GGG, Kripp, Beta, Botters, Oh, my!

Personal disclaimer: I am trying to remain objective in my writing and I apologize if I appear salty or biased. I have been playing POE a very long time – since the first day of open beta and I couldn't care less about the current beta program. I am just BORED. Like most of us. Even the racing is getting old and I just delete my tabs rather than sort them now.

Be warned, the read is long and without TL:DR, but if you make it to the end, I would love to have a healthy discussion on any of these points.

GGG and Community Synergy
I recently heard that what separates GGG from other game developers and publishers, is the level of community support and involvement.

Through the nature of my work, I observe trending and valuations of knowledge and assets that are not easily measured or quantified. So, for the past couple years, I have been watching the POE community grow and evolve – and like Yin-Yang, GGGs engagement with its fan base also increased and became more refined.

This relationship originally hinged the success of the business on community support - stemming from its supporter packs, signature itemization and purchasable in-game effects (Pay-to-look-good) microtransations. This was really the best and worst thing that happened to GGG. You literally have an iteration of crowd-funding, which bestows certain responsibilities and obligations to both sides.

The challenge this presents is; that the more successful your business is, the more voice your financial supporters feel they have – and they can become the loud minority, which every business fears.

But the community is made up of more than this group, and each segment is just as important as the other to the bottom line.

This brings me to the first segment that makes up the POE community. The casuals, the Hardcore, no-lifers, game addicts, the steamers and the multi-boxers, 8-year olds tired of Minecraft, 60 year olds who’s pensions can only support them playing POE on a potato.

I am in this group and I think we represent the largest contingent of the POE community. Our investment is “time-in” with our 25 characters, 1000’s of hours played, contributions to Reddit, POE forums, maybe even the Wiki. Maybe you created a tool or app, or even write extensive player guides.

We are the drain on the system.
Many feel that this “dedication” has value from GGGs perspective. Some may not agree and some may not understand, but the reality of this segment of the player population is that; “We” are the drain on the system and are on the opposite side of the balance sheet. Giving any one of us a Beta Key, will not help GGG meet its financial goals.

From a business standpoint, you need to increase your ROI in areas that generate revenue and reduce your costs to the business. Releasing beta keys to streamers, media outlets and selected partners that promote and extend your reach of the game is all an effort to drive revenue (supporter packs and MTX).

It doesn’t matter if you have been banned 6 times - if you have over 100,000 subs, GGG wants access to those subs. They care less for the attitude of the personality of the streamer as long as it’s not harmful to the brand in the long term, and leads them to people with a paypal account.

Kripp, Chris and [We are experiencing technical difficulties]
Next we have the streaming Twitchers, VODs, YouTubers, and personalities that really “work” to promote your product. While there is no formal relationship with GGG, successful streamers are driven by the audience, and as such can represent the voice of a large group of people. These are people that you want to choose carefully, but in the same breath, can be a great marketing tool (Channel).

I noticed that Chris is careful where to spend time in promoting POE with respect to leveraging the streaming community. During the Kripp live feed, Chris appeared and dedicated time to Kripp and his viewers. At first, there were technical issues and Kripp gave Chris several “outs” to save the channel and the feed. (There were audio issues that killed the quality of the feed).

99% of program directors would have staged things in advance and cancelled the show/re-scheduled if there were technical issues. It really brought a question to light – “Why didn’t Chris work out the technical issues and join the live stream the following day?”

One reason could be, is that he needed a 25-hour day the following day and couldn’t schedule time. He could have prior engagements or needed to be in mission control. But I still thought it was odd that it was Kripp’s channel Chris joined (echoing the sentiments in the twitch chat), and not a more prolific POE streamer like ZiggyD that he chose to spend his valuable time in. Perhaps he really values Kripps feedback and love for the genre and wanted to get live reaction.

I won’t speculate further, but the business guy inside me feels it was a strategic move to not use a dedicated POE streamer like ZiggyD because, ZDs feed would bring in people who already play or have invested in the game, but choosing Kripp’s channel, who has a large audience that follows him outside of POE (Hearthstone and whatnot), would provide a gateway to the perfect demographic and crop of new playerbase.

The beta program is broken for several reasons.
To gather real-world data, a public test environment usually is put together at the end of the development lifecycle when all major features and enhancements are complete and have undergone in-house testing. Obviously, this is not the case, as there are many talked-about features that are not yet in-game (lock-step being one of them, 1/3rd of Act IV content, etc).

I won’t mention the client crashes in this case, as there are always going to be client crashes and the ongoing minor patching to resolve them throughout each of POEs lifecycles.

This is not a call-out to GGG, as all indie development studios suffer from the same constraints. People are wearing multiple hats, impossible deadlines, lack of proper funding and ambitious goals. Lack of resourcing is not the only obvious issue here – the other being quality of release. To do it right, it takes time (Duke Nukem Forever notwithstanding).

We also know that iterations of the game are usually in the works for several years (I won’t digress to the benefits of Agile development methodologies) and that you need to set hard and soft targets based on financial and environmental constraints. (The money will run out some time).

Everything was being kept a secret from GGGs camp, and for good reasons I am sure. I suspect that critical path timelines for release were a moving target as a result of an ambitious feature and enhancement scope that promised to be bigger than Forsaken Masters.

Missteps from GGG
Another issue with the beta program is the mixed signals, messages and ideas on the purpose of the Beta program. First, we have heard that GGG wants to properly test the integrity of the system and work out bugs and interaction issues. Then we are told that it is to test out new content. Thirdly, the message everyone has been receiving is that they want to re-balance OP skills and combinations. And finally, they want broad stroke test community interactions in the playtest environments (regional, new players, seasoned veterans.. etc)

So why has GGG not placed restrictions or barriers of entry on the Beta key program to assuage our pain when we see email bot driven accounts get the keys that everyone feels entitled to? Again, the answer is a combination of a simple marketing strategy and a poor execution.

Putting aside the bot accounts, Chris spent weeks pumping up everyone’s tires on this new release. To you and I, it means fresh content, more gems, more uniques and a passive reset. But it has a different meaning to GGG internal. It’s the signature “FINISH HIM” move to end a long business cycle.

The success or failure of the next 5 years rests on creating this next platform for injecting new revenue and growth. The Beta was used to keep the Hype-Train fueled for another 2 months (a synthetic extension for the business).

It would be similar to a car company putting a prototype on display at the auto show, and talking at length about all the innovations that will be revealed – except there are engineers working under the white sheet at that very moment.

A risky business move which takes Brass Bs to pull off, but if managed properly, it could turn a bad situation into a satisfactory one. But this marketing strategy opened up a severe flaw in the beta program.

I would speculate that over 1000 beta keys would be comped out to VIPs, strategic partners and set aside for promo/give-aways. GGG has no effective way of distinguishing a new VIP account, from one generated through a botted signup. In both scenarios, these accounts would be zero-day, character null accounts. It would take manual effort to review account names and hope the botter hasn’t scripted a scramble script for the name field.

Content-Starved Masses
I do think that there was an underestimation from GGG’s perspective regarding the community’s’ reaction to the beta signup, how keys would be distributed and how fairness would be managed, as each segment weighed in on the Beta program and the delay of the next expansion.

I think that there was a failure to address the community in a timely and appropriate manner. I also believe that the handling of the scheduling brought about many unanticipated problems that GGG could not manage and were painted into a corner, namely, what to do with content-starved masses.

Starting with the Bloodlines/Torment 1 Month league announcement, people inferred many things about the release schedule for the new Path of Exile expansion. Most of us believed that the one-month race was the point at which the expansion was moving out of design phase, and into implementation and that we’d see 3 days to organize our race tabs sitting in our standard hideout oasis – and then chew the remaining bits of our fingernails off waiting for the 5Gb download to finish and click that golden Launch button.

But no, that is not what happened. We were all shocked with news that once the 1 Month race ended, we would be sent back to purgatory for 2 months. Worse yet, we were also informed that not only would we be forced to stare at marauders standing in Sarn taller than the ramp to the Slums, that anyone with the ability to cheat the system would get to play the new content first and proceed to W.I.N. when the fresh leagues start knowing from the start what the new meta will be (and monopolize the markets in the process).

The next Faux-pas was one that caused probably the most pain for all parties. The countdown timer showing blatantly the naming standards chosen by the email/account botters. We all know that throughout the Beta, these low-life’s will create 1000 accounts a day and sell keys for up to $10,000 a pop. This would be a day’s take for any RMT setup and they would gladly pay the entrance fee.

GGGs poor formed response to this violation has done more harm than good, as we see the botters are still getting keys and their names are surrounded with an artistic marquee on the front page of the official POE site.

I have to ask myself when the community manager would take the reins and really help the company understand its fan base and reaction to certain business decisions. Like what putting a counter on the front page with names of accounts would do, and the possible opportunities for harassment to a legitimate player. Or form an announcement addressing some of the major issues surrounding the release and the gaps in timing.

Chris has stated that all this was done in the interest of transparency. I do feel that this is a bit of spin, but again, I don’t want to speculate and I don’t have access to any internal discussions. But it all does feel like mis-direction to me.

20/20 Hindsight
They really should have made the current 1M race into a full 3 months. I am barely going to get 7/8 for my MTXz and I have a wonderful wife, active child and demanding job (or is it demanding wife, wonderful child and an active job?!?). Then you could have run the Beta program on the existing timeline, but at least the user-base would not be left in the cold.

Ideally, the 1M race should end at April 24th – ONLY if you had follow up events to bridge the 2 months. Even something as simple as all invasion mobs/bosses/exiles are possessed by a random tormented spirit. Or strongboxes have a fog (similar to the bloodline mod) and can’t be identified before opening.

Hope this helps some understand the complexity of what GGG has on their plate and the tightrope the company has to walk in order to survive.

Regards,

ST


IGN: Grave_Intentions
$$$ Grave Intentions Flame Totem MFarmer: I'm Cheap 'n' Easy $$$
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/979802
Last edited by Fri3dchick3m on Apr 21, 2015, 9:14:09 PM
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Amazing read. Good job.
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SL4Y3R wrote:
Amazing read. Good job.


agreed
couldn't care less*
so good i read in chinese
"
Erionn wrote:
couldn't care less*

Technically, I could care less than I currently do - but thanks for the edit advice :D
IGN: Grave_Intentions
$$$ Grave Intentions Flame Totem MFarmer: I'm Cheap 'n' Easy $$$
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/979802
While you nailed the vast majority of the post - I have to state that GGG MUST have something already planned to 'bridge the gap'

They would be committing Company seppoku if they didn't. and the community has already inferred that we have 2 things going before act 4. The one month leagues were one, and the other is...Cutthroat? Maybe?

Regardless - a good lecture. Maybe some people might understand how GGG is still baby's first company, blundering around without a full PR team to craft their community stuff and they're just doing it on their own...
"If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent. […] the skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is." ~David Dunning
"
Fri3dchick3m wrote:
"
Erionn wrote:
couldn't care less*

Technically, I could care less than I currently do - but thanks for the edit advice :D


That aside, I think they have mentioned running events during the 2 months gap while Beta is going on. Haven't gone much into specifics, though I think Chris mentioned some stuff on Kripp's stream like Cutthroat and Exiles Everywhere, possibly a longer term Exiles Everywhere event.
Last edited by Erionn on Apr 21, 2015, 9:19:26 PM
You do make some valid points...however I still dont personally think it matters because its their beta and they can roll it out anyway they see fit.
ign:TedCruzMissle
It has to be textwallday - Charan posted an equal textwall a few hours ago. Keep up the good work so we have at least something to read until we get a beta key or the beta is over. ^^
German saying: Schönheit und Funktionalität in Sekundenschnelle zu ruinieren, ist dem wahren Dilettanten keine Herausforderung!
torturo: "Though, I'm really concerned, knowing by practice the capabilities of the balance team."
top2000: "let me bend your rear for a moment exile"
Last edited by 666lol666 on Apr 21, 2015, 9:20:09 PM

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