Imagine this scene in a car repair shop:
A person enters the shop and adresses the employee attending the front desk:
C: “Hello! My car has lost a tire again!”
E: “Sorry, can’t help you with that. We need your family name, first name, second name if applicable, but not any third or more names, street, house number, apartment number, city, ZIP code, place of birth, date of purchase, exact car model identified by the manufacturer’s product number, and some other information before you get to describe your problem. In that particular order.”
C: “My name is Rene Watson, and…”
E: “IN THAT ORDER. Don’t you listen!? I can’t enter the order if you don’t give me the information in the order of our form.”
C: “Oh, okay, I just thought you knew me and the problem. We spoke last week, dou you remember? And you specifically asked me to report any problems here. That particular tire fell of twice again after I had it replaced at this shop and…”
E: “In that order, I said. I can’t work with people like you; that stresses me out. Also, I’m not the person that fixes tires, I’m just the front desk person, so please don’t bother me with technical mumbo-jumbo about tires and stuff. Please leave the premises. Oh, also, would you like to buy a new seat cover which people usually sit on but which you cannot sit on? It’s only 24.99!”
Will that shop thrive economically? I think not.
If you bring your car to the car repair shop, they will accept the contract even if
- you do not describe what you want in the very exact order they want to hear it,
- can only describe the problem in vague terms,
- don’t know how to read and write,
- are too stupid or lazy to fill out their form yourself and
- don’t know anything about cars.
The better the description, the nicer you are, the more you stick to their routine, the faster, cheaper and possibly better the work may get done.
But they don’t flat out refuse to accept an order because the customer gives his information in the wrong order or has - gasp - installed third party hardware in the car like fuzzy dice or a custom gear handle.
Because they want your money.
Also, some people actually like to do their job and help people, but let’s stick to the cold economic reality here.
Funcom also wants money.
Funcom’s service level, sadly, does not reach the level a typical car repair shop would provide, especially regarding bugs.
In a game sold “as is” for a one-time fee, not handling bugs still would be questionable, as a seller has to provide a working product. But one might argue about what level of “working” gamers do and should expect - thanks the Bethesda for lowering the bar on that.
But in a “live service game”, which Conan Exiles is supposed to be if I understand their marketing correctly, that ain’t acceptable. You should not take the customer’s money, but not provide a certain level of quality. That smells like a scam and will drive customers away.
Switching the business model from selling a finished* game to providing a service does not mean you get money for free. The “service” part also costs money.
*as in: “development was ended”.
P. S.: Telith’s ghost is still missing. Can’t believe I forgot to mention that.
Now I do. I don’t think Funcom owes me more than any other player as well, and I am sorry if I miscommunicated that.
like… they have a job as a customer support staff member… they’re not paid to play the game so they may or may not play it in their spare time… They will ofc still have some basic information on it and some checklists to follow, but it does mean that if you deliver your report in a “casual” format, it might not even make sense to them and they’re certainly not going to “read between the lines” and assume the missing information like fellow players would.
but the bug report section is something that customer support has to process one way or another.
