Game Gadget - How to improve it

[psj3809]

Lots of games available to download and at decent prices will turn this thing around. Problem is theres many other gadgets out there (Eg the old GP2X, a few other similar machines as well) which ran run emulators so the games are free.

On iOS theres a lot of retro games, some publishers dont take the mick and theyre 69p, others charge a fortune for a lazy port of an old game.

They need to get the prices right for their games, start off low to get the punters in and 'try' to mop up all the damage they've caused with lies and other crap.

I think a lot of 'hardcore retro fans' wont give them a second chance and i dont blame them.

A lot of us in our 30's are probably happy to pay a small price for retro games but if they take the mick you might as well think 'i'll just download the rom and play it on my MAME emulator on my DS' etc.

Its a nice idea but due to the terrible terrible way they've started i cant see them being successful

[Liamh1982]

Get the feeling Mark and Jason are just a couple of 10-year-old boys who stuck their fingers in their ears and started shouting "Na-na-na, we're not listening."

They were preaching to the converted - I reckon the significant majority of those who would have been interested in such a device would already own one of the many alternatives, be it a smartphone, one of the many open source handhelds or even a hacked PSP or DS with a flash cart. There were going to be comparisons made, Blaze simply didn't have the infrastructure in place to be able to stand up to them.

[psj3809]

I dont think they did their homework, to me its like they thought 'retro seems popular, lets cash in' and they messed up totally. I mean the tweet to Alan Sugar talking about possible rights to Amstrad games was embarassing, not just the fact they openly tweeted him but the fact they think Sugar owns the rights to every single Amstrad game there is.

I mean its much much more complex than that, look at Elite on iOS who have been trying to legally sign up a lot of old Speccy games and cant get a fair few of the big names.

[zapiy]

Nice one Darren, lots of opinions here and to be fair those that bought one and felt let down have a right to feel that way.. What i can say speaking to various people behind this project is they are genuine people, trying to make this work.. Reading that the PR guy has made contact gives me more confidence in what they are trying to do.

Ok so the games have not came in anywhere near what we thought would be the case, that can and will change. Again they are lots of copyright loop holes they must navigate before they can announce anything official.

I for one hope these guys manage to pull this around.

[psj3809]

But forget you help out on the forum as your view might be biased.

If you had bought this item for 60 quid or so, it promised to do so much, you kept waiting as they promised more games etc and nothing happened and then after complaining they arent listening/replying they then block you from their forum, you would be angry.

Deep down i think we all want this to do well so thats why people have been so disappointed

[subzero]

Again they are lots of copyright loop holes they must navigate before they can announce anything official.

They should have had that sorted BEFORE release....

[DPrinny]

But forget you help out on the forum as your view might be biased.

If you had bought this item for 60 quid or so, it promised to do so much, you kept waiting as they promised more games etc and nothing happened and then after complaining they arent listening/replying they then block you from their forum, you would be angry.

Deep down i think we all want this to do well so thats why people have been so disappointed

Sounds like Nintendos download service on the Wii.

It seemed like it was gonna be awesome, but then we where drip fed titles that we could get on collections with the odd good un

[kiwimike]

Again they are lots of copyright loop holes they must navigate before they can announce anything official.

They should have had that sorted BEFORE release....

AND not pretended otherwise.

[HalcyonDaze00]

its never going to be anything other than a complete failure, they are best cutting their losses and walking away

[zapiy]

But forget you help out on the forum as your view might be biased.


Deep down i think we all want this to do well so thats why people have been so disappointed

Fair point bud but i am passionate, hopefully not biased.

I think your second statement says a lot and something i have thought myself

Again they are lots of copyright loop holes they must navigate before they can announce anything official.

They should have had that sorted BEFORE release....

AND not pretended otherwise.

Agreed, i have never had to deal with this kind of thing but from what i understand from chatting to other people about copyright and old games not related to the GG. Its a mine field, especially if the original holder is no longer.. lots of people can claim ownership so getting to the bottom of it can be hard. Not saying thats the case here but i assume its very similar.

[kiwimike]

If they don't know what's wrong by now they must be stupid.

Honestly Darran, even the most unskilled PR cretin will have the marketing nous to give a magazine the old sob story about how they so want to turn a bad product around if only the community out there would forgive, forget and give us some constructive feedback so we can move forward etc etc. It's what PR companies are paid to do. And it never really works once a product is synonymous with the word "sh1t".

The thing has to deliver what they said it would. It's just not looking even remotely likely. A thread on a forum isn't going to come up with a miracle fix because there simply isn't one now.

My advice would be to bin the Game Gadget entirely then redesign and wait a couple of years before relaunching it under a completely different name and with a large amount of games immediately available from day one.

Can't argue with any of your points at all...the whole point of the other topic was basically to keep potential gg owners up to date with what was happening, and basically buyer beware. It also became a place gg owners could tell their stories as they'd had them deleted from the facebook and so called community forum for gg owners.
And at this stage, I'm guessing a few of us will keep it bumped with updates good and bad, so the full story remains. All too often chunks have been deleted on their official sites-which is why I do remain a little skeptical about the motives here. Seen their tactics too many times over the past few months to 100% trust them-they are for all to see in that topic, which is why it needs to be kept Bumped IMO.
The two founders need to come out from wherever they are and face the music IMO, not just move the PR from one company to the next. They have been told so many times what the issues are, it's screamingly obvious. And their forum going from excitement with the concept and promises, to polite frustration, to disappointment, to irritated, to impatience, to angry, then deletions, then banning, then refunds, then a ghost town...you would have to be pretty unclued up not to follow it.
Asking what we want to see here is kind of patronising-Look at the promises made! More like that! I just can't see them doing it, it's obvious the pre launch build up now was simply hollow boast without substance, and they aren't really sure what they're doing, nor how to do it-And so took it out on their customers, and ironically the developers...the very ones that could've helped! PR can't fix that.
They seemed to be happy letting customers go with refunds, while they chugged away on their other stuff. All those returned gg equals a customer let down by the company. They must face that> I'm not sure if they have tbh

[kiwimike]

They should have had that sorted BEFORE release....[/quote]

AND not pretended otherwise.[/quote]

Agreed, i have never had to deal with this kind of thing but from what i understand from chatting to other people about copyright and old games not related to the GG. Its a mine field, especially if the original holder is no longer.. lots of people can claim ownership so getting to the bottom of it can be hard. Not saying thats the case here but i assume its very similar.[/quote]

The problem is, they lied. And the arguement is they didn't actually lie, because they didn't name names. But they intentionally misled. I still have emails from Mark when I was trying to get him to say at least a couple of games titles...and he kept going about all these games set to go but couldn't say what they were...but get on board, you won't be disappointed...

People know this now. It was a round about way of lying without lying in a legally binding way. They need to make ammends for this sort of prelaunch stuff before they can move forward. There's a few on here, like Lemon Jelly, Sub Zero, they were just treated shockingly, and their attempts to hide customer discontent, and the fake reviews pretending there were happy customers...more misleading.
They now have a reputation of dodgy, misleading practice. They HAVE to clear this before they can move on, and before trust can start again. If you shop at a retail store that's tried to pull the wool over your eyes, and you know it...do you go back or shop elsewhere? You need to know the same won't happen again before even considering trusting again.

[greenberet79]

The people in the PR team sometimes have more rounded knowledge of a product than anyone else in a company, including a better idea of how and why a product is viewed as it is by the outside world. I assume that's why it was him who has been in contact with Darren.

[psj3809]

Agreed, i have never had to deal with this kind of thing but from what i understand from chatting to other people about copyright and old games not related to the GG. Its a mine field, especially if the original holder is no longer.. lots of people can claim ownership so getting to the bottom of it can be hard. Not saying thats the case here but i assume its very similar.

Totally agree, sounds a complete nightmare when it comes to who owns what all these years later. I mean Elite wanted to release the best Speccy games out there, presume they didnt always have success as their own arcade conversions (Ghost n Goblins/Paperboy/Space Harrier/Commando/Bomb Jack) arent available in their app so i presume the parent company said no. Ridiculous when these old games are just sat there gathering dust as the parent company cant be bothered.

Look how many other 'big name' games werent available, eg the Ultimate games, Microsoft now apparently own Rare and i cant see them doing much or letting another company release them in an app even if they get a chunk of money from it. So these old games just 'rot'. Thats the frustrating thing, now i'm older, now some skint 12 year old kid, i'm happy to pay for a fair few retro titles (Just bought Metal Slug 3 last night on iOS despite having that on MAME) and be legal but often these games arent legally available so its rom/downloads etc.

Only way i really seeing the Game Gadget become a success is if it becomes the next GP2X and becomes a cheap little handheld to play various emulators on.

But talk about some stupid rookie mistakes, posting fake reviews of 5/5 stars on amazon (and no doubt other sites), i mean thats just schoolboy errors and embarassing from a 'proper' company.

[noobish hat]

Well I hadn't really heard anything about the Game Gadget until reading this thread, so some good PR work there.