No different to any of the previous years that have recently passed us by. SDS to me come across as implying:
“Listen, we’re the almighty developers and should not be questioned or held accountable for anything that’s wrong, although we are happy to take credit and receive applause whenever possible. We do not think our players or their satisfaction is particularly important or conducive to a successful year for the franchise, as history has repeatedly shown there will always be enough idiots around to spend real money on virtual cards that last a maximum of nine months to keep us afloat regardless of the flaws or complaints”
“We don’t provide any firm guidance or instructions on how the various aspects of the game work or highlight the routes to success as there are no consistent methods. The game is basically random. Not random as in simply press X and the game will decide, we have the old “same players are always top of the leaderboards” argument to dispel that. No, it’s random in the sense that you could do the exact same thing ten times and get six or seven different results. It’s random in the sense that there’s no consistency. We can’t ever admit that though, because the community would go nuts.”
“If we made the game entirely input based, all the whiny complainers would simply go on to post incessantly about how top players were always winning 10-0 and the game wasn’t fun. Skilled players tend to spend very little money, as they obtain every card in the game by simply playing. Events, BR and RS can easily provide enough stubs for a player with a good win rate, but the regular guys can’t succeed consistently and they’re the demographic we’re targeting to spend enough money this year - And every year, frankly - So we can’t have them all being scared away early by better players who don’t spend money early in the game cycle when we usually accrue the most revenue from them, we’ve not even had our first stub sale yet.”
“We do read the forums daily and are quick to hand out bans if we deem it necessary and will always respond in a timely fashion if you are having issues purchasing stubs from the in game store, however it doesn’t benefit us to respond to complaints, we tried that and people were rude to the staff, so we told them not to bother any more. We’ll patch the game whenever we feel like it, let them all complain, who cares? It’s the same every year!”
“Worst of all are the non American players, thinking we care if the game plays well in other countries! Listen here you foreigners, when we exclude you from COTW, competitions, giveaways, early releases and everything else, you might want to take the hint - We don’t want you here! Go away! We especially don’t want your complaints!! We can’t really make it any more clear, baseball is for people in North America! Not you!! If you insist on playing the game, despite our best efforts to put you off, keep your negativity to yourself!!”