How Could CA Improve their Relationship with the Community?

[Fredrin]

They really should be paying you to do this, as you're basically doing them a massive service. In fact, there should be somebody at CA whose job it is to report back on community engagement. I don't know who this person is, but it might be interesting to see if said person can be found - I recall back in the day, the official CA-run total war forums on their own website did occasionally have posts from CA employees. Might be worth seeking them out and direct messaging them.

Considering how much fun I've had with Total War over the years, I don't mind doing it as a labour of love and also out of personal interest to see what other people think.

And rest assured, I've sent numerous emails to members of their community team, both handing over results and offering them a pretty much unlimited amount of input into the surveys themselves.

No prizes for guessing whether or not I got any response

I've sent results direct to Rob Bartholomew accompanied by a polite and respectful covering letter and have emails from people internally in CA confirming it's been forwarded to him and his team... still no response. I presume they can't be seen to acknowledge it because that would require them to face up to some extremely inconvenient figures about customer satisfaction and community engagement.

Could be worth approaching him and other prominent YouTube users who post Total War reviews. YouTube is serious business these days - for example, user PewDiePie has achieved over 10 billion views for his YouTube videos, gaining him more viewers than the entire CNN network.

Will definitely let you know if I hear back on that tweet. Good luck! And feel free to PM me if you need any help/tips for getting in touch with journalists.

Thanks mate, will take you up on that I think. The only thing that's dissuaded me from doing it before was the grandiose notion that if it did get picked up in the media, that would maybe land a few bods at CA in hot water. But if they're not even going to deign to acknowledge these numbers and come out with an even more egregious bit of cut content DLC than last time, then... em, frankly!

Anyone else who would like to help get this out into the public arena via social media or just ol fashioned media, all the numbers you need are right here

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0a...ew?usp=sharing

http://imgur.com/a/Skuoi

Hopefully the message will get through before their release schedule for Warhammer is set in stone.

[Fredrin]

... and what might we do to guide them in the right direction?

I know this doesn't apply to some here who regard the Chaos preorder as a perfectly legit marketing tactic. Fair enough. Personally, I don't... for a host of reasons which have been reiterated on every TW forum thousands of times since October 22nd.

My question is this: if you are disillusioned about the recent announcement and considering withholding your custom, what would they have to do win you back on side?

A follow-up question is: what do you think is the most constructive strategy for communicating our thoughts to the relevant person at CA/SEGA who might actually be able to influence the situation? Or is that an entirely lost cause?

I notice from this article that their new European Marketing Director is a guy called Jon Rooke. He moved to SEGA from CA just earlier this year. In another article he..

...admits that Sega has not done a “great job over the last four years” in communicating its brand values and engagement has

subsequently “died down”, Rooke says Sega is interested in refreshing its heritage.

So, he's worked at Creative Assembly, he knows SEGA's image is rubbish and may have actually been the person to sign off the preorder decision.

It may be worth dropping him a friendly tweet here on his Twitter page letting him know your thoughts.

[Fredrin]

Another advisable destination for your thoughts on the matter: Dan Sheridan, SEGA's new community manager. Seen here conspicuously making reference to the Total War humble bundle and here conspicuously announcing some "monster news" (Chaos preorder) with the CA community guys the day before it happened... at CA headquarters no less.


You could share your thoughts with him here: https://twitter.com/thisisactionman

[Manu La Canette]

A cookie?

[craziii]

since rome 2 and the way some posters act on this forum, there is nothing, nothing that ca can do. ca should never waste resources or pay any mind to them. hell just 2 replies and one of them act like ca "owes" something to them. that is just a weird state of mind. and it speaks volumes to the poster's sanity.

[Frost, colonel]

Simply undo that which caused the grief, have Chaos as a free DLC without having to pre-order the game. Who knows they may even get more pre-orders, because it was this stunt that actually reminded me not to pre-order.
Even then I doubt I will pre-order because for £50 I want reviews this time, 2 hrs on play on Steam in which to decide is not enough, or prob not? and I would prefer a hard copy, I don't like digital down loads.
Someone posted the new regulations for consumer rights saying we have 30 days, but I don't want a legal wrangle and the time and grief involved.

As crazii points out there is nothing CA can do since RTWII for some of us, except earn back trust over time by not lying in those pre release video's(absolute bold face lies at times), stop pulling shady tricks like this current one, and produce decent games that are actually finished at launch. Where we can believe that any DLC is genuine and not something we feel is adding to a bit of a shell of a base game.
For £50 we should get a nicely fleshed out, well padded in depth base game. This includes good looking rosters, with good looking troops.

I have no problem with buying lots of decent DLC, in the Warhammer world there must be a tonne of stuff they can offer us which is genuine DLC, enough to make all three of them happy(GW, Sega and good ol CA).
If they could do this, which in part means Sega have to actually let CA do their job, then they will eventually gain a decent reputation, word of mouth(including social media) means alot amongst gamers.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

since rome 2 and the way some posters act on this forum, there is nothing, nothing that ca can do. ca should never waste resources or pay any mind to them.

I agree, not really much they can do.

Maybe if they made Druchii look like they did in the 6th edition, and not the current line up.
That would please even the most "anti CA" people on TWC.
That is yhe only right cause right now!!!

But seriously I did notice that some of the people who hated the news that CA was making a warhammer game.
Is also the same now, who complain about the pre-order DLC.

Personally I am fine people complain about, but when people says that CA = EA, I do think they went abit far.

[Frost, colonel]

Excellent posts Fredrin,

May I remind people, whatever you do, make sure if you tweet either of these chaps, think hard about what you say, no childish abuse, it won't help.

[Charerg]

since rome 2 and the way some posters act on this forum, there is nothing, nothing that ca can do. ca should never waste resources or pay any mind to them. hell just 2 replies and one of them act like ca "owes" something to them. that is just a weird state of mind. and it speaks volumes to the poster's sanity.

Well, seeing that the Like/Dislike ratio in the Chaos Warriors announcement video right now is 2625 vs 30 908, I agree that the best business strategy for CA would indeed be to ignore about 90% of the people interested in TW: Warhammer and concentrate on making a game for the remaining 10%. Since the goal is to reduce the playerbase to the 1/10 of its present size, only including the "true fans" who agree with everything CA does, the price of the game should also be increased by 1000%. About 600 € sounds fair to me.

[Fredrin]

I basically just posted this OP with more neutral wording in the Steam forums. Thread deleted, 3 day ban from the discussion pages -_- Seems a bit overboard to me...

[Huberto]

Well, seeing that the Like/Dislike ratio in the Chaos Warriors announcement video right now is 2625 vs 30 908, I agree that the best business strategy for CA would indeed be to ignore about 90% of the people interested in TW: Warhammer and concentrate on making a game for the remaining 10%. Since the goal is to reduce the playerbase to the 1/10 of its present size, only including the "true fans" who agree with everything CA does, the price of the game should also be increased by 1000%. About 600 € sounds fair to me.

well played
And thanks for the OP Fredrin.

I basically just posted this OP with more neutral wording in the Steam forums. Thread deleted, 3 day ban from the discussion pages -_- Seems a bit overboard to me...

I think they are going hard for suppression right now, to see if the fuss dies down. They're afraid of AJ, but AJ has a short attention span. Also Games Workshop or whatever it's called must be upset now, realizing how much baggage is involved in a partnership with SEGA/CA.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015...hop-licensing/

[DavidtheDuke]

I think they are going hard for suppression right now, to see if the fuss dies down. They're afraid of AJ, but AJ has a short attention span. Also Games Workshop or whatever it's called must be upset now, realizing how much baggage is involved in a partnership with SEGA/CA.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015...hop-licensing/

GW has a much more ingrained and worse reputation than CA/SEGA, really.

I've been pretty cynical of CA for many years for the same reasons since Rome really. It's a love/hate relationship as I love their games but hate both how they do things sometimes and also how the community flips out over things too much as well (kind of like now TBQH).

I'll be pretty surprised if Warhammer comes out relatively smooth, even as I've heard people give feeddback that the dwarf battle played pretty well. We haven't even begun to see how sieges or Vampire Counts work (they could be super buggy bla bla).

[craziii]

Well, seeing that the Like/Dislike ratio in the Chaos Warriors announcement video right now is 2625 vs 30 908, I agree that the best business strategy for CA would indeed be to ignore about 90% of the people interested in TW: Warhammer and concentrate on making a game for the remaining 10%. Since the goal is to reduce the playerbase to the 1/10 of its present size, only including the "true fans" who agree with everything CA does, the price of the game should also be increased by 1000%. About 600 € sounds fair to me.

yea, ca 100% should base their business strategy on the like and dislike buttons on a youtube video. hell, fire everyone from their pr team and just use those 2 buttons. as a "true fan" I want to tell you to stuff it and don't buy the game vote with your wallet fyi, 300k views, 30k dislikes that is 10% ahahahahahaa. I can't help but laugh at you right now. as long as ca can get more from the remaining 90% the 10% can off for all they care. can you comprehend?

damn I just realized I got pulled into the stupid game of discussing assumptions.

[Woody0]

I do not seeing them making an honest apology, there actions will be based on what they think will bring in the most revenue.

I really do not have to trust them just have them make a game I enjoy for a price a feel is fair for the content included.

[Woody0]

yea, ca 100% should base their business strategy on the like and dislike buttons on a youtube video. hell, fire everyone from their pr team and just use those 2 buttons. as a "true fan" I want to tell you to stuff it and don't buy the game vote with your wallet fyi, 300k views, 30k dislikes that is 10% ahahahahahaa. I can't help but laugh at you right now. as long as ca can get more from the remaining 90% the 10% can off for all they care. can you comprehend?

damn I just realized I got pulled into the stupid game of discussing assumptions.

Well you left out the important part 2,000 likes vs 30,000 dislikes.

Those dislikes have more of an effect then you may think.

How many times have you purchased something online and picked one product over another because people you do not know said one product was better by1 or 2 stars more? If not you are in the minority, customer ratings online can mean a sell gained or lost. Those stars and thumbs up or down are given by the minority since most people do not bother to rate or review products.

[craziii]

Well you left out the important part 2,000 likes vs 30,000 dislikes.

Those dislikes have more of an effect then you may think.

How many times have you purchased something online and picked one product over another because people you do not know said one product was better by1 or 2 stars more? If not you are in the minority, customer ratings online can mean a sell gained or lost. Those stars and thumbs up or down are given by the minority since most people do not bother to rate or review products.

my post was basically a direct response using his own tactics :/ I thought it was laid out perfectly, easy to understand etc, damn.

[Vardeus]

No morrions on imperial troops will do it for me.

[frenchyvinnie]

yea, ca 100% should base their business strategy on the like and dislike buttons on a youtube video.

I'm going to have to enlighten you right here. I work as a community manager for a decently sized firm in Canada (200m/y $ in revenue). We release some videos as adverts for new product releases and we pay A LOT of attention to community reactions. And yes, that mostly means checking the general mood in the comment section and the like/dislike ratio, along with some more technical stuff (impression rate, visualization rate, etc). That's literally community management 101.

Why do we pay attention to something as petty as youtube comments and dislikes you may ask? Because it's a perfect (and free) way to get immediate feedback from your consumer base. No need to annoy your consumers with polls, or post-sale phone calls, or emails asking for a review of our products and/or staff performance.

From experience, I can also assure you that platforms like youtube or facebook are usually very representative of our total consumer base, since pretty much anyone turn up on those platforms. Reddit and forums usually cater to a smaller and more specific audience, so we pay slightly less attention to them.

So if Craig Laycock (the global lead community manager for TW at CA) isn't anxiously reading the comments on the Chaos DLC trailer, then he isn't doing his job properly.

[craziii]

I'm going to have to enlighten you right here. I work as a community manager for a decently sized firm in Canada (200m/y $ in revenue). We release some videos as adverts for new product releases and we pay A LOT of attention to community reactions. And yes, that mostly means checking the general mood in the comment section and the like/dislike ratio, along with some more technical stuff (impression rate, visualization rate, etc). That's literally community management 101.

Why do we pay attention to something as petty as youtube comments and dislikes you may ask? Because it's a perfect (and free) way to get immediate feedback from your consumer base. No need to annoy your consumers with polls, or post-sale phone calls, or emails asking for a review of our products and/or staff performance.

From experience, I can also assure you that platforms like youtube or facebook are usually very representative of our total consumer base, since pretty much anyone turn up on those platforms. Reddit and forums usually cater to a smaller and more specific audience, so we pay slightly less attention to them.

So if Craig Laycock (the global lead community manager for TW at CA) isn't anxiously reading the comments on the Chaos DLC trailer, then he isn't doing his job properly.

I can say with 100% certainty that I would fire your company if you work for me. who the hell pays attention to youtube comments? let alone base their business decisions on it? reddit(the last couple of years has been really bad for it as it becomes just another manipulated medium for the companies) for sure, but youtube comments? really?

I can't say anything about face book or twitter, don't know enough about them. but we also aren't talking about them but youtube comments.

if you are talking about youtube comments + reddit + facebook + forums + twitter, now you got something. hell please leave out the youtube comments.

[frenchyvinnie]

I can say with 100% certainty that I would fire your company if you work for me. who the hell pays attention to youtube comments? let alone base their business decisions on it? reddit(the last couple of years has been really bad for it as it becomes just another manipulated medium for the companies) for sure, but youtube comments? really?

I can't say anything about face book or twitter, don't know enough about them. but we also aren't talking about them but youtube comments.

if you are talking about youtube comments + reddit + facebook + forums + twitter, now you got something. hell please leave out the youtube comments.

And what is specifically so bad with Youtube comments? Sure enough, people tend to be more vocal and exaggerated in their opinions on Youtube than on Facebook or twitter for example (they and curse and rant a lot more to put things plainly), but they are still a valuable source of info for any company uploading and posting things online. What makes Youtube especially valuable as a source of feedback is its large audience, similarly to twitter and facebook.

Reddit and forum users are a much smaller community. They are however more passionate about the company's products. They are the lead users if you wish, very useful to get detailed feedback once the product is released or to get new ideas. But if the company is trying to test the community's mood, facebook/twitter/youtube is the golden trio in community management.