Metagame 003: Please Stop Saying Bad Things
"my friend has 11 concurrent viewers on twitch, how many does he need to safely buy gold?"
Holy moly this newsletter is wildly unpredictable. I came in expecting to write one thing and came out writing something else entirely. The power of live processing, which, lol, at least you can tell that's how AI isn't writing this. It wouldn't just change its mind halfway through a column.
What we're covering this week:
- The Witcher 3 Remastered "Launches"
- Perhaps the most player focused move in gaming this year might be the reason nobody ever tries it again
- Fast responsive comms only helps if you have something real to say
- Every studio thinks it needs to answer in 72 hours - but a lot of the time, it only makes matters worse
- A Correction and Developments to the PUBG Story: It's Complicated
- Two pros cried on Vietnamese state TV and Korean players laughed at them instead. KRAFTON has still said nothing
- GTA VI Bought Out the Miami Heat
- I'm so fucking annoyed I'll never do anything this cool
1. No Good Deed Goes Unreviewed
Overall, this story is a bummer to me. You try to do the right thing. You come up with a brilliant idea that is truly player focused and creates incredible headlines: we're going to remaster our most beloved game... for FREE. And you'll get it automatically if you own the game. Just as a way to say thanks for being a fan.
I honestly fucking love this strategy. It rules.
But like all things - rubber hits the road - and reality is not as clean as it is in the strategy deck when you pitch it internally.
Because the game automatically replaced your existing version of The Witcher 3, it meant you got this remaster no matter what. Without your choice. And that becomes even more problematic if it doesn't work, breaking a game that was working fine for you previously.
AMD cards were rendering textures completely black, including Geralt, causing other performance issues, and if your file path in Windows had non-Roman characters in it, usually Japanese, Chinese, or Korean, your PC save files just didn't work. And when you break something that you love that has been working you... you tend to get mad really quickly. No matter how rational it is.
From a guy who has 157 hours in the game.
CDPR has already diagnosed and fixed the save issue, given instructions on how to resolve the AMD driver issues, delivered a hotfix patch quickly for consoles and PC, promised a fix for the bloom issues in the next update and a fix for blurry handheld mode on Switch 2.
Launch-day Steam reviews came in at 68.3% on a game that has been 96% for over a decade. And this is where we get into something we've been talking about over the last couple issues. This growing divide between user reviews, critic reviews, and reality. Because yeah, you COULD frame the story as - OMG - a game so beloved for years came in at 68.3% on steam - but the issue is - this isn't any company. This is CDPR and Witcher 3. A company that brought the disastrous launch of Cyberpunk back from laughing stock to another beloved title. And so yeah, you have some people complaining about some of the issues with the remaster, but in response to the same review above, you get comments like this:
Oh right, and the game hit a new all time high of concurrent players on Steam on launch day.
Long term, hell, even short term, I think CDPR is going to be fine. They've built so much brand equity, jumped on the issues quickly, and communicated it out to players fast. This always happens with product launches, things are busted, they are broken for a bit, but then they get fixed and people get over it. It's also part of CDPR's brand unfortunately lol. Everyone knows their shit is buggy at launch.
I think the thing that's more interesting is, because of the really interesting launch strategy of just giving it to players for free, and automatically, you get a ton of critical people coming out of the woodwork comparing the state of the remaster to the original game.
Take this review from a Polish player, CDPR's home market.
Roughly: "the current remaster stripped the game of its soul, a visual catastrophe!!!" Again, peep that 757 hour play time. Because remastering a title is always going to be subjective. How do you keep the soul of the original piece? People have been asking this question about art for generations. While I think a lot of the conversation is people raging out because gamers gonna rage, I also get it on some level:
Looking at the screenshot quickly, the right does in fact, lack some might say soul. At the least, it's a little more color washed. Which is a stylistic choice, and the bloom issues CPR is looking at.
Which leads me to perhaps, the most depressing thing about this whole ordeal. CDPR tried to do an insanely player first thing that would make them little additional revenue. And instead, because of how launch went, and because they chose to just automatically give it to people, it invited all the hot takes comparing the two versions and players getting insanely upset about performance issues.
And guess what? If they had launched this as a new, paid product, or at the least, a download you opted into, the conversation would be different. Players would understand it's a new version of a product. It's going to be buggy. They'd understand that it's a remaster, and so of course it's going to be different, but they'd choose to opt into it instead of having to be forced on them.
Now let's say you were a really cynical executive inside a studio and watched this unfold. The next time someone tried to pitch you an idea like this, what would you say? Wait, you're telling me we're leaving revenue on the table to have people get mad at us? Why wouldn't we just sell it.
This is the thing that depresses the shit out of me. But it just goes to show that when you have massive audiences, every detail matters. Because love and hate are two sides of the same coin of passion.
2. Speed Only Helps If You Have Something to Say
I've been thinking about this a lot, especially coming off the Witcher 3 story above. It seems like in the modern era, speed is everything when it comes to comms. Players wants answers NOW. Or they're going to tank your Steam reviews. Post negative comments. And honestly, yeah, I do believe that if you can say something to provide information or help the situation, of course you wanna move fast.
I think the issue is knowing where and when it matters. Because posting negative reviews and comments is free. It doesn't cost a player anything to do that. As opposed to the work that goes into making something. And often times, it can turn into playing whack-a-mole with negative player sentiment. You're always going to have vocal, unhappy players. And you're always going to have an attention economy that is fueled by negative take clickbait ("Is X game dying?", etc.).
And so I think the challenge for a modern comms and publishing professional is when to be fast, and when to be slower and strategic. Speed isn't always good. Take the Witcher 3 Remaster. It was probably good that CDPR responded quickly around "launch" to show they knew what players were upset about and how they were actually going to fix it. But even if they hadn't, I think the review scores and conversation would have stabilized over time anyway. In this case, because they knew the fixes, it was smart for them to go fast.
But take another example. I wrote about it last week, the community sentiment around Marvel Rivals removing the option to report hate speech. It actually came up in a comment last week from a reader:
I really like this comment a ton, because a lot of times, product teams and publishing teams commit unforced errors because they don't even know... what they are trying to say. The outrage is the problem. So must fix the outrage.
But responding to outrage so that players aren't upset, so that you can keep making money, is not a core value lol. I mean. I guess it IS a value. But is it an inspiring one? Take Allen's point on Callaway Golf and Converse. The lack of perspective and values is the perspective, and you can see really clearly that the only value they care about in that moment is PLEASE STOP SAYING BAD THINGS ABOUT US.
And so look, I'm not defending Marvel Rivals or anything, because I don't love what they are doing. But they said jack shit. And reviews rebounded anyway: 43% on September 26 to 61% October 3.
I honestly had another thought for this column when I started writing it, but I think I'm landing on something different which is really interesting.
Fast responsive comms matter when you already have a clear point of view, cultural/brand values you've proven out over time, understand the player pain and how to fix it, and will actually fucking do it. If yes to all four, then fire off the rocket cannon! Respond away!
But often times, fast responsive comms more than anything, highlights the lack of point of view, the lack of brand values, the lack of understanding the actual player pain, and the lack of the company actually doing anything about it. And so you end up with generalized statements. And so weirdly, in NetEase's case, not to dunk on them but, lol, I don't think they're known for having these player values. In a weird way, not saying anything is actually stronger than making some fluffy statement that they won't actually follow through on. God. This is fucking depressing.
There's another reason that companies get pressured into fast, rapid comms quickly. Internal pressure. Whether it's because the CEO or someone else who is important is getting tagged in angry messages or DMs or people internally are upset. You do the fast rapid response comms for players. But you do it for people inside the studio. To show that you do "understand".
But that's the other dark path it puts a lot of comms and publishing teams in. They have to respond fast to help with the internal pressure and temperature. But if the studio is actually not going to do anything or doesn't care about the feedback, you're stuck having to say something that will satiate the masses, knowing the studio is not actually going to follow-up on it. Or the worse sin of all: they THINK they are player focused but don't actually act that way in their decisions. That's true long term comms hell.
Take this review from something that I don't wanna put anyone on blast with, but I think it communicates the point better than I can on this comms tension:
"The game is awful, and the developers actually don’t understand that despite the fact that people drop the game super quick and submit the same - ignored - feedback. It’s insane that you guys have somehow managed to read the room even worse than [redacted] did with [redacted]. Congratulations on wasting all the talent on your team.
This is what it looks like when fast responsive comms debt catches up to you. You can say you understand players. You can say that "you hear them" and "care about their feedback," but if you don't actually value it or don't actually show up in how you act. Then fuck man. Have fun spending the rest of your life spinning any comms the studio does moving forward.
If you wanna see the original chart I put together that inspired this story, 6 major publishers had to deal with rapid response comms issues this week. The work for sure isn't going away anytime soon:
3. PUBG Correction: It's Complicated.
Last week I led with the main story of PUBG's difficulties in Vietnam, because I often think that a lot of people don't cover major non-English/Western stories. And there is a clear reason for this. Because sometimes, they miss some of the nuance. But let it be known I'm always open to hot takes and corrections.
The original reader who tipped me off about the story was also nice enough to tell me where I missed the mark - because this story is exceptionally complicated.
Someone hire this man instead of me, lol.
This is the issue with publishing a global live service game, the international tensions are going to cause insane problems that you can't always control. I used to deal with this all the time. One thing in one market is going to be geopolitically offensive in another market, and it's a hard thing to balance: publishing an unapologetically global game while also not fucking putting your foot in your mouth.
Take this overall issue. It's been more than ten days, KRAFTON hasn't said jack shit about the situation in Vietnam (minus the fact that they are pulling the plug on their new title PUBG: Black Budget). It did however tell Korean press it plans to "maintain the Vietnam market."
And then, on Vietnam's state-owned cable network VTVcab, they gave Himass and TanVuu, the two banned players, a live segment, where they talked about how unfair everything was and that they will never play PUBG again, even if the ban is lifted. TanVuu even called his mom during the segment and cried, with his mom saying "heaven doesn't fail those who try."
Same clip now in Korea tho - Korean players are making fun of TanVuu, saying "You'd think WE were the ones stream-sniping." I'm not going to link to the post in Korean, because the comments there are pretty ugly. Getting into making fun of TanVuu's mom and Vietnamese people in general.
And this is where live games publishing gets hard. Because what are you supposed to do when it gets into history that goes back decades. Not to mention, the complexities of working with a different government. And now players in Vietnam are reporting they can't reliably reach Steam at all, and nobody official will say why:
Or: "Steam effectively blocked in Vietnam? Even downloads and updates disrupted".
So look, there's not really a point to this story besides, publishing games on a global scale, especially live service games, is really, really fucking hard. It's easy to critique and give games companies a hard time for their scale and bureaucracy, but the first time you're in a job and you get told a government has thoughts on your game, it really wakes you the fuck up, fast.
And to be fair, when people are making games, wanting people to play them together, who the fuck is thinking about this type of shit. No one gets into making games thinking, okay, but what happens if I accidentally step into the political tensions between Korea and Vietnam. What's my pivot plan lol. You just want the game to be fucking fun and a good time. But this is why working in games is hard.
Or you know. Just make a Dressmaking game that's topping the steam charts and clips on TikTok and call it a day.
4. Shit, I'm Jealous of Rockstar
In a world where I'm fucking posting a newsletter with a chart about the speed of response time of publishers to players, Rockstar has literally gotten the Miami fucking Heat to play in a Vice City themed arena with GTA VI Vice City jerseys the day before GTA VI launches. Fuck me man. I'll never do anything cool with my life.
The announcement post doubled its views in a day and some of the Vice City merch already sold out.
That's it. It's just fucking cool. I have nothing else to say. I'm seething with jealousy.
Only four stories this week, but the first two were pretty meaty. So I think it's still worth the price of admission: which is, you know, free.
That said, I love it when you share the newsletter with your friends and colleagues. It's the best way to grow the newsletter honestly. So hit that forward button!
But better yet, hit reply. I would rather have your comments and hot takes back at me than a forward. I love hearing from y'all. But ya know. I'll take the forward too.
See you next Sunday.