Microsoft refers to core audience as "Sweaty thirty year olds in Metallica t-shirts"
- Thread starter tlozoot
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Proving my point that you fit the hater profile you were preaching against not long ago. So again, never once did I mention hardcore over casual. And seriously? No names were called? Right, Microsoft didn't totally call millions of people sweaty thirty year olds in Metallica t-shirts for the simple fact that they did not agree with them.DNA said:
That wasn't your point at all. It seems to me, you're entire argument is that people deserve to be insulted by their service providers.
It's pretty typical actually. It's what happens when any industry becomes big, corperate, and decides to go where the big bucks are. Simply put nerds are by their nature on the fringe of society, and unpopular for it. There are millions of us, and that's a huge audience, but it's dwarfed by what can be gained by catering to the mainstream people who are NOT nerds. To get those people to support a nerd hobby, they need to de-nerd it, or otherwise convince people that it is no longer nerdy.
From the perspective of business, there is no reason to make *A* profit when you could make a bigger profit for the same amount of effort. Sell a million copies of a game to a bunch of nerds and you make serious bank, but sell ten million copies to the mainstream and it's almost a liscence to print your own money (as some people put it).
There really is no loyalty to an established fan base anymore. I think what we're seeing is that the gamers who have supported gaming to get to this point are being brushed aside slowly but surely. Simply put we're rapidly becoming an inconveinence. The voice that cries with nerd rage and inspires guilt whenever the industry goes after an ever larger bottom line, demanding what are comparitively "niche products" even if there are a lot of us.
I think of it as being very similar to what happened with paper and pencil RPGs, today people think of those games as something primarly played by nerdy kids in high school and what not. However, it had it's origins with a collegiate fringe of adults who were into wargaming. While on a differant scale, this is similar to how the target audience D&D was written for became younger, with the rules and such greatly simplified for ease of play by a wider group of customers.
At least this is how I see it, and it's not an isolated incident. I think the point is that they don't care if it offends what has been their core player base up until now, simply put the "hardcore" crowd is not as profitable as the mainstream. Whether the description there is true or not (like most stereotypes it's more often true than not) that's how gaming is perceived and the image they need to kill in order to get the audience they want. At a certain point you might see "serious gamers" actively brushed under the rug.
From the perspective of business, there is no reason to make *A* profit when you could make a bigger profit for the same amount of effort. Sell a million copies of a game to a bunch of nerds and you make serious bank, but sell ten million copies to the mainstream and it's almost a liscence to print your own money (as some people put it).
There really is no loyalty to an established fan base anymore. I think what we're seeing is that the gamers who have supported gaming to get to this point are being brushed aside slowly but surely. Simply put we're rapidly becoming an inconveinence. The voice that cries with nerd rage and inspires guilt whenever the industry goes after an ever larger bottom line, demanding what are comparitively "niche products" even if there are a lot of us.
I think of it as being very similar to what happened with paper and pencil RPGs, today people think of those games as something primarly played by nerdy kids in high school and what not. However, it had it's origins with a collegiate fringe of adults who were into wargaming. While on a differant scale, this is similar to how the target audience D&D was written for became younger, with the rules and such greatly simplified for ease of play by a wider group of customers.
At least this is how I see it, and it's not an isolated incident. I think the point is that they don't care if it offends what has been their core player base up until now, simply put the "hardcore" crowd is not as profitable as the mainstream. Whether the description there is true or not (like most stereotypes it's more often true than not) that's how gaming is perceived and the image they need to kill in order to get the audience they want. At a certain point you might see "serious gamers" actively brushed under the rug.
That's crap...DNA said:
They really could have promoted the new product to a new audience without saything anything about their existing fanbase. It was petty and tasteless...
"Buy our deodrant, it smells nice!"
"Buy our deodrant...or the girls won't have sex with you"
Honestly, which do you appreciate more? I'm willing to bet it's the positive marketing.
That article made me lol.tlozoot said:
In case we didn't notice, gaming isn't exactly this prodigal medium everyone around here seems to think it is. It has a pretty bad wrap, people out there DO think that games are played by children or "sweaty gamers in their Metallica T-Shirts".
He's not paid to stand up on that podium to undo the negative stereotypes of the general public, that would take more than one man and far greater length of time.
Yeah all right it was a dig at some of us, but seriously think of all the shit you as a gamer has posted about people in their industry, the shoe slips to the other foot and suddenly everyone is accountable.
If his comment sells a few more units and brings gaming to a wider audience than just the aforementioned, hooting drunken frat boys and kids on their Wii then fine by me.
Picking up a games console no longer means you'll end up like those World of Warcraft horror stories. Your children won't end up sitting on the couch when they want to play games, now they can put their games into a healthy, active lifestyle.
Probably what Microsoft are aiming for with Kinect and good luck to them.
Microsoft are trying to make the "sad video game nerd" disappear, I'll put my hands together for that.
Bigger picture people; start thinking about it. Not your wounded pride, walk it off.
Dear Microsoft gaming division(specifically David McLean)
Eat all the dicks. I know your insulting your only bread and butter because you are trying to build a connection with what you hope will be your new consumer demographics. However when trying to market a new piece of technology to an entirely foreign consumer demographic my vast(read: non existent) marketing experience tells me you should eat some dicks instead.
Love
Matt
Eat all the dicks. I know your insulting your only bread and butter because you are trying to build a connection with what you hope will be your new consumer demographics. However when trying to market a new piece of technology to an entirely foreign consumer demographic my vast(read: non existent) marketing experience tells me you should eat some dicks instead.
Love
Matt
I think it is humorous how many people in the thread have replied with something similar to "that's complete bullshit! I am only 29 and three-quarters and I might be fat and sweaty and a metalhead but I don't like metallica!" - (exaggerated for effect.) Like it's really much different. I don't actually agree with the age part, I think the majority of 'gamers' are teenagers and people in their early 20s, but all the other stereotypes I have heard hold true... very fat or very skinny, sweaty, metalhead, antisocial, etc... I don't have any gamer friends in real life, probably because I don't fit in with that general community, but the majority of those I have met and the majority of people on all gaming internet forums I have frequented completely fall into this stereotype somewhat. In fact the gamer stereotype is one of the only stereotypes I have encountered that actually seems true for the most part, from my experiences.Generic Gamer said:
As someone who doesn't identify as a nerd, doesn't identify as a hardcore gamer, and is basically just "someone who has various hobbies and one of them happens to be playing games" I find myself unphased by these comments by Microsoft and completely understanding why this was said in the first place. The gaming community is VERY intimidating to an outsider; heck, it is very intimidating to me and I have been playing games since I was about 8. If you don't fit into their little personality cliques you're not welcome, because the community is sadly just not very varied and difficult to get along with if you don't have something in common with them besides just games.
It doesn't help that every time you try to play an online game of anything at all, all you find at every turn are these so called 'hardcore gamers' who take the game way too seriously and shout "FUCKING NOOB" if you're not as good as they are. and the majority of the time I am playing on PC games, which are supposed to have the most mature people of the gaming community. Yeah right.
Microsoft can say whatever they want about gamers as far as I'm concerned, because them saying it doesn't make it true. Fact is, as long as they do good work for me and the rest of their consumer base, I really don't care if they know what I am or am not like. If that view starts to interfere with the quality of product they produce, however, then there is an issue.
Fortunately the solution is simple.
Fortunately the solution is simple.
wow, i have never even heard of a guy over 20 playing xbox live, or at least in the game's I've played. I'm also not sweaty, 30 or even own a music propaganda shirt