This last weekend was something of a letdown for Champions Online players waiting to get paid this week and purchase the limited time $200 or $60 special subscription deals, both of which came with goodies both in-game and out. What essentially transpired was that, well, Cryptic unexpectedly reached their limit for lifetime and six-month specials.
It wasn’t the best of situations, and many community members are understandably upset by the sudden retraction of the offer.
I’ll note that Massively’s linked announcement doesn’t say anything about a limited number of these seats, just that it was available only until 1 September. Which is, um, not yet.
And the email I got on 22 August, just three days ago, says “Limited Champions Subscription Deals!” but mentions neither a date nor a quantity cap. Same for the one I got on 5 August.
And Cryptic’s official response:
We’d like to take a moment and hopefully clear up any confusion regarding our discounted Champions Online lifetime and six-month subscription offers…
First, we do sincerely apologize for the rather abrupt end to the promotional offers. It was never our intention to spring that news on our fans or anyone else. In short, we had an allotment of special subscription packages to sell over a fixed time (ending September 1). When we began approaching the offer cap before the date cap, we had to message. Frankly, we never suspected our special offers to be so popular.
Which seems like pretty poor planning on Cryptic’s part.
While we did mention that supplies were limited in an announcement post,
Which cannot be read right now because the forums are down.
we definitely should have emphasized our limits more explicitly in all our messaging.
Yup. Though it’s still remarkable that no limit was ever mentioned except for the initial announcement. Having a limited quantity is a known selling point. Not mentioning it is at best grossly negligent, at worst highly suspicious.
Again, we just never expected supply to be any kind of an issue. The community response to our offers has been… amazing.
It’s hard for all of us here at Cryptic to see outcry in our communities. We work day and night to create the best gaming experiences we can and any missteps – big or small – on the long, winding, and sometimes treacherous path of development are always regrettable.
We do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and we do sincerely hope you understand and come play Champions Online with us this September.
So … “We made a goof, but wasn’t it for a wonderful reason?”
Actually, the response should be, “Wow, we made a goof, and we realize that this has upset people, but we are so tickled by the interest in the game that this is how we’re going to make it up to you …”
If the financial picture makes extending the offers unreasonable, there’s any number of other bonuses you can offer. Sign up for a 6 month plan and get X free alt slots, or some other no-money-out-of-our-pockets QoL tchotchke. Make the customer feel like you really do care.
Mistakes get made. The worst mistakes are not fixing the first mistakes.
Or they could have even said, as my son finally pointed out, that they could only guarantee X number of closed beta slots for Star Trek Online, so they had to limit the number of subs that included that perk. But they still could have offered it without the STO beta or, like you said, apologized profusely and handed out in-game goodies.
As I wrote on the STO boards, I really hope there’s a different set of people at Cryptic in charge of that game. Since it’s the MMO that I’ve been waiting for since MMO’s were invented, I’m getting very nervous about it now.
I wasn’t planning on buying either offer, but it does sound like a bit of a balls up.
I really just wanted to reply to say ‘great post title Dave!’. 🙂
Thank — I’ll be here all week. Be sure an tip your waitress.
We’d actually pretty much decided to get the 6 month trial. As it stands … not sure what we’re doing, though we get 30 days free for the pre-order (which I still need to pick up from Gamespot, once they supposedly call me to tell me it’s in).
I was just warming up to looking at the cost structure this week (yup, I get paid this week . . .) and seeing what I’d be willing to shell out vs. how much the computer upgrades were going to cost me. Now I think I’ll just hang on until Knights of the Old Republic comes out.
Now, if Cryptic were to reverse this decision, even if it comes without the Beta invite to STO I’d look at it again.
Well poo, I was only going to get the game and the 6 month for the shot at the STO beta.