Something positive

[Sirius]

The whole point of his post was that whether it's the one situation or the other, keeping the characters intact is what makes the most sense for both increased sales and customer relations.

[Book]

in most other games, character data of expired subscriptions is not deleted...They don't delete it, because usually they'll do 'win back' promo's to try to suck you back in at regularly intervals, and you usually don't win someone back by telling them they have to start over again.

the character data deletion w/ quit, actually really has nothing to do with the craptacular release...even if the game was running flawlessly...and lets say i get shipped out to afghanistan, for what turns out to be a year...i'm prob not going to maintain that subscription. The odds of me resubbing when i got back would be pretty good upon return, if i knew my account was still intact...odds of me resubbing if I had to start over? II might, but i might also spend more time looking at what else is out there.

Summary: It's basic marketing. Don't piss off your customer base. If they do stop being customers, have a plan to get them back to being customers. I'm not sure whats with all the drama in this thread...this is pretty basic, industry standard stuff.

It's true, I've haven't encountered too many games where data gets deleted... but most of the time it's from someone cancelling the sub and moving on. I haven't heard of all that many outright refunds of all charges and don't know how other games handle that. I suppose if I go to Best Buy, get a copy of WoW, install, create, then return to Best Buy... I get my initial investment back without having Blizzard delete the data from the account I had created... I *think* that's how that would work, if they even take back open software... not sure.

However, I do get the feeling some customers are sometimes pissed off beyond possibility for reconciliation. Upon learning the data is in fact not deleted, they're still pissed off. Not saying they're wrong to be pissed, certainly their prerogative, but I'm not convinced much can really be done to win those customers back. There comes a point when one may have to let a customer go, and hope they do eventually move on rather than insisting on pissing everyone else off with them in a rather vindictive business practice.

Far as the drama, I agree, I don't really understand why some people have to meet any disagreeing point of view with such vehement vitriol. I don't think such continued stress can be very good for them in the long run.