Repost: BloodFlowers, and why it's bad business to ban your most loyal fans

[KoolAidPitcher]

I'm reposting this on PSO-World so those who have been banned from the official forums can respond. The original post (which will probably soon be locked) is located here: http://forums.sega.com/showthread.php?418236-BloodFlowers-and-why-it-s-bad-business-to-ban-your-most-loyal-fans.

This topic is intended to be a serious discussion on some of the bannings on the Sega forums, and what the community thinks Sega could be doing better. Also, BloodFlowers does not know that I am writing this, and I have not spoken to him or played PSU with him in over a year.

Sega is entitled to ban anyone from their message boards for any reason whatsoever. The question I am asking is, does it make good business sense to ban your loyal fans? Let's take for example, BloodFlowers who was banned for trolling over a year ago. In short, he was a devoted PSU fan who was disappointed by Sega's handling of PSU in America, and was expressing his grievances on their forums. Did he deserve a suspension? Perhaps. but now he is banned-- forever.

As a long time Sega fan, I know that Sega hasn't always made the best decisions, but the decision to ban some of their most loyal fans for expressing their disappointment (admittedly, not always in the best way) is such a bad decision that it defies all business sense, and all common sense. Sega is essentially saying that they don't care about their fans. They don't want your suggestions or criticism. Sega has been neglecting their fans when any reasonable company would be doing everything they can to please their fans so they keep coming back.

Case in point: Mass Effect fans are angry at the game's ending, so Bioware provides free DLC to improve the ending. Sega fans are angry that PSU content is continually being delayed from the Japanese release, so Sega bans them for life from their official forums. Do you see the difference?

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/1281/20120716210637.jpg
I'm a long time Sega fan. This is my Sega collection for this console generation.

Even after BloodFlowers has been banned, he's continued to be a devoted fan of Phantasy Star, and write a regular PSU blog (http://psu.system11.org/blog/). Eventually; however, he and many others who have been banned may stop supporting Sega. I know this because something similar has happened to me.

About 4 years ago during the Gamespot Gerstmanngate scandal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Gerstmann), I was banned from Gamespot for doing all sorts of bad things. After I was banned, I continued to read Gamespot for reviews and previews of games, but eventually, I stopped going. I canceled my Gamespot plus subscription and lost touch with the community. The fact of the matter is, being banned made me feel like an outcast-- like I wasn't wanted. I was banned for life, and was never allowed to make another account. I wasn't the only person who was banned from Gamespot, because at the time a lot of dissatisfied users were committing 'account suicides,' by purposefully violating the Terms of Service in protest to the way they fired Jeff.

A few years later, Gamespot wised up. They realized that banned users do not subscribe to the premium service, and some of them stop going to the website altogether, so they started unbanning people who have been banned for a long time. After emailing their community manager Jody Robinson, I was unbanned from Gamespot earlier this month. I'm now a gamespot premium member again.

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/1204/unbannedj.png
Water under the bridge.

I know my opinion and Gamespot's opinion doesn't carry much weight here, but here goes: My humble opinion is that banning should only be for serious offenses (pornography, hate speech, racism, threats, etc.), and suspensions should be for everything else. Why? Because it's bad business, and bad common sense to ban your fans for anything that isn't serious-- and yes, the people posting on these forums are your fans. They wouldn't be here if they weren't!

I'm a Sega fan, and I disagree with many of their forum bannings, as of late.

DO NOT

Turn this thread into a flame war.
Speak derogatorily about other users, banned or unbanned.
Turn this thread into the 'list of people you wish were banned/unbanned thread'.



DO

Discuss some of the recent bannings, and why you think they were right/wrong.
Make suggestions about what you would like Sega to do on their message boards.

[Sinue_v2]

This is part of the reason why I avoid the official forums for much of the games and media I enjoy. Companies tend to view their message boards as a form of free advertising, and as such, are concerned less with fostering a vibrant community - and more with creating a culture of sycophants. So many of them ban anyone who shows explicit or repeated dissatisfaction with their products, at best... and at worst, will ban over any kind of talk that isn't favorably and directly related to their product - or the discussion of competing products.

As for the question of should they... well, I can definitely see why they would want to do such things from a business perspective. Your loyal fans are generally only about 20% of your total market-share (following the Pareto principal) *. Only a fraction of those will end up being "trouble-makers" or voice dissatisfaction, and even less of them will go so far as to boycott. So, if thine right eye offends thee - pluck it out, I suppose. Then again, it costs quite a bit more to generate new customers than it does to satisfy an existing customer. So I guess it all depends on how the marketing and management departments evaluate their priorities.

Morally, I would say it makes no sense, and is a form of betrayal... even though the loyalty was always understood to be one-sided. The ethics of business and the ethics of dealing with others on a human level are very different, though not by any means mutually exclusive. I think many companies struggle with the balance between the two, but the quickest and easiest route to strengthening the bottom line tends to win out. You can always focus on good customer relations when you're in the green, or in a position of security. Public opinions on companies change quite often... but if you fail to meet your earnings and loose investors even once, it can be game over.



* = (Those 20% of loyal customers also tend to be responsible for 80% of your total sales, even if they only represent a much much lower percentage of sales for any one particular service/product. It still makes sense for Sega to not worry about their loyal fans when managing PSU's western release, because they only ever represented about 20% of that game's total sales... even though customers like me and you went on to buy multiple Sega titles this generation.)

[AC9breaker]

I like this.

I feel Sega, business speaking has always shown good initiative, bad timing. After they got out of the console market they just totally lost all good judgement in terms of western business handling. But at the same time I feel like Sega fans are equally just as whacked out as Sega's handling of business. How many times have we heard fans crying for something only to hear even more cries when Sega does something about the original complaint. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The thing is that sometimes just because people are loud doesn't mean they represent the entire fanbase. It's a catch 22. You either listen to the "core" fans or continue on with the original design that was presented to the share holders and decision makers.

I think the Mass Effect 3 thing was kinda of a bad example because the ending was so terrible that it was a unanimous disapproval towards it, with little to no doubt or grey zone about it. As for the message boards I don't really care what they do, what I care is what they decide to do to the games. Like delaying Max Anarchy after its already done to 2013. Or the continued lack of support to the Western releases of PSO/PSU titles.