Bioware’s Star Wars The Old Republic is all set to launch on December 20th. The hotly anticipated game has been through beta testing and is now in the final stages before unofficial launch. The problem is that people who were tempted to pre-order were told they would get up to five days early access, this has created a bit of a furore, as exemplified on their forums. I should also add here that I’ve long maintained that even when things got heated on the Second Life forums, they were tame compared to other places, and the Star Wars The Old Republic Forums are a ghastly experience of forum interaction that demonstrates that Second Life forums always have been tame in comparison.
The issue is with the use of “up to five days“. Rather bizarrely people have got early access up to seven days in advance, which only seems to have confused matters further. However it’s the “up to” business, which like “From” in marketing terms seems to mislead many customers who omit the meaning of “up to” and “from” when reading marketing literature.
Matters aren’t helped at all by the excerpt on the main webpage:
“Fans who have pre-ordered STAR WARS: The Old Republic can now begin playing the game! ”
This actually means some people who have pre-ordered can now begin playing the game, which is revealed when you read the full article, but like “from” and “up to” it misleads. Bioware haven’t exactly done anything wrong here and people who pre-order get guaranteed extra features, however now that people are having it repeatedly pointed out to them that they weren’t guaranteed five days of early access, it has created a degree of disappointment that really could have been avoided had Bioware simply made it clear that early access would between one and five days, there would still of course be those complaining that they hadn’t yet got their access, but by being more clear about exactly what was on offer, Bioware could have avoided a lot of the issues being raised.
However, as I said earlier, Bioware have actually given some people who pre-ordered more early access time than they hinted, which probably means that pretty much everyone who has pre-ordered will get more early access than Bioware initially envisaged. The staggered early access game time is to make sure the servers don’t all go tits up whilst people are logging in, it’s an extended stress test and a very sensible idea.
However, customers are excited and want in, they are angry that they can’t get in right now, even though the terms advertised aren’t being breached, this must be confusing to Bioware to be honest and it’s hard not to have sympathy with them, although it’s easier not to have sympathy when a customer service rep tweets: “I *know* you want to get let into the game. By tweeting at me about that, you’re preventing me from helping people with real issues. Thanks”
I have every sympathy with customer service reps getting miffed that they are being contacted about issues beyond their control, but don’t tell customers their issue isn’t real, that’s not the right response, explaining that you can’t help, is the right response.
So what can be taken from all this? Well first of all, excited customers can become unreasonable and angry quite quickly, people don’t read things in full, but most of all surely it’s time for companies to stop the vague use of terms like “Up to” and replace it with something more firm, because a lot of the angst on those forums could have been dealt with if people had a more clear impression of what up to five days meant.
However, Bioware do seem to have been working their backsides off to make the release smooth and in terms of appeasing their customer base, as I said near the start, they are actually giving people a longer early access period than they initially suggested, sometimes you just can’t win. However the big positive for Bioware is that once people are in, they will quickly forget about this early access issue ….. the downside being they will then move on to a whole range of new issues and seriously, those forums, customer service reps will have their heads in their hands all day long, good luck to them!