iOS Rock Band gets back together

EA's iOS version of Rock Band isn't breaking up, after all. Yesterday we reported that players of the app were seeing a message advising them of the game's demise. EA has since stated that's not the case and has sent us a statement to this effect: "Rock Band for iOS will remain live - the in-app message users received …

[Chad H.]

When reporters asked him for Comment, Trip Hawkins added to the company's statement by adding "Unfortunately the previous statements didn't quite cover it all, it actually turns out that Electronic Arts itself was a mistake, for which I am truly sorry".

[gronkle]

hmmm, their pants are clearly on fire.

What shifty bunch EA are, sod 'em.

[raving angry loony]

Angry Mobs?

Sounds like an "oh shit, we're going to get lynched, quick, change the story!" type of moment.

[ArmanX]

Re: Angry Mobs?

And so easy, too!

Released an alert in games saying you're going to shut it down, and players get angry? Blame it on a disgruntled engineer!

Forum post backing it up? Disgruntled engineer!

Release lots of crappy games? Disgruntled engineer!

Voted worst company in America? Disgruntled engineer!

See? It works wonders!

[Simon Buttress]

Shysters

Contemptuous shysters.

[Fuzz]

why not admit to it?

Surely people would respect the company far more if they said, "we listened to our customers and we've changed our mind"

Saying it was an error is just treating your customers like idiots, the message is carefully worded to give the required information whilst at the same time advertising the EA brand and products, that doesn't happen by mistake.

[Eponymous Cowherd]

Re: why not admit to it?

Because that isn't how marketing drones' tiny little brains work. They cannot believe that anyone will see through their cunning ruse because they cannot understand that most of the population is actually more intelligent than they are,

[JDX]

Re: why not admit to it?

But it could be a big marketing opportunity to say:

"due to unprecedented continued support for RockBand, we have taken the decision not to end the service as previously announced. EA takes our users' feedback very seriously and is delighted to announce the service will remain live"

[Annihilator]

Re: why not admit to it?

@jdx or better yet, explain why they consider it a "service" at all??

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe a sysadmin went rogue?

[Anonymous Coward]

re: Maybe a sysadmin went rogue?

More likely some users threatened to lawyer up.

[pullenuk]

kudos

... to the person who commented yesterday this was going to happen!!!

[cs94njw]

But if you started listening to users... you'd have to stop freezing threads in forums about unfinished games... and *gasp* even do something about it...

Nah - best to not go down that route.