overtheedge:WGT is and will keep trying every which way they can to generate money. Those days of "just for fun" are over.
WGT has become a big business, certainly in terms of generating revenue.
The company as most players understand, must make a profit to ensure the continual development of the game as well as remunerating themselves. No one has a problem with that.
What people do have a problem is with greed, and in the eyes of most players recently this has been the case.
Prices have risen (take the G25's for an example) balls (the main revenue from players) have continued to get more expensive.
Now I disagree that players not spending money cannot have fun, you can, but just do not expect to compete against those with top level equipment.
But it is not a level playing field anyway - regardless of loopholes that some found in the recent debacle.
WGT have a duty of care to protect the users according to their terms and conditions - so cheats mufti-accounters etc should be removed immediately - if anyone spends 20 minutes searching you will find dozens, and we do not have the tools WGT does!
I do not know who keeps this company afloat, whether it is the old timers, new players or a mix but what every business needs to know, it is easier to gain a new customer than win back an ex customer.
In other words, looking after your current clients is imperative. I own my own business and my priority is looking after current clients - I am not the cheapest but offer IMO, the best service. I may not expand rapidly, but I have constant growth through word of mouth and maintain the quality of product and service.
WGT has a great product, but you are in a unique position of effectively being a monopoly, therefore you do not have to offer great service and pricing is not controlled by market forces. This is where the greed starts to come into play and as a result, players will play less or leave when they feel they are ripped off.
The recent debacle highlighted WGT's flaws - in how they do not test a release properly and their lack of PR skills when things go wrong. As a owner of the company, Chad should have fronted, apologised and compensated players for the debacle. Not to do so shows unbelievable arrogance or ignorance. back to the duty of care lol....
Perhaps Chad is making a final push to increase sales for a sale. I don't know, but that can be the only excuse in my mind for the ever increasing greed.
And if he is doing this to the players - I would bet the advertisers get the same contempt - no wonder there are so many dead accounts falsifying the books.
I have butted heads with OTE a few times, but he is on the right track