"Alienating your market [Privateer Press]" Topic

It's probably a poor business decision on the part of the rep to dismiss your wife's business. On the other hand, I think people are a bit too sensitive on comments like "play like you have a pair." I'm more critical of the rep's response than the slogan or any perceived slur.

I tend to be critical of ultra-pc trouble makers who change their story and quotes two or three times and then blame the confusion and uproar on those attacked for not understanding his "hyperboyle". Then they run a biased poll and refuse to allow anyone but long term members to vote...

Holy smokes... All I got to say after siftign throught the first zillion posts is "ITS A GAME"....

That being said... Their Marketing is their own affair. Either it will work or it will bury them. Their customer service is everyone's affair. Sorry to hear that some jerk treated your wife like that.

Unprofessional. Not right. In the poll I voted that the slogan was "slightly offensive" but then there are always a hundred people ready to find ANYTHING offenive these days.

Your wife called them on it (fair enough...) but was treated wrong. I guess I can't buy any of their product for the game, since I am 34 and fall out of the demographic. Not only that, but I guess my pair is too busy painting to play anyhow :)

Read the original post - the "quote" is not a a quote at all - it is a paraphrase of an interpretation of the what the demo guy said. Sounds to me like someone went looking for a fight and heard exactly what she wanted to hear.

I think the only chance the PP staff had with the offendee was to immediately rip down every poster, shred every T shirt, and tear the offending page from every book. After that and a long month in the PC re-ed camp and maybe they would be "cured." But I doubt it...

Ok, I have to chime in here. Having meet and/or dealt with a good number of the PP staff and the local PP Pressgangers, all I can say is it really is a great company. As to the 'fliers' I have not seen a single one an any store I have been too in any state I have gone to stores [several BTW, I travel a lot]. I, at first, was offended by the Page 5 thing, until I re-read it about 2 months later and realized it was meant as a slam on another game on the market.

I have never had bad costomer service from PP, but I do have to agree that the rep or whoever it was could have been a little more tactful in dealing with this potential consumer.

It does sound like there was no way for them to appease you, but then I ave been in your shoes too. I meet a GW rep and told them I found the pricing on thier figs to be outragous and his responce was basically. "Too bad, then find another game." I did.

I am sorry you were offended, but I will not stop playing and supporting PP as they put out a quality product and I like the people who play the game too.

I read the first third of this thread, then skimmed the rest. Holy crap!

In any event, I find it amusing that the fans of the game so adamantly refuse to believe that a rep / guy running a demo can be rude.

And yet you repeatedly refer to Games Workshop (though you dont say it outright) as being poor at customer relations.

Amusing.

"Sounds like the rumors of PP taking on a big business attitude toward its market (ala GW!) are possibly true."

Hardly. Take a look at all the other threads on TMP that have anything to do with Privateer Press, you'll see that their customer service and treatment is outstanding. I personally just bought a box set that had a miscast model (a jagged fracture in the upper body that definately couldn't be fixed with green stuff), sent them an email about it, and promptly received an email asking for my address so they could send the replacement figure.

Smedley

Hmm... so far we have only heard one side of the story. The PPers just got on the plane last night and probably have just found out about this when they got into their office this morning.

Having everyone speculating based on one side of the argument and their own prejudice is, well, irrational.

Take a deep breath and wait for PP to address the complain. Calling each other names and getting onto tangents only waste time and bandwidth.

""I was accidently giving Smedley some ammunition with my previous parenthetical statement""

Well, you don't have to worry about that...I'm sure you and your wife are fantastic parents!

...wait, that's not what you meant...

You don't kick people when they're down - you take issue with a point, state a counter argument, then let the person respond. Jumping on someone who seems to be pretty eloquent in their posts (as you do, even with only having been a member for all of two days) yet just happens to leave themselves open is a cheap shot and too easy.

Smedley

Regardless whether the wife exaggerated the statement or not, the really scary part of this thread is how many posters think it's OK for a company spokesperson to talk to ANY person (targeted demographics or not) in that way.

I am waiting for an official statement from PP to clearup the matter, but many of the PP "spokesperson" are certainly scary me away from their product...

How's about, for TMP'ers, "Post like you've got unlimited
bandwidth !"

[I am waiting for an official statement from PP to clearup the matter…]

There has been an official statement by the Grinning Wolf:

TMP link

Privateer has just returned from the San Diego Comic Con as of last night, so you all have gotten quite a head start on things. I’ve done my best to catch up, and would like to contribute our own position and point of view.

I’ll start by saying that I’m not at all a fan of personal controversy and for the benefit of the members of TMP, I’ll only make one post here in hopes to avoid any belaboring of the thread. Also, I would hope that nothing here would be taken as an attack against any of the posters here, even the original poster or his spouse. Those of you who know me or have been on forums where I contribute know that I never defend Privateer. I explain our position and the rationale behind it with complete honesty, for better or for worse. In the end, you’ll make up your mind one way or the other, and likely, as we’ll see, probably already have.

I would also add, that the information in this thread has not been represented factually at all, but rather as a great deal of inference, supposition, and conclusion; dialogue has been paraphrased, and information has been misrepresented. For instance, the ‘beige flyers’ in question who seem to be the instigating culprit, are not issued from Privateer Press.

To Meiczyslaw’s wife: I am terribly sorry that your experience with Privateer Press was unfavorable, more so, because I am actually the representative that you spoke to. I never like to see anyone leave our booth unhappy, and always make myself available as much as possible to assist anyone with any issues they might have with Privateer.

When Meiczyslaw’s wife approached our booth at San Diego Comic Con, she was already clearly angry, as was obvious by the way she pushed through the people in front of the booth and leaned over the table. Without introduction, she explained that she had seen flyers at her local game store that suggested that girls should not play WARMACHINE, and demanded, “Why do you publish material that is offensive to women?”

At this point, Sherry Yeary, our president, looked at me to explain, as I am the person who creative directs, markets, and manages WARMACHINE, as well as the author of the introduction to our book, now known as Page 5. Sherry is not someone who’s toes you step on, nor do you interrupt or push her out of the way. She manages a company of 32 men and has a bigger pair than any of them.

My reply to Meiczyslaw’s wife was that we did not publish offensive material, and that the slogan was “Play like you’ve got a pair” not “Girls go home.”

She pressed the subject for explanation. My philosophy towards how Privateer does business is to make our company as transparent as possible. Whether it is the price of metal, the methods we use to price our products, or how we target our marketing, I am eager to share this information so that the public may see that we do in fact act with both rhyme and reason. So, I explained that the attitude we have projected for WARMACHINE is indeed targeted at the largest demographic slice of the hobby game industry, as concluded by a great deal of expensive market research done in our category [by other ‘big’ companies]: “96% male, ages 16-24.”

The target demographic associates with the slogan, and it represents a style of play that we appreciate in WARMACHINE, no matter what your age or gender.

Meiczyslaw’s wife was not satisfied with this, and stated that she would buy this game if it were not for that slogan. I do find this somewhat misleading, considering Meiczyslaw’s earlier statement that he hadn’t even looked at the book, so I’m not sure how they would have known that they would otherwise enjoy the game. My reply was, “I understand. WARMACHINE is not for everyone.”

While this is not the same as, “We don’t want your business because you’re a girl. Go away,” Meiczyslaw’s wife was obviously frustrated and quickly left the booth with no further discussion.

Meiczyslaw’s wife was angry about the marketing of a game that she had not examined, and was seeking an apology for the way Privateer has positioned the product in the marketplace. In my opinion, the greatest crime would be to act as a hypocrite and apologize for our stance, selling out the thousands of people who play our game in order to persuade one person to buy our products. Nor would we deliver a pre-packaged customer service response, just to placate someone. Meiczyslaw’s wife did not receive the response she wanted, but our mission is one of integrity, and we will stand by our position and our principals.

There is not a product made in the world that is universally beloved by everyone, and any company hoping to stay in business should know their customer. We spend a huge amount of time and resources keeping in contact with our customer base, providing on-time, courteous and question-free customer service, and getting as much exposure to our players as possible at conventions and events. We know our audience, and we care about them, whether they’re playing WARMACHINE yet or not.

That said, we do not exclude in any way, shape or form. Understanding that the largest segment of your demographic falls within a certain category is just smart business. That doesn’t mean that you discourage others from your product. I demoed for an hour to a twelve year old boy and his mother at the convention this weekend—both of which fall outside the ‘target demographic’—because the data is merely an average statistic, graded on a curve. That means there’s a lot of other folks out there that are going to be outside the odds—and in an audience the size of WARMACHINE, that means potentially hundreds or thousands of players. The reason we represented at Comic Con, in fact, is to expose our game to a different demographic, that skews younger. At the same time, we travel to Salute in the UK to expose the game to a group that skews older than standard. However, if your marketing is to communicate a consistent message, you have to pick a mark and head towards it. Demographic information doesn’t tell you who to exclude, it gives you a focus.

Regarding women—I’m always surprised that this is even in question with WARMACHINE. Our cast of characters includes a high number of strong, independent, females, none of which are clad in the chain-mail bikinis so often seen in products in our category. In fact, we are much more on the conservative side, visually, and refuse to pander, sacrificing artistic integrity for the sake of a dollar. At the same time, we have many women in our Press Gang (demo/promotions team), all of whom are excellent. We have also had several women take the champion seat in our tournaments. We want women to play. But just like we’re looking for males who don’t whine about losing, we hope to attract the kind of women who can change a tire themselves, or talk smack with the guys over the tournament table, without ever feeling helpless in an environment that is primarily dominated with males. I’ll continue to stand behind ‘no little girls’, though, and preferably, ‘no little boys’. That’s not sexist. We make a game about war and death that has no place in the hands of a small child, no matter what the sex.

WARMACHINE is not for everyone. No product is for everyone. WARMACHINE is a successful product that has appealed to a large segment of the hobby game industry customers. However, we have no illusions that it will be universally beloved. I worked for the ‘big’ companies for a long time, and I have seen what happens to the integrity of a product when you dilute it down to the lowest common denominator. We have garnered an enthusiastic and intelligent audience for WARMACHINE, so whatever marketing strategy we have chosen, it seems to be working well. If we were getting a bunch of stuffy old jerks, or throngs of whiny brats, I would count the product a failure no matter what the sales. We’ve made a game where we can actually enjoy spending time with the players. Damn the dollars—that’s the measure of success.

From our president, Sherry Yeary, “Words are words. You can choose to be defeated by them, or you can choose to be empowered by them. I’ll take the latter and rise above it all.”

Matt Wilson
Privateer Press
Creative Director
email: mw@privateerpress.com
voice: (206) 783-9500
fax: (206) 783-9502
2601 NW Market St.
Seattle, WA 98107
www.privateerpress.com

I am new and coming over from the Warmachine forums. I thought to simply ignore this, but find my sense of fair play and intelligence insulted enough that I decided to join this foul play.

It was suggested that people read the e-zine linked on this thread and form their opinion of what PP means by 'play like you have a pair.' That was an excellent idea, but I would recommend reading the entire discussion.

Physiologically, increased aggression is tied to testosterone. Testosterone is produced in the testicles, whether vestigal in females, or overt in males. The level of testosterone is not the only determinant for aggression, which is why women can be as aggressive as males. The average level of aggression is higher in males over females, however, by a demonstratable, physical fact of life.

Taking offense at 'play like you have a pair' is equivalent to taking offense at the statement that 'men are stronger then women.' Physiologically, the average male is stronger than the average female. That difference is not based on size vs power, only on straight measure of power.

Strength measurements are also based on average levels. There are plenty of women who are stronger than some men, because they have pushed their capabilities. The have worked to achieve that ability.

Likewise, women can work to be as aggressive as men, whether it is in playing games, striving in the workplace, or anything else. When competing, women who can achieve the level of aggressive competition of men have for some time been considered to be 'playing like they had a pair.' The phrase was not started by PP.

When you consider that society has also taken that phrase to mean playing with reckless courage, as Matt Wilson noted in his interview, the idea of it containing derogatory sexual bias is stretched, at best. Men are more likely to match the suggested ideal for the game of aggressive, reckless courage, but nothing suggests women are incapable of it. Men simply have the dubious honor of having a higher average level of chemicals that can encourage those traits.

As for the complaints here that the PP forum membership is filled with uncouth, uneducated louts; you are wrong. The PP forum has a membership of over 6000 people. Some of them are less educated, polished, or capable of functional communication. Insulting the whole based on the postings of a few is no better than the attack posts you are complaining they are making.

I have seen equivalent levels of banality and poor communication by locals. There is no need for either from mature individuals.

PP has issued an apology to the couple that was offended, acknowledging poor communication at the con.

For those who dislike the idea of what was said to happen, let me offer another possibility on context.

1) The woman approaches the PP booth, and begins her conversation complaining about the offense she feels women will find, addressing her complaint to the woman present, as a possible kindred spirit.

2) The man present, being a gentleman, and not wanting the woman to have to deal with an attitude they don't feel is justified, steps into the conversation to screen her from it.

3) The couple are not approaching PP as potential customers, they are approaching as people with an aggenda. That places them in a very different context, much like telephone solicitors, or door to door salespeople.

4) The conversation continues in abbreviated form due to the couple's increasing annoyance, with the acknowledgement that they may not fall into the company's demographic (which according to polls averages over 30 years of age online, even if targetted at the primary gaming group of 16-24 years of age), and that there is no functional reason for PP to change their policy or stance.

5) Due to a perceived insulting attitude, the couple leaves and starts the thread that has devolved to the numerous rants here and on the PP forum.

The overal problem was in communication from both sides. No person has deserved to be villified by people that don't know what actually occured, and the only posts stating what was said have been acknowledged to be paraphrased and inaccurate.

I obviously do not agree with the stance of the couple who started all this. I see 'play like you have a pair,' and the entire context of 'page 5' from the Prime rulebook to be neither demeaning nor insulting.

As earlier links to the PP forum show, even the Warmachine community has a vocel minority that doesn't like page 5.

Those who don't like it are entitled to their opinion, but using it to villify the company and its staff is ludicrous.

Gamers, as a whole, are a more intelligent community. Let's use that intelligence instead of knee jerk reactions.

I was typing when Matt made his response. Thus, my post does not address everything as he did.

You now have an official response,and another view of what happened.

Now we can deal with the situation as each sees fit.

Thank you Matt for clear information on what happened. Gimp once again you are a voice of reason. This is the first time I've been able to read this thread. Whew, what a mess. Hope this is the end.

Very nice response Matt. I guess if you go looking for a fight and to be insulted you will be insulted no matter what is actually said.

Yeah, what Matt said, can we now move on?

good & more importantly - swift response matt.
kudos

Like I said when this started. there are two sides to every story.

John

Matt for president !!!

So what does Pirate Press have against "stuffy old jerk"???

Frickin' ageist.

Priate, Privateer, what's the difference...

Matt already has my vote. Is this over yet? Can we all go home now? Sheesh...

**note to self: buy more Warmachine stuff, pref Khador.

Well Said Matt.

Andy Welkley
"Your Phrendlee Hevy Phyzx T-chrr"

Just a side note about PP's supposed offsensive comments.

My wife has been termed a 'feminazi' by others and she laughed at the comments and said they were juvenile, not sexist.

Wow, well said Matt. To all the tmp fanboys: eat Crow!

I could see this whole scenario in my mind and I guessed it had to be Matt speaking to the woman long before it was confirmed. I have met Matt at conventions, and spoken to him over the phone enough times to be mildly amused by this entire episode (and at times LOL), the way you would when a friend gets into a humorous no-win situation. Catch-22 Baby! :-)

Anyhow, I dont know if I would have handled the interview or the written response nearly as well. I thought the part about sticking to the company philosophy and not selling it out for one potential sale is spot on. But high marks all around for a well reasoned response.

Kudos Matt!

Neal

Sounds like Matt did the best he could with a no-win situation.

See!

Love for all!

Rabbit!

is that a collective stepping off of soap boxes I hear?

kudos PP

Lp

Blimey, you don't come here for a few days and the place goes to wrack and ruin whilst people are doing a demo run of World War 3.

Ok, first of all my disclaimer : I have never played Warmachine, I've looked at the figures, spoken about the game with the owner of my local games shop and read reviews etc in Harbinger. I like the look of the the game, although I'm not sure techo/steam fantasy is my cup of tea. I'd be willing to buy it and some starter armies if I had the spare cash.

So, my opinion. Yes it's a tongue in cheek joke, but, it's also pretty careless as in this day and age it's all too easy to offend people. I think it's mildy amusing, and certainly a better way to get people to play than letting little kids yell WAAAAAGH all the time ;-). Seriously the main complaint is, from what I can gather, that the reps attitude stank. This happens. I've met good reps, and bad reps. I used to work for GW. I would happily tell people or talk to them about other games, what other figure ranges they could buy or use etc. Customer care and service as key to getting a good name no matter how good the product. An apology to the offended party, along the lines of 'Sorry it offended you, the reason we used that slogan was X, what we mean by it is X, the group we're aiming at is X. Sorry it offended you but that wasn't our purpose'. It doesn't take much to explain the company strategy/target audience but in a polite way. I think had this been done there wouldn't be all this hoo-hah over it. In fact, all PP need to do to clear this up is say 'Sorry for the way our rep spoke to you, we don't condone that attitude and he could have handled it better. The slogan is tongue in cheek and we realise it may offend some, but there's always someone who will be offended. We are sorry how you took the message, we didn't mean to belittle anyone and will look into the reps handling of the situation.'
I dare say then most poeple would have been happy.
There are worse company slogans out there and worse messages being portrayed regards the use of or not use of certain products.
Last time I bought a can of Lynx deoderant I didn't get sexy attractive women flinging themselves at me - so, do I sue Lynx for lying to me?

All out of proportion. The worst bit is some of the posts made here are quite nasty and personal towards people saying pretty much tough doggy doos live with it. Not the kind of people I like to see at TMP. At least some people defended PP eloquently and with knowledge and no name calling. I wont name and shame those that I think would be happy back in the stone age, 'Me want women, club women over head, she mine now, do as I say' but the attitudes of quite a few people posting here stink. They took it as a direct attack to lose PP sales and assume it was aimed at the game. GET A LIFE. It was a complaint about a poorly handled situation. It happens, but there's no need to start calling people PC liberal placard waving right on hippy loonies' or whatever garbage it was.

Just found Matt's reponse as I wrote this - pretty much what I expected. A well written response Matt. You have my respect. too many people get caught up in the heat of the moment. I found your reply well thought out and worded. It's obvious you didn't want to insult Meiczyslaw or his wife or anyone. It looks like a big misunderstanding that will hopefully have blown over. There's been worse, and without being rude, in a much biiger and more important field than wargaming. In some ways this appears to be quite trivial. As I said above though, the nastiness of some of the replies (even if we didn't have the whole/true story from the word go) on this thread were way out of order.

How about we all just agree that sometimes we aren't all going to see eye to eye, will be offended by someone else and realise this is a great hobby with a lot of nice people and companies in it. No one sets out )I hope) to intentionally offend anyone else, but sometimes it happens.
You can't please all of the people all of the time.

alien

Well, my doubts just evaporated. I've spoken to Matt on several occasions and had nothing but professional, lively, and interesting discussions about the game.

If he is the one who addressed the concern then it could not have gone any better than it did. If the person goes in loaded for bear, chances are they'll shoot one.

The customer service at Privateer has been without peer, as I've experienced many times myself. I'm glad to see that tradition continue.

Good on ya me mucker!!!

Peepingthomas

"As for the complaints here that the PP forum membership is filled with uncouth, uneducated louts; you are wrong."

Well....the forum over there might not be filled with uncouth, uneducated louts, but there was CERTAINLY one who posted here in that fashon. I wonder if they are as uncouth and uneducated in their bahavior over there.

Wow...there are a LOT of people with a LOT of free time on their hands.

Kudos to Matt for his professional reply and shame on those who leaped to conclusions.

This is ONE person complaining...No I take that back, this is one person's husband who is complaining, and he couldn't even keep his story straight. Why didn't his wife post her complaint? After reading his initial rant how many of us sat there saying "ok, now what is the real story here?" Those of us who leaped to PP's defense were promptly labled 'fan boys.' This whole episode has really tarnished TMP's reputation with me. I've been a member for some time and this will be my last post here. I refuse to visit a web page that supports this kind of witch hunt mentality. Privateer Press has the finest customer service that I have yet to experience in gaming in the 30+ years I have been in this hobby, and to see one woman with an OBVIOUS (open your eyes gentlemen!!!!) agenda to besmirch this company and to see the editor support that view with no linking evidence is plain b.s.

Keep jerking those knees fella ;)

I missed this thread.

IMO, The game WM does not inspire any greatness in it to me to bother playing it. No offence to fans of the game. And some how I don't feel any less a man.

To me marketing like that is just a cry for help. It may as well read "Buy our game now! Or we'll insult your manhood and wave our privates in your grandmothers direction. Now go away or I will taunt you a second time."

Don't judge a book by its cover Sargonarhes. Yes it is a young company but they have to be doing something right or it wouldn't be going near as well as it is. PLay it or watch it be played before making a decision.

Personally I have no interest in historicals. Doesn't mean that I dont watch it or haven't played any. It just doesn't peak my interest.

I don't understand all the provocation by the TMP 'regulars' On one side of the mouth they smirk about spelling errors, lack of sophistication and immature attitudes while on the other side of the mouth, they provoke people to make a response so they can defend a so called slight about themselves.

I'm truly trying to find this so called maturity that was trumpeted about.

[...and to see the editor support that view...]

I haven't taken a stand one way or another on the issue of the show incident.

The post from Matt has been up for about 24 hours and no rebuttal from Meiczyslaw?

I think that if an apology is due, he owes one to Matt, PPS and everyone for his misleading and inflamitory post.

(quote: deljohnb)
"As for the complaints here that the PP forum membership is filled with uncouth, uneducated louts; you are wrong."

Well....the forum over there might not be filled with uncouth, uneducated louts, but there was CERTAINLY one who posted here in that fashon. I wonder if they are as uncouth and uneducated in their bahavior over there.

(/quote)
Nothing like making a blanket judgement of a whole group of people based on one persons postings is there?

I think you will agree that there will always be aggressive posters, trolls whatever you wish to call them, in every online community.

I visit the pp forums regularly - mainly to be inspired by the many many talented painters who post there and to look for ideas in the Ik rp forums. Generally posters are extremely pleasant and friendly, much as they are here.

Lp

That's not true at all. I eat babies right out of their cribs and regularly worship the devil when I'm not picking my nose, playing my music too loud, or subverting democracy. So there. :P

Reading this thread wow.

I cannot beleive some people are so petty. If a female doesn't like male platitudes - to freakin bad, get over it, ingnore it pay it no heed. jeesh

If someone said anything offensive to my wife they would be steppen' outside with me to settle the score like we both "have a pair."

Jishin aparantly felt as she did and that is ok. So her husband posted the frustration. And that is ok too.

What we all should do from the next time is wait to judge until both sides have been heard. Even then, it can be hard to judge but at least we're not running the risk of unfairly flaming people (either way) and later being offered some salt to with our foot.

TGW

typo should read: "....some salt to GO with our foot."

No, Timberhick. I have nothing against the game, the miniatures or the company. Well Maybe it's the miniatures, they just don't appeal to me. To really want to play a game there has to be some appeal for it, before anyone will pick it up and play it.

Yep. I've never been interested in fantasy-set miniatures games, and that's part of why it took so long for Warmachine to grow on me.

But now it's too late, and there's no turning back!

Smedley

[The post from Matt has been up for about 24 hours and no rebuttal from Meiczyslaw? I think that if an apology is due, he owes one to Matt, PPS and everyone for his misleading and inflamitory post.]

Isn't it possible they just recall the incident differently? Memory can be a tricky thing...

suite101.com/article.cfm/forensic_psychology/22991

If you can be more specific, it might be helpful. What precisely do you want to see an apology for?

Just for the record, supporters of warmachine you lost a customer for the game. Your bad behavior, and the cowardly way the rep from WarMachine did not address it(understandably - given a choice between calling jerks for being jerks and not alienating his current market base, he went with the money) is a black eye on your gaming community.

The attitude expressed isn't one to avoid rules lawyering, its he with the biggest mouth gets his way.

Wow. Lemmings away.