Comments on: Bill Roper on Flagship’s Endgame

By: Lee Quillen

Lee Quillen — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:10:38 +0000

That puts his July post where he denied there were any problems ina perspective I can understand. My question really was why continue the silent treatment after the fat lady has sang. I completely respect focussing on taking care of your employees and investors…that’s a tough spot and quite a time sink.

At a minimum, it would have been a nice show of respect for the customers (the normal not going to rake them over the coals for trying types) to at least link the interview on the website. Even easier, ask one of the existing CSR folks to link it in the announcements forum. As it was, it made the forums by fans reading the article and discussing it.

I didn’t know, maybe I’m totally off base, but I want my information coming from the source. Rubs me wrong the same way as continueing to see Gods and Heroes Pre-Order boxes on the shelves weeks after the game was cancelled. Different issues, but still tweak that respect for your customers bone I guess I have.

By: Ratman_Tf

Ratman_Tf — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 04:32:00 +0000

Yaknow. It’s like a run on the bank. If you post any tiny tremor about company difficulties, next day Penny Arcade has a strip about the execs wearing burlap sacks begging for change on the street corner. And then the whole internet is abuzz about how you’re a gone goose. Next day the investors are calling wondering why they weren’t notified that the company had gone under…

Now that the fat lady has sung, he’s free to speak about it.

By: GeorgeR

GeorgeR — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:39:15 +0000

Yeah, this is a sad case. I mean Flagship had potential, but they just shot the moon, had they pulled back a tiny bit it would have been awesome.

By: wowpanda

wowpanda — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:04:09 +0000

I feel so sorry for him. He digged into his own 401k (and the money will be paid to developers, and 15% goes to taxes).

By: Iconic

Iconic — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:20:24 +0000

Moral of the story:

Running a startup is hard. It’s especially hard when your immediate ambition is to be #1.

By: J.

J. — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:08:07 +0000

It’s better than Gamespot.

By: Klaitu

Klaitu — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:40:48 +0000

Woah, Wait..

People read 1up?

By: Lee Quillen

Lee Quillen — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:48:14 +0000

The one facet of this whole fiasco that still irks me is lack of communication with the actuall customers. You know… the ones that had been paying a fee and provided a service. Everything that has been communicated via these third party interviews could have and should have been comunicated to the actuall customers first. Sure, you’d have had people complain it wasn’t enough (or whatever), but that doesn’t excuse that it IS a responsibility as a provider of a service to communicate to your customers.

To date, the flagship and Hellgate London Forums have relied on links to these off site publications to try and decipher what might or not be happening to their service. It’s one thing to rely on CS personnel (many whom are doing it for free at the moment), but it’s an entirely different thing to ignore the customer altogether when things aren’t going well.

It isn’t hard to do, and if you don’t know how or are simply afraid… you go ahead and give your Community managers permission to be frank about what is happening via whatever method they are using (website, forums, email, etc).

I’d like to be open minded about it, but I really don’t have any insight on why you would choose to go silent on your company website while being perfectly willing to do an interview with 1up. I feel bad for the man, I’m sure it’s very very tough right now… but I’d be very hesitant to touch anything he lead from here on out unless it was an off line boxed game.

Anyone with insight outside of the “you don’t pay for them to communicate with you” variety I’d love to hear because communication is indeed something I look for when thinking about any service be it a game, vacation, or simple home utilities. What benefit does this provide them? (to date all I heard were implied legal constraints which contradicts interviews that are beginning to pop up).

By: Dren

Dren — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:42:41 +0000

So, they basically followed those basic lists we see posted all over the boards and blogs these days?

1. Get financial backing.
2. Produce a game.
3. Profit!!!
4. Use Profit to keep game viable.
5. Mononah hats fo-everz!

By: Bonedead

Bonedead — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:49:21 +0000

I’m pretty sure amorphous is a type of gemstone in SWG…. just sayin…..