"Broadening our audience"

[Battenberg]

I would say your logic is flawed OP. As far as the music you mentioned goes those bands got popular off of their 'quirkier' albums from their early catalgoue not to mention that music technology doesn't regularly advance making previous albums sound inferior by comparison. Also a huge number of bands are criticised in the exact same way for essentially broadening their music (for example Muse's most recent album was much more akin to chart music than "their own" sound from previous albums, alienating a lot of their old fans); how many times have you heard someone say "their old stuff was so much better".

As for games the example you gave was Ocarina of Time, one of, if not the, most popular and critically acclaimed games of all time, suggesting that that game was widely popular because it was good rather than because it catered to the masses at the expense of its previous audience. When people talk about broadening an audience as a bad thing in gaming it's because it only seems to be used for sequels and only when said sequel will depart from the typical makeup of the previous games in favour of being more generic, for example Dead Space 3.

I'm not saying it's always a bad thing for a game to aim to appeal to more people however when a game already has a core audience that it knows enjoys the franchise as it is there's no quality based reason to suddeny cater to the masses instead, all it does is potentially increase the income of new releases. Sometimes a first entry might not get a particularly big audience to the point that it's in danger of dying out, in those circumstances it makes sense to try and fix whatever has put the majority of other gamers off. If, on the other hand, said franchise has its own "flavour" so to speak and is still pulling in steady profits the only reason to ditch the best, most unique aspects of the game is sheer greed.

 

[gavinmcinns]

snip

A band who releases it's best album of all time first has nowhere to go but down. Radiohead is the perfect antithesis to this band, started out with the most mainstream stuff, progressed to the mountaintop and never looked back.

The problem with catering to casuals is that the series goes backwards instead of forwards. If you release something great, people want to see it progress to new heights, so watching it devolve or tread water is a bad thing. If you want to get in on the action but find that a series is out of your depth, go play something else. It's the typical U.S.A. mindset; if the test is too hard, there must be something wrong with the test, so make it easier. It is the reason why we have turned into a nation of whining children in adult bodies.

 

[Multi-Hobbyist]

Welp, I take "broadening our audience" as a way of saying "we want more money, we need more people to buy, so we'll make a game with everything that everyone likes." And exactly this crap that hammers the final nail in a coffin for them. It's at that point when I give up on them. It's plain and simple, a FPS is not a RTS. Nor is a RPG in any way a Racer. Different categories exist because not everyone likes everything. A simple fact that corporate management of gaming studios/industries can't seem to grasp. But when your head is so far up your own arse all you see/hear/taste/touch/smell is money, who's surprised at this point anymore? At this point in time, no single video game can successfully be this all-in-1 creation specially catered for everyone. Stick to the boundaries, and do it WELL, and you have to worry about sales in the first place.

 

[laggyteabag]

I hate it when developers attempt to "broaden the audience" because for the most part, it just does not work. Im going to use 2012's Halo 4 as an example here. Im pretty sure that from the start the team at 343 aimed to compete with the Call of Duty franchise, and to do so they aimed to "broaden the audience" (im pretty sure they actually said this at some point, but im having trouble finding the source) and they would try to do this by capturing some of the Call of Duty playerbase, this was fairly obvious from the start just by looking at some of the newly introduced mechanics such as sprint by default, loadouts, ordnance etc. the game was also released a few days prior to the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 in an attempt to lure some potential buyers away from Call of Duty in an attempt to increase sales and the population of the Halo games. And it worked... kinda. The game was a commercial success, having over 450k players playing multiplayer on the second day of release, but this did not last, the player base dropped dramatically just over two weeks after the release to 200k, and after year since its release the game is now struggling to get past 16k - 17k. Why? Because what went wrong was that the fans of Halo did not think it played like Halo, and the fans of Call of Duty would rather play, well, Call of Duty, so as a result the game really failed to capture any audience.

The problem with "broadening an audience" is that the niche audience that enjoyed a game in the first place wont really like it that much because it is not the same experience that they came to expect from the franchise, and the people who the game developers aimed at would rather just play the source material instead of the game that is trying to rip on the source material (see Medal of Honor compared to Battlefield).

 

[clippen05]

I remember when Tripwire tried to "broaden the audience" of Red Orchestra 2 by adding a casual mode to attract COD players... yeah, that went well. The people who liked the old Red Orchestra had to wait months to get a mode that was like the original, and the small portion of action-shooter-gamers moved on to COD anyway. I don't even think there was a fully populated casual server 1 month after launch.

 

[Vausch]

Broadening the audience basically means they're going to stick elements from other well-selling games into franchises in which they very often do not fit.

Horror game franchise sells well on its name to a lot of people but doesn't pour money out? Add military weapons, explosions, and hand to hand combat that's more effective than the guns!

RPG known for being difficult sells well due to a well handled budget and knew who it was appealing to? Throw millions at it and make it like Skyrim cuz that sold well.

Strategy games aren't made very often and aren't advertised, therefore they don't sell and we shouldn't make more. Shooter sell well so we'll just take old titles and make them into shooters.

Nobody's willing to appeal to a niche audience, nobody seems willing to make a game with a modest budget that appeals to people that happen to really like certain genres and don't require a massive engine or top of the line graphics. It's gotta appeal to everybody so everybody will buy it and then they'll make millions more than the millions they put in.

 

[gamer_parent]

ITT: people who want AAA budget games, but don't want to pay more for it, and doesn't want it to appeal to more people.

In all businesses, the name of the game is margin. If you can't get your distribution numbers up to break even, then you need to find ways to do things with less money, which is REALLY hard to do with AAA games like Dark Souls.

i.e. a single AAA title costs around what, 30 million to make and distribute? So that means at 60 USD a pop, you're looking at least 500K in sales to break even. For reference, Total War: Rome 2 sold 800K copies, and Street Fighter 4 sold 1.5 million copies. It's not exactly a trivial task. Keep in mind, this is just to break even.

 

[Fireaxe]

There are ways to broaden the audience without making a game boring and shitty. While a turn based strategy game (for example) is unlikely to make huge bags of cash, it can turn a solid profit.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution being a solid example of appealing to a broader audience than the original, but without making the game so stupid it alienated the original fans.

 

[JagermanXcell]

I actually associate that phrase with everything that's wrong with TV today. Live action on Cartoon Network, wrestling on Sci-Fi, reality shows on Discovery & National Geographic, Things on the Disney Channel they didn't make but bought the rights to, no music on MTV or VH1.....Expanding the audience compromises the integrity until there is no integrity left.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Eventually the big hats will find out whats popular and turn something people love into something they will grow to hate.
Cause the OP mentioned the "Biggest Joke in Gaming" Thread I'm going to use what I said on that thread and say DmC.

I looooooved DMC. People loooooooved DMC. Sure DMC4 wasn't the full package, but that wasn't our fault. The people who enjoy the series did their job, Capcom didn't, they pushed an unfinished project out and thought "Oh no! Criticism! We need to brudone teh eudience!" And thus the reboot happened...
ALL ABOARD THE DUMBING DOWN BUSINESS PRACTICE TRAIN!!! *CHOO* *CHOOOO*
Earth to Crapcom, people didn't dislike DMC's universe, characters, and campy story, people disliked DMC4 because YOU DIDN'T FINISH IT. Thats no damn excuse to take everything great about the game, dumb it down, and add crap that doesn't belong.

Whatever, hopefully speaking with our wallets will be a growing sensation amongst niche groups. Hopefully.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

ITT: people who want AAA budget games, but don't want to pay more for it, and doesn't want it to appeal to more people.

As a consumer, I'm not part of some aggregate or collective. I want AAA games that appeal to me, and I'm never going to apologize for that. If they aren't financially viable, I'll settle for AA. If those aren't in the cards, I'll go ahead and play the low-budget indies. And if those dry up? I'll play the classics. It's not my job to support this industry despite my personal tastes. If they don't cater to me, my money goes elsewhere. The free market cuts both ways, right?

In all businesses, the name of the game is margin. If you can't get your distribution numbers up to break even, then you need to find ways to do things with less money, which is REALLY hard to do with AAA games like Dark Souls.

Dark Souls is kind of a counterpoint in this argument. It sold well (2.3 million units across all platforms, to this point) but not CoD-well, and that's okay because it didn't cost a fortune (relatively speaking) to make, market, and distribute. It's not a AAA game with a runaway budget that needs to crack five million in sales to justify a sequel. It was a laser-focused production that targeted a niche audience and delivered. That's why I bought it twice and played it more than any other game last year. Dark Souls is exactly the sort of game I want to see from this industry moving forward.

i.e. a single AAA title costs around what, 30 million to make and distribute? So that means at 60 USD a pop, you're looking at least 500K in sales to break even. For reference, Total War: Rome 2 sold 800K copies, and Street Fighter 4 sold 1.5 million copies. It's not exactly a trivial task. Keep in mind, this is just to break even.

When people hate on the concept of "broadening the audience", others frequently frame it as entitled whining. Why can't it just be consumers flexing their wallet muscles to bring about desired changes to their preferred hobby? If enough people grow wary of sequels that "broaden the audience", if enough games like Dead Space 3 and Resident Evil 6 crash and burn, maybe publishers will learn that they can't count on repeat buyers without delivering the goods that brought those consumers to the table in the first place.

I don't mean to be confrontational here, but there seems to be this underlying conceit that we absolutely need video games and we're stuck with whatever the publishers decide is best for their own bottom lines. I reject that idea. The market forces are obviously powerful and extremely influential, but that's what makes this kind of push-back so important. If we're not standing up and telling them what we want, and putting our money where our mouths are on a regular basis (or deflating bad sequels before they even get off the ground), we will end up with the video game industry we deserve. Good thing I can always walk away from it, though. Lots to do and see.

 

[Saelune]

Broadening the audience game wise almost always means making it more generic and less risky. Though really anytime anything -intentionally- does it, its bad. Sometimes things just work out to be more appealing to a broader audience, but that doesn't usually sacrifice the quality or the intentions. But when done on purpose usually equals selling out.

 

[Rich Webb]

I would say your logic is flawed OP. As far as the music you mentioned goes those bands got popular off of their 'quirkier' albums from their early catalgoue not to mention that music technology doesn't regularly advance making previous albums sound inferior by comparison. Also a huge number of bands are criticised in the exact same way for essentially broadening their music (for example Muse's most recent album was much more akin to chart music than "their own" sound from previous albums, alienating a lot of their old fans); how many times have you heard someone say "their old stuff was so much better".

As for games the example you gave was Ocarina of Time, one of, if not the, most popular and critically acclaimed games of all time, suggesting that that game was widely popular because it was good rather than because it catered to the masses at the expense of its previous audience. When people talk about broadening an audience as a bad thing in gaming it's because it only seems to be used for sequels and only when said sequel will depart from the typical makeup of the previous games in favour of being more generic, for example Dead Space 3.

I'm not saying it's always a bad thing for a game to aim to appeal to more people however when a game already has a core audience that it knows enjoys the franchise as it is there's no quality based reason to suddeny cater to the masses instead, all it does is potentially increase the income of new releases. Sometimes a first entry might not get a particularly big audience to the point that it's in danger of dying out, in those circumstances it makes sense to try and fix whatever has put the majority of other gamers off. If, on the other hand, said franchise has its own "flavour" so to speak and is still pulling in steady profits the only reason to ditch the best, most unique aspects of the game is sheer greed.

Very good points. I think what I was trying to get across was the way that sometimes it can take a slightly more familiar version of something to ease you into the deep end. I understand that when a game is made with a democratic decision making process that builds on safe bets and base rates from the accounts department, you do get diluted fluffy content.

I guess the whole argument can be pin pointed at the threshold of where changes to a franchise are either ironing out the clunky bits or paying a disservice to the material.

To clarify, what I meant with Zelda and the music examples was I probably wouldn't have exhibited a further interest in the series, had I not played these far more successful and accessible instances of work.

I can't help but think that the people making these kind of decisions really believe they are doing the right thing for the game. I don't think all of them are cynical business types with dollar signs for eyes. I think they are far too disconnected to what they are working on and what it really needs. I happen to work with a particular company that has this problem and the problem comes from a fundamental disagreement with the guys who have to please the investors and the guys who write, code and provide art for the game.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Heh, I feel honored that my inane ramblings actually inspired something productive like a thread.

Having read you post, I actually see your point and agree to a certain extent. I have had the experience myself of getting into something because of the accessible version of whatever that thing was.

I think it's important to have a bit of a balance. Getting more people into a certain genre or movie studio and whatnot is great, but do it too many times and things just get more and more watered down.

I think it's also important to stay roughly inside the theme of whatever the less accessible thing was. A horror series for example could certainly cater to broader tastes, but it should do so be expanding the horror elements rather than, say, ditching all the horror in favor of being a shooter because lots of people like shooters.

snip

This would be a decent point if game budgets weren't hilariously inflated specifically BECAUSE they try to cram so much crap in to make games appeal to more people.

 

[Callate]

The thing is, too often it's a marketing phrase that reads as "'X' is the game of the moment; therefore, we're turning our previously decent- but modest- selling series into 'x', in as far as that is possible." Dead Space 3 comes to mind-- as does nearly any single-player game that had resources torn away in development in order to add a multiplayer mode that almost no one actually played. "Broadening" is one of those phrases that sounds good, much like "bringing freedom" sounds better than "killing people" and "extended vacation to relieve exhaustion" sounds better than "dragging oneself to rehab until the needle marks go away."

There are times when real broadening can be a good thing, but it pretty much has to come from the creative side, rather than the marketing side or on high from management. If developers says "we could expand our core idea to be more", that can work. Even "Hey, this other game has a mechanic that is a perfect fit" can work out. It's when the game ends up saying "We're going to relegate everything that worked into this one tiny section because we have more faith in [being a pale copy of] this AAA franchise than we do in our own identity" that things tend to go sour.

 

[Zen Bard]

This phrase gives me cold sweats and a "Fable" flashbacks.

"Fable", for its time, for a pretty solid action RPG that delivered on most of the over-hyped Peter Molyneux promises. It was a good game but we all agreed (Molyneux included) that some aspects definitely needed some tuning.

With "Fable II", instead of addressing the shortcomings of the previous game, our pal Pete effectively stripped out everything that was challenging and enjoyable about the game in the name of "broadening the audience".

And don't even get me started on "Fable III"!

Basically, the challenge of the gaming industry is to make their games more accessible without sacrificing the integrity of the game.

It's that last part they seem to struggle with.

Okay...I'm off my soapbox now.

 

[Pink Gregory]

Is it easy to differentiate attempts at broad appeal with actual broad appeal?

 

[Atmos Duality]

Is it easy to differentiate attempts at broad appeal with actual broad appeal?

Aye.

Though, given sufficient popularity anything will be copied and run into the dirt in the name of "broadening appeal".
Fortunately, "Broad appeal" changes over time as people start to tire of the same old shit.

The suits think they can capitalize on trends indefinitely or analyze their way into the best money-making product on the market. Sometimes it works (Call of Duty 4.x), but sometimes it ends in weeping hilarity like the FMV video craze, or Square-Enix's stubborn arrogant attempts at replacing gameplay entirely with shiny graphics and hack writing.

But everything has a shelf life; including trends.
If AAA tries and force the market to accept stagnation forever, it's going to receive a rude awakening; one that many believe is well overdue.

 

[gamer_parent]

ITT: people who want AAA budget games, but don't want to pay more for it, and doesn't want it to appeal to more people.

As a consumer, I'm not part of some aggregate or collective. I want AAA games that appeal to me, and I'm never going to apologize for that. If they aren't financially viable, I'll settle for AA. If those aren't in the cards, I'll go ahead and play the low-budget indies. And if those dry up? I'll play the classics. It's not my job to support this industry despite my personal tastes. If they don't cater to me, my money goes elsewhere. The free market cuts both ways, right?

In all businesses, the name of the game is margin. If you can't get your distribution numbers up to break even, then you need to find ways to do things with less money, which is REALLY hard to do with AAA games like Dark Souls.

Dark Souls is kind of a counterpoint in this argument. It sold well (2.3 million units across all platforms, to this point) but not CoD-well, and that's okay because it didn't cost a fortune (relatively speaking) to make, market, and distribute. It's not a AAA game with a runaway budget that needs to crack five million in sales to justify a sequel. It was a laser-focused production that targeted a niche audience and delivered. That's why I bought it twice and played it more than any other game last year. Dark Souls is exactly the sort of game I want to see from this industry moving forward.

i.e. a single AAA title costs around what, 30 million to make and distribute? So that means at 60 USD a pop, you're looking at least 500K in sales to break even. For reference, Total War: Rome 2 sold 800K copies, and Street Fighter 4 sold 1.5 million copies. It's not exactly a trivial task. Keep in mind, this is just to break even.

When people hate on the concept of "broadening the audience", others frequently frame it as entitled whining. Why can't it just be consumers flexing their wallet muscles to bring about desired changes to their preferred hobby? If enough people grow wary of sequels that "broaden the audience", if enough games like Dead Space 3 and Resident Evil 6 crash and burn, maybe publishers will learn that they can't count on repeat buyers without delivering the goods that brought those consumers to the table in the first place.

I don't mean to be confrontational here, but there seems to be this underlying conceit that we absolutely need video games and we're stuck with whatever the publishers decide is best for their own bottom lines. I reject that idea. The market forces are obviously powerful and extremely influential, but that's what makes this kind of push-back so important. If we're not standing up and telling them what we want, and putting our money where our mouths are on a regular basis (or deflating bad sequels before they even get off the ground), we will end up with the video game industry we deserve. Good thing I can always walk away from it, though. Lots to do and see.

Oh no worries man. This is precisely the kind of responses I am hoping for, since it spurs discussion. I'll field both yours and STSC's post in one go

This would be a decent point if game budgets weren't hilariously inflated specifically BECAUSE they try to cram so much crap in to make games appeal to more people.

Now here's the bottom line for me: it is not wrong to vote with your wallet, and buy what you like. That is 100% fine. The consumer is right to make that decision.

My grief is when people come out and say stuff like "casuals are ruining the industry" because a company wants to shoot for a wider audience. I also wanted to offer up a perspective on how a company might think about this problem.

To be frank, you're 100% right that if a company wants to pursue a niche market, then they need to be prepared to do really good budget controls, or even cede the idea of doing AAA title, because the market just can't support the product with that kind of budget. That is a completely valid thing to say, and something I think more companies should do more of.

However, the gaming market has now split into two kinds of basic product: experiential games and thoughtful games. i.e. the difference between Dwarven Fortress and ICO. One game is all about the visceral appeal and the emotional resonance it brings. The other is more about planning, execution, and stratification of resources. All games sit on that spectrum somewhere in the end. Games like CoD, which are more on the experiential end, tend to be more expensive as more needs to go into the various asset pieces, which tends to be one of the biggest drivers of cost.

So this means that if gaming companies want to hedge their risks, and make smaller productions, they need to either cut content, or cut polish. In either case, that's a difficult choice to make.

Star Citizen, in this case, is using a model that is bucking this trend. The guy is really making one MASSIVE game, but what he is doing is splitting the game into disparate sections based on activity, and then making each part separately, and monetizing each separately, but also tying each game together in the middle. This way, the games can still play together, but the rollout is not handled as one gigantic investment, which makes it a safer investment.

I'm making a prediction now, that in 5 years, ALL studios will be doing their development in this method to control risks.