Editorial: SimCity, Diablo 3 and a review of customer service
I don’t like writing game reviews. I’m a news guy, comfortable moving within and reporting on the binary conclusions of business in the video game industry. Reviews are emotional. Always have been. With SimCity and Diablo 3, I think the already tempestuous machine of game reviews in this industry has changed forever, and as a collective we haven’t yet determined how to proceed. SimCity and Diablo 3 aren’t just games, they are also services. The question: Should these games be reviewed separately from their service elements or should they be reviewed in combination?
Comparing this to the restaurant industry, the game is the food and the internet-required connection is the table service. Back of the house and front of the house. What we’ve seen following the launches of Diablo 3 and SimCity are people paying money to walk into the restaurant on opening day and not being served a meal. In a restaurant there would be immediate and dire consequences for such poor customer service. In the video game industry, there’s no shortage of apologists justifying the outcome. Nobody genuflects to poor customer service excuses in a restaurant. Any restaurant review would treat the meal and service as one singular expression of the experience.Continue reading Editorial: SimCity, Diablo 3 and a review of customer serviceEditorial: SimCity, Diablo 3 and a review of customer service originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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