Originally posted by streea

 

Completely agree. So far, the only game I've seen that decided to do this the way it should be is Wizard101... that is, 100% of all money earned off of people who bought a special mount went to charity. Seriously, is it really THAT hard to say "Hey, let's spend an hour or two desinging this special *thing* and then not only get a tax write-off as a company, but get good promotion and good feelings as well!"

It was bad enough when Blizz was all "Yeah, 50%!", but 5% is just terrible. It's throwing crumbs at those who are suffering and going "What, I'm giving them crumbs! How dare you get upset over this! It's better than nothing!"

SOE is doing the same thing I believe.  You buy the different Child's Play items for 500 Station Cash [$5] and they are donating $10.  So they are doing double the amount the players spend.

NDoors claims to have done nothing.

Child's Play simply decided that it would deny the donation. Higher-ups there are the ones that seem to be too full of pride to accept money to save lives because of some bad e-mails that you may not even be able to prove that came from actual Atlantica Online players and consider them as coming from the whole Atlantica community. Could even be NDoors sending the e-mails as players. You never know...

Unless NDoors pulled all this BS, and is actually using CP as scapegoat, because I fail to see how CP would ever need to bring this up, and if they really knew about gamers they would know how much people can be jerks in the internet and acknowledge that saving lives is more important than giving in to asshats. Very strange...

Originally posted by Archemorous

I didnt send you any money because you're not actually providing a service, or a product, unlike Ndoors. Say what you want about the company. All companies are greedy, we get it. They sell a product, dont want to buy, then dont. But dont whine because they try to make money, thats what all companies do.

Making money is the single most healthy thing for a company to do. However selling charity is not. If they didn't wanted this to turn against them they could have just claimed "ok we sell this. it's at normal price, however we expect to make a bit higher sales cause 5% of the money will go for charity". But they decided to treat their customers like idiots. That's the price they 're paying now.

Like when you meet a girl, you have to be decent on what you want to do with her. Sex or relation? If you say relation but the next day you 're with the next girl on your list, you 're probably gonna pay it... Basic shit you learn from highschool...

5%????  How about instead of "donating" to NDOORS u give something to "Child´s Play"??

I propose an elegant solution to this for next year.

1)  Pick an item in the item mall to sell for charity next year. Said item must stay in the item mall all year long.

2)  Next December, when you want to donate to the charity, figure out the average amount of these items sold per day.

3)  IMPORTANT: Don't tell anyone you will be donating money to charity, because this would be advertising.

4) Any day during the unadvertised charity event that more than the average number of units is sold, reserve that money in the "charity fund."

5)  At the conclusion of the secret donation event, simply announce that you will be donating X amount of money to a charity, where X = the amount in the "charity fund."

This solution seems to be the exact solution that would make everyone happy as it includes the following key points that I have picked out in this thread:

1)  No advertising.

2) NDoors makes no more money than they potentially would have anyhow.

3)  Company appears to have "just cut a check" to the charity, making players feel good about the company.

4)  Since no item appears to have been the target of the charity, players don't feel ripped off for purchasing something they would have purchased anyhow.

Downsides however to this method are very few, numbering almost exactly one. There may be others I haven't considered, but here is a complete list as of this moment:

1)  Charity receives little to no money because no-one was aware of the event.

Clearly there are a lot of better ways that this could have been handled. There are also numerous ways that this could have been done even worse.  I think we need to get over ourselves and our opinions on what is right and wrong.  The fact that they decided to donate any portion at all is a great gesture.  It may have looked like advertising, but I think that was just an unavoidable part of letting people know of the plan to donate. My state lottery "benefits older Pennsylvanians", but I don't buy lottery tickets because I want to help old people, I buy them because I want something.  This item mall sale is the same idea, it benefits children in the hospital without video games, but I didn't buy it because I wanted to help children, I bought it because I wanted something. In this case the something is simply a mount, or that thing for the druid quest, while in the previous case I wanted money.

Next time, lets not mess up a chance to do a little bit of good, even if some of it does seem immoral. If you feel so strongly, simply donate to the charity yourself and don't make the purchase. I mean really, isn't that the ultimate kick in the face?

In closing, I would just like to thank this thread for the best laughs I've had in quite a while.

 It doesn't matter if you thought that 5 percent was a piddly amount: if you complained directly to Childs Play, you are a sack of absolute shit.

 Beau

Originally posted by beauturkey

 It doesn't matter if you thought that 5 percent was a piddly amount: if you complained directly to Childs Play, you are a sack of absolute shit.

 

 Beau

 Exactly! If you want to complain,just troll around in the official forum. Since when people started to worry about the complaints being effective? Holy..
 

What's next? Someone see a crime and instead of talking to the bad guy,he calls THE COPS? Just absurd

=[

Hello,

I am the Community Coordinator here at Ndoors Interactive Inc. In order to give some clarification on our promotion, we created a special item box for our players to have the opportunity to receive a desirable item within our game. As an added bonus, we would be donating 5% of our gross sales of this box to the Child’s Play charity. When we released this item we informed our players about which charity the proceeds would go to so that players who did not wish to participate by purchasing this item had the opportunity to donate to the charity directly.

The promotional item mall box in question included a group of in-game items which was gathered from our player’s feedback. This was created in order to give back to some of our users this holiday season. Players are neither required to purchase this item box to play our game, nor is it the only possible way of obtaining the items that are contained in this box.

We here at Ndoors Inc. wish to continue in keeping with the giving spirit and we will be continually giving back to charities on an annual basis. We are now working with our community in order to decide on a new charity so that the proceeds will benefit people in need.

Sincerely,

The Atlantica Online Team

Originally posted by Thanosxp

Originally posted by beauturkey

 It doesn't matter if you thought that 5 percent was a piddly amount: if you complained directly to Childs Play, you are a sack of absolute shit.

 

 Beau

 Exactly! If you want to complain,just troll around in the official forum. Since when people started to worry about the complaints being effective? Holy..
 

What's next? Someone see a crime and instead of talking to the bad guy,he calls THE COPS? Just absurd

=[

  Let me re-state what I have said:

 If you emailed Child's Play to gripe, complain bitch or moan about the small amount (5 percent) that the charity would receive, then you need to have your head examined.

 This is not about someone writing Childs Play to go "Hey, you know, I think that you are not getting a fair shake.." this is about several members of the community writing emails griping, bitching and moaning about, more than likely, the contents or price of the item and the small (by their standards) percentage.

 Oh well, what else would you expect from a community of angry white male youth?

 Beau

i wasnt aware you knew exactly what was mentioned in the emails.

Until someone comes out with a copy of exactly what those people had emailed, dont jump to conclusions about what those "complainers" did or didn't say.

Edit: if you know atlantica, you'd know that communication between player and company is lacking...(hence the new creation of Lawl, the CC to help solve this)

Though, after the box was released, there were comments about NDoors not listening to the community. People not really fond of getting a box for a higher price only to receive a costume. The box was not well received.

Originally posted by Lawllipops

 

 

Hello,

I am the Community Coordinator here at Ndoors Interactive Inc. In order to give some clarification on our promotion, we created a special item box for our players to have the opportunity to receive a desirable item within our game. As an added bonus, we would be donating 5% of our gross sales of this box to the Child’s Play charity. When we released this item we informed our players about which charity the proceeds would go to so that players who did not wish to participate by purchasing this item had the opportunity to donate to the charity directly.

The promotional item mall box in question included a group of in-game items which was gathered from our player’s feedback. This was created in order to give back to some of our users this holiday season. Players are neither required to purchase this item box to play our game, nor is it the only possible way of obtaining the items that are contained in this box.

We here at Ndoors Inc. wish to continue in keeping with the giving spirit and we will be continually giving back to charities on an annual basis. We are now working with our community in order to decide on a new charity so that the proceeds will benefit people in need.

Sincerely,

The Atlantica Online Team

 

 

Do not play your game and most likely never will.

That said, any type of charity should be welcomed and appreciated. Most companies would of just placed the things for sale and took all the profits. Hello, cash shop? :)

Many companies (Businesses) do this, give a small % to some charities, and do not take flack for it that i am aware of. This is first MMO that i have heard of that tried something like this.

5 % is always more than 0% :)  so to me, the charity and the people complaining, seem to be the only ones losing here.

People seem to be confusing the way charities are run, the actual % of donations that go to the cause -VS- the % taken for salaries,operating costs and so on.  And donations, what people or companies give, to a charity.

Really, we are now going to try to make anyone, companies, or people, have to donate a set percentage to qualify as a "good thing"?  As i said above, any donation is better than none.

Anyhow, for me it seems that your company tried to do something good. So well done.

For those who want to say that 5% is better than nothing, well yes, it is. The problem of course, as has been pointed out, is that 5% is such a meager pittance that it can only be classified as a blatant attempt to *USE* a good charity as a *VEHICLE* to enrich your own coffers.

My personal measure of the glass being considered half full (doing a good deed) or half empty (being a self-serving d-bag), is the 50% mark. The glass is 5% full, 95% empty. The so-called charitable gesture is as morally bankrupt and transparent as the foregoing glass, AND THAT is why people are reacting negatively to it.

Apparently, Child's Play doesn't much care to be played for a fool and pulled out. No amount of complaints would have caused them to take this action had they not felt similarly.

For NDOORS to then try to lay blame on those who pointed this out to Child's Play is just the reprehensible icing on the shit cake.

I recently purchased a vanity pet in EQ2 with 50% of the proceeds going to Child's Play, so I do practice what I espouse. Had the contribution been anything less than 50%, I would not have bought it and instead would have sent money directly to CP. Which is great option for anyone who still feels that 5% is better than nothing.

Originally posted by Longswd

Apparently, Child's Play doesn't much care to be played for a fool and pulled out. No amount of complaints would have caused them to take this action had they not felt similarly.

I don't think a charity is going to give a shit where it gets money from - they are only afraid that the idiot peoples sending them hate mail will target them next for accepting the money. Ridiculous how people actually sent them messages saying "don't take it, it's a scam, boogey boogey", only to have these people think "well shit, maybe these crazy players will come after us next and try to defraud our organization over blatant BS too". They backed out because you people like to blow shit out of proportion, not because it was a scam (which I admit it was).

/facepalm_for_humanity

P.S. I bet money that most of those letters to the charity were *threatening*. At least a handful saying "they too would be exposed", or something along those lines. Lets not confuse ourselves for a second by thinking any of them were aimed at 'informing' a company as much as 'warning' them about how far the authors are willing to take the battle.

Originally posted by Lawllipops

 

 

Hello,

I am the Community Coordinator here at Ndoors Interactive Inc. In order to give some clarification on our promotion, we created a special item box for our players to have the opportunity to receive a desirable item within our game. As an added bonus, we would be donating 5% of our gross sales of this box to the Child’s Play charity. When we released this item we informed our players about which charity the proceeds would go to so that players who did not wish to participate by purchasing this item had the opportunity to donate to the charity directly.

The promotional item mall box in question included a group of in-game items which was gathered from our player’s feedback. This was created in order to give back to some of our users this holiday season. Players are neither required to purchase this item box to play our game, nor is it the only possible way of obtaining the items that are contained in this box.

We here at Ndoors Inc. wish to continue in keeping with the giving spirit and we will be continually giving back to charities on an annual basis. We are now working with our community in order to decide on a new charity so that the proceeds will benefit people in need.

Sincerely,

The Atlantica Online Team

 

 

To even admit you are part of this fiasco is hilarious.  Ndoors is without doubt the most despised company in the genre and this just reinforces that view.   

Originally posted by Zarinh

SOE is doing the same thing I believe.  You buy the different Child's Play items for 500 Station Cash [$5] and they are donating $10.  So they are doing double the amount the players spend.

Ah, you beat me to it. For all the crap that gets flung at SOE around here, at least they know how to be charitable.

If I were still an Atlantica Online player and I felt like this was really just a cash grab with a charity front on it, I think I'd have simply not bought the item, or seriously considered moving to a different game run by a company I felt better about. But that's just me.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by Lawllipops

 

 

Hello,

I am the Community Coordinator here at Ndoors Interactive Inc. In order to give some clarification on our promotion, we created a special item box for our players to have the opportunity to receive a desirable item within our game. As an added bonus, we would be donating 5% of our gross sales of this box to the Child’s Play charity. When we released this item we informed our players about which charity the proceeds would go to so that players who did not wish to participate by purchasing this item had the opportunity to donate to the charity directly.

The promotional item mall box in question included a group of in-game items which was gathered from our player’s feedback. This was created in order to give back to some of our users this holiday season. Players are neither required to purchase this item box to play our game, nor is it the only possible way of obtaining the items that are contained in this box.

We here at Ndoors Inc. wish to continue in keeping with the giving spirit and we will be continually giving back to charities on an annual basis. We are now working with our community in order to decide on a new charity so that the proceeds will benefit people in need.

Sincerely,

The Atlantica Online Team

 

 

To even admit you are part of this fiasco is hilarious.  Ndoors is without doubt the most despised company in the genre and this just reinforces that view.   

 

Sorry dude, but SOE is more despised in the genre than Ndoors will ever be.

That CEO is a joke. Come on ! We're talking about rare items ! That means a half dozen of lines in their database ! That cost nothing to NDoor that's not like if they had to buy new servers to manage these items or recruit new employees. And they gonna put 95% of the cash in their pocket ?! If that was made in a true charity intent, they shoud have given 100% of the cash. I feel shame for the guys at NDOORS who came up with that "brillant" idea.

Like other people said here : that CEO should give a part of NDOOR's benefit to Child's Play and shut the fuck up about the players who whined about that disgusting and greedy campaign.

It's not the 5% that burns me up about this thing. If Ndoors had donated 5% of all item mall sales for the month of December, that would be great.

But no, they couldn't do that. They had to turn it into a huge cash grab for them. Basically they took a $10 gamble box (with odds of about 10% of getting anything good), raised the price by $30 (to $40 total) and made the booby prize less horribly awful (but still pretty awful).

Basically the booby prize in a $10 box is worth maybe 20 million in game money (which isn't very much, the good item is probably 2-4 billion in value). The booby prize in the $40 gamble box is worth maybe 250 million, still not a lot.

And then donate 5% of the $40 box to charity (or $2). So basically $28 of extra profit for them.

The item mall in AO is by far the worse I have ever seen in any F2P game. It's basically a complete ripoff in almost every sense of the word.

For $30 a month, you basically can buy enough licenses to compare to a $15 p2p game (Blessing license + Warriors pack).

But hey, want something good, like a mount, you have to pay $10 for a 10% chance (at best) to get the good one of the moment. (You can buy a regular horse for $10)

And that's on top of the standard practice in f2p of making end game equipment so hard to acquire, you need to use cash shop items to improve them to high +s. Which can suck $100s out of people.

So anyway, while I actually do like the game of AO, the cash shop is really awful, so I was not surprised by this. Still appalled, but...

I think this news is being blown out of proprotion. Any time when a company ties its donation to the sales of its products it is advertisement regardless of the % of the donation.

Suppose Obama donated 5% of his salary to Child's Play and 10k Americans sent complaints accusing him of buying popularity, would Child's Play refuse Obama's donation?

Although I won't touch the item mall of NDOORS with a 1000 foot pole I wouldn't have rejected their donation if I were Child's Play.

Originally posted by NinjaNerf

Suppose Obama donated 5% of his salary to Child's Play and 10k Americans sent complaints accusing him of buying popularity, would Child's Play refuse Obama's donation?

Actually, yes.

If they feel that the donation is causing bad press for either party it might be called off, then swept under the rug. I remember something fairly recent to where either Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton wanted to donate money to some charity and speak for them at some event, and they politely turned down the offer - because they wanted to keep the image clean. Perhaps the overwhelming amount of rabies in those emails simply had enough to convince them that either Ndoors should not be dealt with, or that these malicious mailers might try to discredit them next. I wouldn't leave it past any of these cretins to attack a charity for taking "scam money" publically.

I can see the hype now; "games for children stripped from the pockets of poor f2p players at the hands of Satan".