Kerbal Kountdown!!!!

[kookoo_gr]

Let me get this straight. Squad announced some sort of countdown and/or contest? I can't find anything at the forums besides this thread. Excited if this is a release countdown but disappointed because squad didn't bother to make any announcement at the forums.

[Superfluous J]

Let me get this straight. Squad announced some sort of countdown and/or contest? I can't find anything at the forums besides this thread. Excited if this is a release countdown but disappointed because squad didn't bother to make any announcement at the forums.

That's because they don't use this forum for announcements. They use [random_social_networking_site].

[kookoo_gr]

Welp, from max's tweet i believe the countdown will start at this squadcast, still annoyed about the fact that squad informs the community last and not almost at the time as [random_social_networking_site]. If this goes on we will learn about the new releases being live at [random_social_networking_site].

[Melfice]

Careful, guys! You might oversaturate our seas and oceans with the amount of saltiness going on here!

[smjjames]

Welp, from max's tweet i believe the countdown will start at this squadcast, still annoyed about the fact that squad informs the community last and not almost at the time as [random_social_networking_site]. If this goes on we will learn about the new releases being live at [random_social_networking_site].

Maybe we should bug him about that fact that they're neglecting the forum like that at the squadcast tomorrow?

Careful, guys! You might oversaturate our seas and oceans with the amount of saltiness going on here!

I don't see any saltiness over here.

[Fel]

Careful, guys! You might oversaturate our seas and oceans with the amount of saltiness going on here!

Wait, that is a GOOD thing. It means stuff that hits the ocean will actually float!

[Sandworm]

Let me get this straight. Squad announced some sort of countdown and/or contest? I can't find anything at the forums besides this thread. Excited if this is a release countdown but disappointed because squad didn't bother to make any announcement at the forums.

Lol. Important information is never released first on the forum. Reddit, twitter, various random boards where the devs hang out in their spare time ... this is the last place to look for the latest info.

[shibdib]

Seems not many know about it so I made sure to pick it up on my site.

Basic gist is submit a pic with a hashtag and potentially win a secret prize from the devs!

http://shibdib.com/2015/04/kerbal-space-program-official-twitter-contest/

[worir4]

OOo, i wonder what the prize is! Thanks for posting this.

[Wallygator]

Fantastic. No mention in announcements. No mention in the daily kerbal. No mention in the dev notes. No mention by any moderator.

Nice one. Rep to you shib!

EDIT: see this other thread http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/115759-Kerbal-Kountdown%21%21%21%21

My above points still stand.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Wallygator

[shibdib]

Fantastic. No mention in announcements. No mention in the daily kerbal. No mention in the dev notes. No mention by any moderator.

Nice one. Rep to you shib!

EDIT: see this other thread http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/115759-Kerbal-Kountdown%21%21%21%21

My above points still stand.

Welp that got the hype started, this can be the ignition for some ridiculous images haha

[kookoo_gr]

I understand that the devs spending their free time at various boards and post information on them but it is annoying that SUCH an important announcement such as a countdown to release(?) along with a contest should be posted here first or at least nearly the same time. Instead we get this information at twitter and most important post a pic for the contest at twitter (this, in my opinion shows a disrespect to the KSP forum community), to top it off this info is made known to the KSP community via a member and not a moderator. I read this topic this morning (at my time zone), it's been 8 hours and no word from squad at this forum (i know, i know there is a time difference). I respect the dev's work that put into this game but the communication team should be more consistent when it comes to giving information about the game's development and not letting the community finding them via third persons.

In conclusion i am excited that the game will be released soon^TM and i will enjoy playing it since i have taken a hiatus at playing KSP but the way this information is shared with the game's main basis (forums) is bad

P.S. i won't continue this rant since i don't want to spoil the hype that has started, just wanted to share my thoughts

Edited April 17, 2015 by kookoo_gr

[razark]

I have a theory.

Squad is not a standard marketing company. They are experienced in the new style of marketing. They know how to get people talking about the product, by generating a lot of buzz through different social media sites. They get the word out, create a lot of hype, and get potential customers to keep the word spreading.

They just don't have a damn clue how to handle actually dealing with customers once they hook them. They usually hand them off to a client at that point. You'd think after dealing with this crap every time they pull something like this, they'd have some incentive to learn.

[r_rolo1]

I have a theory.

Squad is not a standard marketing company. They are experienced in the new style of marketing. They know how to get people talking about the product, by generating a lot of buzz through different social media sites. They get the word out, create a lot of hype, and get potential customers to keep the word spreading.

They just don't have a damn clue how to handle actually dealing with customers once they hook them. They usually hand them off to a client at that point. You'd think after dealing with this crap every time they pull something like this, they'd have some incentive to learn.

A theory, you say?

Let me give the word to our community manager ( that BTW is a pretty cool guy to hang around in twitch ):

(...)

I understand the point the OP is trying to make here, that all info should be posted to the forums. The counter-point that I'm trying to make is that the forums are not the only official channel we have. Facebook, Twitter, KSP-TV and other places are also official channels we maintain. The form and depth of information often lead us to certain channels we can use: Maxmaps' dV announcement for example was a very short "snippet" of information, by which I don't want to downplay its importance, but it was a very short update with no further detailed information. Twitter is perfect for this sort of thing, and like I pointed out earlier these snippets won't work well on the forums.

Could we also post this to the forums? Yes, there's nothing technically stopping us from doing that, but why would the forums get all the information where other official channels don't? Well, as many people argued a lot of the 'hard core' fanbase resides here, but is that really enough of a reason to refrain from posting information exclusively elsewhere? We have a great community and this sort of information always finds its way onto the forums, where someone gets to have their 15 minutes of fame for discovering a new piece of the 1.0 puzzle, and I think that in itself is a good argument not to post everything here. I know many of you will disagree with me here (and in the past I probably would have disagreed with myself on this point), but the hunt for small bits of information regarding development is a great part of a community.

SO, yeah, they really are geared towards the multi-platform hype machine. But as you postulate, they are not very geared towards what to do after the hype :/

[Vallius]

I'd say the theory is on the right track. If SQUAD wants to maximize exposure to get new people into KSP, they should be preferring social sites like Twitter and Reddit over us. Most of us are extant fans who already own the game. SQUAD wouldn't make any more sales by giving us priority with info.

Still, it'd be nice if they'd forward it to us, so we feel included in the Hype-activity.

[razark]

If SQUAD wants to maximize exposure to get new people into KSP, they should be preferring social sites like Twitter and Reddit over us.

I understand, and have no problem at all with that. Hype is useful to sell the game.

My issue is that they exclusively use other sources, and the information only gets posted to the forum if a user posts it. Very rarely is an official representative of Squad the one bringing the information to the forum. Yes, there are the occasional blog posts. Those are few and far between. There's also the Dev Notes every Tuesday. Those do get posted to the forum, but Squad also goes to the effort to post those to reddit and their dev blog.

As a recent example, Squad recently decided to take down the 64-bit Windows version of the game from Steam. People posted a large number of threads here, asking what was going on, why their game wasn't working, etc. As far as I know, Squad has not yet addressed the issue on their own forum. Users located a post by a dev on the forum for Orbiter. How many Steam users were affected by this? How many of them would know to go to the other forum to find out that this was a deliberate action by the company, and not a bug? Why wouldn't the company address the questions posted to their own website?

The issues have been brought up with Squad before. Their employee said that they understood, and in the future they would use the forum. For a company that is supposed to handle customers, some areas are severely lacking.

[soulsource]

I hope it's 11 days, so that I can defend my Thesis BEFORE this beautify causes magnificent desolation on my ability to concentrate for a week.

I'm with you on this one! Seems the KSP community is big enough to have (at least) two members defend their thesis in the same week (I'll have my defense on Friday). Good luck!

[r_rolo1]

On the 64bit Steam issue ( that I was not caught on purely by accident: I was watching a twitch stream of one of the KSP-TV streamers and someone mentioned a steam update to KSP. Some posts later someone posted a Steamdb page on the update and from there it was clear it was a 64bit takedown. Knowing that I simply backed up the KSP client . If I hadn't been by accident in that twitch channel at that time I would be one of the people caught ), I'm still not 100% convinced that it was a intentional change by SQUAD and not just a goof up from someone that Harv ended up covering up ...

But yeah, up to now, no one from Squad came here to say anything about the issue as far as I know. :/

[klgraham1013]

KSP will not go to origin. Ever. They know better. Because if it *did*, I would open one of my six mouths, and I would sing the song that would end the Earth.

Origin does not mean exclusivity. It's just another avenue to sell their game. Sure, I, personally, ignore Origin almost completely, but I won't break the seven seals if KSP does end up there.

Edited April 17, 2015 by klgraham1013

[Wallygator]

There is a huge difference between "coordinated multi-channel social marketing" and just posting something on Twitter.

I'm not a marketing person, but I can tell poor market communication when I see it.

[smjjames]

Maybe he's just doing the teaser on Twitter and then doing the announcement everywhere?

Still agree that it's poor communication though.

[klgraham1013]

I sort of feel like digging up that dev note that exploded over this issue. Just to remind myself what Squad said to cool us down. As far as I'm concerned, their words meant very little.

- - - Updated - - -

As far as wanting to spread the word to new players through Twitter, how does it hurt that effort if you also post on your official forums? Does posting the same information on your official forums somehow diminish the outreach of Twitter?

[Wallygator]

Maybe he's just doing the teaser on Twitter and then doing the announcement everywhere?

Still agree that it's poor communication though.

Could be. But then where is the everywhere announcement?

In the end this is no skin off any ones back except squad's. The end all effect on me is that I loose trust in their sincerity to communicate with their core community. still love the game, but don't love the Communication style.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh and while I've just clambered up on this rickety soap box...

The communications is quite sparse for the most part. Yes we get a daily blurb, a weekly dev note, and an occasional blog post. When such a thing happens the community jumps on it like a thirsty traveller in the desert. Assumptions are made, wild interpretations are voiced and the community spirals into a pool of crazy for the next week. This up and down hype and crash cycle gets very tedious. I guess squad considers this to be good customer care.

edit: since this post wasn't deleted I will append with a clarification: I bet squad doesn't yet really understand dark social - some folks don't want a dozen tracking feeds getting fat off personal data.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Wallygator

[Sandworm]

It isn't as simple as creating multi-channel hype. They want to maximize audience numbers, but not the number of people in their audience. Say they make announcements only through twitter. That gets them lots of twitter followers. But by alternating between twitter and facebook they force fans to subscribe to both. So now they have twitter followers AND facebook followers, even though they know they are the same people. The end goal is to have all of us 'hooked in' though lots of different media platforms. That maximizes Squad's numbers, apparent buzz, while in truth we know its all a farce.

Why do they want us so connected? Why does facebook want people to use facebook? Why does twitter want people to use Twitter? So they can farm users for marketable data. As a gaming company Squad should not treat customers this way. As a marketing / behavioral tracking company, Squad is acting just like any other: Keep them using the 'free' products. Keep them viewing the ads. Keep them sending in the data.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Sandworm

[Starhawk]

As far as wanting to spread the word to new players through Twitter, how does it hurt that effort if you also post on your official forums? Does posting the same information on your official forums somehow diminish the outreach of Twitter?

I think it's more complex than that. I'm not a marketing person, but it seems to me that many marketing campaigns begin with small cryptic teasers of some sort.

A medium like Twooter is well suited for dropping a small, potentially cryptic, remark which gets people thinking, wondering, guessing.

A medium like the forum, which is essentially dialogue based, may not be well suited for such an objective.

We may not like it, but they have no obligation to announce things the way that we would find most enjoyable.

It's probably going to be a better ride for us if we accept that SQUAD is really who's in the pilot's seat and try to enjoy the ride, rather than being back-seat drivers pilots.

I know I don't want to spend the next ten days being angry and frustrated.

Happy landings!