While on leave from the Navy over 2 decades ago, I went to Dragon*Con where I had great conversations with Mike Pondsmith of R. Talsorian Games and Larry Bond of GDW in the dealer's area. R. Talsorian had just come out with Roadstriker II and Mike Pondsmith and I just chatted about anime and mecha for a half-hour, the man was very enthusiastic about gaming at that point. Larry Bond and I talked about Harpoon and when he learned that I was stationed on a Knox-class Frigate happily told me that my ship would survive less than a minute in actual combat, again he was also enthusiastic about gaming and his dire news about my ship's survivability was easy to take due to that.

One of the best convention experiences I've had.

Quote from: ggroy;749600Sounds similar to the type of conversations that customer service phone-line workers get all the time.  Especially at a telephone or cable company.

Yep.  Done customer service lines, worked booths at cons.  The deal's the same: you must always be cheerful, polite and helpful, no matter how much of a jerk the customer's being.

Following the OP, a few examples come to my mind.  

* A friend was pitching a product that sounded interesting to me ... except that it was written by Gareth-Michael Skarka.  I'd seen a raft of GMS being a total and complete asshole on TBP, and I'd be damned if I put one thin dime in that prick's pocket.

* I picked up the Serenity RPG, was badly disappointed by its many flaws, and said so in great detail on more than one forum.  Cam Banks was on a couple of those forums, responded calmly and in detail, and was very gracious about my dissent from his POV.  He's a classy chap, and I'd feel good about putting dollars in his pocket.

I've interacted with Chris Perrin, the creator of a small indie RPG called Mecha through email several times.

Nice, nice guy.

Good interactions-

Bought the Hackmaster 5th player's handbook new and the binding was shot.  Contacted their office and they mailed out a new one to me and included a few other things in the box (soloquest, book on traps).

Same thing happened with a GURPs book I had.  First opening the binding cracked.  Contacted them and a new one was sent.

In regards to the whole Kenzer thing - I wonder if you tried tweeting at Kenzer (@kenzerco) and seeing what response you get?

I recently had a positive experience with BTRC.

I've been playing around with EABA2.

The main rulebook went from v2.0 to v2.1.  I tried to upgrade, had a complete mental shutdown, failed to do so, and made a total ass of myself; angry email to BTRC.  I was a real prick.

Greg Porter emailed me back.  He was professional, courteous, and fixed every problem I had without complaint.  He refunded the money I spent when I bought the same product twice.  He took a lot of time out of his day to fix the problems I needlessly caused.

I apologized for my behavior, and he shrugged it off.  No biggie.

A class act, and an excellent system I'd recommend to anyone looking for good generic/universal system.

I don't usually have a lot of contact with companies, but two crews that I've contacted online stood out as amazing, professional and friendly folks to me (doesn't hurt that I love their games).

Autarch. Bought ACKS as a PDF when it came out (didn't get into the Kickstarter) and loved it. Sent Autarch an e-mail asking whether I could get a discount on the hardcopy and sure enough, they gave me the price of the PDF off the book!

Design Mechanism. Shortly before RQ6 came out I asked Loz about their plans for a hardcover and they said it was going to take a while. A few days later, out of the blue sky, Loz sends me an e-mail saying something along the lines of "got the hardcover proofs, they suck, we're starting from scratch. It's going to take even longer than I imagined." If I hadn't already ordered the softcover, I'd do it then.

The one bad experience I recall is, shit, set in the halcyon days of 1997. I was a total newb, I had just gotten Internet access and I innocently waltzed into the Palladium mailing list. Kevin had zero presence but used his (now ex-)wife Maryann as his spokesperson and online henchwoman. The woman wasn't exactly all smiles and sunshine and she, along with a cadre of hardcore Palladium fanbois (I remember them being called "Pals" or "Siembiotes"), who more or less ran the list, took a very dim view of criticism. This plus the huge months-long flame wars and rampant munchkinism eventually drove me away from both Palladium products and online RPG fora for a long, long time.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;749616And lots of idiots.  Lots of them.

I nearly took a job providing support for my employer's products (Highly specialized data analysis software), but even our customers "can be difficult"; if I didn't think I could handle that, no way I could handle the actual public's tech queries. Support people don't get enough respect from anyone.

The author of The One Ring took being told that I didn't like his game much, very well; of course, the important skill to have is constructive criticism, rather than spewing out "you are teh sux". On the other hand, he probably remembers that incident as the time an english asshole came up, shook his hand, and babbled about his game's rules for self-mutilation; it's all relative.

Graham Bottley (Arion Games; AFF2e, Maelstrom Domesday, paper figures) is just ace, really nice guy, and he's dealt with all of my (Numerous) problems swiftly and efficiently.

Honestly, the worst issues I've had with authors is dealing with them online (On this very website, in fact!) and finding out that, actually, they're just twats.

I have to say, running into Steven Long and Darren Watts (formerly of HERO games) at DunDraCon, was one of the highlights of several conventions for me. Both gents are stand-up guys, and I'd love to have a beer with either of them again.

I remember many years ago when I bought Troll Lord Game's Hall of Many Panes, the art insert was all loose pages, no actual book. I contacted them and they sent me the bound art book plus a bunch of free stuff - cost them a fortune in postage to the UK. TLG are consistently amateurish product-wise, but they are really great guys. I wish them well, and in consquence I've always given them the benefit of the doubt when thinking about buying their product.

Quote from: Zachary The First;749568Have you ever had a good or bad interaction online or in person that changed your perception of the company?

At Gen Con I've had great experiences with meeting companies and game designers.

Gary Gygax in the Paizo booth talked to me about AD&D and signed one of his novels for me at his last Gen Con.

Henry Lopez talked to me about Witch Hunter.

Joe Goodman talked about upcoming plans for DCC with me and gave me free swag from a random roll on the table in my DCC convention book.

Monte Cook talked to me about Cthulhu and signed his WoD d20 book.

Francesco Nepitello talked to me about the One Ring and signed it for me.

White Wolf or one those companies selling Vampire had a bar in the middle of Gen Con one year. Vampire ladies gave me a free beer. That was really cool. I played a Hunter the Vigil campaign after that, having never played other WW stuff before.

The guys and gals at Pelegrane Press are always friendly.

I did talk to Kenzer and they offered me discounts if I bought more than one book. Bummer they aren't always that way!

Really, I've always gotten good customer service and good geek service at Gen Con.

Quote from: Haffrung;749571Would it be nice if companies could hire eager, motivated employees with some aptitude for marketing? Sure. But most of them operate on a shoe-string budget. You get what you pay for.

You are being very generous. Going to any show, even ones that are in your own back yard (so to speak) is expensive. If you are going to have a booth, take the time to prepare your attending staff on how to act. Otherwise you could end up with a bunch of customers not only turned off your products but also sharing the negativity with others - exactly the opposite reason for being at a show.

Id lay blame more on Kenzer's management for not preparing their booth people; who knows how much money and good will they flushed by not taking 30 minutes to talk about how to treat customers at a show?

My business works with tech companies and that often brings us all together at various shows like SIGGRAPH; if they have never done it before, I give them a pep talk on booth behavior and if possible, point out lame ass stuff that others are doing. Booth denizens get it when they see others doing the exact same things they are guilty of.

I will no longer purchase anything from Green Ronin since Steve Kenson plagiarized one of my posts for his blog without attribution.  And this after I gave them several hours of consulting gratis to resolve performance issues with their forum.

Yeah.

Lets see...

Bad ones.

The Inquest magazine guys: Just a bit too condescending/insulting.

InPhobia magazine: Harlan Ellison bullying people.

Green Ronin: Jerks but otherwise ok. Apparently not a isolated incident though and others had considerably worse encounters.

Sanguine: One problem after another. And definitly not an isolated incident.

Steve Jackson Games: From about 2000 on they've become progressive dicks. Also they didn't treat their artists too well according to at least two former illustrators for SJG. Otherwise nice guys as long as you keep them at arms length.

White wolf/Arthaus/S&S: For fucks sake some of them need to be punched.

And the Good.

Games workshop: A weird one. Back in the mid 90s for reasons unknown the designers really liked some of my stuff. Id get to preview stuff out of the blue.

Crocodile Games: Met them when they were prototyping Wargods of Aegyptus. They even used one of my suggestions. Good wargame and excellent minis.

Liz Danfourth: She is freaking everywhere!Wacky artist when no-ones looking.

Larry Elmore: Damn you Larry and your infernal hidden secret! aaaagh! Still searching. aaaagh!

Privateer Press: Really good kids if you can get past their sometimes horriffic Customer Service.

They guys who did Shock Force: Met them at a few cons when they were doing the GWAR thing and right before Games Workshop closed them down.

The Ugly

Couple of artists who need to go to JAIL!

Quote from: Omega;749734Couple of artists who need to go to JAIL!

Now listen here, I tried to warn you that I couldn't draw!