Granado Espada SEA pioneer pooh-poohs IP e-Games’ ‘mishandling’ of game

If you’ve read the comments on my last post, the one about Zhu Xian’s great character path-find system, and are a fan or player of Granado Esapada in Southeast Asia, then you probably already know that pioneer NineMoons, also known as PJ Punla, is quitting, not only from playing the online game she adores but also from blogging about it.

Okay, yeah, so a player is quitting a game, it’s nothing new. Does it really merit a commentary from MMOtaku and other blogs that talk about massively multiplayer online games?

The answer is a resounding yes. Here’s the reason why:

With this blog, I put out relevant and sometimes important information about MMORPGs in Asia and those developed in this part of the globe. The range of topics I talk about is, despite claiming a niche as an MMORPG blogger, pretty broad compared to real niche gaming blogs like PJ Punla’s Granado Espada: Dispatches from the New World, which just talks, more or less, about Granado Espada, its community, and events.

When a niche blogger suddenly decides to pack up her bags, shuts the door to her blog, and throws away the key, that generally means trouble, especially for the company that operates the online game, whether they know it or not.

Why? Simply because when this scenario happens, as in the case of NineMoons, it means the game and its operator have turned off their Number One Fan.

And Number One Granado Esapda SEA Fan PJ Punla is, or was, as the case may be. This Gamer Girl has championed the merits of what is supposedly the Philippines’ first Triple A MMORPG on more than one occasion. She has even engaged the MMOtaku in a debate over features of Granado Espada that we have labeled negatively.

Did she get anything in return for these services? Not really. Did she expect anything in return for these? Only for IP e-Games, the Philippine partner of Infocomm Asia Holdings Pte. Ltd., to do a better job in marketing Granado Espada.

Just how disappointed is PJ Punla, formerly Granado Espada SEA’s biggest fan? Let me excerpt her final post where she pooh-poohed IP e-Games’ “poor handling” of the game:

It’s been a recurring theme in this blog, ever since that extreme disillusioning sometime during 2007. Thanks for nothing. Yes, you lot brought in the game, you distributed the pretty posters and the very first set of installers — and then after that, there was really not a whole lot of anything. You let us down and dropped us as though we were hot potatoes, all the while enticing people to play your other games instead without mentioning the game you once marketed as the first Triple A MMORPG brought to the Philippines. I don’t know how to run a game publishing business, but I am certainly not going to run it as you attempted to do for GE, because you botched it, big time.

As a friend—and fan—of PJ Punla, aka NineMoons, pioneer Granado Espada player and blogger, here’s my way of saying good luck in your future endeavors.

Screenshot taken by PJ Punla from the online game Granado Espada, developed by IMC Games Co. Ltd., published by HanbitSoft Inc., and operated in Southeast Asia by IAH Games.