Capítulo 44: Headaches

The next day Michael grabbed his laptop and headed to his office. He had a meeting with his Customer service head and PR experts first. He had made the change to Diamonds Friday night so the players had already experienced the changes for two days. Now Michael needed to know what the player reaction was.

" We have been flooded with complaints about the changes to Diamonds. Players are saying that their stockpiles are worthless. They are requesting that the changes be reversed; some are even demanding full refunds." Rachel, the customer service lead started speaking first.

Pam the PR expert was next and she did not have good news either. " Players are leaving tons of negative reviews. They are even complaining to google and apple to request our app be taken down. It is only a minority but it seems both companies still want to open an investigation."

Michael had a headache after hearing the reports. He started massaging his head because of the stress. Honestly, he was doubting his decision to enter the gaming industry.

Last week because he was so focused on Capos, he could not spend much time on his investments. He only got to spend an hour each day on trading; however, he still made as much money as the game just with one hour of daily work.

The game's eight million dollar sales might mean a lot to others, but it did not impress him much. It took him nearly three months to build capos and now it was causing him so many headaches; is it even worth it?

Michael shook his head. He knew that this was an obstacle he needed to overcome. Perhaps it would not be worth it if he only had one game; however, it was going to be easier to make games in the future because of his experience with the game engine. Not to mention, it would be foolish to not use the new library he earned from the system. Once he had dozens of games like the huge gaming companies he could expect billions of dollars in revenue each year.

Furthermore, he was the only developer. Michael did not need to pay any game developers and therefore his gaming company would have much larger profit margins. He sharpened his will and decided to overcome the obstacles.

In reality, the majority of the players still appreciated the game and enjoyed playing it. The complaints were coming from a small faction of hardcore players and farmers. Michael could understand their plight. Before the changes, a diamond was sold for one million dollars in game and that figure kept going higher. However, after the update, the market price had sunk down to 200 thousand dollars. Therefore, many hoarders saw an 80% drop in the value of their diamonds.

Michael decided that he was going to keep the changes no matter what. It was pivotal to stopping farmers. He had other ways to deal with the problem.

"Let's make two offers:

First, the players can request a full refund if they want too. However, all of their diamonds will be forfeited along with any premium days they have left on their account.

Second, the players can choose to keep their diamonds and premium status. And we will offer to gift them the equal amount of diamonds they purchased.

Regardless we will gift everyone a free month of premium. " Michael declared. He had thought about this issue and wanted to handle this situation in a delicate manner.

Since Capos was his company's first game he had to make a good impression to pave the road for his future games. Gamer's are one group that had brand loyalty. They would pre-order games from developers with little information about the game just because they trusted the developer. Of course, if one abused that trust then the company would always have that black mark on their record.

Pam and Rachel listened to his decisions and agreed with his response.

" The free month offer is really good. Since the majority do not have any complaints it will further cement the respect players have towards the company." Pam explained.

Michael smiled at Pam's naivety; perhaps people might think that this was an apology gift from the developer. However, he wanted this free month to act as a free sample. Once players experience the double leveling and loot for a month they will have a hard time going back to normal rates.

Michael would hook them with the free month and get them to cough up five dollars every month in the future. He knows that all drug dealers gave the first dose for free. Once people are hooked, they would keep on buying. However, he did not really feel guilty because five dollars really was not much for such a revolutionary game that had extensive expansions every month.

The meeting was suspended so Michael could call over the other Team leaders to join. He introduced the update schedule and the expansions to everyone. Everyone had already signed NDA forms when they were hired so he was not worried about any information being leaked.

******

Arjun Kapoor was flabbergasted as he listened to the presentation on updates. There were enough expansions to last two years. Furthermore, after the two years, players would not even recognize the base game anymore.

Most of the expansions were inspired by the feedback from players in the first week. That means the expansions were built in less than a week. Even the largest developer teams would need months to design this. Just who are the developers?

Arjun was still dazed when Michael finished the presentation and came up to him.

" I will entrust you to schedule the updates and make sure that they are released on time. Don't let me down." Michael handed him the hard drive with the updates and walked away. Arjun woke from his stupor and watched Michael walk away. He clenched his fist and vowed to never leave such a phenomenal company.