Times when you had no idea what a company was thinking

[ToastiestZombie]

What are those single decisions a company, developer or publisher makes that, after you got over the anger, sadness or annoyance all you want to ask is "What the fuck were they thinking?". Ones that seem to not be based in any logical sense, but they still did it and they still pissed people off.

I made this thread mainly because I wanted to rant about this: http://io9.com/the-doctor-who-50th-anniversary-trailer-is-an-amazing-t-860043589 (WARNING SPOILERS FOR THE NEW DW 50TH ANNIVERSARY TRAILER!

Basically the trailer for the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who was released at Comic Con. The only problem was, no-one except the people who paid enough to go to Comic Con are allowed to see it. I just want to go to whoever thought this was a good idea and shout "WHY!?". Imagine if at E3 all of the press conferences were behind closed doors, only to people who paid hundreds of dollars to get in; so no live-streams, no awesome announcements or anything. It's a giant fuck you to the fans, and especially for Doctor Who seeing as most of it's fans are from Britain. So until it's eventual low-quality leak all non-rich Americans get to see is a summary of it. What a way to dampen the whole purpose of a "debut trailer". I just hate it when companies pay no attention to the people who actually want to see something awesome (the normal fans) and put all focus on the people with the massive amounts of money needed to be able to go to these conventions.

/rant over

So yeah, any decisions that seem to have no objective positive sides for the people making them (except making a bit more dosh of course)? There's the obvious stuff like the Sim City DRM and the Xbone, but any more obscure tales?

 

[DefunctTheory]

Oh, look, this thread again.

Is this everyone's first convention? Has no one honestly seen this behavior before?

People payed money and took off work and got to see something first. You'll get to see it in full HD glory eventually.

I mean, come on.

In any case... Microsoft. I've personally had no problem with any of the choices they've made, Windows 8 or XBOne (Though W8 had some issues, this isn't new or unexpected from a new UI). But someone at the PR and speech writing department failed spectacularly.

 

[shrekfan246]

So this is the second thread in the same number of days that someone has raged about the fact that a trailer was only shown at Comic Con.

I'm having more and more troubles trying to defend people around my age from those who say that we're full of a false sense of entitlement and an incredulous amount of impatience.

OT: Sega is a pretty big contender for the "WTF were they thinking?" award. Even setting Sonic the Hedgehog aside, nothing they do really seems to make sense. Their PC ports tend to be lackluster (though that's not really all that surprising, in all honesty), and their publishing history with third-party games is baffling. Why didn't they fund a sequel to Bayonetta? What happened with Aliens?

 

[Diablo2000]

So... You bitching because people of E3, which is the biggest fair of comics, movies, games and nerd culture in general gets to see the trailer first?
Oh, noes, what has became of Doctor Who fandom?

The trailer will come out for everyone eventually, no reason to ***** about it...

 

[Erttheking]

I had no idea what the Hell Microsoft was thinking when it came to the Xbox One Eighty mess. They kinda missed the point of being an evil corporation, mainly that you're not supposed to TELL people you're an evil corporation.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

The time that Red Faction Armageddon was made. What the fuck were they thinking. They had a fucking perfect template for a sequel with Guerilla and yet they made it into a linear cave shooter. What the fucking fuck?

 

[Biodeamon]

The xbox one.

the xbox one .

the xbox fricking one .

 

[Evonisia]

I'd say the Wii but it's a tad predictable and dated.

So I'll say WHAT were Volition thinking when they made Saints Row: The Third?

 

[Kenbo Slice]

When Ubisoft said they weren't going to make any games they couldn't turn into franchises. What the fuck is that about?

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Microsoft, most of their recent decisions including:

Windows 8, a casual OS that need a touch-screen to fully operate when the bulk of your consumers are Big Business that utilize desktops.

Xbone (Xbox One), all of it, from the name to the DRM, the limited launch to the Kinect that prices it above its competitors.

 

[piinyouri]

The time that Red Faction Armageddon was made. What the fuck were they thinking. They had a fucking perfect template for a sequel with Guerilla and yet they made it into a linear cave shooter. What the fucking fuck?

I know right?
There were a number of things that needed fixing up or could have been made better from Guerilla to make a truly amazing game, but nope. Baby out with the bath water.

They had a sandbox game were I could handle a hostage situation by DRIVING MY VEHICLE RIGHT INTO THE BUILDING, getting out and unloading on enemies before they even knew my back tires were where the toilet was 3 seconds ago.

 

[Lieju]

Usually I can at least see the logic behind stuff like Xbone, but here's something that continues to baffle me:

Why Peach wasn't a playable character in Super Mario Bros U?
It's not even that they replaced a female character with a male, they removed a female character and made a male character (Toad) less unique and interesting.

I know they said it was because they wanted all characters to have the same moves and animation, but that just makes it dumber, because in a game like that you want the characters to be immediately recognizable so you don't get confused, and having different movement is a part of that.

Maybe Nintendo just really thought that if a boy had to play as a girl they'd just start vomiting in disgust or something.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Square Enix and the Jailbreak scandal everything about Deus Ex: The Fall.

First they hype it up like it's a Triple-A release. Then they say "whoops, rather then try and sell a game we're going to try and push a shooter on a mobile". Then they try and disable it on jail broken devices even if they bought it legally. They eventually disabled it, but they did it because they didn't advertise the game was supposed to be unavailable on jail broken devices, not because it's a fucking stupid idea.

Seriously, I would have gone with Microsoft too, but at least they would have benefited from the xBones new "features". Squeenix literally would have not benefited from this at all. Fuck them.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Square Enix and the Jailbreak scandal everything about Deus Ex: The Fall.

First they hype it up like it's a Triple-A release. Then they say "whoops, rather then try and sell a game we're going to try and push a shooter on a mobile". Then they try and disable it on jail broken devices even if they bought it legally. They eventually disabled it, but they did it because they didn't advertise the game was supposed to be unavailable on jail broken devices, not because it's a fucking stupid idea.

Seriously, I would have gone with Microsoft too, but at least they would have benefited from the xBones new "features". Squeenix literally would have not benefited from this at all. Fuck them.

 

[Norithics]

Ubisoft makes incredibly strange decisions I can't begin to understand, yet they succeed regardless: a mystery for the ages.

Maybe Nintendo just really thought that if a boy had to play as a girl they'd just start vomiting in disgust or something.

Ugh, can you imagine? With their long hair and icky no-no parts?? I'm sticking with Sheik!

Sega is a pretty big contender for the "WTF were they thinking?" award. Even setting Sonic the Hedgehog aside, nothing they do really seems to make sense.

This, times a thousand. I know I've mentioned it in five different threads, but Phantasy Star Online 2, and PSU for that matter. The more time passes, the more it almost feels like they hate us for not making their consoles succeed and now just want to punish us.

 

[MindFragged]

When McDonald's made the Big Tasty a limited edition.

Don't worry guys, it's totally on their regular menu here now

 

[CorvusFerreum]

No offence OP, but I think you should learn a little patience. The trailer will be out for public eventually (if it isn't already. This consumer impatience these days really is something that has lead to a variety of problems, reaching from preorder bollocks A:CM-style to shallow journalism that treats every PR-buzz and rumour as news for the sake of being the first to talk about it. This really needs to stop. It's nothing wrong with having a little patience and knowing or expiriencing something a few hours, days or even years later (depending on the subject of course). Just my two pence.


OT:
Sega Japan and the whole Shining Force thing. What made them think that running the equivalent of a carpet bombing on everything on Youtube that as much as mentions this decade old game was a good idea? And why did they than go ahead and insulted people complaining about that? Apart from the pbvious problem of getting entire accounts banned on for just talking about and showing small clips from a game not even avaiable anymore, didn't they really not see the PR fallout coming?

Nintendo's strike against Let's Players. While I'm more tending towards support for the Let's Players I can see Nintendo's point in this. I just think the way they picked only served on alienating formaly loyal fans. If they really wanted to only allow licenced Let's Players or something like that they perhaps should have chosen a somewhat slower paced route towards that goal which would include contacting the bigger Let's Players for licensing deals, creating an accessible licensing system for smaller ones and than strike against unlicenced Let's Players. And doing all that while communicating the plan. I think this would be really problematic as well, but at least it would give people time to react and adapt. Instead they chose to just go in and try to stomp over a developing fan- and subculture.

XBox One, for obvious reasons. What also baffled was the way they handled their 180. When they announced the removal of the most criticized features of that console, why did they also straight out blame the removal of the somewhat anticipated family sharing system on those criticizing the other features? I mean, I see why family sharing would only work in the digital enviroment they pushed for. But I don't see why they couldn't have tested the system for some digital games to establish a broader digital distribution culture on console. That way they might have had an easier push towards digital in the long run. But they chose to just say "Fuck it", tried to appease their critics and then went on spitting in their face.
Just to be clear: I think the reversal of policies on the Xbox one was good. I don't really care about consoles but I think it would be nice if console gamers don't have to deal with that shit us PC gamers have to deal with. I also think family sharing was primarily a solution to a problem microsoft's always on policy created. Their eagerness to piss off those who wanted the new features by removing them while pissing those off who they tried to appease by blaming the removal of the one anticipated feature on them just baffles me. I am bad at PR, but even I can see that simultaniously pissing of your supporters and your enemies is a bad idea.

 

[McMullen]

Before Xbone, there was SimCity. Every word that came out of their mouths before and after launch was found to be BS within the week if not within the hour, and they had to know that people would find out. They lied about what they did, how they did it, and why they did it. After the first few weeks you'd think they'd stop lying, but they kept on doing it.

I just can't imagine why they think it looks better to blatantly lie like that; they have to know that showing some simple accountability is better PR, but even during their apologies they kept on spouting untruths as to their motives, which contradicted either things they had already said or done.

It was baffling.

 

[tomtom94]

Before Xbone, there was SimCity. Every word that came out of their mouths before and after launch was found to be BS within the week if not within the hour, and they had to know that people would find out. They lied about what they did, how they did it, and why they did it. After the first few weeks you'd think they'd stop lying, but they kept on doing it.

I just can't imagine why they think it looks better to blatantly lie like that; they have to know that showing some simple accountability is better PR, but even during their apologies they kept on spouting untruths as to their motives, which contradicted either things they had already said or done.

It was baffling.

Thank you for raising this. I'd say in retrospect SimCity was actually worse than the Xbox One, the major problem with the Xbox One was that Microsoft just wouldn't discuss it at all, whereas as you say, with SimCity EA outright lied to their consumer base about the extent and necessity of their DRM.

On topic: Everything about the Wii U, from the marketing to the specs, with the exception of the controller (which is a fantastic idea that shouldn't have been attached to such a rubbish console)

 

[Legion]

The Xbox One, not because of the console itself and it's features but how they decided to try and "sell" it to us.

They didn't seem to realise that "Because online is the future, get with the times bro" is not going to win people over. That telling us contradictory facts about what the console can and cannot do is not going to instil confidence and that insulting people who dare question their terrible ideas is not going to keep people coming back for more.

They decided they wanted those features. Their presentations, interviews and trailers should have all been in synch and a cohesive explanation of what it does, and why we should be pleased with those things. They tried to sell us a product without even properly telling us why we should want it.

Their entire PR based around the XBone has been a complete and utter mess, and I genuinely have no idea what they were thinking.