Broken Trust requires Restitution

[Kefa]

Well, if you've seen my posts at all, you know I've often been defensive of the company's position and motivation on things most all the time, and really try not to get caught up in the senseless "this company sucks bla bla bla" posts, even though they are often wrought from valid frustration, but here's some facts.

Yes, I finally got my units from the boss event, "Agent Frost", but...

-The different events in this game are advertised as ways to make yourself stronger in preparation leading up to the "World Domination" (war) event.

-We got splash screens showing us what the reward would be for finishing 100 bosses individually.

-We got splash screens showing us what the daily rewards would be for reaching the faction team goals each day.

-We got a goal in our goals folder telling us that if we got both 100 bosses and helped our faction reach 5 daily goals, we'd not only get those units, but also an additional special unit.

So, we spent our money feverishly to reach the goal in time, in order to have the stronger units for the upcoming war, which should have given us an advantage over any rivals who weren't able to accomplish the task.

We all know we didn't get the rewards before the war, and that Gree said we would get them on the 30th instead, but we didn't know that until AFTER they had our money. Yes, we finally got them, but after the event that would have highlighted their usefulness. What would the WD outcome have been had the ones who finished the boss events had the stats they should have had going in to the event? Minimize it if you like, but the truth is...

a) We spent real money to get them for this event.
b) We didn't get them in time for the event.
c) They plopped them in our inventory with no mention of anything in-game.

In Crime City they gave out 300 gold to everyone in the game after an event that had some issues.

I'm not normally a negative person, but because of this treatment, I did not purchas gold for this past WD (first time I played WD without buying gold since I started). In fact, I've pretty much decided that unless they make this right, I'm a free player now, if I even bother to keep playing.

I wasn't a huge spender, but I know the money I've spent would treated me to quite a few really nice evenings out on the town or some other things of value. The money had real value, and it benefited someone somewhere.

Customer service is everything, and this "calm down and relax" attitude will undo you if you don't put your customers first.

Seriously, check my post history, and you'll see I'm not one of these disgruntled, always-negative posters here. You can see my posts change over time from very supportive of a company making money to asking for specific improvements to make the game more valuable to criticizing some of the direction choices they've made that have made it less fun for me personally to now becoming an entirely dissatisfied customer.

Frankly, I regret everything I've spent at this point because of this recent treatment, but the friendships I've made have been rewarding. In fact, we've started playing a different game together in the past week, and stayed together as a team.

CJ, I think you are a truly good person who is in a bad spot. I did not like your "everybody just relax" comment, but I'm sure it comes from your own frustration of trying to succeed in an impossible position. CJ, you are an asset to the company, and I'm sure they don't appreciate you any more than they appreciate their paying customers, which isn't much at all, obviously.

Trust is broken, and if you want to regain it, you (Gree) are going to have to buy it back with something more than a trinket or token "sorry for the inconvenience". Why would I buy anything more after this, knowing that I may not actually receive the reward at the appointed time, and knowing that if something goes wrong the company won't back up their initial promises with good faith actions and restitution for their mistakes? You wouldn't do that, and neither will I.

[lemonhaze]

i agree very good post..the only thing that will ever make a differnce is if we stand together as a MW community..i know we are rivals in war but to have the change that is needed we must make a change or otherwise they will never have no incentive to make a change..when i see something from them on the game frist thing i think is they are lieing and it will be full of glitches then when its time for the rewards we pay for they dont get here..then they come on here and just act like we did something wrong infact we did do something wrong we tossed money at them once again..it will never change in MW for the better untill we decide to stop it..i have also went to free playing bc that way when we run into mistakes i wont have much of a say-so(which shouldnt be that way free player or gold) when each and ever one of us should be heard and not silenced..and not to mention all the gold spenders that spent alot for the medals in cuba only to find out they have more time to do the event...i also think CJ is in a very bad spot and hes the first one that has to deal with us and them so i understand what position he is in..sad day in MW and its getting worse with each passing minute

[Inimical]

" You wouldn't do that, and neither will I. "

But Apple will...

[mreilly]

i agree very good post..the only thing that will ever make a differnce is if we stand together as a MW community..i know we are rivals in war but to have the change that is needed we must make a change or otherwise they will never have no incentive to make a change..when i see something from them on the game frist thing i think is they are lieing and it will be full of glitches then when its time for the rewards we pay for they dont get here..then they come on here and just act like we did something wrong infact we did do something wrong we tossed money at them once again..it will never change in MW for the better untill we decide to stop it..i have also went to free playing bc that way when we run into mistakes i wont have much of a say-so(which shouldnt be that way free player or gold) when each and ever one of us should be heard and not silenced..and not to mention all the gold spenders that spent alot for the medals in cuba only to find out they have more time to do the event...i also think CJ is in a very bad spot and hes the first one that has to deal with us and them so i understand what position he is in..sad day in MW and its getting worse with each passing minute

Why would you quote his whole post when you were the first to respond? lol

[Goldilucks]

You guys ain't getting squat! If anything happens they will give the unit to people that don't deserve it just like the last time they dropped the ball on an event.

[andy2]

I have been saying this from the initial bug as you can find many of my posts on this thread: http://www.funzio.com/forum/showthread.php?77875-Boss-BUG-NO-GUASS-CANNON.

The customer service in this game is flat out attrocious. I sent in a ticket to get this exact issue resolved and the response was 'You will get the units on the 30th - closed'. I replied again asking for a response to the question I was asking. Same answer... one more time same answer. In the above thread I directly asked CJ and he actually said that there was no affect of the bug. How is that possible?

You also bring up a phenomenal point I have been pushing. NOTHING was mentioned about this bug IN GAME. How irresponsible is that. Instead it is like trying to pull teeth to get sidestepped answers instead of the company being as upfront as possible.

All in all it is too late to make up for this, just another pattern of the company not caring about its paying customers and I too will not be spending any more money on the game if I continue to play at all. They do not care, why should we?

[Mighty Min]

Sorry to inform you, but GREEd isn't interested in saving this game as its revenues are on decline, hence newly baked pancakes of same platform being baked on app store plenty available, just look up how frequent new ones pop up in this menu above, and this now is on decline slope of revenue bringing - just get real and find another [GREEd FREE] game...

[Weedjedi]

Whatever happened to this game...?

I've been playing for about 8 months now, and this is the first post I've been riled up enough to post on the forums.

I remember a time when with a little dedication and some alarms, to not waste energy regen, one could complete an ltq with little to no gold use. A time where bosses were possible to complete as long as you didn't level unintelligently with little to no gold use. In fact I remember a time where the only time I needed to use gold, and still see good stat gains, was during a WD event and the case events if I really wanted the 10 case prize. I remember a time when this game was fun.

And this company still was turning a respectable profit.

Now...I cannot complete a boss tier even with a 20x ratio without a vault. I cannot complete any ltqs without multiple vaults. There are no decent rewards for case events, unless I'm willing to spend a solid $1000 to compete with the top 250. I haven't seen an achievable energy regen bonus unit in several months (I got my first one without any gold usage.) In fact the only thing I am not thoroughly dissapointed with in this game is finding was to defeat the GREEd.

What happened to this game? It is no longer fun, it is a chore to get the use out of the thousands of hours of hard earned money I have funneled into this game when it was fun. This most recent boss event was enough to tip the scales for me. I may only be considered a moderate gold user, maybe four vaults a month, but that is my part done in sending GREE a message that I will not stand for this crap.

To sit there and to tell us to calm down and relax...How many people didn't get the unit, how many people out of those people spent at least a vault to get to level 100? The way I see this game is that I spent 100$ to have 100k boost in my attack, the arctic artillery wrapper prize. When that item isn't delivered in the advertised, nay promised, time frame then that is a breach of the "contract" of the boss events. It's called false advertising, something everyone who didn't get the unit on time could easily sue for.
In customer service, a field I've worked in for about 10 years now, when you deliver a substandard product or substandard experience the typical result is to give the person some form of restitution. These usually include but are not limited to:
1. An apology
2. A refund
3. A separate item to make the consumer happy
4. A duplicate item
5. A replacement item
6. Some form of all of these.

However, not with this company..they seem content with telling us to sit down, and shut the f*ck up.

Stay classy GREE.
Or maybe I should choose a different catch phase from the same movie...
Go f*ck yourselves, GREE.

[lemonhaze]

Why would you quote his whole post when you were the first to respond? lol lol no clue to be honest.i was trying to follow 6 posts all comeing in fast.my bad:p

[Kefa]

I guess they're just thinking, "Oh, well, another person went from being a happy gamer to an unsatisfied, disgruntled customer. No need to respond or address it... NEXT!"

Come on, CJ. You used to respond to me when I was on your defense. This is wrong what your company is doing.

[The Big E]

Whatever happened to this game...?

I've been playing for about 8 months now, and this is the first post I've been riled up enough to post on the forums.

I remember a time when with a little dedication and some alarms, to not waste energy regen, one could complete an ltq with little to no gold use. A time where bosses were possible to complete as long as you didn't level unintelligently with little to no gold use. In fact I remember a time where the only time I needed to use gold, and still see good stat gains, was during a WD event and the case events if I really wanted the 10 case prize. I remember a time when this game was fun.

And this company still was turning a respectable profit.

Now...I cannot complete a boss tier even with a 20x ratio without a vault. I cannot complete any ltqs without multiple vaults. There are no decent rewards for case events, unless I'm willing to spend a solid $1000 to compete with the top 250. I haven't seen an achievable energy regen bonus unit in several months (I got my first one without any gold usage.) In fact the only thing I am not thoroughly dissapointed with in this game is finding was to defeat the GREEd.

What happened to this game? It is no longer fun, it is a chore to get the use out of the thousands of hours of hard earned money I have funneled into this game when it was fun. This most recent boss event was enough to tip the scales for me. I may only be considered a moderate gold user, maybe four vaults a month, but that is my part done in sending GREE a message that I will not stand for this crap.

To sit there and to tell us to calm down and relax...How many people didn't get the unit, how many people out of those people spent at least a vault to get to level 100? The way I see this game is that I spent 100$ to have 100k boost in my attack, the arctic artillery wrapper prize. When that item isn't delivered in the advertised, nay promised, time frame then that is a breach of the "contract" of the boss events. It's called false advertising, something everyone who didn't get the unit on time could easily sue for.
In customer service, a field I've worked in for about 10 years now, when you deliver a substandard product or substandard experience the typical result is to give the person some form of restitution. These usually include but are not limited to:
1. An apology
2. A refund
3. A separate item to make the consumer happy
4. A duplicate item
5. A replacement item
6. Some form of all of these.

However, not with this company..they seem content with telling us to sit down, and shut the f*ck up.

Stay classy GREE.
Or maybe I should choose a different catch phase from the same movie...
Go f*ck yourselves, GREE.

I agree.... Stay classy Gree!

[andy2]

Seriously... what does it take to get a response on this? How little does gree care? If I send in a ticket directly to customer support it is just ignored. Are you trying to purposely lose customers because it is working? Please restore a little faith and at least address the issue. Telling everyone to 'just calm down' over your own screw up and then outrageously declare that it 'was not a factor' when it so very clearly was is insulting.

[Esohceekayes]

I was shorted a f*cking unit from IRELAND, and none of my tickets have been resolved. They don't care.

[Kennetth]

As long as we keep forking the $$$ over, they'll keep forking us over.

[andy2]

They are watching alright.. a member posted a comment in this thread a few hours ago.. his post was deleted and he is now banned becuase he copied and email from apple advising on app feedback

It is this exact cowardice I am talking about.. where they clearly are reading the issues but refuse to communicate to paying customers when they screw up. Bugs happen (not at this rate) just admit to them and fix them.

[MadAtWorld]

They are watching alright.. a member posted a comment in this thread a few hours ago.. his post was deleted and he is now banned becuase he copied and email from apple advising on app feedback

WARNING: This post will likely get the thread locked and me banned... again.

Banned from posting not reading. Hopefully he is. My advice to him: I don't know of any faction that doesn't use an outside communications app. Or have contact with other factions. He was banned under the catch all phrases they use for posting. But Gree can't ban them for posting it to all those other chat apps and sharing.

Btw, for the mod/mods that will be reading, I have two comments. I am not suggesting that anyone damage your company. But I do believe that every consumer should make an informed decision and know their rights. In the post it said the memo from Apple encouraged people to leave reviews. I firmly believe that all players should leave reviews of all apps they spend money on so that others can determine if that game is right for them. And if Gree is a good company, and MW a good game, they should not fear but should welcome their customer reviews. If this gets me banned... so be it.

[andy2]

Where is an answer? Where is any form of customer service?

[andy2]

anyone care to help your customers?

[Kefa]

Well?? My initial,post was as well written and non vindictive as any, and deserves a reply as much as the open letter post.

Do you want to resolve this matter and retain those of us affected by this as paying customers, or do you prefer we just shut up and go away? Because I can easily do that at this point if that's your preference.

[SR9c]

I think they would prefer if you shut up and kept spending money.

[Kefa]

I think they would prefer if you shut up and kept spending money.

Prefer in one hand, and... In the other, see which one fills up first.

I'm just disappointed. CJ, PM me to get my attention. Logging out.

[CJ54]

We completely understand why people are frustrated that they didn't get the item before the WD event. It was a frustrating situation already and the WD event around the corner just made that worse.

The thing is though, we have never added compensation for a what-if scenario where someone would have had an item/bonus earlier. We have never done this in any title for any person. It's impossible to accurately judge the effect for all individuals (because we are talking about what-if scenarios), which means that any response would get highly subjective or equally unfair in another way. It is just not something that we do.

When technical issues happen during events that prevent items from ending up where they are supposed to, we fix that and get people the items, but that timetable is going to vary by necessity. Again, I understand completely why this is frustrating in this case, but we are not going to compensate for it because we would just be tossing out arbitrary numbers/solutions.

[Einszwei]

We completely understand why people are frustrated that they didn't get the item before the WD event. It was a frustrating situation already and the WD event around the corner just made that worse.

The thing is though, we have never added compensation for a what-if scenario where someone would have had an item/bonus earlier. We have never done this in any title for any person. It's impossible to accurately judge the effect for all individuals (because we are talking about what-if scenarios), which means that any response would get highly subjective or equally unfair in another way. It is just not something that we do.

When technical issues happen during events that prevent items from ending up where they are supposed to, we fix that and get people the items, but that timetable is going to vary by necessity. Again, I understand completely why this is frustrating in this case, but we are not going to compensate for it because we would just be tossing out arbitrary numbers/solutions.

so wouldnt it be easier to give every one 100 gold?? or maybe 250 (little less than cc)

[Brian24]

Hey guys. I went through the same issue. Completing 100 bosses and not having the unit for war... Sucked, but it's not the end of the world. I agree with cj. Just relax. I would actually like to say thank you gree for fixing the problem and giving our boss units. A little late yes, but still. Now I know I'll have an even bigger stat jump for next war:)

[andy2]

We completely understand why people are frustrated that they didn't get the item before the WD event. It was a frustrating situation already and the WD event around the corner just made that worse.

The thing is though, we have never added compensation for a what-if scenario where someone would have had an item/bonus earlier. We have never done this in any title for any person. It's impossible to accurately judge the effect for all individuals (because we are talking about what-if scenarios), which means that any response would get highly subjective or equally unfair in another way. It is just not something that we do.

When technical issues happen during events that prevent items from ending up where they are supposed to, we fix that and get people the items, but that timetable is going to vary by necessity. Again, I understand completely why this is frustrating in this case, but we are not going to compensate for it because we would just be tossing out arbitrary numbers/solutions.

I completely disagree with this as a philosophy... Imagine buying an item guaranteed to be delivered by December 20th to give as a gift for christmas, then finding that it does not show up until December 30th. The company does recognizes that they are at fault for the screw up but does nothing to communicate that to those who dont explicitly ask, and does nothing to apologize for the error. Would you go back to that company?

This is the same thing. There were absolutely no in game messages - we had to beg for a response on the forums which I am sure not everybody reads - and instead we were told to relax and that it had no affect, which isn't true. Nobody was asking you to try and judge the difference the units would have made in the event. But wouldn't it be the 'right' thing to do to show some good faith in your paying customers and hand out an apology and a small in game token to make up for the admitted screw up?

Also as everything in game is advertised as becoming stronger for the next WD event, and when I spend money to earn the right to become stronger, and am wrongfully not given that strength increase, how is it right to not refund me the money spent for what I was not given in time? I sent in tickets to this effect and the questions were promptly ignored and the issues closed.

[CJ54]

I did not like your "everybody just relax" comment, but I'm sure it comes from your own frustration of trying to succeed in an impossible position.

No, I apologize for that comment. It was ill-considered, and must have come across as very dismissive given the situation. Again, I apologize.


This is the same thing. There were absolutely no in game messages - we had to beg for a response on the forums which I am sure not everybody reads - and instead we were told to relax and that it had no affect, which isn't true. Nobody was asking you to try and judge the difference the units would have made in the event. But wouldn't it be the 'right' thing to do to show some good faith in your paying customers and hand out an apology and a small in game token to make up for the admitted screw up?

The inability to easily message large groups of people in-game is one of the big frustrations on this end of things as well. It wasn't designed into the game originally and several potential methods are infeasible (pop-ups, for instance, take an artist and a full data push to show up, so that is out for emergencies). We did test out a targeted mass push notification recently, but that one isn't ready for widespread use the last I checked.

Some people have actually asked that we do something based on what would have happened individually. Ignoring that for a moment, consider this: let's assume people spent different amounts of gold to complete that boss, based on how fast they were going. Is giving everyone the same amount of gold or the same token item going to make everyone happy in that scenario? You might be okay (or not) with that, but I can guarantee based on past experience that many people will not be okay with that, and be just as upset about the perceived unfairness as everyone in this thread is now. If something was to be done, the only fair way to do it would be to look a measurable effect that people experienced as the result of not having that item, and that isn't possible in this particular situation.

[andy2]

Some people have actually asked that we do something based on what would have happened individually. Ignoring that for a moment, consider this: let's assume people spent different amounts of gold to complete that boss, based on how fast they were going. Is giving everyone the same amount of gold or the same token item going to make everyone happy in that scenario? You might be okay (or not) with that, but I can guarantee based on past experience that many people will not be okay with that, and be just as upset about the perceived unfairness as everyone in this thread is now. If something was to be done, the only fair way to do it would be to look a measurable effect that people experienced as the result of not having that item, and that isn't possible in this particular situation.

Thank you for apologizing for that comment, I understand communicating to customers (largely when things go bad) can be very tough.

The in game messages thing, in my opinion should be a top priority, as after all what could possibly be more important than being able to communicate with your consumers?

Lastly, while I agree, when bugs are found there is almost no way to make everyone happy. That, however, is not an excuse to do nothing to try and make amends. Wouldn't giving an amount of gold or a token to make up for the mistake that makes even 50% of customers happy be better than doing and saying nothing and making 0% of people happy? Also what about simply giving a refund of the money gold spent on the boss? Yes for some this may not be any gold and for some this would be over a vault, but I just can not see how doing nothing about it makes the most users happy as I am sure that is your goal.

[Kefa]

No, I apologize for that comment. It was ill-considered, and must have come across as very dismissive given the situation. Again, I apologize.
...


Thanks, CJ.

If you think I was asking for WD to be recalculated, I'm sorry for not making that clear. My only point was that damage was done, and it was enough to discourage me from wanting to spend money on your game again. I posted here to give your company kind of a heads-up "last chance", if you will, to win me back as a paying customer.

If I go to a restaurant and they mess up my order and give me poor service, I'm very likely not going back to that restaurant. However, if the manager comes out and say's, "wow, we really blew it tonight, and we are sorry for spoiling your evening. Tell you what, your bill tonight is on us, obviously, and here's a $50 gift card for a future meal in hopes that you'll give us another chance". He doesn't give EVERYONE a gift card; He gives the damaged party a reason to want to come back. However, when Gree faces a similar respective situation, the response is, "Sorry for the inconvenience, we never add compensation" (unless, of course, you are a Crime City player, in which case, here's 300 gold to compensate for your inconvenience).

No person can do everything perfectly at all times, especially an organization of many persons, but any business that wants to build a solid customer base, retain customers, get referrals and hope to have current customers try out their other products as they are released would do something similar to that proverbial restaurant.

Your customers are your life blood, and retaining current customers is far, far less expensive than obtaining new ones, even when they've become unhappy. Gree needs to take some lessons from that restaurant, and, if they do, the marketing budget can be significantly reduced.

[Mighty Min]

Your customers are your life blood, and retaining current customers is far, far less expensive than obtaining new ones, even when they've become unhappy. Gree needs to take some lessons from that restaurant, and, if they do, the marketing budget can be significantly reduced.

Unfortunately, CJ, as hi-lvl as all think of him, is just an employee, not the manager, and apparently, manager is just looking and revenue streak and could care less, and too bad he/she/they so out of touch, while, as some said, "sit back relax and watch Rome burn" - because that's exactly what's happening with MW

[andy2]

Lastly, while I agree, when bugs are found there is almost no way to make everyone happy. That, however, is not an excuse to do nothing to try and make amends. Wouldn't giving an amount of gold or a token to make up for the mistake that makes even 50% of customers happy be better than doing and saying nothing and making 0% of people happy? Also what about simply giving a refund of the money gold spent on the boss? Yes for some this may not be any gold and for some this would be over a vault, but I just can not see how doing nothing about it makes the most users happy as I am sure that is your goal.

Well said Kefa... Maybe I was wrong and they really are content to do nothing and make 0% of players happy, rather than try and make some happy.

In your restaurant analogy this is the equivalent of your order being completely screwed up. But instead of offering a refund, they tell you that you can have your order corrected, you just have to wait until tomorrow because all of the chefs have left. But don't worry, they will hold on to your money for you in the mean time.