...I think that the tone and approach could have been more collaborative.
Valid point, but it’s not so simple.
Those who have played on more markets sure noticed differences between them which were enlarged in GPC and provided many reasons for arguments. Some markets had different forum rules (chat invite links forbidden), game rules are the same, but some interpreted them differently and banned for circumventing the 20% BP change, some got to design heroes... or lets take a current example, another market got their event community goals fixed a week ago, we are still waiting.
Without the context GPC provided we could not detect many of these problems nor reach changes, but likely it was not the original goal with GPC. In most cases the CoMa of the actual market helped the most, it took us some time to figure out that dumping all this on Inner Council forum won’t help, some issues are better handled step by step, locally.
So Innogames looked for player representatives of markets and opened a can of worms instead of a less divisive approach like delegates of the entire community that could have lead to much better collaboration - more focus on the game. It was inevitable that sensitive topics like market inequality become a center of interest. The expectation to represent whole markets similar to a CoMa was also too high instead of just giving our own best experience and interpretation of community feedback.
The idea of recruiting random players to give them insight to game development and get direct feedback in return is strong enough without the politics. The Player Council concept is popular in other games but could have been better adjusted to Grepolis market structure, not all markets were represented, but members tend to take the representation too far, couldn’t distinguish what was their personal opinion and what was their market's majority view or for instance argued their view weighed more because their market is more active etc.
The different backgrounds, playstyle are also more relevant than market affiliation. Quite simplified, without names, the last Inner Council's most active members were a player who works hard on keeping the player count above 300 on a 3 year old server, a pure app version player, a player who refuses to use alarm, a player who doesn’t buy any gold and a player who wanted more limits on exploits. This variety ensured that we could easily get an expert player answer to almost any problems within our small group and IC could not be lead by personal agendas even if anyone tried. Meanwhile more of us got critics for running own agenda or being an 'accomplice of Inno' just for trying to remain constructive in the most difficult times - the community pressure is often hard to deal with, way harder than I expected.
As for the right to dissent, you can see on other forums that a GPC statement was posted despite not all GPC members agreed with the narrative and tone, for example on US it was posted against my will (it’s not posted on EN). A different approach could have hardly changed the known fact that GPC practically stopped 3 months by then and obviously had no future, but this incident illustrates well our challenges of collaboration.
We can not fault the InnoGames staff. They tried to give us a venue to connect with them and we as players blew it up. We are the ones who have to take responsability and blame for this enterprise to fall apart.
We, GPC members were dedicated and did what we signed up for, meanwhile Innogames staff forgot that they dealt with regular players who are compensated by attention not by money, also not trained community reps like a CoMa whose job is to keep their cool under pressure and frustration, underestimated their own workload and the shift of focus to community topics during the months they didn't give enough attention to the program. I don't think blaming any side is the way forward, but recognizing what went wrong and what was the real goal is important.
Player Council is not just a marketing catch phrase, our input for sure was not unworthy, we all knew when it started that there cannot be immediate results. Maybe from your side of view we blew this opportunity up, but I don't wish for anyone to put their heart into an abandoned project and feel releived that eventually Innogames made a responsible decision to discontinue GPC this time, even if it was late and our time got wasted for no good reason. More of us in IC shared constructive suggestions and offered help if they launch such a program ever again.
I also take the blame for not putting my name forward. I thought that the council was going to last longer and eventually wanted to be involved. I kind of had a wait and see approach but it is too late now.
They had a similar short lived program named Grepolis Focus Group before this, so it isn't necessarily the last attempt to connect directly with players. I hope you will get a chance one day and everyone who has ambition to make the game better if not in GPC then in another project!
