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CD Projekt on communicating with fans/fan controversies: "The worst thing is silence"

N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
He noted that he feels a lot of larger publishers struggle with this and used Battlefront's DLC as an example, but you can probably think of a lot of others.

Polygon said:
To the issue of talking directly to fans, he pointed to a problem Electronic Arts had with Star Wars Battlefront, and showed a video of angry fan reaction to expensive DLC content for the game. Iwinski made it clear that his issue wasn’t with the DLC itself, but with how EA failed to properly explain its approach to players.

"The worst thing is silence," he said.

Using an example from The Witcher 3, Iwinski noted a time when players accused CD Projekt RED of downgrading the game’s visuals, following comparisons with an impressive-looking trailer released earlier in the game’s development cycle. He said the management team made a decision to explain what happened in-depth rather than to avoid the issue or give a light response, as part of the team’s strategy of talking directly to players whenever possible. Doing so, he said, "just killed the whole story" instead of letting it linger on.

"If the story would have exploded, I was actually ready to issue a statement that I would refund all the copies of the people [who wanted them] out of my own pocket," he said. "Then we had a management discussion about it and [others said], ‘If you send this message out there it could be a real problem, so let’s not do this.’" [Laughs]
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Source: http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/18/11259976/the-witcher-3-marketing

There's more at the link about how they tried to do things like communicate the idea of their game in an easy to understand fashion.

img_6163.0srs45.jpg
 
"If the story would have exploded, I was actually ready to issue a statement that I would refund all the copies of the people [who wanted them] out of my own pocket," he said. "Then we had a management discussion about it and [others said], ‘If you send this message out there it could be a real problem, so let’s not do this.’" [Laughs]
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That would have ended well lol.
 
Silence is most definitely worse than what Randy Pitchford has done since Aliens: CM came out.

hoping the /s isn't necessary
 
Ralemont said:
Silence is most definitely worse than what Randy Pitchford has done since Aliens: CM came out.

hoping the /s isn't necessary
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This of course presumes that if you choose not to remain silent, you're telling the truth and doing so in a clear manner.
 
Did they ever respond the criticisms of the game being White as hell to the point that Stormfront recommended the game because of lack of non-white characters? If not, then this goes against what they're saying in the slides
 
SIlence or taking weeks to reply to a global issue is one of the worst things and devs and pubs really should avoid it at all costs.
 
I feel like there is a lot of miscommunication and unnecessary secrecy in the industry.

Kind of annoying, I rather see a developer or publisher elaborate, or just even admit they fucked up.
 
I kinda disagree, if anything EA has shown that to get rid of a problem silence is exactly what you should do. A month later and nobody will be talking about it.
 
Ignoring ligitimate issues until the uproar dies down is an utterly distasteful tactic that unfortunately is used far too often, and I love CDPR for taking the problem head-on and just being open and clear about it.

Pretty sure Jim Sterling did a Jimquisition about this subject [not directly linked to CDPR] just a few weeks ago.
 
tuxfool said:
This of course presumes that if you choose not to remain silent, you're telling the truth and doing so in a clear manner.
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Even so, Iwinski is correct that while this is something that worked for CDPR, it may not necessarily work for everyone. CDPR has a lot of goodwill with players at the moment, so when they misrepresent the game and then only own up to it when people get pissed, they are forgiven. Other companies would probably not be so fortunate.
 
Lime said:
Did they ever respond the criticisms of the game being White as hell to the point that Stormfront recommended the game because of lack of non-white characters? If not, then this goes against what they're saying in the slides
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Not sure about that, but they did add some poc in the Hearts of Stone expansion. (Olfieri)
 
Maybe for cdpr but I don't think bigger companies need to respond to every little thing

I'm not saying ignore big stuff, but some things are just dumb
 
Lime said:
Did they ever respond the criticisms of the game being White as hell to the point that Stormfront recommended the game because of lack of non-white characters? If not, then this goes against what they're saying in the slides
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That's what I want to know.
 
Good god these guys get it...

Halo5 is an addicting game, but fuck if 343i isn't terrible with communication.

Even when they try to communicate, the shit they are saying is uninformative. Nothing worse than the PR statement that announces that nothing other than info is coming soon...
 
Lime said:
Did they ever respond the criticisms of the game being White as hell to the point that Stormfront recommended the game because of lack of non-white characters? If not, then this goes against what they're saying in the slides
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While more diversity is never a bad thing, it seems like this is the only thing you say about witcher3. It's a polish based game and considering the demographic over there, it doesn't nearly have the same diversity America or other countries have. It's not a good thing to have less diversity, but it feels weird to fixate on it.

On topic: I love CDPR and they really seem to be a big company with a small company mindset. The included soundtrack, manual, map, and thank you letter in just the base case for the game made me know that I was in for a treat! Definitely hope they continue this mentality of being open and generally pretty nice people (from what I've seen).
 
Ralemont said:
Even so, Iwinski is correct that while this is something that worked for CDPR, it may not necessarily work for everyone. CDPR has a lot of goodwill with players at the moment, so when they misrepresent the game and then only own up to it when people get pissed, they are forgiven. Other companies would probably not be so fortunate.
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In the short term, yes. Unfortunately companies cannot be counted on acting consistently in this fashion, hence honesty is treated with suspicion (even from them). He talks about this in regard to their DLC policy in the interview I posted above.
 
I completely agree, and I wish other publishers/developers would realize this. Communication, honest and open communication, breeds forgiveness and loyalty. That doesn't mean you need to tell your audience things that shouldn't know, but having an answer for concerns and being proactive is a tremendous thing.
 
Well their community manager did claim that game will look like Sword of Destiny trailer when downgrade talk started (if i remember correctly). Also they never admitted that game was downgraded they just said that game changed. Game still looks great but they did lower some things and downgraded them. And as far as i remember thing did explode :D
 
Lime said:
Did they ever respond the criticisms of the game being White as hell to the point that Stormfront recommended the game because of lack of non-white characters? If not, then this goes against what they're saying in the slides
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Probably not, since what crazy racists try to latch on is not something worthwhile to comment on
 
Part of the reason why Street Fighter 5 has been getting so much hate is because of this very reason. We know that there's a shortage of content but Capcom not having said anything or acknowledging some very serious issues is what is pissing a lot of people off.
 
dex3108 said:
Well their community manager did claim that game will look like Sword of Destiny trailer when downgrade talk started (if i remember correctly). Also they never admitted that game was downgraded they just said that game changed. Game still looks great but they did lower some things and downgraded them. And as far as i remember thing did explode :D
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They did. They said they couldn't get the original engine to work, even on PC, hence what they ended up shipping.

Also from their perspective it isn't entirely wrong to say that it changed. The environment looks different and worse in some respects, but the character models in the new engine look a lot better.
 
Adry9 said:
Someone send that presentation to Valve.
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Valve doesn't care, they got the mentality they're too big to fail.

But yeah silence is not golden in this industry, especially thanks to social media now. People are more then ever connected so things can snowball quick and fast. Companies got to be on their feet.
 
RipperGrim said:
I kinda disagree, if anything EA has shown that to get rid of a problem silence is exactly what you should do. A month later and nobody will be talking about it.
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Exactly. WE don't like silence, so it's easy to take the standpoint that silence isn't the right answer, but more often than not, it is. We don't like silence because we know it's effective at quieting all the fervor.

Look at all the huge flubs of the past 5 years. Silence means that the fervor dies down pretty quickly as people move on to new outrages, once they realize they're getting no further discussion on the issue.

How often have we seen devs or marketing people or community managers get themselves in huge trouble just because they can't stay silent and eventually meltdown? A lot of trouble can be avoided by just outright ignoring the community, the trolls, the nitpickers.
 
dex3108 said:
Well their community manager did claim that game will look like Sword of Destiny trailer when downgrade talk started (if i remember correctly). Also they never admitted that game was downgraded they just said that game changed. Game still looks great but they did lower some things and downgraded them. And as far as i remember thing did explode :D
Click to expand...

Honestly, the recent trend of downgrades is one that I think is overblown. There are times when games are shown in a state that was never reachable and developers/publishers will promote their graphics - I get that it is annoying - but we should know that most games will make concessions in graphics by the time of release and we certainly shouldn't hold developers/publishers feet to the fire whenever their is a normal graphics dropout.

Aliens: Colonial Marines = Bad
The Witcher III = Perfectly Acceptable
 
Lime said:
Did they ever respond the criticisms of the game being White as hell to the point that Stormfront recommended the game because of lack of non-white characters? If not, then this goes against what they're saying in the slides
Click to expand...

Game happens in the North, black people live far to the South. Hearts of Stone has a bunch of Middle-Eastern looking people who have traveled "for a great length of time" to get to the location of the game.
 
shinobi602 said:
That would have ended well lol.
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Heh, I laughed too when reading that.

dex3108 said:
Well their community manager did claim that game will look like Sword of Destiny trailer when downgrade talk started (if i remember correctly). Also they never admitted that game was downgraded they just said that game changed. Game still looks great but they did lower some things and downgraded them. And as far as i remember thing did explode :D
Click to expand...

Ehh yeah it exploded amongst the real hard core (only really saw outrage on Gaf, don't frequent CDPR forums) but I think they did a good job of defusing the situation and putting the focus back on the quality of the game experience for players
 
UncleSporky said:
Exactly. WE don't like silence, so it's easy to take the standpoint that silence isn't the right answer, but more often than not, it is.

Look at all the huge flubs of the past 5 years. Silence means that the fervor dies down pretty quickly as people move on to new outrages, once they realize they're getting no further discussion on the issue.

How often have we seen devs or marketing people or community managers get themselves in huge trouble just because they can't stay silent and eventually meltdown? A lot of trouble can be avoided by just outright ignoring the community, the trolls, the nitpickers.
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While I agree to an extent, it still feels like it will breed some ill will. Look at the konami situation. They were quiet about a lot of what happened, and most of the talk died down. They didn't earn back any good Will from it though as tons of people Still make jokes about them when they are brought up.


Also for the downgrade talk, it would have probably mattered more if the base witcher3 game wasn't such a beautiful game. The early previews were gorgeous, but witcher 3 as it is is still one of the most beautiful games I can think of.
 
ForsakenLotus said:
Honestly, the recent trend of downgrades is one that I think is overblown. There are times when games are shown in a state that was never reachable and developers/publishers will promote their graphics - I get that it is annoying - but we should know that most games will make concessions in graphics by the time of release and we certainly shouldn't hold developers/publishers feet to the fire whenever their is a normal graphics dropout.

Aliens: Colonial Marines = Bad
The Witcher III = Perfectly Acceptable
Click to expand...

I think the cover-up is worse than the crime. If a dev goes, "this is our target but we'll prioritize smooth experience over graphics," then I doubt it ever becomes a problem. It only becomes a problem when players feel like they've been lied to in order to more effectively market a game. It isn't even about graphics anymore, at that point.
 
I really doubt that refund thing was ever gonna happen.

That doesn't mean much though. The Witcher games are my favourite WRPGs and the insane amount of performance and gameplay improvements they did to Witcher 3 on PS4 is only comparable to how Driveclub is being supported. A combination of a strong vision and taking player feedback into account easily makes them one of the best developers in the business.

On the downgrade - I doubt anyone who's crazy enough to want a refund because of that doesn't follow pre-release media in a way that they'd be informed about how the game actually looks before buying the game.
 
I agree. You should be honest with your customers. Doesn't mean a customers should swallow everything, just because someone is, but it sets a solid base to work with. And of course there will be customers, who are going to hate everything. I'm not a huge fan of their works (even though I liked witcher 3 a bit), but I respect them for that.
 
Just to be clear i am not upset when game doesn't reach reveal footage. I understand how game dev works and i won't ever say that devs are "lazy" or something like that. But it would be nice that companies say something before people start talking about it. That is why i love short reveal to release periods like we saw with Fallout 4.
 
Lime said:
Did they ever respond the criticisms of the game being White as hell to the point that Stormfront recommended the game because of lack of non-white characters? If not, then this goes against what they're saying in the slides
Click to expand...

Witcher 3 may be a good game but, fucking hell it's fucking pathetic how they handwave the lack of diversity.
 
Good ol silence, which I like to refer to as Nintendos favorite sport. They by far seem to bother me more than the other companies that do it.
 
They stayed silent when ps4 users started to complain about the horrible framerate, news gaming sites barely talked about it, it worked great for them.
 
Lime said:
Did they ever respond the criticisms of the game being White as hell to the point that Stormfront recommended the game because of lack of non-white characters? If not, then this goes against what they're saying in the slides
Click to expand...

wenis said:
That's what I want to know.
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They did. Minus the bit about Stormfront.

The response won't necessarily make anyone feel better about the lack of diversity, but I can at least appreciate that they didn't attempt to sugarcoat it.
 
Lime said:
Did they ever respond the criticisms of the game being White as hell to the point that Stormfront recommended the game because of lack of non-white characters? If not, then this goes against what they're saying in the slides
Click to expand...

I think they did? (Edit: They did.) The thing is that it was mostly Americans forcing their world views on Europeans. This is a fantasy story written by a Polish author in Poland for a Polish audience that was later translated to other languages. The main story plays out in northern countries inspired by countries around the Baltic sea (read "pasty fuckers all around") and there are mentions about countries to the south with people of darker skin, but they don't migrate. A main villain and sorcerer in The Witcher 1 was from those countries and was clearly more middle eastern inspired in his attire as well as several characters in the first The Witcher 3 DLC are from those areas as well.

Don't know who Stormfront is though but fuck him/her/them for recommending games based on that criteria.
Edit2: Goddamn, yeah you wanna probably take a stance far away from these.
 
The worst thing is silence
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The Linux community has been asking about the Linux version of the Witcher 3 ever since the game was announced. So far, CDPR has not given any answers at all nor even acknowledged the question. The game was announced on Steam as coming to Linux, then unannounced within a day, then was part of the SteamOS sale. This is of course on Valve, but CDPR could have at least come out and denied that there will be a Linux version, a number of people bought it assuming that if it's listed as part of a SteamOS sale, it'll actually be on SteamOS.
At this point, I just wished they'd say anything at all, whether that's "no, not happening", or "maybe next year" or whatever. Just being completely ignored is really frustrating. So I completely agree that silence is the worst thing, I just wished CDPR would take that to heart and apply it to everyone.
 
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