PR Blunders: Valve vs. Id

[FISKER_Q]

Valve is developers, not Public Relations.

 

[Democritus]

Originally posted by FISKER_Q
Valve is developers, not Public Relations.

I'm not talking about a "department" of public relations. Public relations happen whenever you talk to the public in any way or someone talks about you publicly. Could be interviews, ads, a developer's forum post getting spread all over gaming news sites...

Some companies have PR departments or third party entities manage their PR. Not sure what Valve has, but since they talk to the public, they have "Public Relations."

To control things, Gabe probably breaks fingers and covers people's mouths with duct tape.

 

[trantjd]

Originally posted by Democritus
To control things, Gabe probably breaks fingers and covers people's mouths with duct tape.

Hmmmm, not sure whether breaking a programmers fingers would be a good PR decision either, being that it would result in a delay announcement! :cheese:

 

[nw909]

Originally posted by trantjd
Hmmmm, not sure whether breaking a programmers fingers would be a good PR decision either, being that it would result in a delay announcement! :cheese:

Yeah, haha,

Breaking fingers of anyone, Programmers, Modellers, etc. would be bad, maybe thats why there is a delay

 

[FISKER_Q]

Originally posted by Democritus
I'm not talking about a "department" of public relations. Public relations happen whenever you talk to the public in any way or someone talks about you publicly. Could be interviews, ads, a developer's forum post getting spread all over gaming news sites...

Some companies have PR departments or third party entities manage their PR. Not sure what Valve has, but since they talk to the public, they have "Public Relations."

To control things, Gabe probably breaks fingers and covers people's mouths with duct tape.

All answers are made by themselves. They have no people speaking for them. Therefor PR is irrelevant, they are developers and they don't need to sweeten or cover up things, unless there's a reason for it.

And i see no reason why they shouldn't make people aware of a very gamedegrading bug, when they were asked.

 

[Democritus]

Originally posted by FISKER_Q
All answers are made by themselves. They have no people speaking for them. Therefor PR is irrelevant, they are developers and they don't need to sweeten or cover up things, unless there's a reason for it.

And i see no reason why they shouldn't make people aware of a very gamedegrading bug, when they were asked.

The reason a company wants to sweeten and cover things up is that bad press = lower sales = less money = bad for business. I would ask, why tell anyone about a game degrading bug and cause bad press (lower sales, less money, bad for business) when you were going to fix it a week later? Why cause the fuss?

It may be, however, that Valve is so popular and Half-Life so anticipated that they can do/say whatever they want and it won't matter in the long run if the final product is good. If I were a start-up company, however, just trying to make it on investment dollars (rather than my war chest from last game -- like Valve), I would certainly make sure nothing bad about my game got out unnecessarily.