Shiren, on 22 November 2012 - 05:28 PM, said:
Marketing and PR already researched, wrote, prepared and rehearsed the carefully worded and incredibly meaningless response he will give to the world's most predictable questions he will receive during this AMA. Don't expect any real answers or any honest communication or a long due reasonable response to this issue. ArenaNet have chosen to stick their heads in the sand and let years of MMO conditioning take over while the ones who resist slowly die out.
This is just going to be another rug sweep like the rest of ArenaNet communication.
I do think you may be right, however doing that will only make things worse. In this age of social media, all it takes is for one person so say a bad thing about about a customer and tens more know about it. Sure we might only be seeing the vocal minority, but I would like to bet the silent majority are hearing about this from friends, guildies, social media and other websites.
Staying quiet until it all blows over used to be a valid(but not great) tactic for crisis management. Now it just looks as though the company has something to hide and reduces trust even more. At this point in time facts don't matter. Perception and trust are now the only thing that does. Like new coke, Ratners or SWG NGE people's trust in Anet is what needs to be restored.
The very worst thing to do is give spin, and PR statements to people who are already annoyed. There are two ways left now to handle this.
1. Be open and transparent. Give facts and figures along with sound reasoning to why this decision was made.
2. Apologise and say "we listened to you and we're working on a way to fix things. Watch the space
Most players are mature enough to say "Fair enough" and move on. Spin and Silence will just add Gasoline at this moment in time.
Edited by shanaeri rynale, 22 November 2012 - 05:58 PM.