What is the story with those dominion ads??

[Ironhawk]

S.R. Krol said:
Can you honestly say that because you don't like a banner ad campaign you'll have to think about purchasing a game?

Yes. I've actually said it twice now. Its even a thorn in my side every time I come to check the forums

Some think the ad is funny - I can see thier position but still I point out: where is the punch line? Where is - as other posters have humorously mentioned - the "bog beast plushie"? While I appreciate sarcasm as much as the next person, this one falls flat.

Others think that the ad is not suggestive... ummm, well you do know that you can be sexually suggestive without just popping your t*ts out, right? I'm not saying the ad is pornographic or that the girl is not hot, simply that it is in particularly bad taste and has not even a flimsy attachment to the subject material it purports to "advertise".

[Archonsod]

"The world needs more beautiful women".

[Edi]

I find some of the reactions to the ads puzzling. My own reaction to them was a straightforward

"WTF?! *ponders* Oookayy... That's unusual..."

But that was it. I didn't feel like Shrapnel was disregarding or disrespecting its customers. Ads generally do little for me. This series of ads is one of the few I've even noticed for years. The only other one I can consider memorable is one of the TV ads for a product of the company I work for and that one sent the blood pressure of everyone working in the tech support department spiking to the 500 range.

The response from some people here has me absolutely stupefied because when I read the arguments, the only output I get when trying to process them is "Does not compute". Perhaps that's just me, though. *shrug*

[Jurri]

S.R. Krol said:
All I was saying was that the ads are meant to bring new eyes into the fold and all the complaints in the thread are coming from people who already own the game. If it was truly something so offensive (e.g. "John Romero is going to make you his *****") then I would assume that there would be some sort of furor from folks outside the community. There isn't.

And again, I really don't understand where the hostility comes from towards the ads, or frankly anything in this thread. You have a concern about the ad. Others don't. And then I'm sure there is a huge percentage of people who feel nothing either way. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone's opinion is valid.

I should imagine that a company in the entertainment industry would have some concern for the values and image it chooses to project. Certainly us private citizens often enough care of right, wrong, and what others think of us. It is your privilege to weigh the eyeballs earned by exploitative marketing against the reputation hit your company takes in the eyes of those who care, and then act according to your estimation. This does not speak well of your morality to those who care about the issue.

Whether the majority of your customers care about this matter or even whether your company might benefit from this business practice is, however, beside the point when the concerned segment comes to complain. We are telling you that some of your customers feel estranged by the choices the company makes. There being people who do not care of this issue or even favour exploitative marketing does not make this complaint any less significant for those who do care, it only makes the complaint matter less in the eyes of a company that cares more of the bottom-line than good corporate citizenship.

Frivolously dismissing actual customer feedback is, again, your prerogative, even if many businesses would value and weigh heavily such grassroots signals that might reflect significant issues for large customer segments. You do not even have to pretend to care of the issue, you may well decide to scoff upon the concerns raised here – that will win you no favour with the offended customers, but perhaps there are other rewards, like seeming decisive and confident in your public relations decisions. Or perhaps you have numerous customers for whom 19th century attitudes to objectification of women are a selling point?

Personally, however, I am taken back by both this campaign and this seemingly rash attitude. I find it difficult to believe that I see you defending sexist and blatantly improper exploitation here in this thread. One would – one should – think that such would hardly be beneficial to a company at all interested in its public image.

I can’t speak for others here, but for myself I can say that I object rather strongly, even hostilely, to objectification of women in service of crass consumerism. The gaming hobby has a dark history in this regard and while these advertisements might be appropriate (if transparent) for furniture, lipstick or women’s shoes, in service of a fantasy adventure game they are pure exploitation. Neither the visual style nor content matter here bears even passing relation to the advertised product; this is most clear-cut as a case of female exploitation. Similar advertisement campaigns have been judged in Finnish courts as demeaning and patently offensive, unfit for public consumption.

To put it more simply, I have no desire to associate myself with this travesty of modern marketing, and while others are of course entitled to their own values, I do not like these values displayed in places I frequent or make purchases in.

Annette said:
We apologize that our banner ads offend you.

And what's up with this double-speak? Are you trying to intimate that you are not sorry for your actions, but regret that some are offended? You have no claim to an apology for the latter without regretting the former, you know – I for one am not inclined to forgive you when you do not even confess that there is room for offence in what you have done here. The first step to conciliation is seeking common ground; false humility does not become anyone.

For the consumer who might be reading this I’d like to point out that you are not without a voice when corporations choose not to heed your moral norms: not only can we be unambiguous in making clear our stance, but we can also make our own choices in the marketplace. If you feel strongly about sexual exploitation in gaming and the marketplace (or other corporate citizenship issues for that matter), then let the offending companies know what you as a community member expect of them. In the short term the company might prefer that no voice be raised in critique (they are all infallible, after all), but you do no service to any party by staying quiet: if their own sense does not tell them what is good and proper, they will not learn from your passivity.

And should the company scoff at your concerns (as seems to be the case here, at least for now), you may well opt to vote with your wallet, as they say. There are other games to play besides Dominions (I’m partial to doing some internet Diplomacy this summer, myself) and there are other communities for discussing the game as well. They have the right to choose their methods of advertisement, and you have the right to choose whether to give them your business, it's as simple as that.

[Tim Brooks]

This is in reponse to Jurri's post:

I should imagine that a company in the entertainment industry would have some concern for the values and image it chooses to project.

Sure we do. Howvever, that does not mean that our values are your values. We would have a hard time doing anything if we tried to please everyone. In fact, it is impossible. The negative response to these ads pale in comparison to those who have written us about being 'sacriligous', 'warmongers', and just all around bad citizens of the planet earth for publishing wargames and fantasy products that truly offend the far right christians.

This does not speak well of your morality to those who care about the issue.

We are telling you that some of your customers feel estranged by the choices the company makes.

We know. Hardly a day goes by when someone is not offended by something we do. So should we close the business, because people everyday are offended by the choices we make as a company?

There being people who do not care of this issue or even favour exploitative marketing does not make this complaint any less significant for those who do care, it only makes the complaint matter less in the eyes of a company that cares more of the bottom-line than good corporate citizenship.

All I can say is that it must be hard for you living in the world we do with that attitude.

Frivolously dismissing actual customer feedback is, again, your prerogative, even if many businesses would value and weigh heavily such grassroots signals that might reflect significant issues for large customer segments.

Well another thing that we will have to disagree on. I don't see where Scott or Annette did anything frivolous in this thread. The only mistake they made was jumping in this thread in the first place. And attacking them really doesn't solve anything. The person you should be attacking is me. I am the only person in this company that is responsible for what we advertise and how we choose to advertise it.

...you may well decide to scoff upon the concerns raised here

So, let me get this straight. I don't agree with your position, so I am scoffing at it? That's a leap don't you think?

Or perhaps you have numerous customers for whom 19th century attitudes to objectification of women are a selling point?

I wonder if the women portrayed in the ads, who are professional models and were payed for their time, would agree with that statement. We should have asked! Funny, I never even considered asking such a question.

can’t speak for others here, but for myself I can say that I object rather strongly, even hostilely, to objectification of women in service of crass consumerism.

You must have a hard time buying almost anything. Cars, beer, cleaning products, vacuum cleaners - I just saw a commercial last night for a vacuum cleaner that showed a woman in a white silk dress vacuuming the floor. Now, I have seen my wife, my mother, my friends wives and mothers, my girlfriends, and various other relatives vacuum many floors. And know what, in 50 years I have never seen one woman vacuum the floor in a white silk dress cut three inches above the knee with a neckline so plunging that it was hard to imagine just how everything was staying in place with that extreme back and forth movement. I wish I could rememeber the manufacturer of the product, because I am sure that that is one you would want to steer clear of.

Objectification of women? Don't the women have to decide for themselves if they are being obgjectificated? I mean, the vacuum lady was smiling, and appeared quite happy. I wonder if that was because she was probably making $200 an hour to vacuum some floor that probably wasn't that dirty to begin with. I know my wife doesn't smile like that when she vacuums our floor. My wife probably feels more obgjectificated. Of course, my wife doesn't make $200 an hour to vacuum our floor.

The gaming hobby has a dark history in this regard and while these advertisements might be appropriate (if transparent) for furniture, lipstick or women’s shoes, in service of a fantasy adventure game they are pure exploitation.

Well we were going to blood sacrifice some virgins for the ads, but we couldn't find any. (Thanks vfb)

Neither the visual style nor content matter here bears even passing relation to the advertised product;

Exactly. Pssst, I let you in on a little secret... that's the point.

Similar advertisement campaigns have been judged in Finnish courts as demeaning and patently offensive, unfit for public consumption.

Wow! Really?

I have no desire to associate myself with this travesty of modern marketing, and while others are of course entitled to their own values, I do not like these values displayed in places I frequent or make purchases in.

Okay. I am sure there are those here that will miss you but we understand your position now.

Are you trying to intimate that you are not sorry for your actions, but regret that some are offended? You have no claim to an apology for the latter without regretting the former, you know – I for one am not inclined to forgive you when you do not even confess that there is room for offence in what you have done here.

What a load of crap. We had a customer write in that it has been two weeks and he has still not recieved his game. Obviously it was lost in the mail. Now I personally am sorry that he has had problems and we as a company are sorry he had trouble; we know how frustrating that can be. So we can't apologize to the customer unless we regret sending him the game in the first place? Well, we did apologize and I am pretty darn sure we meant it. And we sent him another game, so obviously we didn't regret it.

The first step to conciliation is seeking common ground; false humility does not become anyone.

Neither does false indignation.

Do you get the point of that statement?

If you don't like the ads, don't buy our products and don't frequent our site. Pretty simple really.

[Edratman2]

I agree with the posting by Tim Brooks.

I stayed out of this because I could not figure out why so many people were indignant about ads that are similar to the cover photgraphs I see on magazines in the supermarket checkout line.

A key principle of the game is capturing slaves and sacrificing them. I have never seen threads complaining about this. I'm fairly sure this concept should be more abhorrent to many more people than slightly provocative pictures of attractive women. And I can see more exposed female flesh in 2 minutes at the local mall than these inoffensive pictures depict.

I'm also sure that if you limit your purchases to goods that do not use attractive people in their ads you are probably limited to buying 10 penny nails, Draino and white socks.

[Sombre]

Seems to me there's quite a few people who won't be buying any shrapnel products in the future, based on the adverts and the two threads they've spawned.

I don't want to say that of myself, because I wasn't about to buy any of your products beyond the Dominions series, so it would be a bit hollow. However as a user of these forums I am thoroughly unimpressed by Shrapnel's response in this thread. Half your responses seem to be mocking or purposely misreading objections raised. Case in point, the idea that the amount paid to the models or their willingness to do the job has anything to do with whether the adverts objectify women. Either you're trying to make a seriously flawed and childish argument or you're mocking a concerned customer.

I expect if I do get a response it will essentially be 'I don't care what you think' mixed with a charge of 'false indignation' and an invitation to leave your forums. I do not wish to leave because I really like the community here. My opinion of Shrapnel has done a total 180 though.

[capnq]

Tim Brooks said:

All I can say is that it must be hard for you living in the world we do with that attitude.

Yes, it is. Most of us recognize that complaining about it isn't going to make one whit of difference, though, so we don't bother.

If you don't like the ads, don't buy our products and don't frequent our site.

I already own every available Shrapnel product that I'm interested in, and there's only one more thing in the pipeline that I was planning to buy before this sophomoric ad campaign started.

If I didn't feel that monitoring the Space Empires forum was part of my "duties" as an admin for the Play-By-Web site, I would cut back on my visits to Shrapnel's site until this travesty burned itself out.

[Annette]

Ironhawk said:

To hear a comment like this from someone attached to Shrapnel only confirms that I really should be losing respect for them. Effectively you have just told me that since I am not a prospective customer you dont care. Great. Good to know.

Now when you actually do release Dom4 or <insert other game I might buy here> I will know to reconsider.

I'm sorry, but I don't see where Scott is saying we don't care about you as a customer. He's saying that you are not the target audience for the ads.

Of course we care about customers. I think you've been around long enough to know that we continually provide excellent post-purchase support to our customers. I am saddened to think we would lose you, or anyone else, as a customer because of a banner ad running on our site. Please allow me to share some of the feedback we've had just in the past couple of months through our customer support center:

"wow! great service, thanks a bunch :-)"
- Patrick T., April 9, 2008

"Very fast response. Thank you," - Alfred E., April 9, 2008

"\o/ That worked, all is well now Thanks for sorting this out for me."
- Jason N., April 9, 2008

"I will continue to support your company as titles come out. Thanks for the quick response. My best to you all." - Dave O., March 17, 2008

"Thank you very much for the good customer service :-)"
- Raf G., March 12, 2008

"Thank you for your great customer service." - Jack H., February 18, 2008

"Thanks. Customer support here is quick." - Angelo S., January 16, 2008

As a 47 year old female, I don't find the ads offensive. I think they're out of the ordinary and bizarre, something that will attract attention. Obviously, our opinions differ, and that's what makes the world go 'round.

At any rate, I hope you would judge us as a company based on the quality of our product and the service we have provided you - not on an ad and the subsequent discussion of such ad.
We apologize that our banner ads offend you.

[Tuidjy]

I am offended that none of the follow-up ads has come anywhere near the first.

1. The woman in the first ad was arguably better looking.

2. The first add had a strategically placed cushion. None of the rest do, and
Dominions is a strategy game.

3. The woman in the first ad looked Scandinavian. Dominions is a Swedish game, right?

4. The ATF ad has all the recent Dominions ads beaten. Our game is better, why
don't we get a gun or a helmet or at least milk?

I demand a new Dominions add with a Bog Monster, and a sword, and blood. And the
lady from the first ad. Or I will never pay for a sixth copy of Dominions III. Unless
I make another geeky friend.