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Good freaking lord, its not PlayNC's FAULT. It is, however, their PROBLEM. If you ran a company, would you risk losing your retail customers in order to continue appealing to your marginally smaller preorder customers?
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Then, why don't you inform NCSoft of this particular store breaking the release date, and causing the problem that you've ran into? That way NCSoft can address the problem you're complaining about. Give them the store address and location, so they're made aware of it.
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<insert more tissues and manly 3-pat hugs>
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Thank you for contributing to the discussion. You truly are a master of debate.
Look, do you guys even realize that the pre-order community is well within the minority, and the majority of gamers are not aware of this "headstart" program. All they know is they bought a game they can't play, and that is a major risk to lose potential customers. I'm gonna copy-paste that so we don't lose focus here.
Look, do you guys even realize that the pre-order community is well within the minority, and the majority of gamers are not aware of this "headstart" program. All they know is they bought a game they can't play, and that is a major risk to lose potential customers.
Look, do you guys even realize that the pre-order community is well within the minority, and the majority of gamers are not aware of this "headstart" program. All they know is they bought a game they can't play, and that is a major risk to lose potential customers.
Look, do you guys even realize that the pre-order community is well within the minority, and the majority of gamers are not aware of this "headstart" program. All they know is they bought a game they can't play, and that is a major risk to lose potential customers.
There. Discuss THAT. thats the point of the thread!
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And to add:
I worked at Gamestop for two years, so I saw my fair share of game launches. Never, not ONCE, was a big game released on a Monday. Why? Because thats marketing SUICIDE.
Nobody wants to buy games on a Monday. Not a soul. Mondays are deadsville. Mondays are school nights and work nights. Go company in its right mind would release an entertainment product on a Monday. But thats niether here nor there.
The game is available for people who reserved it. Last I checked, reserve can also be interpreted as a "pre-order" because I'm ordering the game before it comes out and putting money down on it.
PlayNC was aware that the (hilariously ill-chosen) launch date was being broken. They have done what to save themselves the possible unhappy customers?
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I think your problem is with gamestop not NCSoft, take it up with them. I went in and asked my local gamestop staff about pre-ordering the game in the store, in the end I didn't do it because of the reasons you're upset right now. I specifically asked them about the two day head start and they told me that I wouldn't have the game till launch day (Oct 31st), so I went online to pre-order instead (because I didn't know Bestbuy had the pre-order boxes ^.^). Its not like the information hasn't been availiable. Hell its been plastered all over the place, it was your responsibility to make sure the retailer you were getting the game from was being up front with you, to make sure you were getting a pre-order not a reserve.
I say again:
Why don't you PM a red name that gives damn. It's their company - let them worry about it, you nervous nelly.
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<insert more tissues and manly 3-pat hugs>
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Thank you for contributing to the discussion. You truly are a master of debate.
Look, do you guys even realize that the pre-order community is well within the minority, and the majority of gamers are not aware of this "headstart" program. All they know is they bought a game they can't play, and that is a major risk to lose potential customers. I'm gonna copy-paste that so we don't lose focus here.
Look, do you guys even realize that the pre-order community is well within the minority, and the majority of gamers are not aware of this "headstart" program. All they know is they bought a game they can't play, and that is a major risk to lose potential customers.
Look, do you guys even realize that the pre-order community is well within the minority, and the majority of gamers are not aware of this "headstart" program. All they know is they bought a game they can't play, and that is a major risk to lose potential customers.
Look, do you guys even realize that the pre-order community is well within the minority, and the majority of gamers are not aware of this "headstart" program. All they know is they bought a game they can't play, and that is a major risk to lose potential customers.
There. Discuss THAT. thats the point of the thread!
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Is that how we have to do this?
What part of "YOUR LOCAL RETAILER F'D UP BY SELLING IT EARLY" aren't you understanding? I called my local stores. None of them are selling it yet. If they were, I would have already gone and picked up my copy that I pre-ordered. You can't seem to wrap your brain around the fact that just because your local retailers broke street date (something that can get them into MASSIVE trouble, but being an ex-Gamestop employee, you'd know that already, right?) doesn't mean the rest of the country did. Sheesh...
What part of "YOUR LOCAL RETAILER F'D UP BY SELLING IT EARLY" aren't you understanding? I called my local stores. None of them are selling it yet. If they were, I would have already gone and picked up my copy that I pre-ordered. You can't seem to wrap your brain around the fact that just because your local retailers broke street date (something that can get them into MASSIVE trouble, but being an ex-Gamestop employee, you'd know that already, right?) doesn't mean the rest of the country did. Sheesh...
What part of "YOUR LOCAL RETAILER F'D UP BY SELLING IT EARLY" aren't you understanding? I called my local stores. None of them are selling it yet. If they were, I would have already gone and picked up my copy that I pre-ordered. You can't seem to wrap your brain around the fact that just because your local retailers broke street date (something that can get them into MASSIVE trouble, but being an ex-Gamestop employee, you'd know that already, right?) doesn't mean the rest of the country did. Sheesh...
What part of "YOUR LOCAL RETAILER F'D UP BY SELLING IT EARLY" aren't you understanding? I called my local stores. None of them are selling it yet. If they were, I would have already gone and picked up my copy that I pre-ordered. You can't seem to wrap your brain around the fact that just because your local retailers broke street date (something that can get them into MASSIVE trouble, but being an ex-Gamestop employee, you'd know that already, right?) doesn't mean the rest of the country did. Sheesh...
There - did that hammer home the fact that your problem is NOT a nationwide issue alienating casual gamers and is likely only occuring in an isolated handfull of cities that have boneheaded retailers yet?
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I say again:
Why don't you PM a red name that gives damn. It's their company - let them worry about it, you nervous nelly.
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No, no, Clint. You have to do it four times in one post for him to grok the concept, I think.
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Good freaking lord, its not PlayNC's FAULT. It is, however, their PROBLEM. If you ran a company, would you risk losing your retail customers in order to continue appealing to your marginally smaller preorder customers?
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Then, why don't you inform NCSoft of this particular store breaking the release date, and causing the problem that you've ran into? That way NCSoft can address the problem you're complaining about. Give them the store address and location, so they're made aware of it.
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That wouldn't do any good. They can't stop the retailer from selling the game now that the street date is broken. (And typically, its Wal-Mart that breaks street dates, or Best Buy. Large retailers are famous for it). All they can do now is make the choice:
Keep the game locked for everyone but preorder customers until monday, or let the customers who are buying it right now play? Think of it this way:
Keep the game locked until Monday and risk losing customers,
or
Open the game up and risk losing absolutely nobody.
Is it really a hard decisiuon? Is this really some sort of glaring problem the forum community must attack, like a pack of starving wolves, and tear to pieces?
I challenge the assertion that the preorder crowd is a minority. To make that claim, go try and reserve on of those new Xbox 360 things, really. People are all over the internet, and if they did any research at all on this game, then they knew the actual release date.
You can make the claim that people are just walking into a store and saying "Ooooo pretty box!" But I think that happens less than one may think. Especially in an MMO. I could be wrong, it's been known to happen.
Oh yes, and one more point. I have bought games that I was unable to make work from time to time. You know the first thing I did? Went to the companies web site, where there is usually a plethora of information as to why it won't work (Excepting Black and White 2, still can't get the thing to work right). Some people will be miffed, but this is not the Earth shattering event that you are claiming.
Goodness, I've been dragged in!
PM
This is getting nowhere.
See what happens when the servers are down, people flock to the fourms. . .
<<<Highjacks Thread>>>
Is that a new avatar Clintonian? ? ? ?
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Just sit back and imagine right now how many kids got this game on Friday from their local EB or GameStop or (fill in here) and got it home, only to find themselves locked out because they weren't a Super Special member? Think of the customers PlayNC is losing!
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Here's a tissue. Nobody here is "Super Special". Many of us actually bothered to get our pre-order boxes after doing some brief reading on the game months ago.
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I'm gonna take a big risk here and guess you're not in marketing. When you have Blizzard dominating the MMO player base, and you find yourself in a situation where you're losing customers, the correct response is not "Here's a tissue". Its "how can we compansate so our majority of new customers aren't burned".
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as if this wasn't a stupid argument before, I can't belive I'm still readin but this just resembles a trainwreck so much...well you get the idea.
Are you even reading anything anyone else tells you? You have been informed over a dozen times now that the two day headstart is a PRE ORDER ONLY event. Launch Day is MONDAY. YOUR ISSUE IS WITH THE RETAILER GO [censored] AT THEM.
Boom, nother car for the trainwreck.
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I say again:
Why don't you PM a red name that gives damn. It's their company - let them worry about it, you nervous nelly.
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No, no, Clint. You have to do it four times in one post for him to grok the concept, I think.
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Oh, THAT'S the proper form. Many thanks. 
Why don't you PM a red name that gives damn. It's their company - let them worry about it, you nervous nelly.
Why don't you PM a red name that gives damn. It's their company - let them worry about it, you nervous nelly.
Why don't you PM a red name that gives damn. It's their company - let them worry about it, you nervous nelly.
Why don't you PM a red name that gives damn. It's their company - let them worry about it, you nervous nelly.
I went with my own little flourish. The basic copy&paste looked boring.
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Then, why don't you inform NCSoft of this particular store breaking the release date, and causing the problem that you've ran into? That way NCSoft can address the problem you're complaining about. Give them the store address and location, so they're made aware of it.
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That wouldn't do any good. They can't stop the retailer from selling the game now that the street date is broken. (And typically, its Wal-Mart that breaks street dates, or Best Buy. Large retailers are famous for it). All they can do now is make the choice:
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No, but it WOULD stop those unscrupulous rogues at Gamestop (or wherever you ordered it) from kicking anybody else's inner puppy by doing such a thing in the future. Think of all the potential customers you're not helping out by being so irresponsible.
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Keep the game locked for everyone but preorder customers until monday, or let the customers who are buying it right now play?
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ie: "Lemme in! I'm mad. Gimme what I want and gimme it NOW because I made an uninformed decision."
It's not hive-mind. It's not hungry wolves. It's not pre-order geeks. It's the fact that you can't accept culpability for your actions.
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I challenge the assertion that the preorder crowd is a minority. To make that claim, go try and reserve on of those new Xbox 360 things, really. People are all over the internet, and if they did any research at all on this game, then they knew the actual release date.
You can make the claim that people are just walking into a store and saying "Ooooo pretty box!" But I think that happens less than one may think. Especially in an MMO. I could be wrong, it's been known to happen.
Oh yes, and one more point. I have bought games that I was unable to make work from time to time. You know the first thing I did? Went to the companies web site, where there is usually a plethora of information as to why it won't work (Excepting Black and White 2, still can't get the thing to work right). Some people will be miffed, but this is not the Earth shattering event that you are claiming.
Goodness, I've been dragged in!
PM
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Comparing it to the release of the Xbox is a leeeeetle bit of a stretch. I mean, the Xbox is a system that appeals to ALL gamers. CoV is an MMO game amongst many MMO games that appeal to a smaller amount of gamers. And if my experience tells me anything, the "preorder" crowd is a LOT smaller than the "its my birthday and my grandma gave me $50" crowd.
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I mean, the Xbox is a system that appeals to ALL gamers.
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No it doesn't. it has more of a mainstream appeal to a wider range of gamers, but not to "ALL" gamers. Just sayin'.
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Then, why don't you inform NCSoft of this particular store breaking the release date, and causing the problem that you've ran into? That way NCSoft can address the problem you're complaining about. Give them the store address and location, so they're made aware of it.
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That wouldn't do any good. They can't stop the retailer from selling the game now that the street date is broken. (And typically, its Wal-Mart that breaks street dates, or Best Buy. Large retailers are famous for it). All they can do now is make the choice:
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No, but it WOULD stop those unscrupulous rogues at Gamestop (or wherever you ordered it) from kicking anybody else's inner puppy by doing such a thing in the future. Think of all the potential customers you're not helping out by being so irresponsible.
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Keep the game locked for everyone but preorder customers until monday, or let the customers who are buying it right now play?
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ie: "Lemme in! I'm mad. Gimme what I want and gimme it NOW because I made an uninformed decision."
It's not hive-mind. It's not hungry wolves. It's not pre-order geeks. It's the fact that you can't accept culpability for your actions.
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My actiosn which include... what? Sitting here at home on Thursday and recieving a call from Gamestop saying "Your copy of CoV will be in on Friday".
I mean, at the time, I figured it makes sense. Releasing a game on a Friday is good business. Not only does it set you up for the weekend, but people have freer wallets on Fridays, because its a happy day.
I'm not saying I'm not at fault for not knowing about Headstart. I'm saying that the many, many customers who I gurantee you do NOT know about it are getting burned right now, and PlayNC should help them out.
A mistake has been made, people can buy the game before PlayNC intended, and your solution is what? "Screw them"? "Its the retailers fault so guess it SUCKS to be you!"?
Pretend for a moment that its just you and me here, and you don't have a whole forum community to impress, and tell me why it is that these casual gamers should be locked out of a game they can legally purchase, who probably are unawares of this Headstart program?
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I mean, the Xbox is a system that appeals to ALL gamers.
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No it doesn't. it has more of a mainstream appeal to a wider range of gamers, but not to "ALL" gamers.
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Indeed. As mentioned before, I work at a game store and I can tell you that Xbox has its goodly share of people who can't stand it and want nothing to do with it. I can also tell you that the "It's my B-day/$50" crowd are a lot less likely to buy a game like CoV on a whim rather than a safe bet like say, a console game. Most computer gamers are a bit more well informed than you'd like to make them seem, boyo...
EDIT: Ooooh! The login server is up! Can we end this now? Everybody (who's in the headstart) come back to the game! 
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I mean, the Xbox is a system that appeals to ALL gamers.
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No it doesn't. it has more of a mainstream appeal to a wider range of gamers, but not to "ALL" gamers. Just sayin'.
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If you wanna mince words, fine. It sppeals to a "substantially higher amount of gamers".
I still don't understand why they will be losing customers over this.
It is not uncommon for an MMORPG to be on the shelves a couple of days before the servers are brought on-line.
If someone tries to enter the retail code, they will get a message, "Try again on the 31st." I don't see the problem here. If someone buys the retail game and has no clue about the head-start, they won't know what they are missing.
Neither Cryptic nor NCSoft have any control precisely when stores put CoV on shelves. Stores understand that the CoV servers officially go up on Oct. 31st...but they can decide to put the game on shelves before then.
I have said it from day one that the actual "marketing and Customer Relations people must be ignored by the control freak, computer geek programmers.
For example, just the nerfs alone that piss just about 90% of the gamers off is tell tail of the goings on with the CoH administration. Marketing and Customer Relations is important for a reason. They listen to what the people who are PAYING have to say and try to make them happy. Unfortunately the CoH team is not listening to their customers and are doing whatever THEY want.
Last night someone actually said this:
"You are paying to play THEIR game... there is nothing you can do about it."
THEIR game?!?! Doesn't that sound like someone who has never had a sales job in their life? Or someone who has never successfully started and run a business?
Yes THEY created the game and the game was once great but nerf after nerf from issue to issue is not making the customers happy.
I log on and read all the broadcasts. I don't see people saying "Wooo Hooo these changes are GREAT!". Instead I'm reading how angry people are that they have to try and figure out how to respec their toon that they spent so long on
.. YET AGAIN! In fact, I spent hours trying to un-nerf my illusion/storm controller. I finally figured out a build that was acceptable (still not as good as the pre-nerf) and did the official respec. Not even 3 weeks later they nerf me AGAIN!
As I stated..... this is not making the CUSTOMERS of CoH happy. I'm sick of hearing the occasional person say "Well if you dont like it don't play. CoH doesn't need you anyway." Hey I understand that my insignificantly small membership fee won't greatly impact the pockets of the creators of the game but I'm sure I'm not alone in my sentiment. A little in abundance adds up to a lot. A perfect example of this is Ford Motor Company. Ford was once king of the automotive industry only to become a joke later on when they started making crap cars that were far inferior to other cars. So what did Ford do after losing millions of dollars to the "other" car makers? They started listening to their CUSTOMERS again.
I predict CoH coming to an end in the very near future if they keep with their present mind set, and CoV will never reach the level of popularity that CoH once had. The makers of this game have to LISTEN to their customers and stop making our characters weaker and weaker. Instead of nerfing us why not try to make more challenging missions or different kinds of enemies.
Wise up.
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So you're saying that its the retail industry's fault that they launched the game early, and not at all playNC's fault for locking the game out for anyone other than pre-order customers.
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It's the retail store to whom you gave your money that is at fault, here. THEY, and noone else, knew you had put money down towards the game. THEY, and noone else, should have known to contact you and let you know that the policy for the preorder, once it was OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED, involved gettign a pre-order box with a special pre-order code.
NCSOFT HAS CHEATED YOU OF NOTHING. Your game shop did. Go beat on THEIR heads. Do it right now, and maybe, JUST MAYBE, you can get a pre-order box today, and be in the headstart tonight.
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Just sit back and imagine right now how many kids got this game on Friday from their local EB or GameStop or (fill in here) and got it home, only to find themselves locked out because they weren't a Super Special member? Think of the customers PlayNC is losing!
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Launch Day is October 31. Today is October 29. Think about it.
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EDIT: Ooooh! The login server is up! Can we end this now? Everybody (who's in the headstart) come back to the game!
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Exactly. I was just marking time replying to people with real problems and watching this guy freak out.
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I still don't understand why they will be losing customers over this.
It is not uncommon for an MMORPG to be on the shelves a couple of days before the servers are brought on-line.
If someone tries to enter the retail code, they will get a message, "Try again on the 31st." I don't see the problem here. If someone buys the retail game and has no clue about the head-start, they won't know what they are missing.
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But its perfectly plausible that a customer would look at that, scoff and return it. They doin't wanna wait until they get home from school/work on Monday. they want to play a game now. And they will return CoV and get another one.
The central point is: Its not a question fo who's fault it is. The problem doesn't change. PlayNC should really be concerned with keeping the customers who can buy the game right now but not play it.
and for the record, I have other games to play. I'm just concerned that a game company I love is hurting itself.
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I mean, at the time, I figured it makes sense. Releasing a game on a Friday is good business. Not only does it set you up for the weekend, but people have freer wallets on Fridays, because its a happy day.
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You say you used to work at a game store, yet time and again, you display no knowledge of how pre-orders work and when new games are released. Games are released the day they get instore 90% of the time. The 10% that are street dated for a different day are EXPLICTLY marked as such, usually backed up with a flurry of company e-mails in the days preceding telling the store to NOT sell it before X date, usually coinciding with some important event: Halloween for CoV. Star Wars Battlefront 2 is another example - it's marked to release the same day as the Episode 3 DVD - THAT is marketing, not this "Hey, Friday seems like a good day because it's 'happy day' and people have money" concept you latch onto.
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A mistake has been made, people can buy the game before PlayNC intended, and your solution is what? "Screw them"? "Its the retailers fault so guess it SUCKS to be you!"?
Pretend for a moment that its just you and me here, and you don't have a whole forum community to impress, and tell me why it is that these casual gamers should be locked out of a game they can legally purchase, who probably are unawares of this Headstart program?
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If the store broke street date, it wasn't 'legally purchased'. They broke an agreement with the software vendors. There's no two ways about it. Changing their whole launch strategy to let in a small handful of people who got the game early isn't just like flipping a switch on and off.
And trust me - I'm primarily a lurker here. I'm not trying to impress anybody with my forum e-wang. I just can't stand whiney people who feel they're entitled to ANYTHING beyond what they deserve. You didn't do your research (which was freely available in a NUMBER of places beyond these oh-so-hard-to-find forums), you miss out on TWO days. TWO! Anybody who freaks out and leaves because of a messup on the retailer's part wasn't likely going to stick around for more than a couple of months anyways - short attention spans being what they are...
Good Lord, I started to try and post a page ago....yikes!
PM