Ubisoft have been hyping a live Twitch stream for about a month now, in order to promote the upcoming release of the Heroes VII expansion, "Trial by Fire" in a few days. Now we're getting reports (in an almost April Fools manner) that the whole thing may not be happening.
My first reaction was: "What? No, that must be a mistake."
My second reaction, once I realized this might be serious, was one of dejection.
The main thing I was advocating when I was still part of the VIP "insider" group was improving communications. Teasing the fans with titbits like screenshots, Q&As and gameplay videos in order to increase interest in the game well before the actual release. These Twitch streams are actually a very good idea. They give the fans the opportunity to chat with the developers, watch gameplay, you know: get some answers to their questions and increase their excitement level. That will no doubt increase the amount of people buying it. I also thought it was a good idea to announce the stream as much as a month in advance so that people wouldn't miss it, and build up some excitement about it. To cancel it now is not only counter-productive, it is directly disrespectful to the faithful fans who had gotten their hopes up.
To top it all off, the cancellation announcement was one of complete ridiculousness: - The stream is cancelled, sorry. But still, we're really excited that you will soon be able to buy the expansion. Say wut?! No! That was the whole point of the stream! To convince us to buy it! This is like a politician announcing a big Q&A so that people can get to know his policies and hopefully vote for him, then suddenly cancelling it and saying: "Sorry, I won't be taking your questions or telling you more about myself, but you can still vote for me in a few days." No, dude, that was the whole point of the Q&A - to find out if we would vote for you.
I'm sure that somebody will come up with an excuse soon, but in my personal opinion, there is no excuse for this. We're potential customers and there is really no excuse for offering such poor service. As a result, Celestial Heavens hereby make the following recommendation: Don't buy "Trial by Fire" before Ubisoft satisfy your desire for information.
