Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Those are the five stages of grief. Welcome to acceptance. But first there are a couple of things that I need to say.
It'll be fine. It'll blow over.
Every time I read "it'll blow over" I find myself right back at anger.
No, this debacle will not blow over. It must not be allowed to blow
over. I have too much respect for the people who work at GS to allow
all their hard work to be destroyed in this spasm of stupid.
In my past life as an I/S consultant, my specialty was in salvaging
development projects gone horribly wrong. The first step always
involved an After Action Review. What went wrong? What did we learn?
How do we make sure it never happens again?
Someone here messed up. That's bad.
The customer got involved. That's potentially terminal for an
organization.
Now C|Net not only needs to find and fix their problem, but they need to
do it publicly. They won't like it and they'll fight it, but they still
need to do it. This is the price you pay for involving the customer.
You don't want my opinion? Don't get me involved in your screw-ups.
How do we fix this? How do we make sure this never happens again?
And there's the 800 pound gorilla in the room. How does C|Net fix the
problems they've created at GameSpot?
I don't know, and I don't think C|Net knows either, but I do have a few
suggestions for them.
Sit down and talk to the staff at GameSpot. Listen to them.
Address the morale problem or expect to relive these last ten days all over again when the next staff member leaves.
Communicate to your customers early, often and only through the editors at GameSpot. Your PR staff is ill equipped to speak with your customers. So far, they've done you no favors. If you can't listen to this advice and insist on having someone from C|Net communicate with the GS community, I suggest the first words out of their mouth be "We apologize". Come to think of it, a blanket apology to the paid subscriber base seems like a good idea.
Do not delude yourselves into thinking you can just let this "blow over".
I have more suggestions (like throwing bushel baskets of money at Greg, Carrie and Rich to get them back), but I doubtC|Net islistening anyway.
All we can do now is wish Jeff the best of luck, show our support to the staff that remains at GameSpot and wait for C|Net to get their act together.
Put me in a room of strangers and you'll never hear me make a sound. I'm not anti-social, but I am extremely shy. I'll reply to direct conversation, but it just won't occur to me to initiate it.
Put me in a room of friends and you can't shut me up. I'm the life of the party.
Last night I needed to attend a booster club function for the cross-country team. A room full of strangers. To make matters worse, I needed to be the life of the party. It was the longest night of my life. Four hours of sheer terror.
When it was over, my boss comes up to me and tells me it was a terrific event and we should plan to do these more often. He's really looking forward to the next event.
Oh, me too! I went into the ladies room and threw up. If the bar had still been open, I'd have ordered a double shot of tequila. God, I hate public speaking!
I was exhausted by the time I got home. I tried to play a few games, but nothing was grabbing me. I was just mashing buttons. So I stopped.
Instead, I took an inventory of the games I've purchased but not finished. "Finished" being defined as "played to completion" or "so bad as to not be worthy of any more time". For example, I consider Kameo as finished. I played the story through one time and that was enough. There are time trials in the game, but they're just not worth the effort.
In the pile of shame are games like Burnout Revenge, Call of Duty 3, Carcassonne, Dead Rising, Forza Motorsport 2, G.R.A.W., Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Ninety-Nine Nights, Perfect Dark Zero, Test Drive Unlimited, Tomb Raider: Legend, Top Spin 2, and Viva Piņata.
That's a load of games.
Next I made a list of the games that are on my radar between now and the end of the year. BioShock, Blue Dragon, Stranglehold, Project Gotham Racing 4, Eternal Sonata, Lost Odyssey, Half-Life 2: The Orange Box, Clive Barker's Jericho, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, Mass Effect, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Assassin's Creed.
That's a load of games too. Let's see:
$59.99 * 14 games = $839.96
$839.96 + Sales tax = $903.67
Nope. That's just not going to happen. There's going to be a whole lot of terrific AAA titles coming out the next few months that just aren't going to sell as many copies as they deserve.
UPDATE: The other day I mentioned how I hoped BioShock would someday be released on Steam. Someday will be Tuesday. Awesome!
Minimum: Operating System: Windows XP (with Service Pack 2) or Windows Vista, CPU: Intel single-core Pentium 4 processor at 2.4GHz, System RAM: 1 GB, Video Card: Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 128MB RAM (NVIDIA 6600 or better/ATI X1300 or better, excluding ATI X1550), Sound Card: 100% direct X 9.0c compatible sound card, 8GB of free hard drive space.
That'll work - sign me up.
Top of the ninth inning, Mariano Riveria on the mound with a one run lead. The Orioles leadoff batter singles. Damn.
Wham! Suddenly the house is being slammed by rain and hail. Where did that come from? The dogs are going nuts. Bri is running down the stairs yelling, "Let's go to the basement!"
No, it's the ninth inning!
Wham! More hail and the lights in the house flicker. The cable goes out. The internet connection drops. The dogs are terrified and barking their heads off.
Bri's running back up the stairs. "What are you doing?! Get downstairs!"
"It's raining for Gods sake. Relax."
I grab the laptop and head to the basement. The dogs come running up to us and plaster themselves against our legs. They're panting like they've just run a hundred meter dash . They're really scared.
Bri puts "The Weather Alarmists of Channel 4" on the downstairs TV. They're saying something about cats and dogs living together. They're always saying that. What else is new?
I get a momentary internet connection. Long enough to know the Orioles have tied up the baseball game. Damn.
Channel 4 shows a big black spot on doppler radar moving right over the top of where we live. I look out the basement window, which freaks Bri out.
It really is an impressive storm. Hail the size of nickles and quarters are pounding the house. The lawn outback looks like it's the middle of January in a snowstorm. OK, it's an impressive storm, but it's just a storm. Why are we hiding in the basement?
Bri finally figures out the this is all just annoying the hell out of me. In her best Scarlet O'Hara impersonation she says, "I'm scared. Hold me."
"Oh, jeez. Man up girl."
I give up and fling myself on the sofa, resigned to waiting out the storm in the basement with Scarlet. the dogs and the Weather Alarmists. As soon as I'm on the sofa the dogs leap into my lap. I'm on the bottom of a 140 pound dog pile.
The internet connection comes back. No score from the ball game, but in the GameSpot window there's some hairy, troll in a kilt playing heavy metal guitar. What happened to Madden?
"I thought you were watching the Yankee game? What is that? Braveheart 2 - The Metal Years?"
"I'm scared. Hold me."
"Man up girl."
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