FREE Game Time or just Cash Grabbing ? (Geez Enough Already) !

Phantax · June 2014

I've already voiced my opinion on the amount of merchandising going into ESO.
(I'd rather Zenimax spent that money on employing more Devs)
But now we are giving away game time in an effort to con (sorry I mean entice) people to buy this stuff !

(link to the store advert)
http://store.bethsoft.com/the-heros-guides-to-the-elder-scrolls-online.html

http://youtu.be/JOAkXVXiI6U

Come on... for the love of Jode, Zenimax concentrate on making a decent game and not on how much of our money you can get your grubby little hands on ! ! !

nerevarine1138 · June 2014

I'm fairly certain that a $15 credit isn't going to sway people one way or the other. It's just a nice perk for a fun collector's item. More importantly, this has nothing to do with the ESO development team.

Is it possible for Zenimax to do anything without people reading too much in to it?

ebondeath · June 2014

Must not copy/paste myself from the last thread you posted on this. Urge so strong...

Phantax · June 2014

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I'm fairly certain that a $15 credit isn't going to sway people one way or the other. It's just a nice perk for a fun collector's item. More importantly, this has nothing to do with the ESO development team.

Is it possible for Zenimax to do anything without people reading too much in to it?

Tell that to all the people they laid off?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for stuff like this (hell I brought the CE game) but this should come as an after thought. Get the game established and working properly FIRST ! This just stinks of a desperate attempt to cash in while the going is good ! ! !

Faustes · June 2014

Edit: I did not see they are offering 1 month of free time for this. This is a slap in the face for those like me who pre-ordered this day 1.

nerevarine1138 · June 2014

Phantax wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I'm fairly certain that a $15 credit isn't going to sway people one way or the other. It's just a nice perk for a fun collector's item. More importantly, this has nothing to do with the ESO development team.

Is it possible for Zenimax to do anything without people reading too much in to it?

Tell that to all the people they laid off?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for stuff like this (hell I brought the CE game) but this should come as an after thought. Get the game established and working properly FIRST ! This just stinks of a desperate attempt to cash in while the going is good ! ! !

Oh my Talos, this again?

They laid off temporary workers who were almost certainly hired for the console release. Console release got delayed. They laid off the workers a week or two earlier than planned. There is no great conspiracy.

Tandor · June 2014

Geez Enough Moaning Already!

Phantax · June 2014

Faustes wrote: »

Edit: I did not see they are offering 1 month of free time for this. This is a slap in the face for those like me who pre-ordered this day 1.

Pretty much how I felt !

nerevarine1138 · June 2014

Faustes wrote: »

Edit: I did not see they are offering 1 month of free time for this. This is a slap in the face for those like me who pre-ordered this day 1.

Just like it'll be a "slap in the face" to all of us who pre-ordered the game when they lower the price?

Sometimes, prices change. Sometimes, special offers happen. They aren't slapping anyone's faces.

Phantax · June 2014

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Faustes wrote: »

Edit: I did not see they are offering 1 month of free time for this. This is a slap in the face for those like me who pre-ordered this day 1.

Just like it'll be a "slap in the face" to all of us who pre-ordered the game when they lower the price?

Sometimes, prices change. Sometimes, special offers happen. They aren't slapping anyone's faces.

I have to disagree. Yes ofc there will be special offers. But 'free' game time this close to game release? I mean really !

Mescalamba · June 2014

Hm..

Zenimax is very big company. Some fail to grasp that. I dont mean "big" like "somewhat bigger than average", they are truly huge company.

Sure its sorta "cash grab", but who says money from this dont go into game development? They should..

Yes I doubt that, I doubt almost everything, thats what I am anyway. But I dont know where money from this go. Neither you do. So lets be tad bit optimistic and believe for a second that it might go into funding our better gaming future.

Plus its something that others offer too, so? Just Zenimax has marketing deparment which is pretty fast and straightforward.

Also there is slight chance, its just way to mitigate loss..

Blackwidow · June 2014

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Oh my Talos, this again?

They laid off temporary workers who were almost certainly hired for the console release. Console release got delayed. They laid off the workers a week or two earlier than planned. There is no great conspiracy.

May I ask a question about this, because I don't work in the corporate world...

If they were hired to work on the consoles and the consoles have been delayed, because they are not ready, shouldn't people still be working on the consoles?

If they plan on releasing them this year, which was announced at E3, they why fire people who need to work on that project.

That does not make any sense to me.

Junipus · June 2014

They weren't hired to work on the consoles. They wouldn't hire people 3-6 months before a console release date to create the whole thing for them. Even if you don't live in the corporate world, it's still pretty obvious to anyone.

They were, most likely, customer support staff who were laid off when the expected demand for their services weren't met. If you want more information, go and dig up one of the other threads on that issue from months ago. All your answers are in there.

All of them. Even that question you're asking now. Trust me.

BBSooner · June 2014

Looks cool to me. I'd rather have a 3D printed statue of my character though.

As for game fixes before extra fluff.

1.) They aren't pulling dev's out of their cubicles to go write a book.
2.) Hiring new dev's and throwing them in to existing code would convoluted the process and slow them down even more. Adding morepeople to a debugging team does -not- make it automatically faster.

Lalai · June 2014

Blackwidow wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Oh my Talos, this again?

They laid off temporary workers who were almost certainly hired for the console release. Console release got delayed. They laid off the workers a week or two earlier than planned. There is no great conspiracy.

May I ask a question about this, because I don't work in the corporate world...

If they were hired to work on the consoles and the consoles have been delayed, because they are not ready, shouldn't people still be working on the consoles?

If they plan on releasing them this year, which was announced at E3, they why fire people who need to work on that project.

That does not make any sense to me.

If they were actually working on the console release, then yes. However since the employees that were laid off were from a customer service call center over in Europe, and console customer service won't be needed until console release actually launches.. no.

For customer service positions it's typical to hire and train temp workers well before the actual release of the thing you're suppose to be supporting. Amazon starts hiring for Christmas traffic as early as June and July. If numbers come in projecting less calls, some folks get laid off prior to the contracted end date. Most recent example I can think of this is when they did Facebook games. They decided instead to go with making mobile games, and pulled support for the Facebook games. Folks who were on teams specific to that had one of two things happen.. if they were permanent employees they were moved around the company, if they were temp they were either let go or moved depending on demand (the same happened when they moved chat support away from our site). No one really got notice, maybe a day or so, but that was it. We found out as announcements went public.

The lay off in question was 200 temporary employees who's contracts were terminated a few weeks early directly after console delay got announced. From a company standpoint, it just doesn't make sense to keep on a bunch of temp customer support workers hired for a console release that was delayed. You could argue they need more customer support for PC, but in the business world that doesn't really matter much. They have a plan with projections for how many calls they'll get, and they budge for that. It'd takes months to re-do that plan because there's a bunch of corporate BS to go through (it took Amazon over 3 months to figure out their guess was way off and we were severely understaffed at one point for our entire operating unit).

kaosodin · June 2014

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I'm fairly certain that a $15 credit isn't going to sway people one way or the other. It's just a nice perk for a fun collector's item. More importantly, this has nothing to do with the ESO development team.

Is it possible for Zenimax to do anything without people reading too much in to it?

This.

Seperate departments..... and so what.... did you really think they have the same 4 people do it?

Lol what do you do for a living, hope nothing more strenuous than pressing the space bar

Blackwidow · June 2014

@Lalai Thank you.

That makes sense.

+1 insightful

Lalai · June 2014

Blackwidow wrote: »

@Lalai Thank you.

That makes sense.

+1 insightful

Np! Have an awesome to counteract whoever decided a thank you deserved an LOL o.O.

Justiciar · June 2014

Aw man! Should have waited a week to order mind for the free game time! That said it's a delightful set and I love mine

ers101284b14_ESO · June 2014

Guess this game is failing since they are selling merchandise.
Heres some other failed MMO's that also had to merchandise because they failed so hard

https://store.eve.com/
http://gear.blizzard.com/
http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics/ff11us/detail/3753/detail.html
http://store.na.square-enix.com/store/sqenixus/en_US/DisplayCategoryProductListPage/ThemeID.29853700/categoryID.64514800
https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/browse/role-playing/ultima?q=UO

zhevon · June 2014

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I'm fairly certain that a $15 credit isn't going to sway people one way or the other. It's just a nice perk for a fun collector's item. More importantly, this has nothing to do with the ESO development team.

Is it possible for Zenimax to do anything without people reading too much in to it?

I have been a bit critical (especially lately), but yes ... if someone wants this Elderscroll bling and Zenimax wants to encourage buying said bling ... its just normal. There's not much else to say.

yodased · June 2014

I simply see a way to get people on the fence about buying the item to buy it. The $15 would be spent on the game anyway, so they are effectively getting the perception of swag at a % off, but in reality just selling more books, etc.

joanjett · June 2014

You know they could come out and do everything you people *** about
and guess what.....that's right you still be bitching about something.
All i can say is WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Fuzzylumpkins · June 2014

ZoS has a warehouse full of this sht that is collecting dust. No one is interested anymore and they are trying their best to move it before they end up in New Mexico burying ten of thousands of the unwanted boxes next to the 1980s Atari E.T. cartridges.

I love fanbois, they make for brilliant punching bags in desperate times, but by now I can even here them clicking cancel.

yodased · June 2014

@Fuzzylumpkins‌ http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/27/tech/gaming-gadgets/atari-et-video-game/

Not buried, they were in a landfill and they found them... Pretty cool link above.

Sorry OP...

As far as cash grab, isn't it their responsibility as a company to make money? Especially if the naysayers are correct and the game is "doomed" or whatever, they gotta recoup the cost of making all this stuff somehow.

Eivar · June 2014

How dare a business use marketing to try and make money, we all know this is an entertainment charity....lol

The_Sadist · June 2014

I... want it

.

That being said the video was extremely painful to watch.

rwood0604_ESO · June 2014

The thing is $100 and yall are complaining it is a slap in the face for preorder? I myself preordered and we all got the GAME and 1 free month of game time aswell as perks for the preorder like being able to make any race in any faction. All they get from this is one month of play time if they don't have the game bought they would still have to buy the game and sadly unless there are some codes dangling around the internet will never be able to use any race anywhere like peple who preordered can. So please stop being babies over nothing.

PBpsy · June 2014

I didn't know there was a merchandise shop. Damn you now I'll have to buy some awesome T-shirts even though I never wear anything that is not solid color.

dannymcgr81b14_ESO · June 2014

Just an FYI: they are not talking about pre-ordering the game. They are talking about pre-ordering the book set. It was offered as a pre-order about a month or so before it actually came out.

Phantax · June 2014

yodased wrote: »

@Fuzzylumpkins‌ http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/27/tech/gaming-gadgets/atari-et-video-game/

Not buried, they were in a landfill and they found them... Pretty cool link above.

Sorry OP...

As far as cash grab, isn't it their responsibility as a company to make money? Especially if the naysayers are correct and the game is "doomed" or whatever, they gotta recoup the cost of making all this stuff somehow.

Oh I agree they need/have to make money as a company. I just wish they would focus on the game first. Lets face it ESO is still in a bad way, get it fixed, get us hooked then they can bleed us dry....lol