress us with the content that actually will be in the game. Not only is the timing wrong but so is asking players to compete for compulsion points (I couldn't afford the pre-order and now my experience is incomplete compared to those who could). This is somewhat aggressive unless you clearly state that the added content is aesthetic only. You've revealed there's more to it and though we might purchase it seperately, if it's inconsequential to the core game and simultaneously requires such assets that it needs its own team, why do it? Why do it when the same money can be withheld for quality assurance and tweaking. If you have the extra money to guatantee quality and the extra is extra, then why not just add chaos as an unlockable component to reward the gamer? My question really is when did it become a good idea to execute an idea beyond your means and rest that burden on the compulsion of eager fans? The relationship between developers and gamers is one of expectations. We're very sensitive to what you project. We've been waiting quite a while for someone to pick up the warhammer license and have certain standards set by the w40k work done by relic and thq. But it doesn't mean we're desperate. There was a time before pre-order exclusives, before rushed and arbitrary DLC turned a franchise into a piecemeal cash grab. Just because it appears the norm now doesn't mean you need to adhere to it. If the first design your people came up with exploded your budget and stretched your assets so far you had to hire out, maybe that was the wrong vision. Space Marine, for the consoles, was not an original story (the themes and story arc are well known, it was just new for the console audience) and it still worked. The multiplayer didn't get a regular installment of maps. All the dlc purely aesthetic and did not impact gameplay. That game holds up to this day as fun and challenging. Even in its repitioin, its a joy. It's OK to make something contained and simple even as long as it's simply good. As archaic as the original dawn of war was, I can still appreciate its charm, a tone and style that was worth its expansions (unveiled and defined at their appripriate time after the core game had done its work). Warhammer and its community are compelled from within with hype. You don't have to hustle the market and you shouldn't water down the focus on the actual game with drama inducing DLC, Pre-order, exclusive, marketing-hocus pocus nonsense. Is the possibility of extra revenue really worth the headache? I mean that's just greed. Warhammer is a long standing franchise with infinite potential. You don't need to rush anything or bait anyone. If it looks like a cash grab, it probably is and then you'll have hell to pay if, after everything, the game itself feels short changed. After Destiny, the world is firmly aware of what a rushed, AAA sucker punch looks like. I firmly believe they got away with it and that makes certain publishers feel they can rush their developers into nonsense behavior. We don't knoiw the whole story on your end, but what does it matter when the pattern is visible. Focus on what we're paying for, focus on a complete experience, silence the distracting talk of extras that don't add anything to the immersion, knowing full well if it does so it should not be an extra. If you want to push pre-orders, use your faces and the existing lore and create hype content with passion as the theme. With these options, the "challenges" you're facing seem besides the point and the strategy you're using can only be interpreted as asking for something you havn't earned because you know gamers and fanboys are possessive by nature. Nobody wants 99% of the game though and no one wants to be coerced into spending money before they know what it's for. Spend a year showing us what's in the works. Use social media to geek out with us. Then when we're sick with hype, let us know there's something extra if we get in early. At least by then when we gloat to our friends we can gloat about what we've seen. Pre-ordering is unnecessary. People only do it when they're enticed to care about who benefits, but we will get the game regardless at some point if we want it. Don't bring up pre-orders unless you're knocking what matters out of the park or you're knocking the pre-order game out of the park. For some reason it's all about lowering expectations these days when it comes to "added value" but all that does is incentivize your customers to grow up and keep their money.
Two prizes in one for that, thedangerlander: most insightful first post; most impenetrable wall of text
This is all so true, though. Most of us were nowhere near emotionally invested enough for this cheap marketing trick to be dropped on us. Worse than that, as a marketing trick it's one we've seen before many times and grown to absolutely despise because of where it's led us in the past. It is deeply insulting to our intelligence and suggests a far greater commitment to wallet extraction than to the creative possibilities of the Warhammer IP.
Many of us were ready to pre-order just based on what a great job has been done on the content we've seen so far. No longer. Beyond the odd unit intro here and there, I feel almost entirely disengaged with the lore. It's ultimately the passion and creativity that will sell this game for me and how well the gameplay immerses me in this unique setting. Gimmicks like preorders and FreeLC goodies just serve to remind me this is a game like any other and I no longer feel immersed in the hype. As a rule, both in marketing and game design, more could be done to appeal to our hearts than our heads.
Many of us were ready to pre-order just based on what a great job has been done on the content we've seen so far. No longer..
This is the truth. Ca honestly you just need to be honest, apologize and set things right. This is a chance to turn your company around for the better, dont wait another month or so. Nip it in the bud now.
People are using their morals, its a good thing. Reward them for this. I can only imagine you guys have so much money already you can afford to do this which makes the whole cut content argument even more void
the entire, we are barely making money thing is pretty funny. I was able to google and find your financial statement for this year. From what i can tell, you've grown MASSIVELY from 2010. And you report a lower income because you pile all the money back into the company to avoid paying taxes on it.
Comments
- Report
0 · Disagree AgreeThis guys has hit the nail on the head! The truth of the matter is that consumers are way more empowered right now than they ever have been before and things are continuing to improve. Steam Refunds, healthy competition in the PC market not to mention the fact that if you find a games business model really untenable then you can just wait 6 months and get the full game plus DLC for half price in a sale means we have way more options than we ever used to.
Its important that we have these open discussions however as it allows us to grow as a community and exercise the voice to effect change that a open free internet has given us.
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0 · Disagree Agreeand just wait for more info, because we clearly dont posses even half of the information to judge iff this is a game you like or not.
Im a fan of total war far, far longer then I was interested in the lore of warhammer (never bin a tabletop guy) and Ill just wait and see for more info before I decide to pre-order or not. regardless of free content.
Dakka dakka dakka!
WAAAGH! THE ORCS!
WAAAGH!
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0 · Disagree AgreePeople are really disappointed, angry and frustrated at how you guys go about making strong points with vague explanations. And thinking to talk to people in the community first before making the decision of adding the Chaos Warriors DLC as a pre-order bonus to people you know will give an insightful answer back, would have made the backlash a lot smaller or non existent.
You have to start taking constructive criticism from outside of the offices. People you know are genuinely interested in the well being of the company and the state of the game and pre-order practices. I am sure you guys at CA know very well the way other companies operate and see if there are any benefits in copying their business practices. Your fans notice that too with the release of your games and the decisions you make on content vs. quality (or quantity vs. quality). We know you need to operate at a surplus. But not being honest from the beginning and being extremely tight lip about the game and the state of the game is hindering the community, hindering your profits and revenues and hindering the trust in the end.
To go with what Welsh Dragon stated: I definitely agree on many of his/her points ( I don't know if you are a man or woman! sorry!) One of the points I do not agree with, is the base game price tag. Consumers of PS4, XBOX 1 and so on, buy their consoles from 300-800$ depending on the time of purchase, etc. They also buy controllers at 50$ to 80$. They also buy games separately and those games are insanely expensive. From 70$ to 150$ depending on what you are adding to the game or if you want to pre-order with all the bonus content, etc. We, the PC gamers have computing machines that are worth between 700$ all the way up to 3000$ or more. Why are they putting the excuse of the price tag of the base game? Console players pay way more for small amounts of content and quality content. A modern example is Destiny. My friend and I bought it and after two weeks we were sick and tired of the small amount of content for the huge price tag. It was worthless. And the game was broken completely at launch and there is no excuse of "well, the specs are different on each PS4". This excuse is simply gone out the window.
The issue of the price tag for me, someone that has 30$ in his bank account because he just bought his first car, is not an issue. We have credit cards. We put a lot of stuff on those credit cards. A 100-150$ game should not be a problem for people to enjoy the game with its full content. To make their point proven and Welsh Dragon's idea of the price tag being too high, you need to show me a graph or list of the countries which buy the most of the Total War games. Tell me their median income, their population of gamers buying Total War games and tell me hard facts. The real information. The empirical information. Then, I will wholeheartedly believe them and actually purchase this game. Not as pre-order, because the carpet burn is still there, but later on. When it is worth the waiting time.
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0 · Disagree AgreeThe cost of your computer has nothing to do with the expenses put into creating a video game and the profit they desire to gain from said product.
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0 · Disagree AgreeYour decision for the preorder DLC this far from release - have certainly created a lot of buzz - but I have not heard any positive yet- and I know you lost your sale to me at least. To be honest, none of your explanation really address the critiques I have seen online at all. And when you push details about the "planned DLC race before even fleshing out info on the included 4 races, well that just speaks volumes about which order they are made in....
Lost sale, best of luck in the future - maybe I will pick up the "gold edition" in a year or so, when it goes on sale.
Word of advice, the next time you step into a PR nightmare such as this - don't wait too long to answer, but if you do have to wait as long as you did, at the very least be certain you address most of the critique that have been raised and not the PR garbage that we got here
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0 · Disagree AgreeI sincerely hope they won't **** it up. But for me, after Empire and Rome 2, their ability to create anything of larger scale that is actually enjoyable at launch carries no promise. I simply don't trust it.
I'll be waiting, then, if the game is good on launch and works just fine, I'll pretend the Chaos day-1-DLC never happened and buy it a month or two down the line - as if it was released then.
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0 · Disagree AgreeHi Fredrin,
I can say that our blog posts were not due to Angry Joe's email(s), they were due to go up today regardless.
Formal disclaimer: any views or opinions expressed here are those of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Creative Assembly or SEGA.
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0 · Disagree AgreeIn which case, I apologize. Feel free to take that post down. The timing just seemed too convenient and... past cynicism is hard to shake off, shall we say
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0 · Disagree AgreeYou might have fans here who will just agree with you but you still haven't addressed the issue, just discussed why you need DLC and we get that, people are not trying to stop you from creating DLC content, we dont like having our arms twisted in a pre-order is wwhat this is about and you guys will never have a moral answer for this, its just immoral and taking advantage in everyway.
So to press the issue. We dont want want the best factions behind a pre-order. Go ahead and add a minor faction if you ABSOLUTELY must... but dont you guys keep picking on thats that should be in the game.
Again this is blackmail, dont you guys know your game is PG and aimed at young viewers? What the heck do you think youll be teaching them? Its disgusting and needs to stop. I highly suggest you consider this because i can tell you now, this is what people are unhappy about, it has nothing to do with the games DLC
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0 · Disagree AgreeWe did, but totally appreciate it might not make sense to someone who really believes they should be there. Here's the section:
Formal disclaimer: any views or opinions expressed here are those of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Creative Assembly or SEGA.
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0 · Disagree AgreeScenario A: You announce Warriors of Chaos as DLC that you can get for free if you pre-order or buy after launch. You get 93% dislikes on your reveal and a massive amount of backlash from your customers and consumer advocates.
Scenario B: You announce Warriors of Chaos have been added to the base game because you want to release the best, most complete, highest value product you can for your customers. Everyone loves you. Hype goes through the roof and everyone is talking about WoC as a huge positive instead of another example of cut content and anti-consumer practices in the gaming industry.
I guess we'll never know.
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0 · Disagree AgreeThanks!
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0 · Disagree AgreeIt is not pre-order only. You can wait until after release to see if reviews are fine and then purchase Chaos. They will just not be free. Still you need to learn to say things in a constructive way.
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0 · Disagree AgreeModerator notice: Feel free to let CA and the communinty know about your opinion. But please refrain from attacking persons and/or groups of people. That includes calling people fanboy, hater, troll or whatever.
If you want to respond to someone else's post do so with respect for the opinion of the other.
Posts edited and deleted.
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0 · Disagree AgreeHow can we believe this when you did this to Greek factions and Vikings? Do you really think we can believe that statement when there is proof of you guys doing this multiple times in the past?
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0 · Disagree AgreeWow. Scenario B... That might have actually worked!
The only issue is that in order to recoup development costs, they would need to see some return on selling Chaos. In that scenario the only extra cash they'd get would be from people buying the base game and it's harder to quantify what this return will be (and how much of it is attributable to that excellent bit of community karma). I daresay it would outweigh what has been lost from this recent PR disaster though.
I actually think that their best bet would have been to offer either the choice of one or all 4 bonus legendary lords for the announced factions as a preorder bonus. And then release Chaos further down the line as part of a Campaign DLC. No one's going to cry about not getting to play as a bonus Lord at release and this way everyone would be paying for the dev resources put into Chaos, as well as loving the extra bit of campaign context they come with.
This approach would also have been in line with what the majority of people were expecting to happen. So there's apparently a lot to be said for understanding what your fans' expectations are and doing something roughly in line with them (to avoid forum meltdowns, that is).
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0 · Disagree AgreeYou'll find 1.1Force is the correct reference. "manipulating their feelings" is exactly this. By picking the most iconic races they are manipulating peoples feelings in "feeling" inclined to pre-order or they they will miss out. Its sad some of you dont understand any of that.
Sorry and nice try. I like the Gif though.
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0 · Disagree AgreeJust Realized this topic has been viewed more, the topic of " Limiting Race Expansion/ Colonization Expansion" alone than more than half of the stickied things at the top of the forum... I hope you are too CA and I mean that in a positive way from a huge fan!
Please improve sieges! Add racial flavor and ACTUALLY make them "deeper rather than wide" copy and paste with different art needs to go!
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0 · Disagree AgreeThere is only a certain amount of info we can gather from watching video's and live streams and listening to other people's opinions on a subject. What I am suggesting is that if you want us to give you serious feedback and make this the best game possible, actually give us a piece of it, give us a demo. It doesn't have to be much. It could be an hour of campaign gameplay with 1 or 2 battles chucked in. It could be the opening tutorial. Surely this couldn't hurt you guys and surely it wouldn't cost a lot on top. Give us something to make an opinion about. Let us get our hands on the new mechanics and feel how the game plays, how the battles fight. That way there is no waiting for patches over the first few weeks. We can help you guys make a better game before you release it.
Like I said it doesn't have to be much but this could really help you guys make the sales you want/need to make. Show us gamer's what you have been working and let us help you improve your finished product so that this doesn't turn into a Rome 2 release. Rome 2 is a very solid game now, but imagine how much better it could have been if you had let us get our hands on a piece of it a couple of months early and actually play test it. Instead of relying on big channels to form an opinion (not so people like Lionheart and Angryjoe who aren't afraid of telling you what's wrong) but people like IGN etc who will play for a few hours and tell us how good it is. I know this is a different genre and totally different game but take a look at Halo 5. They had a Beta nearly 10 months early and look how drastically the game changed from player feedback.
People are always going to be upset about chaos but if you show us how good the game can be before launch maybe some people will be happier to preorder the game. What are your thoughts about this?
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0 · Disagree AgreeJimmy Hill.
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0 · Disagree AgreeThis says it all.
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0 · Disagree AgreePlease use paragraphs. I have poor eyesight and that is literally painful to read lol.
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0 · Disagree AgreeAnyways I noticed something that wasn't covered in the posts from you CA and that was the reasoning for why you revealed so many details of this DLC before the main factions were fully disclosed. I personally belong to the group of people who doesn't hate DLC with a passion as long as it has good content value.
So to me it seems that the negative reaction might've been reduced slightly had you given us more information on the main 4 factions before the aforementioned Chaos Warriors DLC. So I guess my question is, has your marketing team learned that it might be better to wait with these kind of DLC announcements until closer to release?
I'm definitely going to be supporting this game because I know you want to do it justice. However I think there's valuable lessons to be learned here. Both for the community and CA, hopefully both parties take it to heart.
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0 · Disagree AgreeTwo prizes in one for that, thedangerlander: most insightful first post; most impenetrable wall of text
This is all so true, though. Most of us were nowhere near emotionally invested enough for this cheap marketing trick to be dropped on us. Worse than that, as a marketing trick it's one we've seen before many times and grown to absolutely despise because of where it's led us in the past. It is deeply insulting to our intelligence and suggests a far greater commitment to wallet extraction than to the creative possibilities of the Warhammer IP.
Many of us were ready to pre-order just based on what a great job has been done on the content we've seen so far. No longer. Beyond the odd unit intro here and there, I feel almost entirely disengaged with the lore. It's ultimately the passion and creativity that will sell this game for me and how well the gameplay immerses me in this unique setting. Gimmicks like preorders and FreeLC goodies just serve to remind me this is a game like any other and I no longer feel immersed in the hype. As a rule, both in marketing and game design, more could be done to appeal to our hearts than our heads.
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0 · Disagree AgreeThis is the truth. Ca honestly you just need to be honest, apologize and set things right. This is a chance to turn your company around for the better, dont wait another month or so. Nip it in the bud now.
People are using their morals, its a good thing. Reward them for this. I can only imagine you guys have so much money already you can afford to do this which makes the whole cut content argument even more void
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0 · Disagree AgreeSo yea, this is a money grab.
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0 · Disagree Agree