It’s any publisher’s nightmare – you’ve launched or announced the latest in your big franchise and your fans are angry and disappointed. What should you do?
It’s any game publisher’s worst nightmare — you’ve announced or launched the latest version of your big franchise, and instead of widespread acclaim, your biggest fans are angry and disappointed. What should you do?
This is the challenge for Bethesda after Fallout 76 debuted to terrible player feedback, followed by harsh criticism for shipping its $200 Special Edition Power Armor Helmet with a plastic bag instead of the advertised canvas bag. Blizzard is also in hot water after announcing to a gathering of (mostly PC) fans at BlizzCon that the next iteration of the Diablo franchise would be exclusive to mobile — a premise so disappointing to the crowd that one fan asked if the announcement was a mistimed April Fool’s joke.
Both these unfortunate events risk not only harming sales of these new games but also damaging the long-term viability of the core franchise. Escaping this fate will take decisive action.
During my three decades in the games industry, I’ve had to face a number of crises — everything from the Xbox 360 “red ring of death” to having President Clinton hold a press conference and single out one of my advertising campaigns for condemnation (for Namco’s Point Blank). While CEO of Square Enix America from 2010 to 2013, we faced a critical situation after the launch of Final Fantasy XIV. How we addressed the situation provides some examples of how to respond when a big franchise game disappoints fans.
Final Fantasy XIV launched on PC September 2010 to almost universal negative reviews. The Metacritic review stands at 49, which was unthinkable for a franchise that regularly scores in the high 80’s to low 90’s. Realizing the risk to the franchise that defined the company, Square Enix responded with a number of drastic measures, including:
Here are some of the lessons we learned:
Fans have come to expect a certain standard of quality and experience from your game.
