MODEL BUSINESS MODEL – PART 3
…EVEN
AFTER SCRAPING THE SHIT OFF…
So what can we learn from the ineptitude of GW? There are many, many lessons. And companies like CMON and Kickstarter would do well to heed them. Marketing 101 is all about supply and demand. You have a product (supply) and the market provides the demand. They want it, you have it. Market research is key. Price is marketing 102. You can charge what the market is willing to bear. A shortage of desirable product will allow you to charge more as the market competes to acquire it. But this is where it gets tricky.
So what can we learn from the ineptitude of GW? There are many, many lessons. And companies like CMON and Kickstarter would do well to heed them. Marketing 101 is all about supply and demand. You have a product (supply) and the market provides the demand. They want it, you have it. Market research is key. Price is marketing 102. You can charge what the market is willing to bear. A shortage of desirable product will allow you to charge more as the market competes to acquire it. But this is where it gets tricky.
GW dominated the supply. It quickly discovered
that it could charge far more than the product was worth because there was no
competition. But, as time passed, its product became so poor in quality, and
its attitude toward the market so vile, it became undesirable. Combined with
escalating pricing, the demand decreased. The market didn’t want what GW
supplied, or inflicted. Competition appeared. Profits were used to destroy that
wherever possible. Inevitably, it came to an end. The monopoly was over.
Marketing 103. Competition. You can compete on quality or price,
rarely both. Your market is divided into elements that will pay for quality,
and those that will go for the lowest cost. When your production ability is
limited, you need to focus on quality. When your ability to produce quality is
limited, focus on quantity and lowest price while maintaining utility. If
you’re new to the market, you need to sacrifice profit (and may even work at a
loss) to establish market share, then carefully adjust price to remain viable.
Marketing 104. Adaptation. Your business needs to constantly evolve.
You must adapt to shifting trends, competition, and socio-economic issues. Your
business does not operate in a vacuum. Every step of what happens in your
business requires market research. Your market are not cows to be milked, and
they do not like being treated with contempt. They are a community, and if you
want to succeed, you need to be a part of that. You need to engage with, and
respond to, their wants and needs. If you bully them, steal from them, and
otherwise behave unethically, you are fucking yourself over, not just them.
Perception is reality. PR is important. What people see, hear and believe
determines that perception. You do not always control that, and attempting to
deceive them with obvious lies will end in disaster.
Marketing 105. Market Research. This should be
your focus every step of the way. You need to encourage your market to provide
honest feedback. Every element. If you allow trolls to populate the source used
to collect data then your information will be corrupted. Trolls impose their
own narrow-minded opinions as they aggressively drive-off and silence what they
perceive as rival elements of your market, parasitically claiming your product
as their own and bleeding you white. You must discourage this and, where
needed, purge their presence from your community forums and business.
Marketing 106. Personnel. You must populate your business with
dedicated staff, and treat them as if they are members of not just the
community, but family for which you actually care. They act in your stead. If
they are trolls, they will harm your business. If you treat them badly, they
will do only as much as is required to keep their job, or go out of the way to
sabotage the business. If they are elevated to positions of authority despite
being incompetent, they will fail or, worse, go out of their way to bully and
drive off anybody better suited and qualified than themselves, damaging morale,
productivity, and profit.
Marketing 107. Profit. This is good. It can be used to reward
investors and/or improve the business. When we say investors, we don’t just
mean shareholders, we mean people who invest time and money into the business.
This includes your staff and the market. Don’t be afraid to reward them every
now and then. It encourages loyalty. Don’t be afraid to work at cost either.
Sometimes sacrificing profit can help the business survive. Be careful not to
operate at a loss after establishing your market. That path leads to ruin.
GW is a textbook case in how to shaft your
market, how to ruin your business, and how to linger and die by instalments while
inflicting as much misery as you can. The people that first established GW had
a big dream and unwavering drive and focus to make it happen. It lasted only as
long as it took for the first trolls to appear and take over while GW mistreated
their market, assuming it would regenerate. Every brutalised element sucked dry
and discarded along the way was replaced by the next generation that was assimilated
into a normalised environment of enabled and escalating anti-social behaviour.
But what motivates these trolls that plague these market spaces like a
colony of infectious parasites that show up soon after a woman of questionable
morals has an encounter with Charlie Sheen. Why do they inflict themselves on
normal people? Why do they lash out like a five-year-old throwing a massive
tantrum every time they opened their idiot mouths? Why won’t the moderators of
social media forums discourage them from behaving like colossal dickheads?
A few days ago, CMON concluded its Kickstarter crowd funding Zombicide: Green Horde project. It was
an overall success, breaking several records and exceeding just over $5M in
pledges for a $300K goal. The comments sections attracted a lot of ideas,
observations and other feedback, but it also attracted trolls in an all too
predictable pattern. They didn’t contribute ideas. They made personal attacks,
insulting almost everyone who offered ideas or suggestions that strayed from
what CMON offered, and fawning praise in a manner that indicated they were
trying to bury their nose in the arse of the project team.
While the Guillotine Games Facebook page was
trolled by half-wits like Eric Harman and Andrew Poirior, reddit posts about
games like those presented by CMON were trolled by idiots using the anonymity
of names like Stannis the Saviour, which spoke volumes about his narcissistic
personality. But on the CMON Zombicide:
Green Horde kickstarter there was a mixture of the two, with some trolls
feeling comfortable with the world knowing their names (or names that sounded
real) and others hiding behind fake ones.
They appeared to work in lone-shark packs, sniping away at individuals
and then converging on those who dared stand-up to them. The most active of
these idiots was a douchebag calling itself japester. The fact that he’d chosen
a nom de guerre that was as common as John Smith revealed a lot in itself. A
parasitic nature. A lack of imagination. An unwillingness to interact without a
means to hide from repercussions. A pretence toward humour and wit. His
comments demonstrated a barely literate, arrogant, unamusing, narcissistic, cowardly
personality with below average intelligence and delusions of self-importance.
But this is hardly surprising. That describes the average troll. How
did they get like that? The table-top and Fantasy Roleplaying community appears
to comprise of far more people with a troubled childhood than any other hobby.
Most of them are awkward and have limited social skills. Predominantly male,
not good with girls, and more often than not, white. They are either seriously
underweight or have obesity issues, a poor diet, and skin that keeps
dermatologists employed. A lot of them come from poor, disadvantaged families
and get abused at home and or bullied at school. But not all of them.
There are some that come from very wealthy
families. They over-privileged, over-indulged, spoiled rotten
by parents who give them everything they wanted but not what they need to
become well-adjusted, useful people. Idle, lazy, usually with a below-average
intelligence, they are a disappointment to their parents, but didn’t care. The
social values they have are founded upon moral and ethical bankruptcy, extreme
right wing, unable and unwilling to accept that they are mentally unhinged,
projecting their own flaws on their victims as they unleash hypocrisy and inflict
themselves on better people.
Given his ‘status’ as a Superbacker, it is clear japester has money to
burn and is part of the over-privileged faction. It takes a lot of disposable
income to fund enough projects to get that award. His presence online in social
media and community forums provides further evidence. He boasts of his
involvement with PAX South running the latest CMON KS games that are out, bring to
mind an image of a creepy, overweight, middle-aged guy who takes over a hobby
store, frequented mostly by kids, and thinks everyone else is weird. It makes
him feel like a big man as he inflicts his nasty, elitist personality on
others.
Those
kind of ‘people’ are far too common, and store management either hasn’t
noticed, or doesn’t care, that trolls like japester are driving away current
and potential customers. But PAX South isn’t a tiny shop, it’s a huge place
crammed with hundreds of gamers, and an over-abundance of trolls like japester.
Despite how he presents himself, he’s not some big-man, he’s just one of many
plebs that feel self-important. He posts comments like he’s an expert, part of
the authority, and tears down anybody that suggests anything that conflicts
with his opinion. The perfect example of a troll.
During
the CMON Zombicide: Green Horde
Kickstarter, there were several trolls attacking those who dared use the
community forum to provide feedback that didn’t butt-snorkel what CMON did. Despite
the fact that CMON used the feedback to adjust their product several times in
order to adapt to their market, the very purpose of it, trolls (including
bone-smugling ass-hats like japester, James
Neuzil, Kurazo, 2nd Layer, Rainmaker, and Paireon, lumberjack of
Brimstone) worked together to silence the other backers.
One
can only imagine how japester would like to see things run. Himself, at the big
table, on stage, with crowds of adoring fans gathered around him to hear his
wisdom as he shared his great knowledge. Now imagine what would happen if his
bottomless coke was spiked with some kind of truth-drug, forcing him to answer
honestly all of the questions the gathered community asked. Imagine if all the
other trolls were removed. Imagine no more, for here is the transcript of what
would happen under such conditions.
The
conference begins with japester talking about his favourite topic (himself) for
several minutes before the crowd manages to focus him on the purpose of the
gathering by asking him why he felt compelled to contribute what he did. “Well,
you know, whenever people go on sites like this, I just have to make sure they
know their place. They think they can just say whatever they think about the
product.”
Someone
points out that, technically, that’s what the comments section is for, and that
the project team have (on several occasions) used the contributions to adapt to
their market. “Exactly,” japester responds, quickly clarifying his hypocrisy, “and
people can. As long as their ideas are the same as mine.”
Another
member of the audience points out that he doesn’t offer any, only personal
attacks and several comments that suggest he knows everything. “Oh, my ideas
are very clear,” japester snaps, “anybody can tell I’m an authority on
everything to do with Kickstarter and CMON, or anything else for that matter,
so if you want to challenge my expert knowledge with your own ideas to improve
something, you better get ready for me to tear you down.”
He
starts to get edgy, clearly angered by his recollections. “Some people just
don’t get that you don’t have to buy everything,” he points out, like people
don’t know that, “but there they are, asking for products to be sold
separately! Like they just don’t get Kickstarter Exclusives are limited edition
additional content for backers, and if anyone could by them, then people like
me don’t feel as special anymore.”
A guy
in a suit points out that Kickstarter Exclusives provided to backers are,
essentially, ‘free’ but that if they are sold separately, a retail customer
would have to pay for them. Given the demand for them, and what scalpers make
from selling them on, it’s an untapped market potentially worth millions. He
refers to some off-site suggestions that game contents to be sold separately so
players could replace lost or broken pieces. Clearly, he’s researched the
issue. It was a reasonable request. But japester is, clearly, confused. “But
I’m happy with things the way they are. I don’t want to buy those things.”
At
this point the audience pauses, waiting for him to think it through. His eyes,
the window to his mind, are vacant. So it seems appropriate someone prompt him.
“Yes, I know I said that people need to learn they don’t have to buy
everything, but that’s not the point. It doesn’t matter that they want the
choice to buy things they want, what matters is that it doesn’t interest me and
we” (by ‘we’ he refers to himself as part of both Kickstarter and CMON… he does
this a lot) “don’t want them to have that choice.”
His
response is all too common, a standard attitude adopted by trolls, but he is
clearly getting agitated so someone asks him about the people that dared to
challenge him, giving him the opportunity to feel like he has some control of
the situation “Yeah,” he says with a pouting frown he tries to cover with a self-righteous
sneer, “there was one guy that just didn’t take the hint. I called him an
armchair expert and mocked him for thinking he knew better than the company.
Sure, what he wrote was really well written, reflected the views of the
community, and had a lot of support, but people like him needed to learn their
place and stay out of my territory.”
At
this point a member of the audience reminded him that, technically, the
Kickstarter platform belonged to Kickstarter, and CMON actually relied upon
those comments to adapt their product to their market. It had been mentioned
several times already. They also reminded him, again, that the rules for
posting comments were clear: “be respectful and considerate”.
“That’s
what this guy said in response to my idiot comment,” japester says, teeth
clenched, knuckles white as he grips the mouse attached to the laptop on the
table between him and the crowd. “He forced me to unleash on him in a ranting
tirade of hypocritical idiocy. Sure, most of what I wrote was misspelled and an
offence to both grammar and basic human decency, and some of it didn’t make
much sense, but I was just so mad that he dared to challenge me, you know?”
They
did. Most people have seen this kind of unhinged behaviour from trolls like him.
“But people like that guy are snowflakes that need to take the hint, like Neuzil said,” japester
continues. “We’re so lucky we have President Trump now, to get rid of this PC
crap and show all the salty whiners who’s in charge! Anybody who doesn’t agree with us is weak and
needs to shut-up about their petty complaints like inequality, legal and
systemic failures, assaults, domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse, rape,
and bullying, because they’re the problem!! It’s people like Trump, us, that
make the world a better place!!!”
The
audience share some uneasy glances but the majority of them try to ignore the
idiot rambling, the insane belief RWNJs have the ‘right’ to inflict their fascism
on others, unprepared to lube-up and join japester and all the other
half-wit sycophants in the ignorant, bigoted, dystopian, ‘alternative fact’ and
‘fake news’ based reality lower colon of Trump. Instead, they focused on the
reference to Neuzil.
“It’s true,” japester admits, a misty look in his eye, “it’s so good to have a
complete stranger, who is clearly another troll, enable the most offensive and
irrational behaviour you inflict on others.”
He
pauses to smile at the follow-up question. “LOL,” he says cynically, referring
to his membership with League of Losers, a habit he enacts when he thinks he causes
someone harm because he lacks the ability to really laugh anymore. “Sure, I
like a good ego stroking as much as the next troll. Hell, I’m stroking my ego
now! No easy task if you knew how tiny it was! Well, thank you for saying so,
but my ego isn’t over-inflated, it’s really tiny. What do you mean that’s not my
ego?”
Someone
tries to get japester back on track. “No,” he grunts, dismissive, “there’s no
troll-mance between me and Neuzil. I like being enabled, but I need more.
Besides, we both came off looking like dickheads when that guy revealed he had
a BA and BE, with majors in Marketing, PR and visual arts. Turns out he was
more than qualified to make the comment he did. Actually, he didn’t need it. Anyone
can make a comment. But people even dared to agree with him! That could have
led to more people standing up to me! I was going to unleash on all of them but
Kickstarter removed my previous comment and told me to behave! Can you believe
their arrogance?!”
He
looks like he’s about to cry. “Lucky for me, 2nd Layer,” (it can only be
assumed this is like calling a redhead ‘Blue’, an ironic reference to the fact
this particular troll didn’t have more than a one-dimensional personality or
intellect), “said something stupid for me. It was masterful how he completely
missed the point that guy made, took it out of context, and hypocritically mocked
him!”
Yes,
it was a bizarre response, especially given the trolls were the ones claiming
to know everything about board-games and marketing, and anybody who didn’t bend
knee to them was targeted for insults and bullying. That and all their target
had done was offer a suggestion (like most of the other troll targets), remind japester
of the rules after his idiotic comment, and (when japester responded by unleashing
his ranting little tirade) demonstrated just how ‘qualified’ he was to offer
his suggestion, then reminded him that the suggestions offered by any of the
backers did not require the approval of trolls.
Again,
people try to get japester back on track. They ask him about Rainmaker.
“Rainmaker,” japester sighs. “See, Rainmaker gets it. Rainmaker understands
that people who think they have the right to say things I don’t agree with need
to keep their opinions to themselves and agree with everything I say. Yeah, I
really think me and Rainmaker are soulmates. Up until now, I’ve just had the
mirror, but with someone like Rainmaker fawning all over my pathetic efforts to
tear others down to make me look better, it’s easier to forget I’m such a
miserable, gutless arsehole not worth a pinch of pig-shit blowing in the wind.”
The
audience ask him some more questions. “Sure I know Rainmaker is probably a
guy,” he says, as if it’s an odd thing to ask, “but what woman would want a
vindictive little bully like me? Once they realised how insecure and
narcissistic I am, they’d ditch me. Unless they have no self-esteem or are
trying to hit rock-bottom. That’s okay though, because I’m a misogynist and
women scare me. And those are just some of the many, many problems I have. You
may have noticed.” The audience had. And so had anyone else with even
half-a-brain who had read his posts. “But in answer to where I go from here…”
He
pauses for a moment, desperately trying to counter a virus attached to one or
more of the many porn pages he’s opened in his browser, then sucks down a
bottle of Coke and box of Cheetos while asking someone to remind him what he
was saying. “Well, there are lots of other sci-fi and fantasy sites and
businesses out there. They all need my expert opinions and efforts to drive people
away from their product. You’d think they’d be grateful, but not one of them
has ever given me a pat on the head,” japester says, sounding lonely and sad, a
tear in the corner of his eye, “they just ignore me.”
A
guy points out that he’s not alone. That there are lots of trolls out there,
just like him. And Rainmaker. “That does help,” he agrees, a rarity from
someone who is just disagreeable by nature. “It’s not easy being a troll.
Nobody likes you. Even other trolls. We always find ways to turn on one
another. They just don’t get that I’m right and they’re wrong. You know when we
attack someone and say they’re ‘butthurt’? We’re really talking about
ourselves. No, it’s true. Deep down, we’re just cowards who only feel good
about ourselves when we’re making others unhappy. We really are a bunch of
self-centred pricks.”
“But
the good news is this,” japester gloats, chest puffing up with pride, yet going
unnoticed due to the massive girth of his belly and fat arse wedge into his
chair, “nothing Kickstarter or any other moderators do will stop me from
trolling their sites. Besides, they don’t like people posting things I don’t
agree with either, that’s why they don’t remove my comments unless someone
complains, and sometimes not even then, so I’ll just keep behaving like a
massive douchbag, because nobody will stop me.”
He
finishes with something he wrote in one of his posted comments, something that
projected his bitchy, whining hypocrisy on others: “You
heard it here first, folks. Look forward to it. I guarantee it.”
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