So the upper management plays DK with destro staff in light suits?

But i agree most of the really bad decisions would be avoidable if upper management would actually be involved into some part of the development work, also a lot of ideas get not realized because upper management is too conservative, to try something new. Mostly it runs down to a devils circuit where when success is not granted, human resources are layed off, and then the demands could not fulfilled, which leads to a further downward spiral.

One of the problems, is that the upper management is not in contact with the customer base, and when it is, its only in escalations, mostly when the problem is resolved, and then they make an apology, and the thing continues.

Problem seems to be that the management is mostly redundant, often 30-40% of staff is in a "management" function, where the rest 60-70% works for the buerocrazy. (Which mostly does not have a clue, what really is going on, but they make still their excel charts, and power point meetings.)

Also the tendency to outsource everything makes a lot of things very expensive, because the company to where you outsourced also has also an upper management which needs to be paid. Only to have the billing on a different field, does not make your company more successful.

After the PS3 fiasco with Skyrim (lots of errors never fixed.) i was unsure if i should invest again in Bethesda games, as other company's (Rockstar) were able to deliver open world games on the PS3, i doubt it was the platform, which caused this mess. I give this game another 3 month, if they do not fix the code and balancing, i wont buy another zenimax /Bethesda game in the future.

What they are currently not aware of is, that they play with the future of the company. The customer is not blind, and we know who builds good stuff, reputation counts. Dont you drive a Mercedes ? Upper management ?

Fleymark wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

brandon.coker101_ESO wrote: »

AlexDougherty wrote: »

Management controls the development and implementation of most games, so no.

The management usually listens to what developers say, since they are the ones who know what the game is roughly capable of. But they managers always have to approve what happens, and it usually has multiple layers. After all every MMO is a multi-million dollar business, they are not going to let anybody without sufficient standing in the company change anything, and responsibility shared is safer.

I know but it shows in ESO for some reason...you can see it more I guess.

I don't know, maybe it's just me...

It definitely shows more in this game; it's not just you.

Yes, yes, it does.

And I'm really sick of hearing about their latest appearance at Marketing Event of the Month Con where they will discuss what new is coming while the game continues to be grossly unbalanced, as it was when it released, a quarter of a year later.

There should be NO higher priority than fixing the broad sweeping balance issues in this game. There is no excuse for it at this point.

---

***"their latest appearance at Marketing Event of the Month Con where they will discuss what new is coming..." AND have custom-created content made specifically for display and interaction at that event which does NOT EVEN EXIST in the actual release that is currently online...

shiva7663 wrote: »

Marketing is definitely more influential than Quality Assurance. The "get it out now, we'll fix the bugs later" mindset is extraordinarily toxic.

But sure makes a lot more money than "Lets wait till this product is perfect before releasing" mindset.

I love the game, and think it is relatively bug free and balance compared to other MMOs I've played at launch. (DAoC and EQ) so admittedly not many, but still.

Pretext wrote: »

Gaming is ruled by marketing and financial projections. Focus groups, lots of nice coloured charts and so on. They want to know what is going to do well before players have seen the gameplay.

Financial projections maybe, but not marketing, even managers know marketing makes up all their figures. Not taking a dig at marketing, everyone knows they get told info last, so have to make up figures or they have nothing to report (daft system but I didn't make it up).

Iminent wrote: »

I agree OP. IMO this game really seems to have a tunnel vision effect going on that is unshakable. I get an overwhelming "vibe" from them that its an "Our way or the highway " mentality.

The saddest part at least for me is that we have all seen this mentality bring otherwise amazing games down time and time and time again.

That being said. It has to be awful hard trying to please everyone. Business management isn't my background. So perhaps the "stick to your guns" mentality is the right way to go. Just a shame we cannot seem to find a happy medium.

But wait... there was this one game that managed to make 12 million people happy. Wonder how they did that.

Actually "That" game did not make 12 million people "Happy" it was simply the best thing around, and as soon as something similar or new came out it started bleeding subs. WoWs success was not due to the fact that it was a "Great Game" it was due to the fact that for 7 years or so it was "the ONLY" game of it's quality and kind.

As soon as Rift, and Tera, and Aion came out, WoW lost almost half it's subs. They went from 15 million to under 10 million. Over the years following, WoW has continuously been slowly bleeding it's subs, it now sits at around 4 million Subscriptions give or take a mill.

7 years without a challenger or any real competition, makes you instantly successful. So that games success can be attributed to "Environmental, and Situational" aspects.


The only game that's had true success, because of work, content, and communication with the player base is CCP's EvE Online. Unfortunately this game is a very Niche, and only certain types of people are attracted to it.

Which has been active the exact amount of time as WoW if not a few months longer. It remains to this day the only MMO in history to "Grow" continuously year after year Sub wise, without bleeding Subs.

The reason is simple, Communication/Listening with/to the player base, New massive Content every 6 months, Continuous Bug fixes and quality Development. And all their expansions are Free.

In addition you can pay your monthly subscription with an In game item, which you can buy off the market for (In game currency which is called ISK, but is the equivalent of gold in fantasy MMORPGs). Players can buy this item from the EvE Online Store or even from in game for cash, and sell it to other players for in game currency. This item also serves a Myriad of other useful purposes.

Meaning that you really never have to spend a Dime on the game itself, once you get to a financially appreciative aspect in the game, it essentially is F2P for you with 0 restrictions.

isengrimb16_ESO wrote: »

Be thankful the suits here don't have to answer to ... *shudders* .... shareholders - who generally would know nothing about either business OR gaming, they're just people who had some money to loan and want lots back right now.

Where do you imagine Zenimax gets money from? A tree? Zenimax have investors like everyone else.

steveb16_ESO46 wrote: »

Malpherian wrote: »

As soon as Rift, and Tera, and Aion came out, WoW lost almost half it's subs. They went from 15 million to under 10 million. Over the years following, WoW has continuously been slowly bleeding it's subs, it now sits at around 4 million Subscriptions give or take a mill.

WoW stands at 7.8 million subs from a peak of 12 according to statistica.

Every other MMO ever would kill for figures like that.

A better perspective would be that even with subs down from the peak, WoW takes in more money from subscriptions every two months than all mmos (except SWToR) spent on their entire multiyear dev budgets.

The man controls us all.

isengrimb16_ESO wrote: »

steveb16_ESO46 wrote: »

isengrimb16_ESO wrote: »

Be thankful the suits here don't have to answer to ... *shudders* .... shareholders - who generally would know nothing about either business OR gaming, they're just people who had some money to loan and want lots back right now.

Where do you imagine Zenimax gets money from? A tree? Zenimax have investors like everyone else.

It's not a public company. If you want to put money into them, well, Caveat Emptor, but they have no shares to sell, so that's a moot point. Any money you put into them would be on a personal basis, and herp de derp you for putting trust in a Roger Collins.

Go check who their investors are, these are serious people and business runs the way business runs not like your entirely wrong imagining of it. people invest money for a return. it doesn't matter what sort of company it is.

It's their money and they expect it to come back in spades. and when it looks like it isn't going to they will start making sure things change.

I would be very interested in what specific data you used to come to this conclusion. Can you post specifics?

brandon.coker101_ESO wrote: »

I might be all wrong here...I'm just posting what it seems like to me.

I'm sure it's like this with every game to some degree but from the beginning it seems like the suits at Zenimax are crazy controlling or something. Like the devs can't say or do anything without approval from upper management.

I'm not why it seems like this any more than other games and I can't put my finger on it exactly but I do get this vibe....you guys see it too or is it just me?

Does this mean people here will finally, FINALLY, stop blaming "devs" for everything? Or is "devs" still going to be used as a catch-all for developers/qa/management?

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

Fleymark wrote: »

Sihnfahl wrote: »

AlexDougherty wrote: »

After all every MMO is a multi-million dollar business, they are not going to let anybody without sufficient standing in the company change anything, and responsibility shared is safer.

It also has significant outlays; they have to recoup the development costs, the costs of spinning up server farms, the hiring process, etc...

This may be, but I'm sick and tired of the entertainment software industry constantly and consistently releasing games that are broken and incomplete from the onset.

Other industries have high development and operating costs and highly speculative markets, yet they don't get away with what we, for some reason, allow the entertainment software industry to get away with. With those industries we use words like "defective" and "fraud" and file FTC complaints and class action lawsuits.

But for some reason, with this one, we make excuses and complain on message boards.

Been gaming for 35+ years, an MMO player for the last 15 and, trust me, it's getting worse not better. In that time the industry has gone from complete obscurity to the mainstream, surpassing all other forms of entertainment in sales, yet it just gets worse.

It's inexcusable.

I'm 67, been gaming since Doom. It's not that bad. Unless you have managed to pick especially poorly written games, that is.

I have written software, was on several video driver team efforts in the Linux community and generally know whereof I speak.

This is my first MMO though and I love it, the community ... less so.

You have some years on me but I've been gaming longer. Not that that matters, just saying...

Games used to release complete and, generally, bug free. 20 years ago you could count the bugs in a game on one hand usually.

There are always bugs here and there but in the last 15 years or so it's gotten completely out of hand. The ability to patch because everyone is online on all platforms has likely made it worse.

MMOs have been the worst with this, in general. They are constantly patched so major content, especially end game, is always left out.

Community? Probably because of the "computer enthusiast" nature of gaming we, as consumers, generally roll with problems and are usually just happy to have something new and interesting to do with our hardware. And we just get used to it. For me, personally, I think it's pretty amazing to have gotten to see gaming go from text games and moving blocks in black and white to near-photorealistic graphics and stories that rival what movies have to offer.

The problem is, it breeds a culture of apologism, where excuses are made constantly for defective products that would never be tolerated from any other industry. And in the end, we aren't on the inside, as much as we would like to think we are...We are paying customers. Compared to every other form of entertainment, we pay premium costs to be gamers and that's before you consider what we spend on hardware, broadband, etc. The only thing I can think of that even compares in dollar amounts are people who go to a lot of concerts. And they are just as nitpicky as I probably seem to be, because as a hobby that adds up fast just in ticket costs before any incidentals.

It's not my intention to be unfair to the entertainment software industry, but I simply can't think of another form of entertainment or industry in general that puts up the grosses that this one does and gets away with more. While they are in a highly speculative business with massive development costs efbored they make the first dime in return, these people are printing money and get away with murder when their products are incomplete or just don't work.

Redlag wrote: »

I think when games start costing over 40million no one associated with the company needs to make any (insert foot into mouth) statements that can drive millions of profit out the door..

Imagine a head dev say something as simple as... I prefer pvp and I'm not interested in raiding. Every other post on anything changing pve would be with some slant that of course... Because so and so isn't into pve.

It's gets even more trivial than that.. With every little thing a dev says.. I think devs should always pop in and offer nothing.. Just say... I like to read the forums to see what vibe I'm getting and I always hear you guys.. Sorry I can't elaborate.

Edit: for stuff. iPhone auto correct nightmares.

---

O'really? Have you read the details of upcoming TESO Vet changes summarized on Dulfy.net? The dev answered in response to a question about any possible UI changes....that he 'really likes dps meters' among a couple other things.

Oh, the horror! Now we know he is one of THOSE.... You know, the kind of player who thinks more information is a good thing.