SNKP Gives Official Response to Cardfighters Glitch.

http://www.snkplaymoreusa.com/mb/viewtopic.php?t=2976

From Big Ben himself.


Edit: May 10th Response (so we don't start anymore new threads)

After a careful analysis by the game’s programmers and after reviewing the reported bug encountered when meeting John on level 9 we, SNKP USA, have decided that the best action is to offer a replacement cartridge. We will order new repaired DS cartridges from Nintendo that will take approximately six weeks to receive. As soon as we receive the replacement cartridges we will give instructions as to where to mail your DS cartridge to receive a replacement. We apologize for this programming error and will correct it as soon as possible. Please do not return your game to the store of purchase. We will do an exchange program as soon as the new game paks arrive from Nintendo. Please continue to visit our website for updated information. We will update this announcement as soon as we are able to plan a date for the exchange to begin.

Thank you,

Ben Herman
President
SNK PLAYMORE USA CORPORATION

Too little, too late.

--EDIT--

To take that a bit further: because they so spectacularly messed up this launch, and because they are so inept at launching a new game in the United States market, they have burned much of what was left of their audience. I read GameSpot's review this morning, it wasn't quite the 1/10 (it was 4-something/10), but it shared the common opinion.

Here's my take:

SNK (or at least the shell that pretends to be SNK) took a game that could've made them relevant again --a game that would've showed people that SNK was about more than just cheaply milking and exploiting its game library-- and demonstrated that it is incompetent and uncaring for its fans and gamers at large.

Can the blame be squarely placed on SNK USA? Yes and no. This post-fall SNK USA has not demonstrated any significant competence (I still cringe at how badly the SNK vs Capcom location test and launch were handled). However, SNK USA is the face of SNK and I feel no issue with blaming SNK in Japan for allowing these individuals to prosper. To me it seems like we have executives at SNK USA who are proud to be executives, but not actually doing competent work. They're in love with doing "executive" things. As a result we see this mess, something that could've been avoided if they had been focused and acting in the interest of providing consumers a quality product. Clearly, that is not a priority anymore.

Ben Herman was in charge of SNK USA at the time this disaster occurred. Why didn't he manage his underlings well enough to guarantee that this product wouldn't come out broken? There is no excuse. Even if SNK Japan handed him a broken product, it's should be their job to make sure it's not a total disaster (and apparently even the English translation would've tipped them off that something was amiss).

Bobak said:

Too little, too late.

Click to expand...

Ah come on Bobak,

At least give them a chance to make amends. Well I guess it all depends on what the conclusion is. Maybe there will be a gameshark code that will let you go on

anyway at first I did not like the game as much as the Pocket versions but have now gotton used to the play style. I still like the Pocket version a bit better but that is more because there is more world interaction and you have to find the Card fighters as opposed to just running and picking who to fight. I do think it is a bit more challenging though with the Gem requirements.

Anyway I have not gotten through it yet so I have not hit the gliche, so I sure when I do if it is still an issue I will be pissed as well.

Phil

[for the record, Big Bruno replied before I had finished turning my initial post into a much longer opinion --at the time what he quoted was what was written]

Big Bruno said:

Ah come on Bobak,

At least give them a chance to make amends. Well I guess it all depends on what the conclusion is. Maybe there will be a gameshark code that will let you go on

anyway at first I did not like the game as much as the Pocket versions but have now gotton used to the play style. I still like the Pocket version a bit better but that is more because there is more world interaction and you have to find the Card fighters as opposed to just running and picking who to fight. I do think it is a bit more challenging though with the Gem requirements.

Anyway I have not gotten through it yet so I have not hit the gliche, so I sure when I do if it is still an issue I will be pissed as well.

Phil

Click to expand...

Phil, they let a broken product out the door. Not a poorly designed product from a subjective rating scale, they let a critically broken product enter the market.

It's the same reason I don't give them credence for being a smaller company --there are other small companies releasing games that don't have these issues. This can be blamed on a failure of management to make sure proper QA was followed.

Don't let 1998-tinted, pre-bankruptcy lenses skew the view of what SNK is now.

what the FUCK is wrong with that alba guy.

i cant fuckin stand him.

was a 3 word reply with NO CONTENT really necessary?

i hate that guy.


i also feel cfc:ds is getting way too much shit. its a good game, people just dont want to learn how to play it. i didnt like the first because i thought it was too simple.

I'm going to agree with Bobak but add that many people, such as myself, haven't had the time to play the new game yet, so I won't see what the fuss was about. However, I think it's crazy that as soon as the game was released people were complaining in masses about a glitch on the second run - people beat the game in less than a day. That's terrible.

Bobak said:

Phil, they let a broken product out the door. Not a poorly designed product from a subjective rating scale, they let a critically broken product enter the market.

It's the same reason I don't give them credence for being a smaller company --there are other small companies releasing games that don't have these issues. This can be blamed on a failure of management to make sure proper QA was followed.

Don't let 1998-tinted, pre-bankruptcy lenses skew the view of what SNK is now.

Click to expand...

Well look. I agree somewhat. Not at least having someone do a full run playtest to find this Glich prior to release is very irresponsible. And if they come back with it is unfixable sorry then yeah I will be very pissed as well. Maybe it is me, but it seems now days most all games have some sort of glich in them. everytime I go online with my XBOX360 or Wii some new game update is being downloaded it seems. Have game bugs become the Norm. I first noticed issue when Gaming companies had to rush to get the product to market so they release a buggy batch and fix it with patches later on. I get DVD's where the 5.1 is not recorded correctly or a language track is off sync. I think products as a whole for whatever reason are coming out buggier and buggier.

I don't know I may have a bit more patients when it comes to stuff like this. But yeah, this is a major screw up.

regardless of it being broken and the delays that SNK US had...the game sucks in comparison to the NGPC versions! How does THAT happen?

Thats not just my old man nostalgic bias talking either. I stopped playing the DS version and dug out my NGPC...an hour later I realized there was something seriously lacking in the new one.

It really shouldn't have taken this long to get an official reply.

I'm still holding them to the warranty.

Its kind of hard for me to blame SNK USA for this, seeing as how last I knew they had 15 people working for them. There's a difference between a major company with large development teams pushing out a bugged product (Ex: you fall through the ground on some levels for the new Sonic game on the 360 made by Sega) and a company that is ridiculously under staffed (SNK USA) doing so.

Either way, it sucks that it happened.

I can understand people wanting to defend SNKP, but this isn't a case where you really can.

The game-freezing glitch isn't some off-chance, really random, "do a bunch of weird things most people won't ever do" to get it to happen, it's something that happens when you play through the game normally.

This would've been caught and fixed had they played through the game... hell, even just once; and it's not like it's a long game to begin with anyway, so small staff aside, it's still inexcusable.

Just so people do not think I was making a joke, they really do only have 15 people working for them as of last October.

How different is this game from the original?

I just can't believe the sloppiness of SNK/P USA's coding team. This is so absurd. I'm a programmer by trade, and I can honestly say that bug-testing is mine/my departments' top priority. Its different if you launch a buggy website, you can always revise the code if a problem arises by publishing new content. In this case, when a cartridge is pressed at the factory, thats it, its a done deal. There's no turning back.

This display tells me that someone at SNK/P doesnt' really give two shits about the product they're moving, their fans or their reputation. As Bobak put it, this Ben Herman schmuck seems to only like the "executive" responsibilities of his position. It seems he doest care about the quality of his product, but only the revenue that they generate. I personally don't think this problem is rectifiable. Its not like you can download a patch to fix it. Gamers that got burned with the broken carts are going to need to send it back to be fixed, granted SNK/P is offering a solution.

Sadly, I dont' think the future of this company is very good, especially the USA devision. I don't' know about other gamers, but this debacle was definitely the straw that broke the camels back in my faith in SNK/P. I played all of their latest Atomiswave offerings, and thought OK its a start, maybe they'll get better as time goes on. I guess they proved that wrong.

Just my rant/ 2 cents.

-Big Bill

God, I love being right all the time

: place chimp icon here :

not sonic said:

what the FUCK is wrong with that alba guy.

i cant fuckin stand him.

was a 3 word reply with NO CONTENT really necessary?

i hate that guy.

Click to expand...

He just wants Ben to notice him so that he may get a job at SNKP.
It's pathetic.

LoneSage said:

He just wants Ben to notice him so that he may get a job at SNKP.
It's pathetic.

Click to expand...

More like he just wants Ben to notice him so he can drop to his knees in service.

GeoStigma said:

(Ex: you fall through the ground on some levels for the new Sonic game on the 360 made by Sega)

Click to expand...

You fell through the ground more often on the original Japanese release of Sonic Adventure 1 for the Dreamcast. Bugs happen. That one I didn't really mind, but that's because it isn't a critical bug, just an annoying one.

Big Bruno said:

Well look. I agree somewhat. Not at least having someone do a full run playtest to find this Glich prior to release is very irresponsible. And if they come back with it is unfixable sorry then yeah I will be very pissed as well. Maybe it is me, but it seems now days most all games have some sort of glich in them. everytime I go online with my XBOX360 or Wii some new game update is being downloaded it seems. Have game bugs become the Norm. I first noticed issue when Gaming companies had to rush to get the product to market so they release a buggy batch and fix it with patches later on. I get DVD's where the 5.1 is not recorded correctly or a language track is off sync. I think products as a whole for whatever reason are coming out buggier and buggier.

I don't know I may have a bit more patients when it comes to stuff like this. But yeah, this is a major screw up.

Click to expand...

Never before was developing games so expensive, today you need a whooping 50 or 100 people + vast technical ressources to create one of those super-real FPS titles, co-op shooters or RPGs for a next-gen console or PC. The more complex a game, the more likely there still are some bugs left shortly before the project deadline but the economic pressure is just too high to give it another thorough playtesting run. As a consequence, some companies only weed out the most obvious bugs and then let the gamers do the beta testing... this used to be different back then when consoles did not have harddrives, dev'ers were forced to keep an eye on quality because once the game was burned to a prom or disc there was no way to update it.

However, in case of CFC DS, there was no need to rush it in any way and given the comparably low complexity of the game, it's beyond me how a lock-up bug like this could escape SNKP USA's quality assurance/playtesting team (if there is one).

Yeah not only did they not catch this before shipping (come on!) but they've taken awhile to even respond. They need to fix the issue in all future copies and refund and or replace all broken copies.

jdotaku said:

Yeah not only did they not catch this before shipping (come on!) but they've taken awhile to even respond.

Click to expand...

I think I've figured out why it took SNK USA so long to respond.

They start to get all these comments about the game not working right. After all the people are rounded up they decide to investigate. Since no one at SNK USA apparently has a video game system, they instruct the intern to go fetch them a DS; of course, that process involves a capital expenditure above the level that requires permission from a superior, and this somehow involved contacting the office in Japan. Once they acquired the permission and bought the system, they quickly realized they had another problem since none of the employees of SNK USA were actual gamers and they were baffled by how to play the game. After throwing around options, like hiring consultants to play the game for them in front of them, someone realized their kid actually played games and invited him over --unfortunately he was studying for finals so it took a few days to get him. It took the kid a few hours to work through all the bad translation, but he eventually found the bug. Of course, by that time the top brass of SNK USA had to leave due to a schedule conflict (they needed to attend a useless trade show in Orlando and play a round of golf with someone who might be a good connection for future employment --being an executive is fun!). Luckily, Ben Herman remembered to turn on his Blackberry the other day and was able to send out the above message to be posted.

At least, that's how I envision it.

Bobak said:

I think I've figured out why it took SNK USA so long to respond.

They start to get all these comments about the game not working right. After all the people are rounded up they decide to investigate. Since no one at SNK USA apparently has a video game system, they instruct the intern to go fetch them a DS; of course, that process involves a capital expenditure above the level that requires permission from a superior, and this somehow involved contacting the office in Japan. Once they acquired the permission and bought the system, they quickly realized they had another problem since none of the employees of SNK USA were actual gamers and they were baffled by how to play the game. After throwing around options, like hiring consultants to play the game for them in front of them, someone realized their kid actually played games and invited him over --unfortunately he was studying for finals so it took a few days to get him. It took the kid a few hours to work through all the bad translation, but he eventually found the bug. Of course, by that time the top brass of SNK USA had to leave due to a schedule conflict (they needed to attend a useless trade show in Orlando and play a round of golf with someone who might be a good connection for future employment --being an executive is fun!). Luckily, Ben Herman remembered to turn on his Blackberry the other day and was able to send out the above message to be posted.

At least, that's how I envision it.

Click to expand...

ha! probably WAY more true than we realize.

pixeljunkie said:

ha! probably WAY more true than we realize.

Click to expand...

Agreed.

Keep speaking the truth Bobak and we will have to start wounderin if your makeing it all up or if your acually lended snkp a hand.

Are you secretly thier legal advisor with the inside scoop?

Laterz____,
JOE

Takumaji said:

However, in case of CFC DS, there was no need to rush it in any way and given the comparably low complexity of the game, it's beyond me how a lock-up bug like this could escape SNKP USA's quality assurance/playtesting team (if there is one).

Click to expand...

Yes I agree it should have never gotten through. But come on the Xbox Live version of Frogger was released with bugs and it is about as 2d you can get. At least CFC DS is more complex then that, It uses a Touchscreen

anyway I am in no way saying SNK/P do not screw up with this. I am just more willing to see what is going to be done about it before I go beating them up on it.

Bobak said:

I think I've figured out why it took SNK USA so long to respond.

They start to get all these comments about the game not working right. After all the people are rounded up they decide to investigate. Since no one at SNK USA apparently has a video game system, they instruct the intern to go fetch them a DS; of course, that process involves a capital expenditure above the level that requires permission from a superior, and this somehow involved contacting the office in Japan. Once they acquired the permission and bought the system, they quickly realized they had another problem since none of the employees of SNK USA were actual gamers and they were baffled by how to play the game. After throwing around options, like hiring consultants to play the game for them in front of them, someone realized their kid actually played games and invited him over --unfortunately he was studying for finals so it took a few days to get him. It took the kid a few hours to work through all the bad translation, but he eventually found the bug. Of course, by that time the top brass of SNK USA had to leave due to a schedule conflict (they needed to attend a useless trade show in Orlando and play a round of golf with someone who might be a good connection for future employment --being an executive is fun!). Luckily, Ben Herman remembered to turn on his Blackberry the other day and was able to send out the above message to be posted.

At least, that's how I envision it.

Click to expand...

so far, quote of the year.

having this site with this much traffic, and a shitload of gamers playing at competitive level, I'm pretty sure more than 1 person would work for them at less thatn what they are paying some of their staff @ better quality.

The big test for japana now is that witch game, which last time i checked was number 1 in amazon japan in their most reserved list/wanted/sold.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/bestsellers/videogames/