The problem with PD/SCE

[eSZee]

A couple of people suggested that Codies were not any better than PD in terms of their community attitude earlier in this thread. Codies are running an open day at their HQ next week for a select few regular posters on the official F1 2010 forum to get a chance to play the game in it's current guise and give them feedback. This is a post from the community manager over there:



This may well go on at PD in Japan for all I know but I haven't heard of it happening. I think this is a great way to involve your community in the dev process and reward those community members for their support on the forums. They have also been told they will be able to take videos and photos to post for the rest of us to see. And who knows some of their opinions, and their just regular guys like us who will have similar opinions to ours, may just change the game for th better.

Wow! So Codemasters are taking some people to their studios to play an early version of the game? That's awesome! But wait, didn't sony just:
1. let 1M+ people play a late version of their game?
2. give 20 people from some 10 countries a chance to go to silverstone and drive in a GT-R as well as GT4 class 370z?
3. give 20 people from europe and australia/NZ a chance to become professional drivers
Don't they do this every year?
Let's see, get an international racing license and a chance to fulfill a life long dream or spend a day in a studio playing a game that is maybe 50% finished? Hmmm, which is better?

LOL @ Sony - resting their future on physical disk format, just as the world is ready to move over to downloadable and streaming content

This is laughable. If the US isn't ready for downloadable content then what is sony doing wrong exactly? The bandwidth in our country is too pathetic for on demand internet EVERYTHING. For a select few it's ok, but even those with 20mb/2mb cable and whatnot, won't get jack on their TV if there are more than 10 other people within a mile trying to do the same.

 

[PzR Slim]

Wow! So Codemasters are taking some people to their studios to play an early version of the game? That's awesome! But wait, didn't sony just:
1. let 1M+ people play a late version of their game?
2. give 20 people from some 10 countries a chance to go to silverstone and drive in a GT-R as well as GT4 class 370z?
3. give 20 people from europe and australia/NZ a chance to become professional drivers
Don't they do this every year?
Let's see, get an international racing license and a chance to fulfill a life long dream or spend a day in a studio playing a game that is maybe 50% finished? Hmmm, which is better?

Giving people a chance to play a late version of your game is called a demo and just about every game gets a demo these days. And quite a few of those demos have competitions associated with them that enables gamers to win goodies. Now granted the GT goodies are pretty damn good but you don't have to be part of GT's community to win them. A person could come along who has never played GT in their life or contributed to a GT community in any way, shape or form and win those goodies. And the only reason they do it every year is because it's taken them so long to get the bloody thing out the door.

And you see this is the point you don't get by thinking it's worse to let your community try a 50% finished game than an almost complete game, Codies are involving their community at an earlier stage of development and asking them for feedback after that involvement. What chance have a community got in affecting the development of an almost finished game compared to a 50 % completed game? The other point being that the way codies have done it is to reward those members of their community who are most active and not just those who are the best.

 

[eSZee]

Codies as you call them, need all the help they can get. I guess they need their fans to tell them what they're doing wrong?
Kaz would never do that. Thank god. If I was him, I wouldn't want some shmuck to alter my vision either.
GT:HD, how many years ago did that come out? Was that not from the early early stages of GT5 development?
You also can't compare their community to ours. They are the ones running their forums, so of course they can pick a few and reward them. PD and sony have nothing to do with GTP, so instead they offer "demos" to everyone.

 

[JimInPT]

Blue ray disks cost too much.

In the past two days, I've ordered six more Blu-ray films to add to my collection at an average price of US$11.30 delivered, brand-new and factory sealed.

My target price for $40 Blu-rays is $13, delivered; I get virtually everything for that price or less.

I'm paying far less, on average, for Blu-rays than I did for DVDs.

 

[eSZee]

that isn't the point. The everyday price for blu ray movies in b&m stores is still high. Doesn't matter to me as I don't really care.

 

[PzR Slim]

Codies as you call them, need all the help they can get. I guess they need their fans to tell them what they're doing wrong?
Kaz would never do that. Thank god. If I was him, I wouldn't want some shmuck to alter my vision either.
GT:HD, how many years ago did that come out? Was that not from the early early stages of GT5 development?
You also can't compare their community to ours. They are the ones running their forums, so of course they can pick a few and reward them. PD and sony have nothing to do with GTP, so instead they offer "demos" to everyone.

That's the whole god damn point. Codies have actually done something about creating a community, as have T10, Bioware, EA, etc., etc., etc. Have you seen the official forums that are linked to at gran-turismo.com ? It's like a ghost town, with a handful of members posting every couple of days. PD don't offer demos 'instead', because the other developers offer demos as well as building a community around their game. So the only difference is that PD have done exactly squat to create any sort of community and that was the reason this whole thread was started. So even though you have disagreed with pretty much everything that has been said in here, you have actually proved the point of it to be true!

 

[eSZee]

wait, GT has an official forum?
I didn't realize so many people need official "communities".
Problem with GT is that because of GTPlantet, an official community would need a load of exclusive content in order to take the users from here to there. That would require relocating resources from game dev. to demo. dev or whatever they call it. I see your point better now, but still don't agree with it.

 

[shadynader]

What chance have a community got in affecting the development of an almost finished game compared to a 50 % completed game? The other point being that the way codies have done it is to reward those members of their community who are most active and not just those who are the best.

Community Beta testing is nothing new, i have been doing just that for many, many years for quite a lot of games. On the PS3 alone i have tested Uncharted2, Mod Nation Racers, MAG, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Planet Mini Golf to name some i can remember...

But thats all it is, testing, if a dev studio is struggling for/wants to seek good ideas for thier games they only have to look at the forums.

 

[JimInPT]

do you want them to pull one out of their bums and then delay it again because the game won't be ready?

You've touched on the biggest marketing screwup PD/Sony have going right now.

Aside from GT5 taking forever to release (how many GT5P customers have DIED while waiting for the real thing?), they announced a March Japan release then abruptly yanked it.

And here's the problem: they yanked it with no rationale at all for their customer base. No "Sorry, we've had to delay it because of bug fixes/we're adding customer-requested improvements/we're cleaning up performance and online issues and now expect a Fall release."

Nothing like that.

What Sony said was "No March shipment. Suck it, customers. We may get back to you someday."

At the very least, how about a couple of 5-minute high-res video releases on the PSN showing a couple of laps they've been running at trade shows? Even better would be releasing a time-limited version of those very demos for us to fiddle with, including the usual "this is unfinished" disclaimers. Time limiting the demo would ensure we don't get bored with an unreleased car and/or track; make the PS3 ping a PD server before it's authorized to play - then give a "sorry, demo expired" message after a couple weeks or so.

This is very basic Marketing 101; Sony has legions of marketing people who are sitting on their butts. Their customer relations regarding this long-awaited, long-delayed, release stink.

"We can release it any time we want", my arse.

 

[eSZee]

yes, they did. They said there was a production issue. There's you public apology, even if it is most likely BS.
As for the videos, people do that on their own and post it on youtube or other sites. Why should sony bother with it when people do it for them, for free? If they released the same vids as normal folks, everyone here would be complaining that we've already seen this. Like people complain about tokyo being in every video. For some reason they can't figure out why a japanese company would show off a tokyo track over and over. Let's figure that out.

 

[Lemminkainen]

I agree, PD really needs to communicate with FANS more often.

Also I am bit mad at GT PLANET... Why? Since this is number one GT site in the world, we do not have any exclusive information, no elusive interview, and blog (news page) that pretty much shows other webiste links. Comon, we can do bit better?

Or maybe PD is that secretive?

Have any of you played Final Fantasy XI online? The website ffxi.allakhazam.com is to FFXI like GT Planet is to Gran Turismo.

The difference there is that Allakhazam will get a written response directly from the FF developers when they post something on the site that should be addressed (significant bugs, game imbalance, etc.). They even attend annual events together for the game! The FF dev team knows that they need the support of allakhazam to continually improve the game, and they "reward" the site with inside info and allakhazam is often the first to know about updates, even for the upcoming FF XIV.

That's the relationship that Polyphony Digital should have with GT Planet, and it's entirely their loss for not establishing that relationship.

 

[PzR Slim]

wait, GT has an official forum?
I didn't realize so many people need official "communities".
Problem with GT is that because of GTPlantet, an official community would need a load of exclusive content in order to take the users from here to there. That would require relocating resources from game dev. to demo. dev or whatever they call it. I see your point better now, but still don't agree with it.

And I think we all massively appreciate this place. It would be like fumbling around in the dark if it wasn't here but GT Planet has only been able to grow into the 'monster' it now is because PD have neglected to build their own community for so long. This is probably one of the biggest and best fan communities on the interwebz, the official community could have been this but with the added input of PD themselves. I hope you understand where I'm coming from Dave, I'm not trying to antagonise or cause upset I just feel this is one area where PD have let themselves down and coming from a man like Kaz who strives for perfection I find that very odd. Is it the case that his greatest assets are his vision and creativity and he has not employed people of a high enough calibre to look after the boring and mundane tasks like building the community?

 

[eSZee]

Have any of you played Final Fantasy XI online? The website ffxi.allakhazam.com is to FFXI like GT Planet is to Gran Turismo.

The difference there is that Allakhazam will get a written response directly from the FF developers when they post something on the site that should be addressed (significant bugs, game imbalance, etc.). They even attend annual events together for the game! The FF dev team knows that they need the support of allakhazam to continually improve the game, and they "reward" the site with inside info and allakhazam is often the first to know about updates, even for the upcoming FF XIV.

That's the relationship that Polyphony Digital should have with GT Planet, and it's entirely their loss for not establishing that relationship.

I don't know about that. There have been many communities that had a developer or two visiting them on a regular basis. A lot of those developers were eventually driven off by the fanbase.
Has Jordan tried to make those kinds of ties with PD/Sony?

And I think we all massively appreciate this place. It would be like fumbling around in the dark if it wasn't here but GT Planet has only been able to grow into the 'monster' it now is because PD have neglected to build their own community for so long. This is probably one of the biggest and best fan communities on the interwebz, the official community could have been this but with the added input of PD themselves. I hope you understand where I'm coming from Dave, I'm not trying to antagonise or cause upset I just feel this is one area where PD have let themselves down and coming from a man like Kaz who strives for perfection I find that very odd. Is it the case that his greatest assets are his vision and creativity and he has not employed people of a high enough calibre to look after the boring and mundane tasks like building the community?

I think eventually PD might go the community route. When Kaz's vision is finished and all he has left to do is add things that we want. Until then, it won't change. I know many, many, many japanese people, hell, I'm gonna marry on of them soon(no homo) They are all like that, stubborn and somewhat perfectionists about everything.

 

[PzR Slim]

Community Beta testing is nothing new, i have been doing just that for many, many years for quite a lot of games. On the PS3 alone i have tested Uncharted2, Mod Nation Racers, MAG, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Planet Mini Golf to name some i can remember...

But thats all it is, testing, if a dev studio is struggling for/wants to seek good ideas for thier games they only have to look at the forums.

This is slightly different, we have all taken part in open betas, were gaming fans and get involved in that sort of thing. But what codies are offering is the chance to play alpha versions of their game, on devs consoles probably.

 

[JimInPT]

yes, they did. They said there was a production issue. There's you public apology, even if it is most likely BS.
As for the videos, people do that on their own and post it on youtube or other sites. Why should sony bother with it when people do it for them, for free?

Because those videos blow. They're low-resolution, shaky filmed screens complete with plenty of background noise and no game-sound fidelity at all. PD has released very pretty rendered car-specific homage videos in the last year; it'd be nice to see gameplay videos of the same quality.

And what's a "production issue", exactly?

I realize some people are like the Macmoonies, happy to wait forever until St. Steve descends from the mountain. I've started several companies and run one now; my ongoing marketing philosophy is to always be paranoid, always run like a startup, always assume competition will catch up and surpass us if we don't stay aggressive and strive to delight (not just satisfy) our customers.

Products, and companies, die from complacency. Customers can, and do, wander away to pursue better opportunities. Right now, PD/Sony's slacking off is pushing more brandX boxes off the shelves because potential non-loyalist customers have no reason to stick around and wait for something, someday.

 

[Lemminkainen]

You know, now that I think of it, hasn't Yamauchi-san said many times that he wanted GT5 to be the community itself? Kind of a game with a built-in car-lover community where people talk about cars, the game, their setups, etc. (much like GT Planet is now)?

Perhaps the intention therefore is to take what GT Planet does and contain it (and therefore control it) within the scope of the game itself.

 

[JimInPT]

Perhaps the intention therefore is to take what GT Planet does and contain it (and therefore control it) within the scope of the game itself.

Don't give them another excuse to take it back to the lab! Noooooooo.

 

[the Interceptor]

If they released the same vids as normal folks, everyone here would be complaining that we've already seen this. Like people complain about tokyo being in every video. For some reason they can't figure out why a japanese company would show off a tokyo track over and over. Let's figure that out.

This is the point exactly. They might show us Tokyo Route 246 over and over again because they like it so much. But they produce these videos and renders for their potential customers, so, as a professional company, they should be aware that they might want to show said customers some variety. Instead, they're just doing what they like.

 

[shadynader]

This is slightly different, we have all taken part in open betas, were gaming fans and get involved in that sort of thing. But what codies are offering is the chance to play alpha versions of their game, on devs consoles probably.

Public, Community, Exclusive or Inhouse testers all do the same job. regardless if it is Concept, Alpha or Beta stage. They test what they have so far and give feedback whether it be features or bugs. As i said, nothing new here.

Besides, if you need a community to think of ideas for a Formua 1 game, your off to a bad start.


I have no idea why you refer to a dev console either.

 

[CoolColJ]

What do you know, the Nascar vid is up on PD's US site in HD
Some people are just not patient enough - Motortrend did say they got an advanced look at it...

 

[SrRd RacinG]

My only question is why don't they reveal more, more often? For example, how is knowing the complete car list going to ruin GT5 in any way? How is knowing the track list going to ruin GT5 in any way? How is going into more depth about tuning a bad thing? Is it really too early?

 

[eSZee]

My only question is why don't they reveal more, more often? For example, how is knowing the complete car list going to ruin GT5 in any way? How is knowing the track list going to ruin GT5 in any way? How is going into more depth about tuning a bad thing? Is it really too early?

because they didn't feel like they needed to?
Seriously, all you guys are complaining because they aren't doing things the way you want them to do it or how some others do it.

 

[SrRd RacinG]

because they didn't feel like they needed to?
Seriously, all you guys are complaining because they aren't doing things the way you want them to do it or how some others do it.

lol, dave-sz. You have an answer to everything. Tell me more. You're so wise.

 

[eSZee]

Lol, whine some more and I will.
I don't have the answer to everything, but the whining and complaining is getting pathetic now. Everyone is acting like a 8 year old little girl who didn't get that pony for her birthday.
How is you whining and telling PD/SONY how to do their jobs, going to make things better?

 

[SrRd RacinG]

Lol, whine some more and I will.
I don't have the answer to everything, but the whining and complaining is getting pathetic now. Everyone is acting like a 8 year old little girl who didn't get that pony for her birthday.
How is you whining and telling PD/SONY how to do their jobs, going to make things better?

dave, I am looking for a shoulder to cry on. Don't you understand? Are you that oblivious? Come on, I need to lean on somebody. I cry daily about GT5. Ugh, it's terrible!

 

[eSZee]

awww, an escort might help with that, or an uncle.

 

[SrRd RacinG]

And the true you never fails to show up. You're unique in how you post. And by unique I mean annoying and too confrontational.

 

[eSZee]

there's a ignore user feature isn't there? Use it or take it to PM.

 

[SrRd RacinG]

In that case, get to it. PM me. I have words of wisdom for you.

 

[eSZee]

please, my PM inbox is always open.