Atomic Systems

This is the "welcome" e-mail I have just received after registerung on the 3D Train Stuff forum:

"And welcome to our forum, we have just opened up a new product feedback and support area where you can post questions or comments. However, keep in mind, our forum is strictly moderated, and bashing of our products will not be tolerated nor will the posting of misleading thread titles like, "Tehachapi Pass Problem!!!", when most times the actual problem is user caused or is part of a known issue or bug with Train Simulator, because these hurt our sales."

Don't criticise our products! I have asked that I be un-registed from the forum.

Not surprised you don't want to be registered.

In other words if the route had a problem and someone reported it you would never know because they would cover it up. Very bad publicity.

Very bad message to convey in a email.

3DTS do seem to have a particular paranoia about sales, and anything at all that may potentially damage them. I think their own paranoia and over-reaction may have driven away more customers than any actual bad press, etc

Its certainly difficult to create a 'balance' on forums

I'm not sure how you would post an item like that.

Possibly

'I'm having problems but its probably me'

Which invites the answer

'Yes it is'

It's a shot in the foot isn't it? If you are having problems you either don't wish to discuss it there or can't (coz it'll get deleted) so you don't find a fix for your problem, others perhaps having the same problem don't get to learn of a possible fix, and people wander off and post to freeware forums anyway saying "I couldn't discuss this at 3DTS because..." with the result of more bad press.

I just don't get it.

There is absolutely no point in having forums for commercial products. Simple reason is you can't please all the people all of the time. Moreover there is no such thing as a perfect product.

Really the best thing is have email/telephone support or surf sites like this - just to check up on the ‘mood’.

You can argue about the rights and wrongs of this approach, but it only takes one or two negative comments to seriously damage sales. And at the end of the day sales is what you are interested in, rather that purely altruistic ideals.

I think if 3d train stuff attach messages like that to their emails they might as well abandon the idea of forums all together.

Goingnorth wrote:There is absolutely no point in having forums for commercial products. Simple reason is you can't please all the people all of the time. Moreover there is no such as a perfect product.

I find the 3DTS attitude completely astounding here, but I have to disagree with the above - We run uncensored forums both at our own site and here. When a negative posting is made, to be honest I have found nine times out of ten it has resulted in the original poster actually purchasing the product, since the ability to discuss the problems and solve them then makes the product something which they actually want. Someone will only post a negative remark or an error report (which I don't actually consider as negative btw) when they have been frustrated or unable to do something which they wanted to do, they therefore have a vested interest in getting an answer - if they were not bothered about the product or what it had to offer, they would not have bothered to post the message in the first place.

Sorry to rant, but to sum up I really can't agree with the statement that "There is absolutely no point in having forums for commercial products". quite aside from the above, it provides a feeling of community among product users and enables them to share their experiences, questions, enhancement requests etc. with each other and with us.

If I took the 3DTS approach, I would have no rapport with my customers, a stagnant products with few users, I would not dare to have a buglist published at my site which users can freely post to ... etc. etc.


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Cheers

Dave C

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You can't really have an end rant command without the matching opening one.....

Maybe Dave's been ranting since he was born, and only just stopped?

it was just a coffee break.

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I guess its difficult for those who have small commercial concerns as one or two individuals' livelyhoods might be greatly affected by bad publicity.

It maybe a significant part of their income or they might be working towards it becoming their sole income.

Microsoft and Kuju get plenty of adverse comments but I doubt they care or have need to.

For some its a hobby from which they decide to make their lielyhood.

Their friends then become their customers as do anyone they're not so friendly with.

To have their own forum then becomes very risky.

Its like a small shopkeeper as opposed to Tesco. You're very vulnerable to personal comments or attitudes.

It would appear the only way to avoid problems when involved in a commercial venture is to remain completely unbiased and avoid any situation where you offer an opinion which causes controversy.

If you're passionate about your work that's not easy.

Cheers

John

I think 3D Train Stuff are shooting themselves in the foot.

Since I first released Route-Riter there have been stacks of postings on the forums, both for and against the program. I feel I have fixed most problems, some of which were mine, and a lot of which were caused by users either using old versions of the program, or not reading the help files.

A recent posting on another site along the lines of 'I will never use Route-Riter' produced some 30+ responses along the lines that the program is excellent, which in turn increased the download rate.

If you do not respond publicly to users with a problem, then you will soon get a reputation for not caring about users. I know I have posted messages here about problems with TsTools, and Dave has responded immediately, either pointing out what I was doing wrong, or producing fixes.

While I have a lot of respect for what Brad and his team do, a lot of respect indeed, I have to say that I won't ever stop anyone posting bad things about UKTS on here.

It's not because I don't rely on UKTS for my living - in some respects it works the other way, it's my hobby, while you may expect some pain in your day-job you certainly don't come home from said day job looking forward to a whipping at your hobby (well, maybe some of you ).

That said, I have absolute confidence in what we have here - mostly based on what everyone here has told me - so if someone has something negative to say then y'awl go on and say it and we'll try to help you out if you're interested in the help (some people just want to have a bitch and then go of course).

But hey, 3DTS have taken a load of (imho undeserved) flak in the past so I wouldn't be too shocked if they're a bit shy of it all right now.

Matt.

johndibben wrote:I guess its difficult for those who have small commercial concerns as one or two individuals' livelyhoods might be greatly affected by bad publicity.

It maybe a significant part of their income or they might be working towards it becoming their sole income.

Microsoft and Kuju get plenty of adverse comments but I doubt they care or have need to.

For some its a hobby from which they decide to make their lielyhood.

Their friends then become their customers as do anyone they're not so friendly with.

To have their own forum then becomes very risky.

Its like a small shopkeeper as opposed to Tesco. You're very vulnerable to personal comments or attitudes.

It would appear the only way to avoid problems when involved in a commercial venture is to remain completely unbiased and avoid any situation where you offer an opinion which causes controversy.

If you're passionate about your work that's not easy.

Cheers

John

I agree with every word of that.

Larger firms can/have been affected by negative publicity too. The BBC program 'Watchdog' causes large companies many problems, and there have been several high profile meetings over what to do about it.

Hopefully if a project is good, then it will receive a good reputation. Then sales rise through word-of-mouth and so on.

However, there will always be people that find faults, don't read instructions, have axes to grind and so on.

One or two negative stories can bring companies down. Remember Petsmart? Or the Hoover promotions, where the offer was just too good!

It can be argued even Railtrack was seriously damaged through one or two bad stories.

Whilst running a forum is very good for PR on the surface, I doubt it can replace good quality in the first place and decent customer support.

Years ago it was possible to rip people off very easily. Today it's more difficult thanks to the internet and mass media. I still hold the opinion that discussing problems in public on forums is akin to standing in the foyer of a hotel talking about last weeks food poisoning problem.

This seems to be turning to a hot topic, which as a commercial producer, I have been on the end of some of the critics. I have to say at the time it is not very nice, especially after you have spent many hour creating a product, and I have to say good or bad. Train Simulator is a unique situation, or it was, due to the many un-knows there where in the beginning. We are all learning, and well "If only we knew then what we know now". So mistakes where bound to be made - yes I know it should have been checked, but one point I would make in defence of 3D, sometimes, the complete story is not told, just the part that benefit the author of the posting. And I think that is what does the damage - like all have been stating, if it wrong then it wrong, but when reporting the fact spell out all the fact, not just those that benefit you specifically.

I feel foul of this just the other day, and it was only a little point, but I said on London Brighton Update the signalling system was NEW, and yes it was to me, but the posting author who was critical about that remark, failed to mention that the complete text read as follows

the all new Red-two yellow-one yellow- green signalling system being employed. We are not saying it is a first

Had he been brave enough to admit the complete statment, well, he problaly would not of had a reason to write it in the first place. He was looking for a reason to have a pop, but after TGV, I am not surpriced

But as a Summary : if I had recieved a welcoming e-mail such as that, I too would feel insenced and done the same as the original compaliant.