Ok, so DID Cryptic warn you or NOT?
Ok, the latest fuel for the nerd rage fires is the announcement that the Champions Online Life Time sub ran out, fast. According to some, the emails sent to players with the offer didn’t have the “limited quantities” wording in them. I don’t know, and would love to see one of these emails. Seriosuly..who got one? I would love to link it.
Clearly on the forums they warned of the limited quantities. VERY CLEARLY.
The are questions as to if they warned people, in EVERY communication about the deal, that there were NOT limited quantities, just an end date. I want to find out. Someone on Massivelt said that in their email they just saw “limited quantities” and not a date.
Here’s my hunch: they covered their asses. They said both “limited quantities” AND “until Sept. 1st.” This is case of “change your oil at 30k miles OR at 3 months, whichever COMES first.”
We’ll see, though. It’s fixed easy enough, just let those few remaining people buy it and eat the cost for any confusion.
Now, dammit, see what I DID? I wasn’t going to TYPE today!
Beau
EDIT: Someone has just posted a screenie of the offer. http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/8858/emailt.jpg
Limited means in quantity OR date. Whichever comes first. Done and done. Next time, move faster.
Yeah, they warned us. I bought the lifetime the first day it was offered. I even posted on the OF how I couldn’t whip out my credit card fast enough to pay, in fear they would remove the offer. At that time on the forums there were a lot of scoffers, saying how dare they have the balls charge us before the game is released, etc, etc. One complaint I read a lot today is that people were waiting for ‘payday’ before subscribing. But that shouldn’t matter (right?)since paying one’s credit card off isn’t needed until weeks or a month later…
Did cryptic even send information regarding the deal as an email? I searcher my entire Gmail account and can find every CB play session announcement but no email regarding lifetime subs.
Not that I really care b/c I wasn’t going to play CO regardless, but that is some bullshit. “Limited” does not necessarily imply both in quantity (especially when selling a virtual product, read: limitless) and time frame, especially when they further defined, implicitly, that limited meant to a certain date. Limited has become nearly a non-word in advertising, like “new” or “improved.”
Then all of the sudden “we have only a few thousand left” then “poof.” People that might have been planning on getting the lifetime sub, but that doesn’t keep up with CO news day to day might learn next week they were screwed out of the deal. But, it’s not surprising given that the whole promotion seemed to have been done by some marketing intern. That it fell on its face with negative publicity at the end is a fitting end.
I forwarded my Cryptic email on to you Beau.
When you first created your account, Cryptic stuck up a page with the special offers, saying they were a limited time offer — you had to order by Sept. 1st.
They followed this up with an email that said “Limited Offer” with no specification of how it was limited.
If you’re not a forum troll, these are the only 2 points of information to base your purchase on. I don’t think its unreasonable to assume that the “Limited” in the email refers to the “Limited Time Offer” they popped up during registration.
I find it amusing that Cryptic themselves admit that they dropped the ball on communicating the limitations effectively, yet people outside the company rush to defend them. They’re saying “Yeesh, sorry, yeah, we did this.” and their defenders are saying “No Cryptic! No you didn’t! Don’t say that!”
Cool will check it out.
Beau
Well, Jay, I got an email but I don’t think it was from you. It had like 12 links in it?
Anyway, point being is that Cryptic can stop selling anything they want, at any time. There is nothing that says a company cannot stop a special discount just because it said it would not. The deal breaker here is that the players that missed out DID NOT PAY ANY MONEY.
That means they lost nothing.
If an airline warns of deep discounts, then suddenly stops that discount, you lost nothing in the transaction. BUT, if you gave them money and they turned around and didn’t give you the flight, THEN you have an argument.
Stupid of Cryptic if they didn’t warn everyone everywhere? YES.
Standard business happenings? YES.
And no one can do anything about it. No one can force a company to sell anything to anyone at any price. They can only force a company to give you what you paid for. In this case, the misser-outers got exactly what they paid for: NOTHING.
Beau
“They’re saying “Yeesh, sorry, yeah, we did this.” and their defenders are saying “No Cryptic! No you didn’t! Don’t say that!””
I will continue looking, but everything from Cryptic that I saw only said “we DID warn you.” It was said very quietly, but in the official statement they say that.
Even if not, see statement above.
Beau
“And no one can do anything about it.”
That’s absolutely wrong. We can opt not to give them our business.
“I will continue looking, but everything from Cryptic that I saw only said “we DID warn you.””
“While we did mention that supplies were limited in an announcement post, we definitely should have emphasized our limits more explicitly in all our messaging. Again, we just never expected supply to be any kind of an issue. The community response to our offers has been… amazing.”
[emphasis mine, if the comment form supports bolding] http://www.massively.com/2009/08/25/cryptics-official-response-on-sold-out-champions-special-subscr/
Also note “announcement POST” — in their craptacular, spite-filled forums. I’m not the only MMO gamer who, as a matter of policy, stays far away from MMO forums. *NOT* in the marketing materials that they shoved into our face when signing up.
What makes me curious is this. I have a beef with Cryptic. It’s between me and them. Why are so many people who aren’t involved in this dispute jumping into it? Why do you care that people are unhappy, if it doesn’t impact you?
All you showed me is that they admitted that supplies were limited.
And yes, you not use their product. I’m not talking to people that don’t want to pay. I am talking about players wanting something for nothing. They didn’t pay anything, so they lost nothing.
Whatever. I can’t cure blindness.
Done here.
I received 2 emails from Cryptic regarding the subscription deals, August 5th and August 22nd. Both with the same content where is says “Limited Champions Subscription Deals” and there is no further indication what those limits are – no dates, no quantities.
The only difference between those two emails were that the realized that they need to specify whether the European prices were with or without VAT, which they corrected in the second email.
Legally Cryptic is probably on the safe side, but they could have handled this information better. Of course, hindsight is the best position to find flaws from…
So, people are upset because “limited” did not fit their definition?
Why does it bother me? Because these pointless outcries only serve to make developers so cautious that they stop taking chances, or stop attempting to give ANY discounts because they are paranoid. This is why I have to hear about the NGE for years after the fact even though it was Lucas Arts, not SOE, that did the deed.
They covered their asses to the tune of thousands understanding the meaning of “limited.” That means not everyone gets it, and especally not on their schedule.
Beau
But they specified a schedule in the offer that they thrust in front of our faces when we registered.
Your argument seems to be that we should have known not to trust what we were reading, and somehow known to make a point of visiting the forums to see if there were any caveats on the offer. And that we were foolish for not doing so, and deserve to have missed out on the offer because we didn’t know what we didn’t know.
Better they should offer NO discounts, then to offer them in such a haphazard fashion. If they’d never offered these discounts, there wouldn’t be these outcries and this bad PR.
It isn’t *our* fault that they (and they admit this) handled the situation poorly.
All I am saying is that people see and understand the term “limited” every day in business.
This isn’t siding with anyone, this is just me saying that if I said “come to my house, we’ll have cupcakes, but the offer is limited..” you would understand my meaning very clearly.
And again, I am pointing to the fact that you are now saying “no more discounts” as though the mistake a few gamers made by missing an opportunity is reason enough to punish those that have nothing to do with you.
Beau
The analogy would be you saying “Come to my house by Friday, we’ll have cupcakes, but the offer is limited…you have to come by Friday.” and then you sending me an IM adding “Or until I run out of cupcakes” and then telling me, when I miss out on cupcakes because I decided to come on Thursday, that I’m at fault because I don’t use IM. Why didn’t you just *say* “or until I run out” when you were talking to me?
And I’m not saying “No more discounts,” I’m saying “Don’t offer special deals and be ambivalent about the terms, saying 1 thing in one place, and another thing in another place.” because that’s just going to lead to hard feelings, as evidenced by the situation here.
And even that is an imperfect analogy, since cupcakes are physical objects so are in finite supply. Being “out of stock” on a virtual item is an arbitrary business decision.
You surely CAN run out of virtual stock. It costs them money to offer that. Also, what they offered was a cash-shop type transaction: cash in exchange for a beta access, a fluff pet and a few other things.
See, you are adding a date to my cupcake offer to make it seem like the offer is shady. It is not. “Limited” simply means first come first serve.
If they would have used that language, people would have moved faster.
It is not Cryptics fault that players waited.
Beau
You cannot run out of virtual stock. You can decide that you’ve sold as many as you want to sell, but that’s a choice, not a physical limitation.
Beta-access wasn’t part of the deal, that came with pre-orders. The deal was $200 for a Lifetime Subscription and 8 additional character slots, plus some other garbage that didn’t matter.
I never did anything to make your cupcake offer shady. I simply pointed out that giving 1 set of details through one transaction medium, and another set of details through a different transaction medium, is bound to cause confusion.
I never said anything about Cryptic’s deal was shady. I was it was handled badly.
I sell virtual goods all the time (well, not me personally, but my company). Our offers are limited with a date cutoff. Limited means “Deadline is this date”. Limited never means “we have x quantity to sell.” If we had x quantity of something to sell, we’d say “Supplies are limited” not “Order by Sept. 1″
So you can repeat YOUR interpretation of what “Limited” means until the sun burns out. It won’t make you correct. When the promotional material said Limited Time Offer, order by Sept. 1st, it won’t mean “we only have x to sell” to most people. It’ll mean “We’re selling these until Sept. 1st.”
Saying, in the forums, where a fraction of your audience will see it “Oh, and by the way we have a limited quantity that we’re willing to sell.” doesn’t change the message that you delivered in your marketing materials. And what about interviews that Emmert gave where he said “You have to order by Sept 1″ while never saying “and supplies are limited.” They put out the message widely that Sept 1 was the deadline to order. The only time they said anything about quantities being limited was in 1 forum post.
As soon as the word limited is introduced, the player should understand, period. “Limited” trumps all. “Limited number UNTIL sept. 1st” STILL means the item can run out.
You are not going to convince me, either, that just because YOU think that the extra items you get with the 200 dollar special are worthless means that they are. Obviously,they are worth maybe 200 dollars to quite a few people. Point being, you do not dictate the value of those items, and do not determine the “proper” use of the word “limited.”
This is the last you will hear from me on this, its getting time to go home.
But, thanks for the discussions!
Beau
That’s the part I forgot: they didn’t say JUST limited time offer.
They said “limited offer until sept. 1stl
” “Limited number UNTIL sept. 1st” ”
If that’s what they’d said, I’d be in total agreement with you and we wouldn’t be having this debate.
The word “number” was never mentioned in the marketing material. What was said was Limited TIME Offer. I’ve said this a dozen times by now but you keep ignoring me.
And I’m not claiming to dictate the value of the geegaws they threw in to the Lifetime membership. I’m sorry if I read that way, I should have said “garbage to me.” I don’t remember what they were, but in my experience, pre-order bonuses usually don’t have long term value. But 8 additional character slots (again, to me) is a huge perk to miss out on.
“But, thanks for the discussions!”
So this was pleasant for you? Can’t say I share the sentiment. I’ve found it frustrating as hell. Like pushing a boulder up a hill. Lots of energy spent. Zippo accomplished.
1) “Limited” means “numbered.” Meaning that there is a ..you know…LIMITED amount. If I say “I have limited chapsticks available until Sept. 1st..” that means I have a limited quantity, but will continue to sell that limited quantity until that date. Just because I chose to sell that set amount until a certain date does not mean that it is UNLIMITED until that date. If they sell out, I cannot sell them.
2) I have these type discussions all the time. Don’t take it too seriously. Remember, this type stuff goes on all the time in bars and no one gets upset.
Beau
Imagine the shitstorm if Cryptic brought back the offer, but raising the price to $299 and offering no bonus items… if I’m not mistaken didn’t Turbine do this with LOTRO?
Ok, I’ll play ball with this. Let’s pretend they did this..seriously. You know what I think would happen? Some players would get mad, but most that wanted to would go on playing the game. It would pass.
hehe My point is that these “shitstorms” that have “erupted” over issues like this are never that big of a deal. But still, it might seem that way to someone that hears that it is.
Still, I wouldn’t care. If I don’t like an offer, I don’t take it. Unless it’s for a cash shop. OMG I LUV cash shops.
Beau
““Limited” means “numbered.” Meaning that there is a ..you know…LIMITED amount. If I say “I have limited chapsticks available until Sept. 1st..” that means I have a limited quantity, but will continue to sell that limited quantity until that date.”
OMF’ing GOD!
YES, if you say “I have limited chapsticks available” then yes, the means your quantity is limited.
But if you say “I have chapsticks for a limited time” that means for a set number of days/weeks/months I’m going to sell chapsticks, after which I will stop selling them. It says *nothing* about the quantity of chapsticks available. Maybe you have a limited quantity, maybe you don’t. Maybe after the end of this period you’re getting lip gloss in and need the display space for that.
And if I say “You can order chapsticks until Sept. 1″ then it means YOU CAN ORDER CHAPSTICKS UNTIL SEPT 1. It says *nothing* about how many chapsticks are available.
Every time you come back, you twist things… I have to assume at this point you’re just being a jerk and enjoying spinning me up. Because your constant mis-reading of what I’m saying simply HAS to be deliberate. So touche, you win, and screw you.
OK OK, 1 last try before I give up on you completely and stick you in my OpenEdge folder…
If Comcast (or your local service provider) says “Limited time offer: Order by Sept 1 and get internet access for $20/month” by your definition, you’re saying they have a limited number of internet packets to sell.
Right? Because Limited means limited number, according to your definition.
Here is the image i first saw, and received in my email: http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=b9e128e61093be03835491d95&id=88dd0bdff3& As you can see, only says “Limited Champions Sub Deals.” Now, you are claiming that it said, upon registration, that you had a “limited time.” You are claiming that this, even though it had said already “limited offer” that this was to be taken as meaning that the TIME was limited, not the quantity. Yet, here you say this: “They followed this up with an email that said “Limited Offer” with no specification of how it was limited.” Now, you have shown me no evidence that it ever said “limited time offer” ONLY. The only thing that we all can see, unless I am missing something in this wall of comments, is the picture I showed you and the “limited offer” that we agree on.
This is from the forums, one of many posts:
“On the 20th they warned people that it would be ending “soon.” On the 24th they announced there would only be 1,000 more. You had 5 days notice to make up your mind. 5 days notice is not 0 notice.”
“Uh, yeah they said they only had 1,000 life-time memberships left. If you bother to read the main page you would’ve known”
There are more, and I have received communications from people that have said that this was true. There are only “I think I saw” about “limited time” ONLY offers. There is actual proof of “limited offer.” Now, let’s play your Devil’s advocate for a second. They announced BOTH limited TIME and limited OFFER. You do not deny “limited offer.” So, what if they posted “limited time, limited offer (limited offer means limited QUANTITY.)” then you would have seen it coming. Well, guess what? THEY ANNOUNCED BOTH, EVEN ACCORDING TO YOU.
I am a little confused as to why someone that works IN virtual goods doesn’t understand limits on virtual items, and why Cryptic can run out of these virtual things. If you do not understand the value of virtual items, or how they can be measured by a company that sells ALL THINGS VIRTUAL, (the game itself, the characters, all virtual) and how that company can set any value and any number they want to on that item, then I cannot help you.
See, you keep using the sentence “I have something for a limited time.” By your own writing, Cryptic did not say “we have subs for a limited time.” They said, once again, “LIMITED OFFER.” And, according to you unless I am missing your evidence somewhere (not saying it doesn’t exist, just for the record) they say “LIMITED OFFER FOR A LIMITED TIME.”
Now, you need to let this go. Seriously. Don’t get so upset about what one Andy Dick blogger thinks. Take a deep breath. If it helps, I do this all the time with players that think that they are right without realizing that EVEN IF YOU WERE, it does not matter in the least bit. Why? Because you did not pay them a single dime. They did not rip you off or pull a fast one.
Recently, Best Buy accidentally sold big TV’s on their website for 10 dollars. People KNEW it was a mistake, but many bought them at that price. When they went to the Best Buy to get the TV’s, the BEst Buy gave them their 10 dollars back and said “Sorry charlie, NO TV.” The customers were mad, but no promises were broken. The customers did not LOSE anything, they were REFUSED SERVICE. That is a right, and always will be a very needed right of businesses.
I am not saying Cryptic did anything like that. I am saying to just let this shit go. Cryptic TOLD THE PLAYERS what the offer entailed, in several places. Even if they just made a mistake in how they communicated, it does not matter. Again, all they have to say is “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT? YOUR NON-PAID MONEY BACK?” It’s over. The players didn’t move fast enough. The worse Cryptic might have done was to not explain to each individual player, even after saying “limited offer” and even telling people that the quantities were going AWAY (meaning LIMITED), that they might want to get off their ass and PAY THE MONEY OR RISK LOSING OUT.
Now, don’t answer anymore. You know what I have to say. Don’t make me lock this, because I can assure you I can type more and say more than anyone out there.
Beau
Ok everyone cmere.
No cmere.
Sit down. Yes you.
Take a deep breath. OK? Good? Better? /breeeathe
Ok now help me understand. Someone likes a game so much that they are willing to pay $200+ (if you have to pay for the box as well as the sub) for it BEFORE it is even really released. A regular game is ~$50 with a free month. So since instead of being able to give 4x that amount right now, they have to pay less and stick with a $15 a month bill. And this is worth protesting over and not even buying the game at all? What the hell is going on? If you like the game, support it don’t protest it. What good is that gonna do and who are you punishing but yourself, taking away the opportunity to play a game you like over a technicality? That’s all this is. We all know how companies and “sales” work. There’s always a catch.
Cmon now. Take a deep breath and go have some fun. Play a game that you like. It’s not a big deal. If they follow the LOTRO plan they will offer the lifetime again at some point if you really want it. For now just take the initial $$ savings.
Cryptic just put offer back on the table. LIFETIMES FOR EVERYBODY! Woot!
Mythic caving in? Or a marketing tactic which may prove to be a stroke of genious?
Hmmm…
So we should all just shut up and accept that we weren’t fast enough (to buy something that was offered until Sept. 1) but by expressing our displeasure, Cryptic was convinced to put the offer back on the table.
You’re saying so many things that aren’t correct. You’re retcon’ing by mixing in forum posts that were added after the fact… I’m basing everything I said on what was marketed to me. Not everyone visits forums. No one with any sense visits forums.
But look! Now we have evidence. They’ve put the page back to how it used to be. To what I was basing my decision on:
http://www.champions-online.com/exclusive_specials
As you can see, the only ‘limit’ mentioned is by date.
It’s hard for me to let something go when someone is essentially calling me a liar. I’m weird like that.
Dude, don’t worry so much about what I think or don’t think.
How bout this: Technically it doesn’t disprove anything I said or saw, being that it is a NEW piece of evidence, and not the original one that would prove your point. Just to drive you nuts, by showing me a brand new offer you have shown me nothing. Now, you could have and mostly likely DID see an offer like that, but what PROOF do you have? EVEN THEN, that DOES NOT MATTER. BY YOUR OWN ADMISSION THEY ALSO SAID IN SEVERAL PLACES “LIMITED OFFER!”
See, I don’t care if they splash brand new offers all over the world, that does not detract from the simple fact that SOME TOOK IT TO MEANING LIMITED IN NUMBER AND SOME MIGHT HAVE TOOK IT TO MEAN LIMITED BY DATE. How much easier, simpler and more basic can I make it for you? They listed BOTH, and now you have your offer back. TELL ME you will buy one after all your protesting…TELL MEEEEEEEEE!
If you don’t, I will hear the biggest “wa wa waaaaaaa” cartoon sound EVER.
But, let me get back to calming you down: you have proven everything you have said. Not only were you always right, but you were right in your opinion that everyone considers every piece of virtual fluff items crap and that not a single person with any sense visits forums. Not a single one. Including me and my wife, and most of my friends. But hey, at least you didn’t call us a liar.
Now, don’t obsess so much. Calm down. Don’t quit blogging over this, that would just be…weird.
Again, I thank you for your discussions. I wonder how many “heated” typing fests like this you have had, if you were ready to stop blogging over something like this? This is nothing! lol And yes, it’s FUN. I like discussions. Did I ONCE insult you? Nope. But hey, sometimes I just take the holier, mightier and higher road because I’m SOooOOoooOOooOOooOOooooo nice.
Now, drop it man. Get some sleep! lol
Beau
Bah, as always Im late for the discussion but I figured since it was brought up here I would bring up a perspective I brought up over at Massively and on the cryptic boards.
No it was not false advertising. Most of what I saw said things about limited time, not limited quantities which I never thought about the STO beta being a limited thing but I suppose it is, but I was unwilling to jump on any type of sub without trying the game first.
Besides false advertising usually covers they say we will give you product A but instead when you get home you find out they gave you product Q and that was not what you were told you were buying. Money changed hands or whatever. Thats a legal issue, not what we have here.
K, anyway, there is some slight, every so slight evidence of people within the company not being as forthright about what was going down and changing posts in the aftermath to make them read as they wish but google cache caught em according to some news sites so on and so forth.
I had two pre orders for the game, we tried it, we didn’t like it, we didn’t like how this was handled, we canceled our pre orders. As I have stated elsewhere I don’t dig a company that does this kind of thing that seems shady to me. Just my lil ole opinion that’s all.
Wanna see how to handle a launch of a game and lifetime subs go check out Turbine and LOTRO. My wife and I have lifetime subs there because we were able to play the game for a month for free then purchase our lifetime sub if we wanted it. We did and have been happy with our purchase.
*shrugs* Great thing is I don’t need their game, but they wanted my cash and my monthly sub and they got neither.