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The Crew accidentally erases player stats
Whoops: It seems as though The Crew's launch wasn't without a few speed bumps after all. Ubisoft admitted that the game's servers had been erasing or showing incomplete player statistics due to a minor issue. Before you get frightened that the game has erased your identity and progress entirely, know that the good news is that "major data" weren't affected at all and that a patch is coming to fix the problem. The Crew launched on Tuesday, December 2nd. Ubisoft refused to provide the media with review copies of the game.
Bungie's COO thinks Destiny and games like it are hard to review
Bungie continues to hype its Destiny shooter post-launch, with the latest bit of messenging courtesy of COO Pete Parsons and an interview at GamesIndustry.biz. "The launch of Destiny was the starting line," Parsons says, before going on to explain how Bungie's Destiny operations center "looks like a NASA control room" and how "it's very difficult to sit down for nine hours, 11 hours, and write up a review of game like Destiny." Parsons takes that notion a step further and asks how similar titles will be reviewed in the future when game journos face "a nearly impossible challenge" due to an inability to experience PvP, the campaign, and endgame activities on a deadline.
Ubisoft's The Crew: Not pre-screened for critics
I used to love reading movie reviews in the local paper when I was a kid, though sometimes it puzzled me when a film was listed as "not pre-screened for critics." Generally these were B-movies that critics were prone to savaging, so the distribution companies figured they'd make more money if prospective customers didn't see Siskel and Ebert ripping a film up one side and down the other. Fast-forward 20 years and Ubisoft is doing something similar with The Crew. According to the latest company blog post, the open world MMO racer won't be given to media outlets in advance of its December 2nd release, ostensibly so that reviewers can experience the game in "optimal conditions" that include lots of other players. "The Crew was built from the beginning to be a living playground full of driving fans, so it's only possible to assess our game in its entirety with other real players in the world," the company says. "And by other, we mean thousands and thousands and thousands of players – something that can't be simulated with a handful of devs playing alongside the press." Ubisoft goes on to say that any reviews that do appear on release day will be built around media preview sessions from the title's beta phases and thus will not "reflect the finished game."
Watch Dogs PR stunt empties Sydney news office
A well-intentioned promotional effort went horribly awry as a copy of Watch Dogs sent to Australian news site Ninemsn prompted a mass evacuation of its offices and summoned the local bomb squad. Though Ninemsn is not in the habit of covering video games, Ubisoft's latest massive-budget effort was issued to the site anyway, inside special packaging consisting of a faux metal safe which would reportedly beep periodically. Immediately concerned by this unexpected, beeping package, Ninemsn staffers contacted their local colleagues, only to find that they had been the only recipient of this mysterious gift. Rather than risk personal injury of the explosive variety, Ninemsn contacted the local authorities who evacuated the building before sending over four police cars and a special police rescue unit. "The PR company no doubt got carried away with their creativity and ended up sending us something the bomb squad had to open up," Ninemsn publisher Hal Crawford told the BBC. Ubisoft was quick to offer a diplomatic apology. "As part of a themed promotion for Watch Dogs, our team in Australia sent voicemail messages to some local media alerting them that they'd receive a special package related to the game," Ubisoft said. "Unfortunately, the delivery to Ninemsn didn't go as planned, and we unreservedly apologise to Ninemsn's staff for the mistake and for any problems caused as a result." [Image: Ubisoft]
Ask Massively: Missives from the Massively yacht
So here we are, lounging on the deck of our yacht, sipping cool drinks out of fake coconuts while lifeguard cosplayers -- they're cosplayers, right guys? -- gently wave palm leaves at us. Later, of course, we'll dock somewhere and whip out our laptops and dash off some posts about video games before we get back to enjoying the titillating payoffs we earn as members of the gaming journalism front lines. Hopefully you've guessed that Massively doesn't have a yacht. We don't even have an office. The Massively yacht is a mythical destination, a running joke that's only mildly funny and then only to the people who work here, since only we know what we're paid, how insanely strict the Joystiq network is about accepting items on the spectrum between gifts and bribes, and how that strictness both hurts and helps us and you. That's something worth talking about in light of the Eurogamer debacle.
Former Meridian 59 dev pens essay on community management
Have you ever been curious what, exactly, a community manager does from an insider perspective? Here to help you with that is Brian Green, who's developed for both Meridian 59 and Storybricks. Green wrote an essay on how community management is often misunderstood and how it can be both effectively and ineffectively handled. Green went through the daily process of a CM's job to provide information for both developers and players, citing the difficult balance in handling that two-way street. He said it's important to keep PR as divorced from community management as possible, otherwise it damages the communication "loop" between CMs, players, and developers. He finishes by examining the recent instance of ArenaNet's CM team using Reddit to discuss players' behavior and names. "The problem is that this was quite obviously a PR exercise and not really proper community management," he noted, going on to say that this might have set the wrong tone for the community's in-game behavior and caused a "toxic allowance" to build up for later on down the road.
Derek Smart's Line of Defense shows off battle environments
Last year we got our first look at Line of Defense, a new MMOFPS from Derek Smart and his team at 3000AD. The title is looking good so far and the devs are certainly eager to show off their progress. As such, 3000AD delivered five brand-new screenshots showcasing the environments and outfits that players will experience, including desert and snowy terrains. Line of Defense takes place in the same game universe as Smart's Battlecruiser 3000AD series, and promises to deliver "open-world FPS mayhem" from the depths of the ocean to the heights of space and everything in-between. You can check out the new screenies in the gallery below, and make sure to catch up on our Derek Smart interview about Line of Defense if you haven't already! [Source: Evolve PR press release] %Gallery-115480%
The Soapbox: The absurdity of the NDA
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. So Star Wars: The Old Republic's NDA dropped. Now the entire world (officially) knows the skinny on BioWare's new themepark, and I'm hard-pressed to think of a more anti-climactic NDA death. Even if you weren't following the game over the past few months, you knew exactly what to expect -- provided you weren't a Star Wars or a BioWare virgin. This complete lack of surprise is one reason why the whole MMORPG NDA thing is a joke, and TOR is just the latest in a long series of punchlines.
Samsung won't block iPhone 4S sales in South Korea
Samsung will not reportedly block the iPhone 4S from a release in South Korea, according to a local paper there. The company has tried to block the release of the iPhone 4S elsewhere (without much success so far), but the 4S finally went on sale last Friday in South Korea, and Samsung opted not to move against it. Why? Public relations, guesses The Chosun Ilbo paper. An anonymous executive there says that Samsung is fighting Apple in the global market, but presumably since the company already has such a large market share in South Korea, it's not worth the bad press to prevent people there from getting the iPhone 4S. Of course, as Apple is getting more and more popular over there, that situation may change.
SOE releases second PlanetSide 2 short story
Sony Online Entertainment is kicking the publicity machine for PlanetSide 2 into high gear lately. The only problem is that all the PR has nothing to do with the actual game. Yes, shooters can have lore (Global Agenda has quite an extensive backstory, for example), and SOE seems determined to keep its Forgelight-powered MMOFPS in the news without revealing much more about the mechanics. The latest salvo comes courtesy of celebrated comic scribe Marv Wolfman, who is busily creating PlanetSide 2's factional history via a series of short story vignettes. Today's reveal, the second in a series, centers on characters from the Vanu Sovereignty, some of whom buy into the faction's zealotry. "Today we have declared our Sovereignty, a Vanu Sovereignty. Only one force can live on Auraxis, and it must be us," one of them declares. You can read the full text at the official PlanetSide 2 website, and don't forget to check out our exclusive Wolfman interview from earlier this week.
Facebook admits hiring PR firm to smear Google
It seems like the ongoing rivalry between Facebook and Google has taken a turn for the subversive. Last night, a spokesman for the social network confirmed to the Daily Beast that Facebook paid a top PR firm to spread anti-Google stories across the media and to encourage various outlets to examine allegations that the Mountain View company was violating user privacy. The PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, even offered to help blogger Chris Soghoian write a critical op-ed piece about Social Circle -- a service that allows Gmail users to access information on so-called "secondary connections," or friends of their friends. Social Circle, in fact, seems to have been at the epicenter of Facebook's smear campaign. In a pitch to journalists, Burson described the tool in borderline apocalyptic terms: "The American people must be made aware of the now immediate intrusions into their deeply personal lives Google is cataloging and broadcasting every minute of every day-without their permission." Soghoian thought that Burson's representatives were "making a mountain out of a molehill," so he decided to prod them about which company they might be working for. When Burson refused to spill the beans, Soghoian went public and published all of the e-mails sent between him and the firm. USA Today picked up on the story, before concluding that any claims of a smear campaign were unfounded. The Daily Beast's Dan Lyons, however, apparently forced Facebook's hand after confronting the company with "evidence" of its involvement. A Facebook spokesman said the social network hired Burson to do its Nixonian dirty work for two primary reasons: it genuinely believes that Google is violating consumer privacy and it also suspects that its rival "may be improperly using data they have scraped about Facebook users." In other words, their actions were motivated by both "altruistic" and self-serving agendas, though we'd be willing to bet that the latter slightly outweighed the former. Google, meanwhile, has yet to comment on the story, saying that it still needs more time to wrap its head around everything -- which might just be the most appropriate "no comment" we've ever heard.
BBC assembles experts to comment on Sony crisis
The fact that it's been one of the worst couple of weeks for Sony -- and its customers -- cannot be disputed. However, the future of this crisis, which started a couple of weeks ago when Sony's network was hacked and user information was stolen, is anybody's guess. As such, BBC News assembled a panel of four industry experts to comment on the situation and speculate where Sony might go from here. Richard Merrin, a PR director, said that Sony demonstrated both the worst and best ways to respond to a crisis: "In the first instance, Sony waited ten days before telling users what was happening, which is a classic error in terms of communications. It knocked consumer [confidence] and damaged Sony's reputation. But with the second incident, it has acted extremely quickly and seems to be following the four golden rules in crisis PR -- to be open, honest, transparent and fast." "In terms of PR, I think Sony can turn it around," said ComputerandVideoGames.com's Tim Ingham. "Consumers are often quickly outraged by this sort of wobble from a global corporation -- but we tend to have short memories if we're not personally damaged by a given incident." The security expert, Sophos' Graham Cluley, said this doesn't change how users should protect themselves: "People need to be more careful with their passwords and make sure that they have different passwords for different online accounts." You can read the rest of the comments at BBC News.
The Daily Grind: If you could ask a dev any question and get a straight answer, what would it be?
Today, let's pretend like marketing, public relations, and corporate secrecy don't exist, shall we? And while we're dreaming up crazy scenarios, let's imagine that you got to sit down with an MMO developer of your choice and ask him or her one direct question. The catch? That dev would have to give you a direct, straight answer without any hedging, PR-speak, or "no comments." What would that question be and to whom would you address it? Would you want to know the top secret release date for The Old Republic or Guild Wars 2? Would you uncover the very real truth behind shady scandals of the past? Would you want to know what the devs say about players amongst each other? Or would you want to know their favorite pies? Today you get one question. Today is your... destiny! Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Motorola ready to make sweet love to Android ROM devs and rooters?
HTC is legendary for its tacit support of the Android ROM cooking community. Motorola... not so much, thanks in large part to the company's policy of locking down the bootloader as a means to prevent unapproved software from running on its Droid handsets. An annoyance recently exacerbated by a moderator of Moto's YouTube channel who suggested that customers looking to install custom ROMs should "buy elsewhere." Ouch. The resulting public relations kerfuffle then prompted Motorola to publish a clarification to its bootloader policy on Facebook: We apologize for the feedback we provided regarding our bootloader policy. The response does not reflect the views of Motorola. We are working closely with our partners to offer a bootloader solution that will enable developers to use our devices as a development platform while still protecting our users' interests. More detailed information will follow as we get closer to availability. Obviously, we'll have wait for said details to get official before calling this a shift in strategy. It's certainly an improvement over Moto's previous approach of lawyering-up with cease and desist orders. Perhaps Motorola is taking a cue from Microsoft who seems to have recently discovered that it's better to embrace than to annoy a motivated hacking community -- customers who tend to be a company's most dedicated fans and evangelists.
Stevemail smackdown on student strikes sparks
On Friday, Gawker ran the story of Chelsea K. Isaacs and her claimed email back-and-forth with Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Now it's all the buzz. Isaacs, a self-described "renowned college journalist, artist and social fixture" (also apparently North America's "most desirable hand model" at the age of 12, which is, if accurate, rather creepy), didn't get the replies she sought when she reached out to Apple's media relations team over and over for answers relating to a class assignment. Since her three iPad-related questions were apparently the key to her getting an A on her classwork, and she felt that she'd been ill-treated by the silence, she took her case to El Steve. The exchange was spicy enough to get covered all over the place, from New York Magazine to the UK's Guardian newspaper. Apparently, when a CEO bothers to answer his email at all, she thought he'd be friendly and helpful -- not say things like "Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade" and "Please leave us alone." Curt and more than a little rude? Sure, but a) that's our Steve, and b) she kind of had it coming. I'm not sure how much Ms. Isaacs knows about Apple, but if she was expecting a prompt and thorough response to any question that began "I'm working on a college assignment" from the PR folk, she's not living on the same planet as any journalist or blogger who covers the company. From the bottom to the top, Apple employees hold their cards close to the chest, and often as not a request for comment goes unanswered -- even from major media outlets, to say nothing of college seniors. Calling repeatedly and desperately with the three mystery iPad questions, rather than rolling with a placid "Apple's representatives were not available for comment" or seeking out other sources of info, doesn't speak for her journalistic acumen. Emailing the CEO to complain that nobody would help her with her schoolwork? Well, that's just sophomoric. One thing's for certain, though, she's got her good grade in Brand Promotion 101 -- although who knows how well it will serve her out in the job market. Of course, from a media relations perspective, far better if Steve had skipped replying at all, or come back with a simple "Sorry, can't help" rather than getting in that satisfying but unnecessary dig about her grades. Then again, she's fortunate he didn't get really ticked off and go all ninja on her.
Palm files 8-K with SEC on merger, VP of PR Lynn Fox leaving
Okay, we've got lots of Palm news tonight, so take our hand and let us walk you through it. For starters, the company filed a 8-K report with the SEC today, which is a requirement when major changes (e.g. a merger with HP) are happening. According to the paperwork, the transaction / acquisition was expected to close by July 1st... but it might actually be anytime within the first week of July. A PreCentral forums member claims to have listened in on a shareholding meeting today and heard that from VP of Investor Relations Teri Klein. Additionally, he also heard that under HP, current Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein will head up a smartphone / mobility unit that's culled from both his company and another HP unit. Finally, news has come in this evening in that VP of Public Relations Lynn Fox is joining the likes of Matias Duarte, Rich Dellinger, and Caitlin Spaan in leaving Palm. Though we understand she's staying with Palm through next week, she is definitely not sticking around -- according to her Facebook page, Fox "respectfully declined the opportunity to join HP after its acquisition of Palm" and will be pursuing other opportunities. So, when can we get back to talking about those mysterious new webOS devices? That aren't printers?
BP damage control extends to purchasing search terms like 'oil spill' on Google, Yahoo
If you're looking for the latest updates on the Gulf Oil Disaster, you're probably not wondering "how BP is helping," but that hasn't stopped the company from snatching up keywords on various sites. "We have bought search terms on search engines like Google to make it easier for people to find out more about our efforts in the Gulf," BP spokesman Toby Odone told ABC News. We regret to inform ol' Toby that if it cannot manage the oil spill, managing its PR is not going to placate anybody.
Wings Over Atreia: Community roundup
There's been a lot happening around the Aionosphere this past month, with the announcement of next week's 1.9 patch revelation topping the list. There's also been talk of server merges, the mythical 2.0 update, changes to Miragents, and a boatload of other community news that we'll recap for you after the cut. As always, send in your Aion-related questions or observations to jef AT massively DOT com, and let us know of anything we missed.
Nintendo sends us odd Fossil Fighters package
No time for archaeology, Dr. Jones Nintendo has been known to pull off odd PR stunts, whether it's filling Times Square with truckloads of sand or, in this case, sending out gigantic pieces of plaster to promote Fossil Fighters, We guess Nintendo has no problem throwing around some of its cash. Just, uh, maybe send us a trash bag next time so we have somewhere to put all of this mess, 'kay?%Gallery-69614%
Happy belated 2nd Birthday to PlayStation Blog
Oops, we totally neglected to mention that yesterday was the 2nd birthday of Sony's PlayStation Blog. It's worth noting because of how the site has grown up under the leadership of Social Media Manager Jeff Rubenstein and the nameless/faceless behind-the-scenes folks at Sony's US PR operations. Since its inception, the site has helped humanize Sony's messaging and worked well in creating a better community among Sony's devotees.The US PlayStation.Blog is working so well, in fact, that it's clearly the template for the recently launched European PlayStation Blog (which thankfully put two bullets in the back of Three Speech's head). So, congrats to the US PlayStation Blog team! May they have many more years of blending the line between corporate mouthpiece and community site. [Image]
