Tweet
I had an apple yesterday and it was sweet. This apple tastes sour. I bought them both from the same market and they're both green so they should be the same. Therefore the farmers who made the apple I had today must have been lazy when they injected the sugar or whatever it is they do to make apples sweet. I don't know because I don't make apples. But I'll bet you it's because they were being intentionally lazy to save money on sugar. What's a Granny Smith?
No one would make assumptions like this because apples are simple. They make sense. A marketplace infrastructure capable of interacting with multiple platforms in dozens of countries using dozens of currencies, selling items with descriptions that have likely been vetted by a number of lawyers to make sure neither MS nor the publisher get into any sticky legal situations in any of those countries is not simple. Nobody should get a free pass just because it's hard or complicated, but don't make assumptions based on the fact that a superficially similar problem was fixed quickly or it just plain looks easy.
It's perfectly reasonable to be disappointed and even a little upset that Zen hasn't been able to fully deliver on a statement that they made in the 6 weeks since release. But some of you are either unaware of or downright ignoring things that might help funnel your frustration in the right direction:
- There are currently 36 tables available as free HD upgrades for most people. You might be one of the unlucky ones that can only play 32. You were promised 43 free things. You likely have 32-36 right now, with apologies and assurances that you'd get the rest later.
- If you go to Microsoft's site and look up your purchase history, you can't see anything bought with points more than 12 months ago. Do you think that's something they did arbitrarily or could there be incompatibilities between the many different versions of the marketplace infrastructure over the last decade?
- Microsoft has had pricing problems like the one with Titanfall since the beginning of the season pass era. Many, many times users have been asked to purchase dlc included in a season pass after buying the pass. It's been years and they still don't have a consistent process to handle what is now a commonplace situation.
- Despite how it may look to the average pinball fan, the specifics of the type of cross-buy Zen is trying to achieve with MS is almost unprecedented on the Xbox platform. The closest analogy is probably Minecraft , but that was released on 360 about 2 years ago by a company now owned by MS(to the tune of $2.5 billion, btw). Pinball FX2 is twice that old. Notice how, with the exception of TWD, all the tables that are causing problems are the earliest releases that are also available on the Xbox One? I can't easily explain why something like that might matter. I can only say that after 18 years of software development and database design I know how to make apples. Ultimately I don't really know any better than you do how MS makes theirs. I'm just asking that you keep an open mind before jumping to conclusions.
If you really feel the need to take Zen to task over their mistakes, how about major leaderboard issues? Or flippers that sporadically get stuck in the up position? Heck, maybe even an achievement in Sorcerer's Lair so hard it's only been unlocked by one person in 13,000 because of a mission so close to impossible it could be considered broken? Please stop trying to get Zen to fix the one problem that's almost entirely out of their control.
No one would make assumptions like this because apples are simple. They make sense. A marketplace infrastructure capable of interacting with multiple platforms in dozens of countries using dozens of currencies, selling items with descriptions that have likely been vetted by a number of lawyers to make sure neither MS nor the publisher get into any sticky legal situations in any of those countries is not simple. Nobody should get a free pass just because it's hard or complicated, but don't make assumptions based on the fact that a superficially similar problem was fixed quickly or it just plain looks easy.
It's perfectly reasonable to be disappointed and even a little upset that Zen hasn't been able to fully deliver on a statement that they made in the 6 weeks since release. But some of you are either unaware of or downright ignoring things that might help funnel your frustration in the right direction:
- There are currently 36 tables available as free HD upgrades for most people. You might be one of the unlucky ones that can only play 32. You were promised 43 free things. You likely have 32-36 right now, with apologies and assurances that you'd get the rest later.
- If you go to Microsoft's site and look up your purchase history, you can't see anything bought with points more than 12 months ago. Do you think that's something they did arbitrarily or could there be incompatibilities between the many different versions of the marketplace infrastructure over the last decade?
- Microsoft has had pricing problems like the one with Titanfall since the beginning of the season pass era. Many, many times users have been asked to purchase dlc included in a season pass after buying the pass. It's been years and they still don't have a consistent process to handle what is now a commonplace situation.
- Despite how it may look to the average pinball fan, the specifics of the type of cross-buy Zen is trying to achieve with MS is almost unprecedented on the Xbox platform. The closest analogy is probably Minecraft , but that was released on 360 about 2 years ago by a company now owned by MS(to the tune of $2.5 billion, btw). Pinball FX2 is twice that old. Notice how, with the exception of TWD, all the tables that are causing problems are the earliest releases that are also available on the Xbox One? I can't easily explain why something like that might matter. I can only say that after 18 years of software development and database design I know how to make apples. Ultimately I don't really know any better than you do how MS makes theirs. I'm just asking that you keep an open mind before jumping to conclusions.
If you really feel the need to take Zen to task over their mistakes, how about major leaderboard issues? Or flippers that sporadically get stuck in the up position? Heck, maybe even an achievement in Sorcerer's Lair so hard it's only been unlocked by one person in 13,000 because of a mission so close to impossible it could be considered broken? Please stop trying to get Zen to fix the one problem that's almost entirely out of their control.
Comment