Will Harvey Say What?

About a year ago, I found this keynote address by Will Harvey, and it was a little dry but what really caught my attention was one little section, which you can listen to at the top of this blog post (sorry for the poor audio quality) since the keynote is a bit long and this part is hidden in the middle I thought I'd extract this key bit.

Basically, Will Harvey seems to be saying he likes to make it LOOK like IMVU responds (and responds quickly) to their user base, when in reality it is just a clever illusion. I thought that was interesting, especially that he would actually admit that somewhere where he was being recorded (oops?) but then I just sort of carried on with other stuff and half forgot about it.

I was reminded of and motivated to look this keynote address up after learning about IMVU tiers and how they work. IMVU has been promising us developer levels for so long it's like you don't even really hear them when they say it anymore, like that low hum your computer makes...but they are finally actually here! I noticed this several days ago just totally at random, since I don't usually read the IMVU forums. I checked and I was a level 6 out of a possible 7 and I was like "ah, okay, whatever", not understanding what made me a 6 or why I might care. I was even a little excited about the fact that they had finally implemented this, thinking it might give me some more enthusiasm for IMVU and developing (or is that "content creating" now?)

A little later the same day, Kittenkat contacted me to let me know tiers had been implemented. She figured I had probably not been around the forums, and she thought I'd be interested. I didn't really "get" what she was talking about, but after finally reading the thread/poll she started on IMVU's forums and checking out the helpful graph she made: I'm like...wait a minute...this sucks!

I don't even know where to begin...first of all, you have to participate heavily in the forums to get a top developer score. What??? Why??? Second, there are supposed to be awards commensurate with your level and yet they are a big fat secret from us so how do we even know how to react? Like, maybe we are freaking out for nothing? Maybe we are remaining calm when we should be freaking out?

I guess the thing that bothers me the most is what Will Harvey said in his keynote address...that basically it's all an illusion that they are listening to us and doing what the users want/demand. No matter how logical another system proposed (Kittenkat's) may be or how flawed IMVU's system may be...they're going to do it their way pretty much no matter what. Argh.