Now this is what QA should be about in the Gaming Industry

[Melbosa]

If your game sucks, we get a new game free:

Dear Stardock Customer,
If you're receiving this letter, it means you purchased Elemental: War of Magic before it was released.

Elemental: War of Magic was a game we had very high hopes for. Unfortunately, it was a disappointment both to us, as well as to many of our customers. Stardock's success in its nineteen years of existence has been because people know if they buy something with our name on it, it'll be excellent. With Elemental: War of Magic we failed that expectation.

For the past year, Stardock has been working on something new -- Elemental: Fallen Enchantress. We went back to the drawing board to create not an expansion, but rather a new game in the Elemental universe.

Fallen Enchantress is currently in beta. Both the beta and the final version will automatically be added to your Stardock account free of charge.

Tomorrow, January 19, at approximately 3:00 PM EST you'll be able to download the beta version by visiting: download.stardock.com.

We hope you find Elemental: Fallen Enchantress to be a game that lives up to the expectations you had for War of Magic. We thank you for your support and look forward to your feedback.

Sincerely,
Brad Wardell - President & CEO
Stardock Entertainment

Source: http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/63667/Stardock-Sends-Letter-To-Elemental-Early-Adopters-Expansion-Beta-Starts-Tomorrow

[Thorin]

What do you mean with "QoA"?  A quick google didn't show me anything that seemed relatable to this post.

[Mr. Analog]

Well I don't think it will catch on all that much with big publishers (who shrug off failure and just move on) I can see this becoming popular with smaller publishers who rely on word of mouth reputation.

The main thing to remember is that since how good something is is completely subjective the publisher will always hold the cards. So while I applaud Stardock for admitting failure and appeasing its customers I can't help but think that if you make a stinkypoo game the only way to fix the bad PR that comes along with it is to make a really good game. This is sort of how the industry already works, no horn tooting required. The real danger for Stardock is that if the free game they offer isn't at least passable the negative PR will likely increase.

It should be noted that Sony tried something like this back when PSN went to hell, they tried to appease gamers with freebies, not sure that was Super Effective...

[Melbosa]

What do you mean with "QoA"?  A quick google didn't show me anything that seemed relatable to this post.

Sorry dude, QA... wow tough crowd

[Mr. Analog]

"You down with OCD? Yeah you know me!" (with apologies to Naughty by Nature...)

*cough* anyway to be EVEN PICKIER this isn't a Quality Assurance issue (though it comes into play, seriously don't release bad/unifinished games) it's more about fixing bad PR.

Something CAPCOM should think about... (not going there... not going there... not going there...)

[Darren Dirt]

"You down with OCD?" ...

don't release bad/unifinished games

I totally agree! It's far better to release bi-finished or especially tri-finished games!

[Thorin]

lol

I didn't mean to be a tough crowd, I just thought it was some game meta-term that I didn't know.  Like AoE (although I learned that one's either Age of Empires or Area of Effect).

[Mr. Analog]

YOU ARE A VERY TOUGH CROWD MISTER THORIN

8-D

[Thorin]

I can be, but I wasn't trying to be in this instance.

[Mr. Analog]

I know

[Darren Dirt]

8-D

^ that's a really teeny peeny 

[Thorin]

Okay, you were picking on his "unifinished", but in this case he did it right.  "8-D" is a big happy face with sunglasses, "8=D" is a penis.  Notice the dash in the former and the equals sign in the latter.

OCD FTW.

[Mr. Analog]

Also, it's cold outside LOL

[Darren Dirt]

Also, it's cold outside LOL

[Mr. Analog]

403 FORBIDDEN

However based on the jpg name I don't want to see...