My Gaming Brethern, we must unite...

[Kae]

HEY! I've got a better idea why don't you make petitions, like the Timesplitters community, sure it has not worked so far, but there is still a chance that it will!
Besides games like Half Life and Final Fantasy VII are much more popular so it would be easier to get enough people for those ones than it has been for Timesplitters (which according to an article in this page that I currently cannot find, has an actual chance of being released after they are don with Crysis 2!), so that would be more effective than a boycott I think, so shut you're face and start making petitions and getting people to sign them!

 

[Canadamus Prime]

You would compare your desire to see a Half-Life 2: Episode 3 and a remake of Final Fantasy VII to the Feminist movement and American War for Independence. You sir, have one over inflated ego, not to mention being a spoiled brat. Square-Enix has explained why they won't remake Final Fantasy VII on more than one occasion, and believe me they aren't just making excuses. Square-Enix isn't with holding that remake just to piss you off, if they genuinely felt that such a remake would be profitable, they'd make it in a heartbeat. After all they've already milked that title for all it's worth. So clearly there must be some truth to their "excuses."
And while it's true that if all us gamers untied (fat chance of that happening) we could hold some sway over the publishers, but if I were to join in on that it wouldn't be to force them to remake a 14 year old over-rated game or to pressure them into releasing a game before it's ready. If I were to join in a cause like that it'd be to put an end to all these bloody samey first person shooters.

 

[jakefongloo]

So why am I boycotting the publishers?
Because you don't like the games that are coming out, and want the companies to make games that you want?
I think things are quite fine, to be honest with you.

This. I havn't bought a new game in a while and ever sense i saw that absolutly wonderful piece of LoZ fan art I've been replaying the LoZ games. But when L.A Noire comes ou I will be buying it.

Tell ya what. If Extra Credit suggests a boycott then I'll join how about that? They seem pretty on the ball.

 

[jakefongloo]

Honestly the system works. People cry and complain about samey shooters and rip offs. Tt's hard to think in these terms, but if activision continues to but rape it's people, then it will die out. The general consensus is that every Call of Duty past 4 is worse than the one before but it will never die yatta yatta etc.

Guys Call of Duty 4 only came out 3 years ago.

Wah! EA's project 10 dollar is going to set a new standard and companies will overprice their stuff because that's what happened when activision raised the price of games to $60. Again that only happened like 3-5 years ago. This shit takes time, but if history has taught us anything, is that aside from the occasional panic selling deppression Capatalism is a pretty fucking good system. If people are genually upset by the new standards, then it will change.

Political and Social change are COMPLETLY different. The Government doesn't need good PR. It helps but really, it's borderline wasted money. Cause despite what happens you still pay taxes. So year long boycotts of buses? Necessary. Massive pickets of menstruating (jk) women? Necessary. Boycotts of corporations? Unecessary.

 

[Danceofmasks]

If you're going to boycott a publisher, do it the smart way.
Buy second hand, so you get the game, whilst they don't get a cent of your money.

 

[Denariax]

I like the part that he said developers bend to our will.

Makes total sense, considering the last time I played .hack//FRAGMENT- OH WAIT.

Seriously. Developers don't bend to anyone. They may take ideas, but that's about it. And if ANYTHING, FFVII's 'remake' would be in a couple years- 2020, to be brutally nice about it.

People can start their little talks about making a petition for this and that to be made, but they're usually thrown away like garbage. Why? Because the fundamental FACT of the video game industry is that while there is a fair share of hardcore gamers, there are way more casuals. And because of casuals, companies can half-arse a game onto the table and still get quite the hefty cashflow.

Besides. Who'd really want a FFVII remake? It was a horrible story, and was bugged up the arse. Why was it so popular? Oh wait, it 'looked nice' back then.

You wanna know what I want remade? Jet Grind Radio. Am I going to boycott Sega until they give in to my obviously selfish demand? No. In fact, I will continue buying their games until they have enough cash to actually bring back something like that. And that's a big if.

tl;dr version - No one cares.

 

[DevilWolf47]

Why the fuck would we want a 3D Final Fantasy VII? Square Enix has bought Eidos and IO Interactive, they have real talent now. Demand an original piece and let the Final Fantasy franchise FUCKING DIE. If you want their to be an increased prevelance of indie games, support the developers. If you want Valve to reduce the Valve time on their games--
...actually good luck with that since a lot of the time those indie game developers publish their work on Steam.

Anyway, right now there's a creative drought overall. Boycotting won't solve it, supporting people who can actually make good games will.

 

[Haydyn]

Gamers will never come together as one. Some of us still fight in console wars. Giving your voice to a union of gamers means supporting anything they do. Like a game they are boycotting? Well too bad, cuz the institution you joined doesn't. The Feminine movement was a movement to undo the mindset that women are not equal, and then morphed into "women are superior to men in every way." Gamers are not undergoing prejudice from publishers. The only thing we could ever hope for is acceptance, and not be insulted for our hobbies and interests.

 

[Da_Vane]

So, you want gamers to boycott games? It will never work! Do you have an alternative source of games for gamers in the meantime? Because if you don't, anybody that bothers to join you will probably fold at the next moment a game comes out that they like, and those that don't like the games coming out - well, they are already not coming out.

Sounds stupid, but I don't give a crap about Half-Life Episode 3 - I don't play Half-Life. Even if it came out tomorrow, I still wouldn't buy it. It's not a boycott - it's personal choice. Just because you aren't getting the games you want - and that is what this is all about - you can't really call for every gamer to join you in a boycott.

Some of them will actually like the situation as they are now, and others, like myself, couldn't give a damn anyway. Seriously, the only new games I buy these days are The Sims 3, and I'm waiting and hoping I get to play The Sims Medieval on this ancient piece of crap. What do I care about companies not providing Final Fantasy 7 remakes?

 

[Traun]

So you want publishers to release games as fast as possible, without regard for quality, and to make the game we want them to make? Have you seen what happend to the anime industry? I don't want gaming to turn into that thing...

 

[StormShaun]

How about we start a rebellion and get R18+ ratings for australia!!

 

[jamesworkshop]

Since 2011 is packed with ludicrously good looking heavy hitting titles I feel well served as a consumer of this industry at this time.

 

[Manji187]

Yeah... no. Thats arlgiht. See, contrary to what most people like to think, Games are a company, and companies are companies like to make MONEY!

So they dont care about us.

Why don't we make them care? It's our money to begin with.

 

[Megacherv]

-snip-

...noooooo...

And just to pick at your arguments there:-

-No evidence of Episode 3: We've had snippets of news and the such, but the biggest evidence of its development is the fact that it's in development. Valve won't give up on their most-praised and most successful franchise

-I'm pretty sure it was Shamus Young who explained that a remake of FFVII would be financially a bad idea, and wouldn't be worth the wait. The size of the game back then was large, and trying to remake EVERYTHING in it would take too long and cost far too much money.

-Portal 2's announcement at E3 last year was probably the biggest surprise there and was a very welcome one. You expect me not to buy Portal 2 because you think that they're not working on Episode 3? If you don't buy Portal 2, there goes their Episode 3 fund.

 

[Continuity]

My fellow gamers, this may sound like some corny speech and some of you may say that it is, but that's not what this is about. This about OUR power: our power to try, re-evaluate, and succeed; our power to use our minds and experience in games to solve problems in reality;our power of determined will and perseverance, our ability to never surrender until we capture that flag, nuke those zerg, or kill that optional boss. But most importantly, our power over the publishers. Yes, WE have power over them, not the other way around. We as consumers are in control for we are the precious life-blood of the publishers of Valve, EA, Square-Enix and even Ubisoft. WE control the success of a game, and how it will live on in the memories of others and more importantly, how developers can see their flaws from their project and improve on them in order to appease our desires.

Ahhh TL;DR the whole thing but this paragraph caught my eye... No, in actual fact we have no power what-so-ever and I'll tell you why: the majority of the consumers of games don't give a shit... they don't even know that there is a shit to give, most are just kids who couldn't be persuaded to boycott something they like if their life depended on it.
The tiny, tiny proportion of gamers that are like us, i.e. discerning and concerned for the medium are too few in number and too hard to please for the games companies to be able to afford to give a damn about.

And that's it, the truth of the matter and the reason why the games industry has become so focused on flashy generic actions titles... because its a money machine driven by children who don't know any better.

 

[Continuity]

I?m so sick of this argument. People buy the games they enjoy and just because those games don?t meet your precious standards doesn?t mean you?re smarter or more "concerned for the medium" than they are.

I don't really want to argue with you about this but I have to point out three things, 1) I never said anything about anyone being smarter than anyone else 2) Do you seriously believe that most gamers are as concerned for the medium as the people posting in this thread? rly? 3) Most people have bad taste, this is abundantly evidenced by the popularity of things like reality TV and soap opera... I'm not feeling too bad about my "precious standards" thank you.

 

[veloper]

If we desire what we desire, let us starve our suppliers. Let's make them realize that WE don't serve them money, they serve us good games that we want. That WE are in charge, not them.

Nice and all, but the publishers aren't the real problem.

The main problem is the gamers and casual gamers. People don't share the same tastes. Not even core gamers.

All you can blame the industry for, is not recognizing certain different audiences that are still large enough to warrant attention, but they are shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[blushmoe]

This thread
Is stupid!
Boycotting never works.
Game companies hate remaking games. Valve is a high class stripper who loves to tease and well... it works. HL2E3 is coming out, they are just taking there sweet time and i KNOW when it comes out it will be perfect...

 

[Nuckelavee]

Pithy speech, probably better in you mind than what it actually turned out but I wish to counter it with two memes I have collected and hoarded from the foul depths of 4chan /b/ board.

We are not your personal army.
Trying to shift the personal feelings of a group that doesn't initially doubt the opponent or the possibility of your cause is going to fail... hard. Each individual feeling of doubt for your cause is magnified because of a crowd mentality. If you had scoped high profile users and convinced them to tell others; building you a base of doubt upon which to swing the blade of the axe and shifting our entire support towards you, then you might have seen success. If there is initial doubt about the effectiveness or the reasoning of the cause it will get you no-where. For every hour of speech a decent politician makes there are hundreds of hours of support staff effort going in to make the opposition not seem as good or better than their politician.

And on that day not a fuck was given.
This part is important. You need to ensure that the listeners (readers) are actually going to care, once again this is where your physical campaign of convincing key people to back you up comes in. Another thing is that you accept the fact that your policy isn't perfect in the first line of your third paragraph. Why do alot of people hate politicians: because what they say isn't what they do or get you to do, they make there promises or policies seem perfect when they hardly are. Why? Because it makes them seem better than their opposition.
Second point to this is your citing of examples. You used the Boston Tea Party, the Decleration of Independence and the founding of the United States. All well and good except now you've segregated your audience to only Americans that are happy with those events. I personally felt alienated; I'm a fan of the British Empire. Anybody who feels hard-done-by has been alienated, anybody who doesn't care or like the US has been alienated. Thats alot of people that are not going to particpate in your boycott, no?

So, without being too critical, I hope I've helped your little campaign against gaming companies. By all rights participate in it, I'll never begrudge anyone who has the brains or the energy to go after what they want. Just ensure your doing it in the most efficient manner.