This isn’t about issues in journalism. I chose the title because it fits the subject matter of this post. The type of ethics in question, however, is work ethics. I’m mildly miffed that no one else seems to draw attention to the incompetence of Rayark, Inc. in their lack of proofreading text in Implosion – Never Lose Hope, and GCREST with their constant careless updates of CocoPPa Play. I feel strongly about these issues because it makes me wonder why I should support companies (or continue to support in Rayark’s case since I already purchased the game) that half-heartedly work on their games.
Implosion – Never Lose Hope
Over a month ago, I posted the review I submitted to the App Store. I’ve skimmed through other reviews there as well as the ones on Google Play and it seems like everyone only focuses on the graphics and gameplay. My guess is that either hardly anyone read the subtitles because all dialogue is spoken aloud, or most folks generally shrugged at all the grammatical errors because they didn’t consider them important. Or perhaps they’ve all been desensitized by all the Internet shorthand and general lazy writing. The thing is, this mobile game is a professional piece of work that has a premium price tag attached to it so I really expected its creator to have put more care and effort in ensuring that every little detail would be of highest quality. Alas, that wasn’t the case.
In fact, it’s insulting to me that Rayark, Inc. would boast that Implosion – Never Lose Hope is an AAA console title-like experience and yet completely slack on grammar and spelling. Considering how everything else about the game is top notch, — well, some of the voice acting is questionable — it’s baffling that they overlooked those basic things. I guess they spent all the time and budget perfecting the look and feel of their product so they couldn’t spare a few moments to get a competent editor to read through it.
Truth be told, the dialogue in Implosion, although campy and cheesy, is fine; none of it sounds like it was written by some 5-year-old kid that was slapping awkward sentences together. It’s clear that they had someone that had a good command of English vocabulary and the ability to write a script. Sadly, that didn’t translate well into text on the screen. Now that I think about it, it would have been hilarious if the voice actors had to read their lines EXACTLY the way they were shown as subtitles in the game. Full run-on sentences and awkward pauses thanks to improper usage of the comma should be fun to act out after all.
Here are 3 consecutive screenshots — minus Crimson’s “No pressure” remark after Napoleon’s line — from the beginning of Chapter 1, Stage 2 that highlight the grammatical mess:
Avalon’s version of this exchange is even more offending in terms of missing punctuation but I’ll limit the examples to these three. I’ve presented some other screens in my other blog post too, however. Be aware that it’s like this throughout the ENTIRE GAME so the snapshots I provide are not isolated incidents. Bottom line is, if you tend to read subtitles like I do, be prepared to experience the kind of sloppy, careless shit amateurs do every single time the characters start talking.
CocoPPa Play
Of all the frequently updated free-to-play mobile games that I play, CocoPPa Play outshines them all when it comes to problematic updates. To illustrate, I’ve stitched together a list of all the bug and apology notices from May and much of June:
I know the thumbnail is blurry but the actual image is much larger and relatively clear. ^^ If you choose not to click on the screenshot above, I can describe to you its contents: a great deal of notifications are prefixed by the words [Bug] or [Apology]. These so-called bugs were typically graphical issues such as a gacha that had an incorrect image or some descriptions or headings were switched around. Now, I don’t mind if these mistakes happened every now and then since it’s unreasonable to expect absolute perfection and error-free updates all the time, but somehow, this developer has an uncanny ability to create errors multiple times a week.
While most of the problems that they profusely apologize for don’t affect gameplay, there were instances where there was server lag that caused long load times and players to be randomly disconnected. Then there was the incident that occurred 3 days ago where some iOS users became locked out of their accounts after downloading the most recent update. The change log read:
“Partial Changes with the Tutorial We have changed some designs for the tutorial in the beginning of the game.”
Well, it sure wasn’t that simple! Somehow, changing the tutorial meant fucking up the registration page and the ability to log in. What’s more is that CocoPPa Play offers no way to back up an account so regaining access requires creating a whole new user ID and emailing support with it plus the old user ID along with some personal information for verification purposes. It’s about high time GCREST got off their lazy ass and provided the back up option like many of their Japanese-only games do. Thankfully, a drastic, adverse screw up such as this rarely occurs.
Consistently messing up image uploads and words so many times within a single month is giving me the impression that GCREST does not care about this game. If they truly did, they would realize that something is very wrong with how updates are handled. Small updates for new gacha and events happen about twice a week so this game undergoes more changes a month than most. If anything, that should give the developer more reason to be more diligent with ensuring that everything is in order before letting a revision go live.
I have written to both Rayark, Inc. and GCREST regarding my displeasure and frustration at their approach and seeming disregard for their products. The issues that I have presented in this post are things that should rarely happen, but unfortunately, one didn’t care enough to deal with it before the game was made available for purchase and the other subscribes to the bizarre belief that always making mistakes and apologizing is better than taking extra time to double check changes before they’re applied. For what it’s worth, I’ve decided to take a hiatus from CocoPPa Play since I was growing tired of the developer’s incompetence. I may not return though because I can no longer support a company that follows such a shitty practice.
koukoupuffs 