The Hub of All Blame: A Postmortem

[Reign]

I wonder how many recommendations Brad has written, and how much time he's personally spent helping former employees out.

That's not in the Vision.

Classic.

[Hlk]

I've been going through the posts here for few days now, and I'm quite shocked what happened, both to Sigil, to its employees. Guys I feel with you, I know how does it feel to be made redundant that way.

What I want to say, as most of you guys are probably from the US, you might have different perception, you might be sort of .. more in. I am located in heart of Mid Europe, Prague (tough It is Europe and post- communist country, we have electricity, computers, broadband, we don't ride snakes).

We (me and my mate) have been playing online games since early UO (tough dial-up at those times was about 2USD per hour), through EQ, EQ2, Lineages, Wow, Vg and now LotrO. We started playing EQ when Velious came out and I was about 22 years. We didn't have jobs yet, so we really enjoyed the game, we had time to play. We didn't know who Brad was, Sony was just a big company that invented audio cassette and we cared nothing about it's gaming division.

Years passed, we are now older, we have jobs, we have responsibilities. Every trip to virtual gaming world now is more and more expensive and there's less and less time for it. When we hear about Vanguard, we were really excited about that. We read Sigil's (ugly) pages about how the game will be constructed, who makes it, who publishes it. We hoped out EQ experience will be repeated, and guessing from the opinions I read, not only us.

There it was! Right before public beta was released, I got myself a new 2000Euro PC... To make it short, we played for about a month, we tried, really tried. Exploring the land, game crashed. Going on boat, game crashed. Running thru lvl 27 spiders to port, game crashed, going to trainer, game crashed .. ugh. I played Wow right before VG. Technically you can not compare these games, performance-wise as well. So, we cancelled our subscription after first month, as well as 50% of the people who bought it. What's more - unsubscribe pages didn't work, which I found out on the bill of my Card next month. Then Sony said subscriptions are not refundable, then they cancelled it manually and someone was 13Euro richer for nothing. Poor game, very poor support, that's it for me.

I'm sorry we feel it like that. I can image how much time you guys spent on that. We really believed this will be a good game. Me and my mate we said we will give the game a year, then we try again. Seeing what happened to original game makers, I will pass that chance.

Fact is, that most gamer's only know two names from the gaming world- Peter M. from Bullfrog and Brad M. from Sigil, and wherever their name will be, the game will get sold well. If it's good or bad, I don't know ..

[Azazel]

I'd suggest that a lot more people know of Sid Meier than of Brad McQuaid...

[Morat20]

I'd suggest that a lot more people know of Sid Meier than of Brad McQuaid...

Will Wright too.

[CharlieMopps]

What's more - unsubscribe pages didn't work, which I found out on the bill of my Card next month. Then Sony said subscriptions are not refundable, then they cancelled it manually and someone was 13Euro richer for nothing. Poor game, very poor support, that's it for me.

So wait... the page for canceling your subscription was broke and they kept charging people after they had cancled? WOW

That's a common porn-site scam. Nice one sigil.

[Ironwood]

I wouldn't know.

[Engels]

I've heard these horror stories about Sigil not cancelling the billing cycle before. I just cancelled my Vanguard subscription, which recurrs on the 7th of June. I'll let you guys know if SOE is continuing the scam.

[Signe]

I've heard these horror stories about Sigil not cancelling the billing cycle before. I just cancelled my Vanguard subscription, which recurrs on the 7th of June. I'll let you guys know if SOE is continuing the scam.

I shiver with antici...........................................pation.

[Nebu]

I've heard these horror stories about Sigil not cancelling the billing cycle before. I just cancelled my Vanguard subscription, which recurrs on the 7th of June. I'll let you guys know if SOE is continuing the scam.

I cancelled my account the end of February, again in the middle of March, and again in early April.  I called SoE in early May and they informed me that the problem was on my end.  Good luck with that.

[Valant]

Hey, they had to pay for the severance packages somehow.... 

[CharlieMopps]

I've heard these horror stories about Sigil not cancelling the billing cycle before. I just cancelled my Vanguard subscription, which recurrs on the 7th of June. I'll let you guys know if SOE is continuing the scam.

I cancelled my account the end of February, again in the middle of March, and again in early April.  I called SoE in early May and they informed me that the problem was on my end.  Good luck with that.

Call the 800 number on the back of your credit card. File a complaint. They take this sort of thing very seriously.

[Watchmaker]

I'd suggest that a lot more people know of Sid Meier than of Brad McQuaid...

Will Wright too.

And that Garriott fella.

[Hlk]

It is unfair, I must say. When subscribe pages work fine, one would assume unsubscribe pages work fine as well. If they don't, I personally think it stinks and it's not coincidence.

If they wanted to make people angry even more, to pay extra for f***ed game, they did a good job on that. And this "non refundable" payments I'm sure they cover in EULA or somewhere .. 

Might get cheaper to cancel your Credit Card than to wait for Sony to cancel your billing.

[Trippy]

It is unfair, I must say. When subscribe pages work fine, one would assume unsubscribe pages work fine as well. If they don't, I personally think it stinks and it's not coincidence.

It's not a coincidence. They've been doing that sort of thing since their EQ days.

Might get cheaper to cancel your Credit Card than to wait for Sony to cancel your billing.

That's what I did.

[Venkman]

Smed is very good at his job. There's no reason to think that anything he did had a negative effect on the game. Anything.

That's exactly right. The problem is the kind of job he has to do often requires he bring professional and reality to situations fraught with gamerEmotion. Neither side can really walk away from those sorts of discussions (NGE, VG) happy because side A is trying to teach side B the realities of a business when the latter only wants their gamer needs fulfilled. There's still a lot of people who think games are garage-based labors of love built by people who have day jobs...

[Cymdai]

Greetings, I don't mean to necro this thread or anything (it's my first post here actually) but I just wanted to say this was a very interesting read. I noticed it on MMORPG.com

As many other users stated, I just don't buy into the whole "emotional" side. For someone who's so exceptionally empathetic, he certainly didn't have a hard time ascending into the creative idea role, or whatever it's official title was, at SOE. I'm sure he's losing tons of sleep while he's being paid a nice salary, and his staff are out looking for new jobs.

[Engels]

To be fair, it seems SOE did not bill me after cancellation. So maybe that got worked out.

[Yegolev]

Haven't had any problems with the billing from SOE, but I have only cancelled twice: once for EQ and once for EQ2.

And welcome to the new guy.

[grunk]

Awesome work Schild.

The thing that really gets me is his "problem" with having to fire people.  If you think you have the ability to hire and lead a group of over 100 people, you better be able to handle firing them when the need arises.  If it's your best friend, you have to be able to tell them that they aren't doing a good job.  It is a display of serious lack of leadership when firing the "person who really deserved it" tears you up so much that you have to take time off.  In that situation, you have to look at the bigger picture, the culture you are building in the office, and the image you are projecting to the rest of the employees.

Most people don't enjoy having to let people go from a job, but when it needs to be done the person responsible needs to do the deed.  I did notice the lack of an HR professional on the Sigil team.  Having someone in that capacity may have helped with some of the other office issues as well.

eh not to go off topic, my company has an HR dept of about 100+ people... they really dont do a damn thing. Who cares about HR? I just never got it. Do you really need an exit interview? lol.

[Bunk]

 

I'm just going to leave this to someone else.

[Morat20]

eh not to go off topic, my company has an HR dept of about 100+ people... they really dont do a damn thing. Who cares about HR? I just never got it. Do you really need an exit interview? lol.

You're absolutely right. There's no need for an HR department.

Unless you company offers, mandates, requires, handles or considers: Health or dental insurance, 401ks, retirement packages, promotions, demotions, raises, bonuses, harassment charges, ethical and legal issues, hires people, fires people, trains people, moves people, sends people to other places....

Admittedly, I work for a very large company. My HR department handles my entire benefits package, training requirements, education (they are paying for a nice new degree for me), certifications, signs off and mandates things like raises and promotions, deals with ethical problems, handles harassment issues, and generally keeps themselves busy. Oh, and they handled hiring, firing, employee compliance, my security reviews, and a host of other legal, ethical, and "cover their ass" training, documentation, and issues associated with employing someone. AND they handle all that "withholding" portion of my taxes.

But I can't imagine any other company EVER needing those sorts of things.

[Chimpy]

eh not to go off topic, my company has an HR dept of about 100+ people... they really dont do a damn thing. Who cares about HR? I just never got it. Do you really need an exit interview? lol.

You do if you want to get out of that rehab clinic, son.

[Yegolev]

Zing!

[cmlancas]

Has anyone looked at this tool's other posts? I'm surprised he didn't sign it with his character's name/server/level.

[schild]

Has anyone looked at this tool's other posts? I'm surprised he didn't sign it with his character's name/server/level.

You should go learn what's been going on for the last 5 years in the MMOG forum.

[Endie]

I don't want to seem to align myself with the grunkmeister, but I work for a company that has grown massively over the last five years, and whose HR department has grown from "payroll" to "immensely powerful hub of all misfortune", formalising things (which means stopping us being a relaxed, fun company and making us a big, harshly uptight company).  When emails arrive from our head of HR, the mood across our entire open-plan floor sinks: I promise you that you can tell what's happened.  We have a saying that "nothing good ever comes out of HR".

[Sky]

Or you could be working somewhere else after the company is sunk by lawsuits and insurance.

[Morat20]

I don't want to seem to align myself with the grunkmeister, but I work for a company that has grown massively over the last five years, and whose HR department has grown from "payroll" to "immensely powerful hub of all misfortune", formalising things (which means stopping us being a relaxed, fun company and making us a big, harshly uptight company).  When emails arrive from our head of HR, the mood across our entire open-plan floor sinks: I promise you that you can tell what's happened.  We have a saying that "nothing good ever comes out of HR".

That's because at least 2/3rds of HR's work is "ass-covering". It's all well and good to be a "relaxed, fun company" right up to the point where you get thes hit sued out of you.

Look at it this way -- I sincerly doubt your part of the company ever had a problem with racism, sexual harassment, ethical lapses, or any of the other things that can result in lawsuits. The bigger your company gets, however, the more people it covers and the more likely you'll end up with a few bad apples.

Take Boeing, for instance -- they lost billions of dollars when it came out that they had mishandled proprietary information. Not only did they face fines for it (they had access to the information through one contract, distributed to people working on the bid for another multi-billion dollar contract, and used that info to design their bid), but each and every freakin' employee was forced to take a 4-hour training class on business ethics. Given their size, they lost years of man-hours in addition to the fines because about 10 people played loose with the rules.

Oh, and the contract they won got yanked -- another loss.

HR's there to limit damage when some minor boss decides to play grab-ass with an employee or overlooks that habit in one of his employees. It's there to limit damage when someone wants to break the law, violate contracts, promote, demote, fire, hire, or otherwise fuck with other employees because of gender, race, sexual orientation, religious belief...you name it.

Yeah, HR cuts off the fun -- mostly because in a big company, if you allow to much "fun and relaxed" some jackass is going to open you up to a VERY expensive lawsuit.

[Yegolev]

Morat is correct.  Still...

[schild]

HR became a problem the moment we allowed people to bitch and moan (legally) about things they probably deserve. Like being called fat, gay, or stupid. Or getting slapped on the ass, or whatever. Before that, they were the people who cut paychecks and made fun of the people who complained.

Basically, HR's motto should be, It's not our fault, it's the morons you work with.

[Yegolev]

HR's motto should be "tort reform".  It probably is, actually.

[Stephen Zepp]

HR became a problem the moment we allowed people to bitch and moan (legally) about things they probably deserve. Like being called fat, gay, or stupid. Or getting slapped on the ass, or whatever. Before that, they were the people who cut paychecks and made fun of the people who complained.

Basically, HR's motto should be, It's not our fault, it's the morons you work with.

It doesn't even have to be anyone you work with. When I started moving up the corporate ladder in my previous career, I eventually started to get called in on interviews of new hire potentials, and had to go to HR for a 2 hour lecture on "how to interview".

Who knew that asking someone if they were married (in an attempt to discuss relocation needs, for example) could get your company sued?

[schild]

Ok, then blame the legal system too.

HR isn't the enemy.

[murdoc]

The girl that runs my HR department is pretty cute ^^


But I'm not allowed to tell her that.

[bhodi]

Who knew that asking someone if they were married (in an attempt to discuss relocation needs, for example) could get your company sued?

You aren't allowed to ask what year they graduated college either, since that can be construed as a query about their age, according to this year's sensitivity training. The example dialog went something like "Oh, you went to X college too? Did you know Y? What year did you graduate?"