RWarehall: I think the issue is why bringing just 6 people to talk to in Poland makes any sense when you could make a poll or ask questions of everyone else on the forums. The argument that "GoG must be serious because they spent a lot of money doing it", doesn't mean anything. A lot of companies spend money on things that don't work. All they really got out of it is the opinions of 6 forumites who probably said the same things that have been discussed for ages. I don't think it was a "PR stunt" exactly...I think the whole purpose was for them to try to convince the 6 of you to shut up about regional pricing which is something they cannot go into great detail on the forums in their own defense given NDAs and such.
Because in any community large enough, trying to listen to everyone becomes harder and harder until it is impossible.
Suppose they did a poll. They would get the opinions of (wild mass guessing OR number pulled out of my ass) 20000 users. Now think about the average forum user. Most of these answers would be just "Yes/No" with nothing written about what is wrong or how to fix it. Even those who could have good points to bring may not feel in the mood to go farther than that in the poll (Yes, even those 6. Polls are as far from personal as can be; if I were flown to Warsaw I would say a lot of things I wouldn't in my almost blank poll reply).
Then you get those who would take the opportunity to write angry rants devoid of actual content, or write
incomprehensible stuff. By the time they read through all that stuff, they get maybe 15 useful opinions. Of which they can't do a back and forth with those users, after all they have signed no NDA. Besides, when those 6 came back with explanations about specific topics (like regional pricing) that say "
It's more complicated than we thought/hoped and I can see why GOG treats the question the way they do; sorry but the rest of the answer is 'NDA'", I may not know the answer GOG gave them myself but after years reading their posts in the forum I was already under the impression they're capable of judging it on their own. This brings some sort of feedback the community simply wouldn't get from a poll.
Asking the questions in an open forum would be even worse. In every community large enough that would be a nightmare. Can you say "thread derailment" before it happens? We wouldn't get past the first page on topic. Which naturally brings us to the same problem of the poll: too much noise to actual data.
With all that considered, calling a few handpicked members isn't a bad idea, even if costly. At least they know there will be useful data to show for the effort. Even in the physical world, if I were managing some large community of people in equal standing I would do just the same.
All they really got out of it is the opinions of 6 forumites
Not forgetting: not just 6 were called, but only 6 had the time and passports to go. They wanted more opinions than just those 6.
I think the whole purpose was for them to try to convince the 6 of you to shut up about regional pricing
If that was their intention they are very stupid. Should have called robertgg and zoidberg .
So the real question is what these nebulous and undefined "improvements" will be.
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I think all we've been given is a GoG "soon" which oftentimes means they will never finish what they supposedly started...
Let's give them a little time. Their actions will speak louder than any words they said.