Lair Update

This is not good news. And any fan that remarks “It’s all flowery meadows” has been watching too much Team America. Not that I think you can see that movie too many times.

Continual delays with little to no PSN material to assist in enduring the wait makes things difficult as well. A 10 minute demo hardly suffices for the effort of faith PS3 owners have demonstrated time and again. Delaying a game the PS3 desperately needs is abd enough and it doesn’t help that the 360 has several sure to be AAA titles bearing down beginning in September. “Be patient a little longer” does not work. Not any more. Most of us are not angry, just disappointed. You had best open the phone lines and start communicating more. No one’s day is so busy they can’t cough up more than 4 or 5 sentences to remark on the issue, the game, and possibly drop a gem no one knew about. The situation really needs it right now.

In any market you invest your money. But sooner or later you need evidence your investment is paying off. Bungling a gold announcement hardly engenders such required trust. In simple terms, you are dropping the ball. A little honesty and a lot of interfacing with the fanbase will go a long way during these game free PS3 time stretches.

Announcement of a title going gold and then pulling back with an excuse that hardly seems valid was not the move to make. I agree, the game should not ship unless ready. To anyone in game development, off line features being something that holds up a game hardly seems to ring true. Gold Master copies are certified at the end of the Q&A process, not during it.

But the announcement was made of going gold. Apparently that was an error. Fine. The mistake was made. However, rectifying that mistake with another is not the solution. The worst mistake in this affair now is no communication.

A handful of sentences hardly pays for the loyalty that will be needed to endure another 4 plus weeks of relentless pounding by anti sony personnel on forums and message boards, as well as the press. It leaves your fans to look like the town jester or village idiot defending you and leaving them as such is a bad, bad move. If it has to be done at least provide the fans some sort of weapon with which to fight the public opinion wars.

The point is Playstation 3 owners have been maintaining the frontlines for Sony for some time now. Sony’s great show at E3 helped and provided much needed ammunition but most of the weight has been pulled along by PS3 owners and fans of the console. Also, a large number of us have absorbed sufficient Bluray purchases to help boost format position. More importantly we have been slugging it out in the front lines of the message board opinion wars. Does that matter? Absolutely.

Preventing public opinion from completely burying the PS3 is the only act currently standing between Sony and total failure of the PS3. If you think PS3 success can happen without hardcore fans then good luck, you will need it. Also Bluray popularity alone isn’t enough.

Success requires those fans willing to take bodyshot after bodyshot in promoting the good qualities of the console with few games while they still tend to maintaining their confidence in Sony. For their efforts PS3 fans have been continually kicked in the teeth and run off message boards.

And for the love of gaming Sony, stop doing Joystiq any more favors by providing preview copies or interviews. You just become internet fodder for the biggest Microsoft acolytes on the planet. PS3 owners that post there get pasted and often by the mods. It’s insulting to see you curry favor to those that have such a blatant dislike for all things Sony. PS3 fans are attempting to maintain a modicum of PS3 respectability and reading snide comments by Joystiq editors with their love of veiled euphemistic slams of Sony is quite honestly insulting.

It would also do to warn publications and websites that conducting and issuing final reviews based on preview builds will land them in the doghouse. If they want to slam the retail build then fine. But doing so with a beta product is tantamount to lying. Not warning such publications of the implications of reviewing beta copis as finals makes you part and party to stabbing your own fans. You need the press, true. But you don’t need all the press. And they need you infinitely more than you need them.

Throw us a bone and help us help you. You (Sony) are not making things easy for us and commiting acts that press our loyalty to the floor make it harder to maintain the faith for which we are constantly asked.

Try to update the PSN a little more often. I go to IGN, Gamespot, Gamevideos, or Gametrailers and there are thousand of trailers. How many on the PSN? How many other videos? If a website can update news hourly, why can’t the PSN have a news ticker with daily (not weekly or monthly) updated news.

Try talking to fans more. It will take you a long way. We appreciate the blog but days pass and often little to nothing is said. If you can’t tell your soldiers what is going on then your silence encourages dissent within the ranks. Get your act together.

Now there is rumor of Heavenly Sword being delayed. Suddenly the dev blog is dead silent. Once again, try keeping fans informed. Be the company that doesn’t just listen. Be the company that responds.

These continual trifles about exclusivity deals over MGS4 do not help either. Stop BSing, dancing around with your language and set the record straight. If we find out later you were less than forthcoming you won’t be forgiven by a very larger number of fans.

Finally, parachuting a SWAT Team (as Phil Harrison stated) into Epic is all well and good. But you should have sent a couple of people in to fix Lair. It is nice that, unlike MS, you have a vision concerning titles down the road but you had better pay attention to the ones we are supposed to get in the near future or the ones down the road won’t matter.

We have stuck by Sony through thick and thin. We are the faithful and we are the big fans of Sony. It has been a poor harvest to date and the PS3 owners are feeling lean and famished. After this latest debacle Sony needs to step up to the plate and act. Reward loyalty with something besides dead silence punctuated by a handful of whispers.