Hi Game Tap!

After reading through the forum and consulting a number of different places that cite your service as mediocre, my friends and I have decided to conduct an experiment.


Background info:
Gametap currently holds an 'F' rating—the most negative rating available—from the Better Business Bureau of Metro Atlanta.

GameTap was criticized for its cancellation process, which required customers to contact live support personnel. The customers were then subjected to pressure tactics to dissuade them from canceling

We are part of the Marshall Business School at the University of Southern California, and are currently enrolled in an advanced marketing class. This class consists of a number of brilliant students from a variety of graduate schools across the USC system.

The experiment:
We have convinced one of our professors to advise us on how to study the effects of a negative marketing campaign on a company that is not performing well. Their name will remain anonymous at their request. We will use our handy "Freedom of Speech" to conduct this campaign by using a variety of channels.

1. On Campus we will spread the word through an article in the "Daily Trojan." I will also see if my friends at UCLA will try to do the same in their school newspaper.
2. We will send as many game review websites negative comments and requests for them to discuss your services on their sites.
3. Your good ole' friends at the BBB will be contacted, of course. (though they are generally worthless)
4. Our friends in the computer engineering department will use SEO tactics to get these reviews higher on the Google, Bing, and Yahoo organic searches. We don't want people to miss these reviews because the experiment would not work as hoped.

We are going to use resources like Hoovers, and several other business resources to track the progress of your company following this experiment.

Based on some preliminary research we have found out that your parent company is Metaboli, a French based online gaming company. Also terrible reviews.

Nothing works better to change an industry or company than the pressure of their customers. And if you don't think that we are serious, I would just like to note that several people involved with this are avid activists for a variety of causes. They are very excited to see what kind of impact they can make on this matter.

Cheers.

Hi,

I'm not sure of which pressure tactics you refer to.

For cancellation requests with no reason given we simply cancel the subscription straight away.

If there are signs that a customer is having difficulty with the games then we offer to help before cancelling. If after this help offer they still want to cancel then we comply straight away.

You are of course free to exercise your right to freedom of speech, and are welcome to post any reviews you like onto Google.

If you have any problems regarding your purchase, please don't hesitate to get in contact with our support team.

Thank you.

Well, to follow up on my post...

I was pretty upset at the time. So much so that I did get the ball rolling on all of the "threats" that I made above. However, after you responded to my inquiry (3 days later) I did take your arguments into consideration by consulting with my friends and professor. We all kind of agreed that we neither have time nor do we have any need or want to move forward with this study. My professor (who's name I promised not to mention = call him/her professor x for ease), professor x, dissuaded us in the end and we decided to throw in the towel.

Following up by doing some more research on the argument of internet fraud being a major cause for the delay, I did confirm that a large number of similar sites do use the same/similar tactics to fight it. In hindsight it was kind of a childish, and honestly drunken, moment that I was having when I sent the message.

I have to admit that you were very courteous in your response to this message, but would suggest that you respond to emails sooner. I am not sure about the traffic you have to your site, but having a few people on call during the weekend with a blackberry couldn't be that costly.

ericjric wrote: Well, to follow up on my post... I was pretty upset at the time. So much so that I did get the ball rolling on all of the "threats" that I made above. However, after you responded to my inquiry (3 days later) I did take your arguments into consideration by consulting with my friends and professor. We all kind of agreed that we neither have time nor do we have any need or want to move forward with this study. My professor (who's name I promised not to mention = call him/her professor x for ease), professor x, dissuaded us in the end and we decided to throw in the towel. Following up by doing some more research on the argument of internet fraud being a major cause for the delay, I did confirm that a large number of similar sites do use the same/similar tactics to fight it. In hindsight it was kind of a childish, and honestly drunken, moment that I was having when I sent the message. I have to admit that you were very courteous in your response to this message, but would suggest that you respond to emails sooner. I am not sure about the traffic you have to your site, but having a few people on call during the weekend with a blackberry couldn't be that costly.

*cough* bull$hit *cough*

Yeah I'm sure GT was real worried about this so called "experiment". Write alot of fan fiction do you?