Announcing the FFXI Development Team Reddit AMA (07/18/2016)

[Silenka]

Too lazy to google and see what comcast is! xD

It is the devil's Company, the unholy fusion of monopoly and inescapable prison. It is the Beast which capitalizes on the frail Internet infrastructure of America and feeds back its foul excrement to the very people keeping it alive.

No but really I worked for Comcast customer service for a short period and it was literally awful even though it was work from home. Nearly every customer was angry and jaded and it was easy to see why, the customer support sucks hard because many of the people providing it know jack shit, hands were tied on the stupidest things, and none of the tools ever worked right for more than a day. I quit after only 3 days of taking live calls because I wanted to kill myself.

[Sechs]

From the description it sounds just like any ISP in my country, but maybe there are other differences I'm failing to see.
Anyway when I wrote that post that Nynja quoted, I was mostly thinking about the videogame world and videogame companies. Specifically about MMO but I guess we can widen up the concept to the whole videogame world in general.
Of course if you go out of those boundaries and start talking about anything I'm pretty sure you'll find many companies (and respective public) that behave the way I was describing.

[Hitou]

As far as video game companies that people keep giving money to for inexplicable reasons... EA?

[Byrthnoth]

In my youth, I swear there was a Comcast advertisement billboard on the way to school that said "es muy Comcastico." IIRC that's not even proper Spanish, but it has become my curse for all things Comcast.

Related story.

[Fwahm]

Sounds like proper Spanish to me (unless you were talking about Comcastico not being a real word).

I've personally never had any problems with Comcast after having to switch to it (other than the high prices), but I've never had to actually call customer or technical support, which I hear are where the horrors are.

[dasva]

I'd cut SE some more slack if they had an exit survey and maybe a free forum section, but as it is, unless you're subbing, you're pretty much closed off to giving them direct feedback. What little good that does NA, anyway. Simply quitting doesn't tell them why you are doing so.

You can keep posting after you unsub until you log out

To give you an example of how bad Comcast is here and how many people hate it sonic.net is moving in and everywhere it does it just dominates despite lower advertised speeds. Also when they moved their office they put the wrong address by like a full mile. That was about a year ago and not only have they still not fixed it but their customer service reps still send people to the wrong address which happens to be my work. So not a week passes that we don't see angry people looking for Comcast lol

[Spicyryan]

I'd cut SE some more slack if they had an exit survey and maybe a free forum section, but as it is, unless you're subbing, you're pretty much closed off to giving them direct feedback. What little good that does NA, anyway. Simply quitting doesn't tell them why you are doing so.

Why would or should SE or the community care about the opinion of those with no skin in the game?

There are 50 million products for people to buy. So if you don't want to pay for it then don't.

[arus2001]

I'd think people who like to make (more) money.

[Draylo]

Most of those people have nothing but negative and unconstructive things to say. Look at every time SE reactivates all the accounts for the free login periods. You can see all the drivel and hatred those people spew and none of it is worth reading.

[dasva]

Most of those people have nothing but negative and unconstructive things to say. Look at every time SE reactivates all the accounts for the free login periods. You can see all the drivel and hatred those people spew and none of it is worth reading.

Wait are you saying that people use the free log in period to shitpost?

[arus2001]

Never let me log in during freebie time, so not sure where that's coming from.

Otherwise, negative feedback is simply going to be more prevalent than happy-go-lucky SE cocksucking. Just the nature of the beast.

[Draylo]

It does let you log in, they do it every single time SE reactivates the accounts. They come to the forums and cry for "level 75 cap" servers.

[Hitou]

You're acting like the average paying player that posts on the official forums isn't just whining non-stop about some injustice.

[dasva]

You're acting like the average paying player that posts on the official forums isn't just whining non-stop about some injustice.

No. Some of them threaten so sue SE if they don't fix whatever immediately lol

[Kyte]

From the description it sounds just like any ISP in my country, but maybe there are other differences I'm failing to see.
Anyway when I wrote that post that Nynja quoted, I was mostly thinking about the videogame world and videogame companies. Specifically about MMO but I guess we can widen up the concept to the whole videogame world in general.
Of course if you go out of those boundaries and start talking about anything I'm pretty sure you'll find many companies (and respective public) that behave the way I was describing.

Your ISPs probably aren't also one of the biggest media companies in the world.

[Sechs]

If you trust Forbes you can check some "tier lists" here.

Vodafone, Swisscom and Telecom -to name three- are pretty big in Europe but clearly quite behind Comcast (which isn't the first in the USA btw according to that list).
I've always experienced a machine-like behaviour from the customer services of these companies.
Most of the time the people there have no clue what they're talking about and only know how to follow protocol in a step by step procedure, unable to deviate even slightly from that, unable to understand what we're even talking about.
There are some rare exceptions, especially if you manage to get a "senior" guy.
Telecom has more competent than average personnel in their "VDSL fiber connection" customer service, which is separate from their global one and only accessible by VDSL customers. On average people there feel more like "human beings" instead of machines, are able to handle exceptions and usually know their stuff like they have a basic to advanced informatics culture.

To date in my 20+ years experience with these companies, it's the only exception I can think of.
In the small period of time I was in London and had to deal with BT and probably another company I don't remember, the results were the same alas, machine-like people who are unable to solve your problems or even understand what your requests are.

[bungiefan]

There is one consideration for the monthly fee still being at the same price as wehn the game launched. Inflation has made the game effectively cost less than when it started. I heard something like the $13 now would only be worth like $7.50 back in 2002-2003.

Of course, FFXIV is cheaper for just one character slot, so there's also that comparison...

[Byrthnoth]

It's quite possible that SE doesn't repatriate any of the money, but the other thing to consider is that the value of the US dollar in yen right now is more or less the same compared to 2003 (but dropped about 10% at one point).

We've had about 30% inflation since 2003, so 13 2016-dollars are worth about 10 2003-dollars.

[steellord]

There is one consideration for the monthly fee still being at the same price as wehn the game launched. Inflation has made the game effectively cost less than when it started. I heard something like the $13 now would only be worth like $7.50 back in 2002-2003.

Of course, FFXIV is cheaper for just one character slot, so there's also that comparison...

Another consideration: server costs are way less now, hardly any MMO today charges a fee, they've greatly cut spending on development, and substantial updates that could in theory justify ANY monthly fee are way less common

Oh and tons of revenue from this game went into V2 instead

Actual reason the fee has stayed the same and not gone up: They can't. They've lost hundreds of thousands of subs since 2003, far more people are living paycheck to paycheck and not gonna spend $60+ per real update to a single game (this is the cost of a brand new game, think about that)

Reason the fee has not gone down despite the "finale" was 6 month ago: Greed

[Shenrien]

What MMO that doesn't lock its absurd power creep kit behind a paywall or gambling mini game that costs a currency you can only purchase with cash, or receive free chances once a month that isn't throwing a monthly fee on their game? I'd really like to play a F2P MMO that has zero in game transactions that lock all the uber powerful shit.