I thought I take a step back from the negativity against SOE and look at the facts for myself. I came to the conclusion that only in part is SOE's negative reputation is over played for a couple of reasons, but also valid in part too.
1) SOE, like most companies, fails to meet a passable CSR crew. This isn't new with SOE, this is almost a universal given, whether it's a game company or your local grocery store, people are people and those that maintain the machine of aiding customers in products and services will ultimately not be able to attain a quality that meets the standards of every individual customer. Also, what makes SOE's CSR crew's past poor results to proper light is that SOE is serving a new market, which the old assumptions of previously hard won knowledge in other industries that have their own CSR sub-industries, which has very few of these assumptions, and often such old assumptions may not even aide a CSR crew at all; thus making their job harder to meet customer expectations. Because of this, I think the another old customer service addige follows, "The negative experience for a customer is remembered longer than the positive experience..." [Side Comment: So, I always take a grain of salt with such claims that SOE actively attempts to insult customers. If that were so, I would ask myself as a stock holder, "How much longer until the bubble bursts on Sony proper?" Considering, some companies have died because of horrible CSR and great product. SOE doesn't seem to follow this assumption to any in-depth level of reasoning.]
2) SOE has a problem like most gaming companies; promising big and giving little. Hell, I don't know how many times I've seen it and it seems to almost always come to pass. A company promising an earth shaking gaming experience, either they deliver it after some delay, or they deliver it in part, or worse they never deliver it at all. It's no surprise SOE has done this with their other products such as EQ 1 and 2, but I think that has more to do with several factors usually beyond the control of a developer team;
A) Public Relations often is often one area that Devs are never ever even allowed to interfere since, "When does a code monkey know anything about their product?" [sarcasm mine]
B) Sometimes developers are assigned to project directors with little or no experience with the given goal of the project. [Side Comment: I'm not sure who were the key 'producers' of the EQ 1 and 2 expansions, but I always felt they were probably not even versed in a cursory knowledge of computer science.]
C) The given set goals by the project lead are either beyond the scope of the current technology or because it is based on concepts that are particular in their translation to a set of algorithms [then code]. Thus, to produce a viable product based on such concepts that either yield new methods to game design/code design, it's very possible such attempts to implement lead to failure(s).
D) Developers left outside the 'loop' of communication between the project lead and/or other department heads. One thing I've learned in my life of working jobs in very different fields [from factory and farm to office and customer service] is that communication is the means to get the right thing done. When a development team is left outside of the communication channels, it's very easy for them to get lost. I've seen this happen, and it yields very bad results.
With just those four possible variable [not barring others] it's really easy to see why SOE seems to not deliver the perfect or best product. It's just the nature of the beast of business. It's very surprising how in principle something such as coding a particular project is easy, but to make sure the developers and the non-developers[business/support staff] get the right messages at the right times is in itself the biggest hurdle against the success of a given project.
Outside of the debate of whether Smedly is some Monty Burns or what-not, I think its indicative of a company such as SOE to have more failures than successes, and that the successes are more easily forgotten than than the failures. And since SOE is playing in a field that is yet to set up any concrete standards, it's bound to make more failures and mistakes along the way before it becomes a mature company within a field of defined goals, customer expectations, and what not. So, really, despite the weaknesses SOE is not the bad guy every one seems to make it out to be...
-- Bridget
1) SOE, like most companies, fails to meet a passable CSR crew. This isn't new with SOE, this is almost a universal given, whether it's a game company or your local grocery store, people are people and those that maintain the machine of aiding customers in products and services will ultimately not be able to attain a quality that meets the standards of every individual customer. Also, what makes SOE's CSR crew's past poor results to proper light is that SOE is serving a new market, which the old assumptions of previously hard won knowledge in other industries that have their own CSR sub-industries, which has very few of these assumptions, and often such old assumptions may not even aide a CSR crew at all; thus making their job harder to meet customer expectations. Because of this, I think the another old customer service addige follows, "The negative experience for a customer is remembered longer than the positive experience..." [Side Comment: So, I always take a grain of salt with such claims that SOE actively attempts to insult customers. If that were so, I would ask myself as a stock holder, "How much longer until the bubble bursts on Sony proper?" Considering, some companies have died because of horrible CSR and great product. SOE doesn't seem to follow this assumption to any in-depth level of reasoning.]
2) SOE has a problem like most gaming companies; promising big and giving little. Hell, I don't know how many times I've seen it and it seems to almost always come to pass. A company promising an earth shaking gaming experience, either they deliver it after some delay, or they deliver it in part, or worse they never deliver it at all. It's no surprise SOE has done this with their other products such as EQ 1 and 2, but I think that has more to do with several factors usually beyond the control of a developer team;
A) Public Relations often is often one area that Devs are never ever even allowed to interfere since, "When does a code monkey know anything about their product?" [sarcasm mine]
B) Sometimes developers are assigned to project directors with little or no experience with the given goal of the project. [Side Comment: I'm not sure who were the key 'producers' of the EQ 1 and 2 expansions, but I always felt they were probably not even versed in a cursory knowledge of computer science.]
C) The given set goals by the project lead are either beyond the scope of the current technology or because it is based on concepts that are particular in their translation to a set of algorithms [then code]. Thus, to produce a viable product based on such concepts that either yield new methods to game design/code design, it's very possible such attempts to implement lead to failure(s).
D) Developers left outside the 'loop' of communication between the project lead and/or other department heads. One thing I've learned in my life of working jobs in very different fields [from factory and farm to office and customer service] is that communication is the means to get the right thing done. When a development team is left outside of the communication channels, it's very easy for them to get lost. I've seen this happen, and it yields very bad results.
With just those four possible variable [not barring others] it's really easy to see why SOE seems to not deliver the perfect or best product. It's just the nature of the beast of business. It's very surprising how in principle something such as coding a particular project is easy, but to make sure the developers and the non-developers[business/support staff] get the right messages at the right times is in itself the biggest hurdle against the success of a given project.
Outside of the debate of whether Smedly is some Monty Burns or what-not, I think its indicative of a company such as SOE to have more failures than successes, and that the successes are more easily forgotten than than the failures. And since SOE is playing in a field that is yet to set up any concrete standards, it's bound to make more failures and mistakes along the way before it becomes a mature company within a field of defined goals, customer expectations, and what not. So, really, despite the weaknesses SOE is not the bad guy every one seems to make it out to be...
-- Bridget
Message Edited by Attis on 05-05-2006 10:11 PM
