Categories
Debated Disliked

Bad Konami

Email received, Thursday, 2:55 AM:

From: KONAMI INSIDER

To: Remy

Subject: Konami Insider: Take the Konami Customer Survey

Dear Remy,

Thank you for being a Konami Insider.

Please visit our survey so we can continue to make the games YOU want to play.

http://www.onlineregister.com/konami/survey/

Sincerely,

Konami

I am not naive enough to believe that my feedback to any web survey will provide enough weighted guidance to allow for the things *I* want to be made. But I am naive enough to think that such a survey would have the reasonable illusion of trying to solicit my feedback.
Question one of this four question survey:

Common sense violations encountered in this question:

– The acronym “NGC” has never been in widespread use. While I know what it’s supposed to expand to, the average Joe will not. (I suppose I should be thankful the survey did not use “GCN”, as I’ve seen a number of places.)
– There are no listings for any now-current gen consoles: the PS3, the Xbox 360, the Wii.

Question two:

Common sense violations encountered in this question:

– The code name “Nintendo Revolution” has not been in use since the console was renamed the Wii on April 27th, 2006. This is over six months ago.
– No one – and I mean no one – refers to a “DS” as a “Nintendo Dual Screen”.
– The Gameboy Micro, as far as I know, is not being made any more, and bombed fairly badly compared to all other Gameboy Advance versions, never mind both versions of the DS.

Question three:

Common sense violations encountered on this question:

– Why is Super Mario the example given for “Platform Games with Cartoon Characters”?
– Why is Gran Turismo the example given for “Action Racing Games”?
– Why is there even a category of “Mission Based Driving Games”? And, again, why GTA, which has classically been defined as a “sandbox game”?
– Why do you offer such specifics as “Life Simulation Games”, “Fishing/Hunting Games”, and “Wrestling Games”, while you simultaneously neglect genres that Konami has at least something of a reputation for – such as Stealth Action Games (e.g. Metal Gear Solid), Music Games (e.g. Dance Dance Revolution), Adventure Platform Games (e.g. Castlevania), or Shoot-em-ups (e.g. Gradius)?

Question four:

Common sense violations encountered on this question:

– This question does not contain the phrase “you, yourself,” unlike the previous three.
– Why is an example needed for “Renting game from a video store”? Or for “Visiting the game publisher’s website”? Or, hell, even “Seeing advertisements online”?
– It’s obvious just from the depth of this question and the 76 radio buttons that the point of the survey is not to actually make the sort of games that *I* want to play, but instead to refocus their advertising budgets appropriately to hit more “top influences”. It’s not the dishonesty of the survey that bothers me – it’s the principle of being so willing to take advantage of your customers. To lure them in with the half-empty promise of listening to them, and then blatantly try to suckle effective advertising channels out of them.

This, by the way, is the thanks you get for completing the survey:

I am baffled as to how anyone could think a survey like this provides anything remotely useful.

Categories
Puzzled Over

Citigroup Needs A CluePod

Marketwatch is reporting that [Citigroup hires buffoons](http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B83E83BF9%2D6CD7%2D4D36%2D994E%2DFB7F2BCF63AC%7D&siteid=mktw&dist=nbs):

> Citigroup cut Apple Computer to hold from buy, citing valuation. The broker told clients it sees little potential for revenue upside versus consensus in the third or fourth quarter of the year. It said gross margin upside should yield 4 cents to 6 cents of earnings-per-share upside in both quarters but that this is largely priced into the shares. On the product front, Citigroup said recent checks suggest that Apple is unlikely to introduce a new video iPod with a larger screen and “virtual click wheel” before the peak holiday season, as the broker had hoped.

It’s a shame that textual blogging is not effected by timespace, because I would love to just replay the words *”as the broker had hoped”* for a straight thirty seconds. Why would the broker hope such a thing? Oh, right, [the damn rumor sites](https://vjarmy.com/archives/2006/09/three_little_words.php).

Is this how the financial world really works? Someone reads rumor sites, sees that the rumors don’t come true, and then downgrades the company because of it? This is lunacy, sheer and unbridled.

I’m not against financial decisions based on the reality of the situation – say, if the refresh of the entire iPod line had not yielded anything of interest. In my limited experience, this is not the case. There is a lot of interest in the new Shuffle, reasonable interest in the new Nano, and the new iPod Video certainly isn’t dissuading people from purchasing it. Never mind the *rest* of Apple’s product line, which I’ve never seen so much interest in.

But don’t let me stomp on your dreams, Citigroup.