Discussion for Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XX

[kyuven]

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.

[Rizon]

/snip

You are willing to give SE a pass due to cultural differences. I do not. As SE actively cultivated the NA/EU markets they bore the responsibility to learn these cultures and to adapt to the differences with Japanese culture. That is how global companies work. What this means is that they bear the responsibility to cater to each culture that they deal with. What may work in Japan does not, necessarily, work in NA/EU. They must learn this.

I stated in a later post that I thought that the forums were a more appropriate place to answer these questions. That is why we have different areas in the forums catering to different people. This is SE's design. Let them use it for communicating with different cultures and their specific needs.

[Leigaon]

As SE actively cultivated the NA/EU markets they bore the responsibility to learn these cultures and to adapt to the differences with Japanese culture. That is how global companies work. What this means is that they bear the responsibility to cater to each culture that they deal with.

They do, but it only goes so far. Even in house for most NA companies you cater to only so many things before it becomes a pain. I see requests come in all the time and things that are important to some people mean nothing to higher ups, and it is thrown to the waste side. I've seen conditions where people go "if you implement this, I'm going to quit"..they let them know who to contact to get the process started and will begin posting the job next week for a new hire. That's just a quick run down but if someone wants to take the words, twist them until we make lemonade more power to you.

I understand the frustration and you have every right to feel this way with certain things. Just sometimes need to take a step back and enjoy the good things that are coming from all this and not the negative.

I am very excited for 3.0, I am not always happy with a lot of things but, I voice my concern and log in..then get happy go lucky with the amazing scenery and all the wonderful things that make me love this game.