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Post by mindless on May 24, 2015 19:04:37 GMT
I received an automated response that my post was received, not that anyone is actually looking at it. For all I know its still sitting in someone's in-box being ignored like all the other thousands of calls they probably receive each day. I don't do letters, someone else is free to start a letter writing campaign if they so desire, but i'ma stick to emails/online forms. So you want me to lie then?  |
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Post by mindless on May 24, 2015 19:19:23 GMT
For anyone that's interested here is the email I fired off to that unnamed contact, maybe you can guess who he is?  Does this strike the right kind of tone? |
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on May 24, 2015 19:25:36 GMT
Diversify. Post to everywhere that might get results, and contact any media that may be interested; Steam Facebook page, Steam Twitter, Reddit (as TotallyTim said), Kotaku, PC Gamer, Polygon, Game Informer, etc. etc. Carpet bomb customer service. Napalm social media. Spread revolution and storm the beaches. Someone will eventually respond. Just remember to take the high road, always. Never lie or stretch the truth. Have verifiable, irrefutable evidence. Gather statements from other players. Be proactive and forthright, and morally just in your interactions. Civility will overcome. I must say I disagree with this point of view. If you simply spread your message to whomever you can think off you are not likely to receive the optimal results. You have to carefully think about who you are sending your message to. More important still is what information you put in the actual message and how you tailor this to each recipient specifically. Carpet bombing just reeks of desperation. People are likely to view it as a nuisance. Sure, you'll reach a bunch of people, but how likely is it that one of those people is a person that you really want to reach? Most people will just blaze past your message and get on with their day. It is far better to just reach ONE person who is actually in a position to do something about your issue or who would have reason to actually care about your issue, preferably both. Therefore it is better to strategize. Have a look at all the angles. A lot of different individuals will have a lot of different viewpoints and therefore a lot of different reasons to care (or not care) about your issue. Here's an idea... Let's say you want something to be dealt with. You know there are people who are supposed to be dealing with these sorts of issues, but you also know those people are really really busy and that in all likelyhood they will probably not really give a shit about your issue because they have loads of other crap to deal with. So you send these guys a message with your issue, what's gonna happen? Perhaps if in the message you informed them that you were at the same time also contacting someone else, perhaps someone higher up the food chain, because you've been waiting on a response on an earlier message you had sent. (regardless of that being true or not) That might give those people some incentive to treat your message more seriously. And you do the same thing with the higher up person that you're sending a message to, tell them you've also sent a message to someone even higher up still. Just a thought. |
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on May 24, 2015 19:31:25 GMT
For anyone that's interested here is the email I fired off to that unnamed contact, maybe you can guess who he is? Does this strike the right kind of tone? I'm not so sure if RPS is gonna give a crap about people being banned on a steam forum. But I guess we shall see. Aside from that, I thought your letter started off quite well and then later on I found myself not really caring too much about it. Honest opinion. |
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Post by mindless on May 24, 2015 19:37:11 GMT
I'm not sure either, to be fair its not much of a cause, and if the game is to be spacebased then it could even be considered a lost cause anyway. But its better to try something than nothing.
Also consider that i'm no real letter writer, and never claimed to be, if anyone thinks they can re-write (in whole or in part) this message into something better be my guest, take your best stab at it, i'll then be able to forward the revised letter off to the next contact if we don't hear anything back within a week.
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Post by hardly on May 24, 2015 19:38:42 GMT
Sorry hardly, but if I were to treat any of my customers enquiries with silence of more than a week I would find myself with out a job, i'm not waiting any longer. infact i've just fired off an email to someone (i'll let you guess who), i'll give that a few days to see if anything happens as a result, or if I need to resume contacting people. lets see what happens next Yeah don't get me wrong it's slack but it's only been about 5 working days and keep in mind the first step of any action would be to contact Dave to get his side of the story which would then take more time. Added to this forum issues are probably automatically put at the bottom of the priority list. I'm not saying they shouldn't have updated us/acknowledged us (in a non-automated way) but if you consider the steps that have to be followed if they take our response seriously: • peon reads our response • peon investigates • peon takes their information to supervisor • they mull the issue internally and talk to other people, do further analysis and talk to more senior people. • they draft a request to Dave for comment • they send it • they wait for a response • they consider the response • they consider talking to Peter • maybe they make a decision at this point • they tell 22cans of the decision • 22cans get time to respond • they tell us of the decision. I'm not saying step one has even happened but if they could be negotiating with 22cans for all I know. It's weird me writing s post suggesting you should be patient because I'm feeling very impatient. Another point is the bigger response the longer it will take. For example, if they were going to revoke 22cans ability to moderate their own forum that would take quite a while to decide/implement. I don't think that will happen though. I'm aware it's easier for me to be patient because Ill be back in a month whereas you are gone for good. |
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on May 24, 2015 19:45:19 GMT
I'm not sure either, to be fair its not much of a cause, and if the game is to be spacebased then it could even be considered a lost cause anyway. But its better to try something than nothing. Also consider that i'm no real letter writer, and never claimed to be, if anyone thinks they can re-write (in whole or in part) this message into something better be my guest, take your best stab at it, i'll then be able to forward the revised letter off to the next contact if we don't hear anything back within a week. If I may toot my own horn, I think I'm pretty good with writing letters. But right now I have a lot on my plate and I don't really care enough about the issue to put my soul into it. We'll see what happens. If a couple of weeks from now you haven't gotten anywhere I might be willing to give it a go. |
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on May 24, 2015 19:50:45 GMT
Sorry hardly, but if I were to treat any of my customers enquiries with silence of more than a week I would find myself with out a job, i'm not waiting any longer. infact i've just fired off an email to someone (i'll let you guess who), i'll give that a few days to see if anything happens as a result, or if I need to resume contacting people. lets see what happens next Yeah don't get me wrong it's slack but it's only been about 5 working days and keep in mind the first step of any action would be to contact Dave to get his side of the story which would then take more time. Added to this forum issues are probably automatically put at the bottom of the priority list. I'm not saying they shouldn't have updated us/acknowledged us (in a non-automated way) but if you consider the steps that have to be followed if they take our response seriously: • peon reads our response • peon investigates • peon takes their information to supervisor • they mull the issue internally and talk to other people, do further analysis and talk to more senior people. • they draft a request to Dave for comment • they send it • they wait for a response • they consider the response • they consider talking to Peter • maybe they make a decision at this point • they tell 22cans of the decision • 22cans get time to respond • they tell us of the decision. I'm not saying step one has even happened but if they could be negotiating with 22cans for all I know. It's weird me writing s post suggesting you should be patient because I'm feeling very impatient. Another point is the bigger response the longer it will take. For example, if they were going to revoke 22cans ability to moderate their own forum that would take quite a while to decide/implement. I don't think that will happen though. I'm aware it's easier for me to be patient because Ill be back in a month whereas you are gone for good. I would think a permanent ban is a pretty serious issue and therefore it should also be pretty high up the list of important things to handle if someone files an appeal on it. But what do I know. |
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Post by mindless on May 24, 2015 19:53:51 GMT
If I may toot my own horn, I think I'm pretty good with writing letters. But right now I have a lot on my plate and I don't really care enough about the issue to put my soul into it. We'll see what happens. If a couple of weeks from now you haven't gotten anywhere I might be willing to give it a go. fair enough, let us wait then and see what course the river of time carves into the rock of our shared reality. |
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Post by 13thGeneral on May 24, 2015 19:54:10 GMT
Diversify. Post to everywhere that might get results, and contact any media that may be interested; Steam Facebook page, Steam Twitter, Reddit (as TotallyTim said), Kotaku, PC Gamer, Polygon, Game Informer, etc. etc. Carpet bomb customer service. Napalm social media. Spread revolution and storm the beaches. Someone will eventually respond. Just remember to take the high road, always. Never lie or stretch the truth. Have verifiable, irrefutable evidence. Gather statements from other players. Be proactive and forthright, and morally just in your interactions. Civility will overcome. I must say I disagree with this point of view. If you simply spread your message to whomever you can think off you are not likely to receive the optimal results. You have to carefully think about who you are sending your message to. More important still is what information you put in the actual message and how you tailor this to each recipient specifically. Carpet bombing just reeks of desperation. People are likely to view it as a nuisance. Sure, you'll reach a bunch of people, but how likely is it that one of those people is a person that you really want to reach? Most people will just blaze past your message and get on with their day. It is far better to just reach ONE person who is actually in a position to do something about your issue or who would have reason to actually care about your issue, preferably both. Therefore it is better to strategize. Have a look at all the angles. A lot of different individuals will have a lot of different viewpoints and therefore a lot of different reasons to care (or not care) about your issue. Here's an idea... Let's say you want something to be dealt with. You know there are people who are supposed to be dealing with these sorts of issues, but you also know those people are really really busy and that in all likelyhood they will probably not really give a shit about your issue because they have loads of other crap to deal with. So you send these guys a message with your issue, what's gonna happen? Perhaps if in the message you informed them that you were at the same time also contacting someone else, perhaps someone higher up the food chain, because you've been waiting on a response on an earlier message you had sent. (regardless of that being true or not) That might give those people some incentive to treat your message more seriously. And you do the same thing with the higher up person that you're sending a message to, tell them you've also sent a message to someone even higher up still. Just a thought. Good points, actually. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2015 23:21:06 GMT
I'm not so sure if RPS is gonna give a crap about people being banned on a steam forum. But I guess we shall see. Aside from that, I thought your letter started off quite well and then later on I found myself not really caring too much about it. Honest opinion. The matter that should be pressed is that - while 22cans can feel free to ban users - they are now also libeling Steam users over those bans in clear contradictions of the evidence - which moves this into requiring publisher intervention since it is being performed upon the Steam platform. This is an important part, as it isn't just an issue over the bans, but it also details a regular basis how 22cans have instead been the ones abusive and bullying upon their Steam forums, often lying about it and calling their moderation standards "the Steam rules" when they are banning folks for stuff not even on the real rules list - which can be verified by any media and VALVe themselves. What RPS and others would be interested in is the sheer level of "don't give a fuck" 22cans has offered to everyone since Peter's intervention calling him upon what has happened. The further neglect of the title, more developers upon the already cut-down team leaving, the false promises routinely issued by the moderators (which are likely lies given the state of development), the moderators outright lying about people without being corrected by 22cans, the Steam version is STILL bait and switch from an earlier version that actually looked like what would turn into a decent game to a mobile f2p port - and most of all details about how Godus is still lingering in Early Access without any meaningful communication from 22cans while Peter already called it finished and ran off to another title (and details this handily in that video 22cans doesn't want posted on the Steam Godus forum). It is good that Mindless can offer his own input about what is happening, which is more from a personal perspective, but it is another detail that RPS can look into for more info. Plus it's a good example. Why are the Steam forums so "bad"? Probably because the users are a tad cranky in response to developers being abusive, such as in the case of many Early Access developers who were obviously just using Steam Early Access for free money, since among those 22cans took Godus clear away from anything the community suggested and turned it into a complete betrayal. Evaluating a product will involve a significant business decision to make on the part of VALVe, and given some of their other recent media problems, getting rid of another EA problem child would probably be in their interests. We just have to put the information clearly and referenced well, which I'm working upon a draft of that. Sorry for not being more active upon this in the last few days, the flu is wandering around the house and I'm finally getting over it. |
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
|
Post by Lord Ba'al on May 25, 2015 0:37:38 GMT
I'm not so sure if RPS is gonna give a crap about people being banned on a steam forum. But I guess we shall see. Aside from that, I thought your letter started off quite well and then later on I found myself not really caring too much about it. Honest opinion. The matter that should be pressed is that - while 22cans can feel free to ban users - they are now also libeling Steam users over those bans in clear contradictions of the evidence - which moves this into requiring publisher intervention since it is being performed upon the Steam platform. This is an important part, as it isn't just an issue over the bans, but it also details a regular basis how 22cans have instead been the ones abusive and bullying upon their Steam forums, often lying about it and calling their moderation standards "the Steam rules" when they are banning folks for stuff not even on the real rules list - which can be verified by any media and VALVe themselves. What RPS and others would be interested in is the sheer level of "don't give a fuck" 22cans has offered to everyone since Peter's intervention calling him upon what has happened. The further neglect of the title, more developers upon the already cut-down team leaving, the false promises routinely issued by the moderators (which are likely lies given the state of development), the moderators outright lying about people without being corrected by 22cans, the Steam version is STILL bait and switch from an earlier version that actually looked like what would turn into a decent game to a mobile f2p port - and most of all details about how Godus is still lingering in Early Access without any meaningful communication from 22cans while Peter already called it finished and ran off to another title (and details this handily in that video 22cans doesn't want posted on the Steam Godus forum). It is good that Mindless can offer his own input about what is happening, which is more from a personal perspective, but it is another detail that RPS can look into for more info. Plus it's a good example. Why are the Steam forums so "bad"? Probably because the users are a tad cranky in response to developers being abusive, such as in the case of many Early Access developers who were obviously just using Steam Early Access for free money, since among those 22cans took Godus clear away from anything the community suggested and turned it into a complete betrayal. Evaluating a product will involve a significant business decision to make on the part of VALVe, and given some of their other recent media problems, getting rid of another EA problem child would probably be in their interests. We just have to put the information clearly and referenced well, which I'm working upon a draft of that. Sorry for not being more active upon this in the last few days, the flu is wandering around the house and I'm finally getting over it. The way I see it, RPS is a gamer who caters to other gamers by providing newsworthy information. Most gamers are interested in games, not in abusive forum moderators. It is therefore unlikely that RPS would write an article on the topic of steam moderation. Sure, he could use it as another argument in how 22Cans is mismanaging their game development, but it's not a main story, at best it's a minor sidenote. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2015 4:07:43 GMT
The way I see it, RPS is a gamer who caters to other gamers by providing newsworthy information. Most gamers are interested in games, not in abusive forum moderators. It is therefore unlikely that RPS would write an article on the topic of steam moderation. Sure, he could use it as another argument in how 22Cans is mismanaging their game development, but it's not a main story, at best it's a minor sidenote. Exactly that, so the bans would would be filler info. I was trying to put it in a more kindly manner than in saying that the media wouldn't care about the bans alone, but the abuses certainly do serve as a cherry on top of the shit sundae of everything else 22cans has been doing to cover up their dishonesty and fraud of just about everything they have touched Godus with. As personally as what was done might chafe, we have to understand the nature of those we're dealing with, and so we have to make the overall thing a bit more attractive to the media to make follow-up articles detailing exactly how 22cans acted when presented with their crimes against video gamers - especially as noted by SamVT - become even worse. Jim Sterling would also probably be interested on that as here's some supposed industry legends again abusing Kickstarter and Early Access as if they were some fly-by-night Zynga/King wannabe. |
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Post by deadspear on May 26, 2015 21:11:55 GMT
The way I see it, RPS is a gamer who caters to other gamers by providing newsworthy information. Most gamers are interested in games, not in abusive forum moderators. It is therefore unlikely that RPS would write an article on the topic of steam moderation. Sure, he could use it as another argument in how 22Cans is mismanaging their game development, but it's not a main story, at best it's a minor sidenote. Exactly that, so the bans would would be filler info. I was trying to put it in a more kindly manner than in saying that the media wouldn't care about the bans alone, but the abuses certainly do serve as a cherry on top of the shit sundae of everything else 22cans has been doing to cover up their dishonesty and fraud of just about everything they have touched Godus with. As personally as what was done might chafe, we have to understand the nature of those we're dealing with, and so we have to make the overall thing a bit more attractive to the media to make follow-up articles detailing exactly how 22cans acted when presented with their crimes against video gamers - especially as noted by SamVT - become even worse. Jim Sterling would also probably be interested on that as here's some supposed industry legends again abusing Kickstarter and Early Access as if they were some fly-by-night Zynga/King wannabe. Jim Sterling would probably rip Godus a new one, but I think he did a video a few month back the "The Molyneux Cycle" I believe was the titles, so I don't know why he didn't go into detail with Godus. Because he thought it would be considered "bulling". Now that time has passed, I think it would be fair to say, he'd probably be able to take another swing if you will. However I have no idea how to contact him at all. |
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Post by mindless on May 27, 2015 4:30:14 GMT
Jim Sterling would probably rip Godus a new one ... However I have no idea how to contact him at all. Click on the Send Message Button.  I'm duty bound to hold off contacting him until a week has elapsed, but that doesn't stop any of you from reaching out to him if you so wish. |
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Post by deadspear on May 27, 2015 10:59:00 GMT
Yeah, but he gets thousands of messages a day, he probably doesn't have time to look threw all of them, and I think I read somewhere where he said he doesn't do requests.
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Post by hardly on May 30, 2015 0:01:21 GMT
To put a couple of pictures here so I can link them back in a message. Probably a better way to do this but it will do for now.
Attachments:
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Post by mindless on May 31, 2015 9:33:24 GMT
For anyone who does not already know, the new CEO of 22 Cans, Simon Phillips ( simon22cans) has signed up on these message boards and is now engaging with us in discussion, he has also been made aware of this issue. We now wait with bated breath to see what happens next. |
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Post by hardly on May 31, 2015 21:48:25 GMT
For anyone who does not already know, the new CEO of 22 Cans, Simon Phillips ( simon22cans) has signed up on these message boards and is now engaging with us in discussion, he has also been made aware of this issue. We now wait with bated breath to see what happens next. I've messaged him privately and he has promised to investigate as time permits. A very positive response so far. I'm confident the facts will speak for themselves. |
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Post by mindless on Jun 1, 2015 5:23:44 GMT
As have I. I'm both optimistic and hopeful that justice will be done, his willingness to come over to these boards and start a dialogue with us, is a good sign that things may be changing for the better over at the cannery.
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