March Mayhem: Turbine, Zynga, and Valve; and an ethical question.

[slimeonline]

I like the idea of the march mayhem poll, but i do find the fact that developers can just ask people to vote. If infinity ward wanted to I guess they could have pulled in similar number of voters, as the call of duty franchise is huge! not excluding other games they do.

 

[Altorin]

I like the idea of the march mayhem poll, but i do find the fact that developers can just ask people to vote. If infinity ward wanted to I guess they could have pulled in similar number of voters, as the call of duty franchise is huge! not excluding other games they do.

installed call of duty playerbase of all call of duty games < Zynga's playerbase.

they're really monsters of the casual game industry.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

This really isn't an ethical question. Let me explain my position:

1. Escapist Corp wants users because more users = greater advertising revenue.
2. Escapist Corp organises developer hype competition to amuse existing users and attract new users, pursuant to the goal expressed in #1.
3. Escapist Corp realises that allowing and even encouraging the competing developers to advertise the competition, they are effectively encouraging free advertising for themselves.
4. For this reason, they deliberately write the rules of the competition so as to not exclude such behaviour on the part of developers.
5. Some developers take actions that are perfectly within the rules (and this must have been intended by the competition organisers, they've had time to prevent it if they wanted) and consequently do better.

That some people are upset by campaigning is due to one of two reasons, one of which is a sub-reason of the other. The main reason is that they do not understand the point of the competition. It isn't to find the best developer. It isn't even to find the most popular developer, or even the most popular developer amongst Escapist users. The point of the competition is to increase ad revenue and user throughput at the Escapist website. Nothing more. The second reason is that people are upset at the inclusion and success of Zynga, a company that many feel doesn't make real games. I agree with this view, but it would only be salient if the tournament was about any more than mutual promotion between developers and the Escapist. The advertisers don't care if the people clicking on their adverts play Mafia Wars or WoW or CoD, and the Escapist certainly doesn't. It's all money in the bank, and Zynga have access to plenty of useful walking $ signs.

None of this is meant to be a dig at you if you are enjoying the competition, go nuts, have fun. It's just my opinion on the real point.

Agreed. I certainly don't want Zynga to win, but will my head explode if they do? Well... may- That isn't the point. More traffic means more money for the escapist, more money means more cool stuff for us. it is a necessary evil.

 

[Henrik Persson]

installed call of duty playerbase of all call of duty games < Zynga's playerbase.

they're really monsters of the casual game industry.

Farmville has 82 million active users. No video game has ever even sold that many copies. It's monstrous.

 

[AlphaOmega]

I would frown upon Valve if they did, they did it with another minor contest but it was not very un your face (somewhere hidden on community)

I just want an ice discount when valve wins, go steam!

 

[soapyshooter]

Zynga is ass


That is all

This. They must have cheated. No self-respecting gamer would play their games!

The problem is that you don't have to be a gamer to vote. You just need an internet connection. Zynga fans have internet connections.

Sadly that is true. And any douche that is a fan of Farmville can fucking create an account here and vote. Seeing as Farmville has 30 million players even 1/16 of them voting can make Zynga the fucking winner

 

[darth jacen]

I'm sorry but please guys, a lot of people would vote for Valve regardless of if they cared. Though if some Devs care then why does it matter if they ask the people that play THEIR games to vote for them. I see no problem with this, now if they say went onto steam and asked Valve fans to vote for them, I'd have an issue with it, but I see no harm no foul in this.

 

[Steampunk Viking]

As long as the developers are only asking and making people aware, I think that is fair enough, afterall it's down to their fans to listen to them, I doubt many people will be gullible enough to vote for them until the bitter just because they were asked to, especially if that company goes against a developer that person actually prefer.

Now if developers are bribing people, well, that's different.

 

[Macgyvercas]

My vote has Turbine going to Round five. However, as much as it pains me to say it, I don't see Turbine beating Valve this year. I hope they do, but I don't see it happening.

EDIT:

And now Turbine have become almost hated in the eyes of the Escapist users, so they fell flat from the start.

How do you figure? They are doing well thus far, aren't they? And I actually quite like Turbine.

Oh, also...Awesome avatar. Ranma 1/2, yes?

 

[Flubberix]

I personally don't like Valve because they have only one above average game (Sequel is coming soon yay!) yet PC gamers rally behind them for no adequately explored reason.

Woah, woah, wait a second. Are you serious? Like, you're going to say that Half Life, Team Fortress and Counter Strike are, you know, moderately interesting and vaguely worth mentioning? Well, I'm sorry if your first computer was the ultimate gaming powerhouse of this decade and you missed on several games just because they would have insulted your HD screen. I'll give you and adequately explored reason why Valve games are awesome: SUBSTANCE. It's something that countless flashy and great looking games lack, that special something that makes the Half Life series, for instance, stand up in the crowd of shooter games. You really can't throw a pebble in the murky sea of nowadays games without hitting the same cliches and stereotypes repeated on and on, and this is a serious drag on enjoying a gaming experience. It's about setting standards and raising bars: not many have the guts to raise the stakes and top the performance of Valve in terms of gaming know-how...

 

[Souplex]

I personally don't like Valve because they have only one above average game (Sequel is coming soon yay!) yet PC gamers rally behind them for no adequately explored reason.

Woah, woah, wait a second. Are you serious? Like, you're going to say that Half Life, Team Fortress and Counter Strike are, you know, moderately interesting and vaguely worth mentioning? Well, I'm sorry if your first computer was the ultimate gaming powerhouse of this decade and you missed on several games just because they would have insulted your HD screen. I'll give you and adequately explored reason why Valve games are awesome: SUBSTANCE. It's something that countless flashy and great looking games lack, that special something that makes the Half Life series, for instance, stand up in the crowd of shooter games. You really can't throw a pebble in the murky sea of nowadays games without hitting the same cliches and stereotypes repeated on and on, and this is a serious drag on enjoying a gaming experience. It's about setting standards and raising bars: not many have the guts to raise the stakes and top the performance of Valve in terms of gaming know-how...

Actually quite the opposite. My old gaming PC was behind for quite a while before I finally decided to give up repairing it. The problem is, their games are kind of dull.
I love how you immediately jump on the graphics assumption, as if it can't possibly be the average gameplay that serves as the main problem.

 

[PeterDawson]

Campaigning has been the bane of award shows/contests for decades. Ever wondered why Shakespeare in Love beat out Saving Private Ryan for best picture? Same reason why The Reader got a best picture nomination, Hurt Locker beat Avatar, Inglorious Basterds, Up and District 9 this year and why Turbine is so surprisingly popular: the producers know how to campaign.

Um, you realize that the academy awards are only voted by people who are actually in the movie industry. For example, only directors are allowed to vote for Best Director.

Yeah, that was my point. The producers of the film campaign within the academy. Same deal, just more specific audience. In this case, they're just campaigning to their audience who are also voters.

 

[Unit Alpha]

Zynga doesn't deserve any position at all. I can't wait to see them go up against Bioware, Blizzard, or Bethesda as their community sites are filled with incredible supporters of their games.

 

[ace_of_something]

I'll be honest here. I don't give too much thought about MM. I just vote and see where it goes. No need to anaylize every little thing.

On the valve topic... Honestly, I've found the games to be well... boring. I liked Portal and TF2 was fun until they effectively caused everyone play one class at a time. That's about it.

How much you want to bet a good number of the people on the site get annoyed by the constant reporting on presidental elections. Ya know, something that could actually effect your life?

This is the same kind of annoyance.

 

[Altorin]

Zynga doesn't deserve any position at all. I can't wait to see them go up against Bioware, Blizzard, or Bethesda as their community sites are filled with incredible supporters of their games.

we'll just have to hope that those companies take notice of the March Madness (although I'm sure the Escapist let them know), and rally their supporters a bit.

 

[tim98042]

Zynga doesn't deserve any position at all. I can't wait to see them go up against Bioware, Blizzard, or Bethesda as their community sites are filled with incredible supporters of their games.

we'll just have to hope that those companies take notice of the March Madness (although I'm sure the Escapist let them know), and rally their supporters a bit.

Yeah i agree, as long as zynga doesn't win i don't care they make rubbish games, which are nowhere near as good as probably all the other developers in the competition. But at the end of the day, no matter what happens in the competition, everyone will still have their favorite developers and games, it won't change people's minds so it doesn't really matter. And for those who don't like MM it won't be long before its finished. lol

 

[Trivun]

I have no problem with people responding to adverts for votes. If a developer wants to advertise for votes through their games then that's fine by me. I had no problems last year with Turbine and I have no problem with Zynga doing it now. If developers want advertise then that's up to them. What I do have a problem with is the inclusion of firms that have admitted to using underhand tactics to gain revenue and have admitted scamming customers. I'm a massive Valve fanboy, yet if they turned round one day and Gabe Newell told people that he'd suddenly decided to charge people every time they play a game through Steam, or that people had to pay for extras that were originally included in games for free, and basically started scamming people, then I'd turn on Valve like a shot. That's my problem with Zynga. The CEO admitted to scamming people and that story was featured on this very site, and yet the staff still saw fit to include Zynga in the MM lineup. If the CEO hadn't said that, if the developer wasn't scamming people, then I would have no problem with them being here. I may even have voted for them. But when the CEO admits to being a con artist then they have no right being involved in a respectable competition alongside more honourable developers.

Basically, it isn't the adverts that are the problem, it's the scamming.

 

[Phoenixlight]

No of course it's not cheating -_- people can vote for whatever they want to.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

No... Zynga is basically the Twilight of the Games Industry.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

A lot of people here were all for it when Valve were campaigning to win the Gamespot most characterful video game character of the ever competition.