I have noted a tremendous increase in the dynamic interaction between users on this BBS, especially as some great new features and functionality are announced for the AH product. Granted, many of those have been highly adversarial, but in my opinion, that's a sign that Aces High has long left incubation and evolved through its business puberty stage, now becoming a force within the active on-line flight simulation community.
The participants here should take pride in their contributions toward helping this game mature, even if it involves controversy or "teeth gnashing" that sometimes gets a little too personal. I would prefer dealing with this kind of interaction as opposed to a sheep herding mentality of certain factions that keep saying, be patient and it will happen. That simply doesn't work anymore with this millennium's economic realities and marketplace. Today's business paradigm is driven by customers who define product R&D in real time, not as in previous decades, where companies owned the absolute power and could develop a product or service with a "build-it and they will come" marketing approach. This shift and the rapidity with which it has occurred, is very similar to what happened to electric service companies and automobile manufacturers at the turn of the 20th century. There were literally hundreds of companies competing to be the principle supplier of those two "new technology" needs to the consumer. After all of the marketing and positioning was done, there were just a handful left. I believe you will see the same effect in the Internet (including on-line gaming) as this new technology and economic force settles down, just as electricity and personal transportation did so in 1900.
What does that mean to Aces High competing in a military on-line gaming environment with flight simulation as a primary focus? Well, there's an old business adage from 1912 that says, in any business sector, #1 makes money, #2 breaks even, #3 is loses money. HTC definitely does not want to be #3 and #2 is a very tough place being "too sick to leave and not healthy enough to stay". So, the best plan would be to keep doing what they're doing and go straight up the middle with that 70/30 product positioning, using feedback from mediums such as this to help develop their product NICHE and achieve #1 status, certainly in the flight simulation domain. The new uber plane concept though some form of Aces High "bonus bucks" is a good example of that strategy.
I believe they do have to change one thing to help themselves and in turn, help all of us out here on this BBS. HTC to this point in time have maintained a very secretive approach to interaction and communication. Now, I can't argue the need not to tip one's hand on trade secrets to the competition etc., but I think the recent dynamics on this BBS indicate some requirement to modify slightly, the "stealth" mode PR and marketing communications. A good example is how quickly this place settled now and got re-focused, once Pyro posted his message clarifying the uber plane thing. Before than, it was like a Salem witch hunt with people yelling louder to be heard and others screaming for them to shut up, which was a completely unproductive a world of hurt to be watching on-screen. Even allowing some time for them to get a feel for how we would react to their "sound bite" snippet of a possible new feature, Pyro or Hitech should have jumped in much sooner to save us all a lot of additional consumption of valium.
If I were to recommend anything constructive at this stage of HTC's corporate growth, it would be the implementation of either a closed community of users to facilitate R&D feedback on both ideas and even perhaps real product testing, such as pre-release betas. I have heard anecdotally from other sources outside of HTC though, that the personal style of this management is a barrier to wanting this kind of development interaction to occur. I'm not sure why, but since I'm not an investor, it's none of my business except as a puzzled consumer. Insecurity doesn't work in the new business model and contradicts the need to react to customers in real time for the best R&D. It should never be about who's idea it was or who gets the credit, but more about the resulting product or service being the best design that everyone involved could have achieved. In my opinion, that's the path to becoming #1.
An alternative to that approach would be placing someone, or a few people, into corporate confidence as they do with CM's (Community Managers) and permit them to interact with this BBS as intermediaries with a much more communicative marketing interaction than we currently get from HTC. I don't particularly want either Hitech or Pyro wasting huge amounts of personal time chatting with us instead of doing what they are very good at, which is researching and writing code to improve the product we use. At the same time, I think they're failing to step up and address HTC's current growth needs to improving R&D, PR and marketing communications fast enough, to keep up with the growing customer base. This dilemma is a very common threat to many small companies at this stage of growth and normally manifests itself through a stagnation of revenues. Too small without enough resources to grow and too big to handle the chaos of growth.
Simply learn from history. Look at how badly iEN (WB) handles their outward exposure to their customers on both AGW and the iEN BBS. There messages are divisive and contradictory much of the time and it does nothing more than take what could be a great R&D and Public Relations environment for their customers and potential investors, turning it into a nightmare of corporate communications negatism. I don't want to see this AH BBS potentially "death spiral" into the same problem by having HTC not recognize when it's time for some solid facilitative marketing communications.
Please HTC, address this as you grow. I understand that it takes time to coordinate and communicate, but it's time for some delegation and empowerment.
As Napoleon said at Waterloo when he realized he was losing and where he was the most vulnerable, "ask of me anything but time".
Just some personal observations for thought......
Thanks for listening.
Regards,
Badger
The New baby Harp Seals
