Quote Originally Posted by Rizon View Post
It is becoming ever more apparent that SE is using the Live Letter as a promotional tool only and will do everything possible to avoid answering the questions that concern ppl. If SE was truly concerned about transparency they would set aside time each month to address these matters (i.e. RMT prevention). Does not have to be a live letter and Yoshi-P need not be the sole commentator. Correspondence in these forums by appropriate members of the Dev team and management works.
Of course it's a promotional tool. I really don't know why you would expect anything less...
Just because they're not commenting on an issue doesn't mean they're not addressing it.
There's a cultural divide here, too: Japanese players aren't asking about RMT issues because they're not really experiencing them on the same level as us. Since the developers speak Japanese as their first language, it stands to reason that the questions would be ones that appeal to the Japanese players.
For the next live letter, I would recommend people going to the Japanese version of the thread and posting a question regarding it there. I might even come up with the question myself (provided I find out what the Japanese word for RMT is) and post it here so people can copy and paste it into that thread.
You'll also note they don't take the time to answer questions unless they're assured of the answer, and the answers they DO give all tend towards things that are positive. This is how Japanese companies handle things like this. It's foreign to us as we demand complete transparency, whereas corporate culture in Japan...well, let's just say it's very frustrating for non-Japanese people. Things that are negative will get swept under the rug and not publicly addressed.
This has been quite a problem for Japanese companies as of late when it comes to dealing with American customers.