New Article - Kotaku - Godus is Still a Mess

I still think your signature is awesome tikigod and it deserves to be preserved in a special place somewhere.

There we go...

Probably just lucky they didn't check with Bryan to see how much money he's received and how his role as God of gods is progressing.

Is the term "hospital pass" used where people live? You never know what is local and what is international.

Simon got a hospital pass and the first part of dealing with a hospital pass is recognising that is what you have. Moo got one too and he's been trying for six months to make the best of it.

How do you turn the situation around?

• stop doing what you are doing. Develop a plan (takes time I know), communicate the plan, implement the plan.

For six months 22cans have been promising Soonus with very little detail. There has been no description of the end point and no evidence presented to show it can be achieved. This has to change. You need to prove to us and the press that you can deliver. Stop expecting people to take you on faith when the company hasn't earned it.

I'm not giving you a hard time, I'm trying to help you. I'm very fearful that this wake up call will be misinterpreted like the last one was. Frank discussion on the forums is great so let's evolve that into a frank and honest plan.

I think the problem that the article points out, as does Simon having to come up with answers for this, is how there is hardly any company policy there established at 22cans that allows some of these answers to be answered more easily.



There is, apparently:



No PR playbook.

No FAQ.

No company policy book except make shit up as we go along, and obviously that's not been working out.

Hardly any communication of use for a LONG time, which is why this is quite an event.



All of this is why Simon's job is much harder, as now he has to establish all of the basics that 22cans have been operating without for years.



This is indicative in how the community guy has to pester devs individually, when all he should have to do is get a list from the in-house producer, who gets the list from the morning's progress meeting (takes only 5-15m if that, even for 20+ teams) where everyone described what they worked upon yesterday and what they are working on today citing what their eventual goal is for the short-term (finishing up work upon a particular section of a feature's overall scope).



The internal communications there at 22cans appears severely blinkered or incredibly unconventional.



When this is shown, communications will go dark with 22cans, and this isn't a good thing. Simon still posting is a change from that, so good on you for that. I mean it, it's going to take a strong chin for what is going to be forthcoming, and how you perform now will reflect upon both you and 22cans a lot.



simon22cans:



You are going to have to expect more of the same, which means you'll have to sit down with whatever is the "board" and the shareholders of 22cans, probably the general same folks, and start working on what is listed above - which will cover all of your gaps in communication and - frankly - probably offer some of the first direction around 22cans since THX-1138: The Video Game was "won".



The community are not the bullies some would try to insist that we are. We are not here to intimidate except for a few backers who - it must be noted again - would release 22cans from that Kickstarter contractual obligation on a personal basis. You will have to talk with them on that, it's on an individual basis.
 We can offer help on some of the more outstanding issues, help you on what we think would be good responses towards dissatisfied posts, try to help you guys out if you're willing to work with us.  I actually think the latter is the crux of the issue - it needs to start happening for once for these poor marginalised people.

They were tossed aside for the mobile microtransaction money.  The backers who made the tech demo possible.  Let's not lose the plot here by insisting that anyone else are unreasonable in their expectations.


There are some basics that need to be established, along with some previously-suppressed information that needs to be gathered, before you can make a properly sensible decision.



Less than 48 hours? You do know what that sounds like: You mean it took more than 24 hours to go through e-mail and come up with answers?

This is where my lack of sympathy lies. I have not seen the questions Kotaku sent to 22Cans, but I can imagine that they cover much the same issues that the media raised in February when they last took notice of Godus. Therefore 22Cans did not have a mere day and a half to prepare their response. They have had 4 months to demonstrate through actions that they are addressing the issues, and as usual they have failed to deliver. I think it was quite courteous of Kotaku to give 22Cans any heads-up whatsoever that they were about to report once again on the sorry state of Godus.

At least provide the interviewee with some kind of deadline. I have these questions for you but if you don't respond by xxxxxx I'll be going to print without your answers.

To me what would seem reasonable is send someone an email on Monday morning and tell them you expect a response by noon on Friday. Or something like that.

but the reported said they didnt even reply to his email...while simon says he did, so wheres the truth? normally you confirm you got there email and then ask what the deadline is thats good pr.

Pretty much this. I don't think that if we had responded quickly the article would have been much different. It seems that Nathan had done his research and was going to print what he did whatever we responded with.

That's what I read from it. 

I've only just considered that he may have been insinuating that we hadn't even responded.

I guess that's because I saw Colin hit the reply button.

Ah well, onwards.