Lyle is writing back

Something happened that I actually wasn't sure that it would happen, that is Lyle Lowery (Marketing Manager of Privateer Press) actually wrote an answer to my open letter concerning the launch of War Room. Lyle writes:

Hey Philipp,
Thanks for the email.  War Room had a rough start but we're continually working to improve it and I think we have made some great strides.  We've also learned a lot of lessons from this launch and we'll be sure not to make the same mistakes again.
Thanks for emailing me.  Maybe I'll see you at the next WarGamesCon or Lock & Load!

Lyle Lowery

Marketing Manager

Privateer Press

Well, this is more than I thought I would get since Lyle surely has been busy and had tougher problems to solve than writing back to me. On the other hand, this letter shows that Privateer Press *does* care about their customers even if this means they write back way later - but they do write back and don't forget!

Frankly, I am still not totally happy with War Room as I love to browse the cards, but I miss a serious list construction tool and the ability to quickly access damage boxes in games. I just finished assembling a Dire Troll Mauler made of metal and during the process (all pieces naturally fit together) I was thinking "man, if their War Room just had the same awesome quality as their miniatures!" Well, I trust that Privateer Press will do the right thing and I am looking forward to the improvements that are supposed to come!

War Room - The ultimate card browsing software?

After our last WM/H gaming day, I'd like to write down my experiences with War Room at game time. To make a long story short: I doubt it's ready for gaming, certainly not tournament gaming.

When I came to the gaming table, I was facing my friend Robi's Circle army and we agreed to try playing the game with War Room only.

Robi was hosting the game and I punched in his player name (Turambar), but weirdly War Room didn't make me join Robi's session, but our friend Sven's session instead... I canceled, retyped his player name, waited for the connection and on the second attempt it worked. Weird.

Then I downloaded Robi's army list. That went smoothly, but at this point I really miss auto-sync between my devices. Maybe it's an educational method to learn them better, but I don't really fancy the idea of having to retype all of my opponent's lists, too.

Then the game started and I realized looking up values and rules is just a mess, i.e. slow, if your phone automatically turns off the screen if resting untouched for a couple minutes. It is especially annoying if your phone is code protected like mine is. Having to retype the code every time you want to look up something is annoying. Of course you could turn off the code lock during game time, but still I don't like it. Yes, that's obviously not Privateer Press' problem, but it just makes me wonder if this is really meant to be used during a regular game. Unless you do it like my friend André and purchase an extra battery pack to leave it permanently turned on.

Well, then I tried to mark the damage when my first Troll got hit. I never attempted to do it before in a dry run, so I decided to tap the damage boxes on my iPhone. It was a mess.

Botond was trying to be helpful by pointing out that I could just tap the column number and then define the damage on the slider. Well, it didn't work because I couldn't hit the correct column number either as the buttons are just too small. Now that I tried it at home in a more relaxed setting to do the screenshot it did, but playing this game on an iPhone is awful.

Assigning damage to your warcaster/lock is ok on an iPhone.

This game really doesn't get better until I started picking up my iPad; the buttons are now large enough to be tapped, now I can even reliably tap the white circles on the spiral. However, with so much empty screen space, why did they not make this even larger?

Open letter to Lyle Lowery, Privateer Press marketing manager

Dear Lyle,

So we all finally got War Room, the highly anticipated app for mobile devices that promised us to dive even deeper into our fandom of steam powered robots and fury fueled fantastic creatures. I was really glad when I got it Monday night; from the smile on my face my wife immediately knew she could write me off for the next couple hours.

As soon as I started the app, I liked what I saw, although I also noticed a couple issues - not the troubling kind of issues, but nagging issues. It is very unlikely you read my blog post, but you surely noticed the fans venting their frustration in the War Room release thread leading ultimately to various statements by Privateer Press (1, 2). My friends fancying Android devices are utterly disappointed.

I guess we can savely say that this release didn't go as you envisioned it regardless of all the speculation on how this could happen. However, deep in this mess there are three factors that are the seeds to success:

1. You listened to your fans (I don't say "customers" on purpose),
2. You replied to your fans,
3. With the internet, you have the perfect delivery system for quick improvements and you are using it.

Seriously, I was most notably impressed when I noticed Lane Daughtry of Tinkerhouse Games started to respond in the War Room release thread, too. You are doing all things right that crisis management handbooks tell you to do and I am very confident that these things plus your company's success are rooted in your company's culture. Ever since I noticed the nagging issues in War Room I knew that on one point, they will be a thing of the past because you take responsibility and fix it. I still think that the 60$ on the Ultimate Bundle are one of my best investments in wargaming ever.

Both you and I know that a company's marketing department not only promotes products, but also collects customer feedback. I deeply believe that Privateer Press' success is deeply rooted in the the way it interacts with the community with the Press Ganger program just being one example. However, considering your track record of interaction with the community, I have a very simple question:

Why didn't you let fans beta-test the app?

One way to learn from this mess is to do the tech talk and look at the things gone wrong in the software development process. However, let's leave this to the techies because you have a weapon that is minimally as powerful, i.e. your fanbase.

Yes, I know there are reasons why a company doesn't want to release information too early. However, look at it this way:

You were trying to replicate an excellent app that already existed, so it's not like you were to reveal something new and groundbreaking there. We took this stuff for granted. We expected your app to be even better because (a) it comes directly from you and (b) we expected you to copy all the things that made  iBodger great. Furthermore, postponing the release several times with you stating that you "don't want to pass on any opportunity to make improvements to the app" made us expect a perfect and finished product.

However, if you had released a beta, you would have immediately found fans to test the product. You are close to your fans, you know how to talk to them. You could have collected feedback on how this app is doing on Android devices, an ecosystem that is hard to betatest. And even if the feedback from fans may have been harsh during the design process, they would have closely observed the improvements and built up excitement just the way they did passively waiting for the product. However, in that scenario nobody would have had to burn their midnight oil and frustrated feedback would have come in quantities easier to manage.

I didn't read the entire War Room release thread with its 1000+ posts, but I noticed that people are generally complaining about the product, but not about the company. Heck, people even opened a Thanks for War Room threat in your forum despite the flaws it has - and I wholeheartedly agree with them! You know, this is quite the opposite in comparison to a competitor of yours where people love their products, but don't miss any occasion to wish them to hell. Your fanbase and the way you communicate with it is your biggest strength as you carefully nurtured it over the years. If I am in the position to make any suggestion, I only have this one: whenever you embark on an exciting new journey (one could also say "risky journey"), allow your fans to participate even more closely. They will love it, you will love it, and your competitors will be left wishing they could release innovative products just like you do.

Cheers,

Philipp

PP releases breaking news

The wires are hot at the moment concerning Privateer Press' releases scheduled for the rest of 2012 and 2013.

Also details are breaking on the Mountain King:

Mountain King unboxing by Breaking The Format

All news picked up from the Colorblind Crusader.

The hypothetical company that treats its customers well

This conversation really made my day yesterday:

I don't know, maybe it's just me because the prophets of a dying Games Workshop exist for a long time already. However, said hypothetical company in the conversation listed above is Privateer Press and it seems like Privateer Press really is gaining momentum. Warhammer 40'000 6th Edition has to be really good or the exodus will likely increase.

I started as a WHFB player (1993), then got started on 40K (2008), but right now it's all WM/H for me. As a dad with a time budget I can simply get more done in less time while the gaming experience is also rewarding me with a more interesting and balanced rule set

I will be at this year's Wargames Convention in Austin and I am really looking forward to meeting the Privateer Press staff personally.


Update: Duke just posted an article on BolS heading into the same direction. There surely are interesting discussions ahead.


Update: It keeps getting better, Privateer Press is now even sporting a Summer Sale.