Hi there! I’m just curious, how do you handle customer service when you’re selling your games? Let’s say you’re just a one-man game dev, what if you have tested your game so that there are no more bugs or glitches left, but some of your customers suddenly get weird problems after buying your game, like the game won’t run or there were errors? It’s just that if big game companies still get loads of reports of problems from their customers such as game x not running properly even after meeting the minimum system requirements, I can already imagine the stress that would go to indie game devs Just because your game works on a number of pcs doesn’t mean it will work on every pc, and this is something that I’ve suddenly started thinking about, especially if one only has a limited number of pcs to test the game on to see if it works properly.
I just realized that most people have been concentrating too much on game development that the subject of customer service and how to handle it doesn’t get discussed too much. I’m pretty sure learning about how the experienced indie game devs handled such situations, it would be appreciated by those new to the game development world
with unity the problem isnt as big as with in house engines, because unity technologies have already tested unity to the death on countless scenarios, unity is very well done… as i have tested it on crappy integrated intel chips to more advanced nvidia chips without a problem… just that, its a lot less to worry
the only problems may arise if you do exotic shader programming, thats the only thing i can think of that could change from pc to pc… because game logic is very likely that will be the same everywhere, if its broken for someone i bet it will be broken for everybody unless a very specific or strange conditional situation happens
problems are usually caused by graphic stuff, and UT has already taken care of most of the problems
but if problems still happen, ask as much information possible from the costumer and try to fix it yoursefl, if its within the inner workings of unity, send a bug report with the specific combination that causes the problem
just be kind to the costumer and explain the situation and expect things get fixed in time hehehe
My basic rule of thumb, is don’t argue with the customer. If they say they have a problem, then perception is 9/10ths of reality. Offer to fix it, don’t be afraid of returns, and don’t fret over one-offs. If a customer wants to see you fix something, then work with them (they’re probably not alone in having the problem). If they just want a refund, ask for as much information as possible and let them go. You can’t fix every problem, sometimes is just one machine or one manufacturer (if it’s Dell or HP, you probably want to sort it out). Size of problem = effort to invest
First port of call is you’re answering questions yourself. Repeated questions get moved to the FAQ. Call the FAQ “Support” since people tend to avoid helping themselves and would rather talk to you - even if its quicker to read the FAQ. That’s human nature.
So set up a support page with commonly answered questions, and disguise your support email form (not email address, but a form they can enter into. Don’t let them get your email unless you enter into a dialogue - ie its necessary to reply personally).
The reason is if you delay it long enough they’ll solve their own problems - most problems are really trivial and perfect for a support page to answer, and you want to delay entering dialogues as long as possible because it adds up really fast how much email work you have to do, until you’re answering emails all day long.
Thanks for the answers everyone! Although I’m the type of person who’d like to personally help anyone who has a problem with something that came from me, I also know that in this type of business where you’re likely to have lots of people with different pc set ups, it would be almost impossible to check each one of them out. That insight about “delays” to give them a chance to solve the problem themselves is something I never even considered before but it seems to have a practical use.
I think the “delay” method is something that most gamers these days experience. I even personally experienced it recently from the game called Dead Island (mine is on the pc version). There’s a bug where you can’t use the Sprint action by holding down the Shift key, but I discovered that if you switch from Fullscreen to Windowed mode or vice versa, the problem would instantly go away. Why this happens I have no idea lol!
Definitely, a FAQ page for a game is something I’d also consider putting up. From what I’ve seen as a long time gamer, whenever a new game pops up like Dead Island and other “big name” titles, people would always post in forums like GameFaqs questions about how to adjust graphical settings that weren’t included in the options of the game. Yeah, it’s mostly graphical questions. “How Do I Turn Off Bloom/Shadows/Blur?” or “Why Does the Sky Have an Image of My Character?” are among the most common questions. The second issue most people have has something to do with sound being barely audible. It’s like what happened in Batman Arkham Asylum, cutscenes would have different audio levels than the actual gameplay, that was probably the biggest issue the game had and the solution was to decrease the level of hardware acceleration for audio or something like that.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts about customer service in the game dev world, it’s nice to know to have a little idea of what I’ll probably be dealing with later on after completing and publishing games lol
Yeah - its always nice to meet other developers interested in taking the lone path to glory when you start selling, the excitement is electric, and the feeling of failure should just spur you onto greater things armed with knowledge learned.
Just because your game works on a number of pcs doesn’t mean it will work on every pc, and this is something that I’ve suddenly started thinking about, especially if one only has a limited number of pcs to test the game on to see if it works properly.