Now Is This A Promise?

[Rechan]

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

You catch the most with blood.

 

[Scribble]

If you really want the ill-will to die down, the best response is acknowledgement, followed either by discussion as to how the problems can/should be addressed, or acknowledgement, followed by the acknowledgement that, even though those problems may exist, they don't particularly bother you.

This assumes both parties agree there is a problem to begin with, and not instead people inventing problems to promote an existing agenda.

 

[Rechan]

Let's just get it over with.

WotC sacrifices kittens and mom's apple pie to the all mighty dollar. They climb over the hopes and dreams of this generation to further their goals. They churn out M:tG and Pokemon cards on the ground bones of puppies. Every book printed is inked with the concentrated tears of 3e fans. They take EGG's name in vain and thumb their nose at Monte Cook. They are more wretched than Big Tobacco and more corrupt than Big Oil, and regularly send out squads to stomp on homebrew settings. They Fund telemarketers. WotC killed my pa.

 

[The Little Raven]

I believe that you believe what you are saying; I just don't believe that you've thought it through.

So, switching from suggesting I might be a hypocrite to suggesting that I don't think things through is your attempt to what... reflavor the nature of your insult while keeping it equally rude and insulting?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Dude, you were throwing around terms like "false advertising" and "bait and switch."

Yes, but in response to hypotheticals, not in response to what WotC has actually done.

Given the hypothetical, what if they say X, but it is not-X in October, the answers I was reading seemed to be largely "Too bad, so sad, suck it up." The answer should be, IMHO, if you advertise X, regardless of whether you start your advertisement campaign before the product is ready or not, you should make every reasonable effort to deliver X.

Especially if you are advertising a product that is intrinsically linked to a product you are selling and collecting money on now.

If I sell #1 in a six-issue mini-series, and sell it to you on the basis of how cool issue #6 is going to be, yet never produce issues #2-#6, the people who bought #1 have a right to be upset.

Likeiwise, if I sold you 300 sheets of paper, but only gave you 200, you'd reasonably expect me to either fork over the other hundred sheets or give you your money back. Wouldn't you? And, if I did not do either, might it not be reasonable to say that I had stepped beyond mere negligence in that particular case?


RC

 

[Scribble]

Given the hypothetical, what if they say X, but it is not-X in October, the answers I was reading seemed to be largely "Too bad, so sad, suck it up." The answer should be, IMHO, if you advertise X, regardless of whether you start your advertisement campaign before the product is ready or not, you should make every reasonable effort to deliver X.

Hrmmm maybe we're in different dimensions or soemthing... The majority of posts in this thread seem to be saying exactly the second part of what you said. If they sell you X they need to deliver X.

 

[The Little Raven]

Likeiwise, if I sold you 300 sheets of paper, but only gave you 200, you'd reasonably expect me to either fork over the other hundred sheets or give you your money back.

There is a difference between "I paid for 300 pages and only received 200 pages" and "You said previous to launch that <feature X> would be available, and come launch, you no longer claim <feature X> will be available." If they were claiming that <feature X> is still available and charged you for it, despite it not being available, you would have a point.

This all just strikes me as uselessly working people up over something that hasn't happened yet. How about we work from "what is" rather than "what if?"

 

[Raven Crowking]

This assumes both parties agree there is a problem to begin with, and not instead people inventing problems to promote an existing agenda.

True.

And it is equally true that even if you link to the WotC statements, you can't get certain people to agree that they said what is in those statements. I get it. I've been there. I've got the tee-shirt. Heck, I've been there on both sides of the equation.

But, however you want to look at it, WotC seems to have decided that there was a problem with the GSL. And WotC decided it couldn't deliver on Gleemax. So, if you don't trust me, trust WotC.

Either way, though, "You're wrong! You're wrong! You're wrong! Shut up!" incites nonsense every much as "I'm right! I'm right! I'm right! Listen to me!" does, regardless of who is right or who is wrong. And sitting from a holier-than-thou position, claiming that others are engaged in "ill-considered, marginally justified bad-mouthing", while doing your part to keep the argument going, is hypocritical at the very best.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

There is a difference between "I paid for 300 pages and only received 200 pages" and "You said previous to launch that <feature X> would be available, and come launch, you no longer claim <feature X> will be available." If they were claiming that <feature X> is still available and charged you for it, despite it not being available, you would have a point.

This all just strikes me as uselessly working people up over something that hasn't happened yet. How about we work from "what is" rather than "what if?"

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't there a complaint on EN World not so long ago about a character folio, or character sheets, which contained only about 2/3rd the page count advertised? And didn't the person who made the complaint call WotC customer service? And wasn't that person told that there would be no refund?

Then the advertisement was changed, but still no refund for the guy who bought it prior to that?

I was trying to draw an exact parallel, but perhaps I'm fuzzy on the details.


RC

 

[Pseudopsyche]

I merely pointed out the movie trailer as an obvious example of where advertising takes place before there is a product to sell. Trying to push that analogy any further is...well, pushing it.

But, since you asked: If Spider-Man 4 was adverted as a 3-hour movie, but was only 2 hours long, I believe there would be complaints. This is, perhaps, not much different than producing a product in which you advertise 1/3 more page count than you deliver. It doesn't mandate "corporate evil", but it is a case where false or misleading advertising might cause one to buy a product one might otherwise avoid. Especially if there is no rapid correction once the mistake is learned, and there is no willingness to compensate the consumer.

So how does your example of movie trailers inform the present discussion about false advertising and corporate "promises?" As has been pointed out, trailers routinely contain scenes not present in the final movie, but I have never heard of a movie studio being punished for false advertising due to a trailer, and I have never heard anybody consider a trailer to constitute a promise about a movie's content. Sometimes trailers certainly mislead the public about a movie, (e.g. Bridge to Terabithia) but how many people could reasonably accuse the studio of false advertising?