NEWS: Rust Randomly Chooses Players' Race For Them

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I wonder what you want them to do. Let their profits take a large hit because... why? They'll go where the money is, no more, no less. That's not unreasonable of them either.

How is this any different from complaining about a company using DRM, Day one DLC, microtransactions, making a game "appeal to a wider audience" or any other practice that might happen to be where the money is? How can you fault the publisher for making choices that are unpopular for the consumer if it helps their profit?

I think that this idea is kind of interesting, although I know that I wouldn't like it. Not because of the forced race, but I'm assuming that your character's appearance is also fixed? I'm a big fan of customizing characters, and if I couldn't do that I would have a problem. If you can customize your character within the pre-selected race I think this could be kind of fun

 

[Kopikatsu]

I wonder what you want them to do. Let their profits take a large hit because... why? They'll go where the money is, no more, no less. That's not unreasonable of them either.

How is this any different from complaining about a company using DRM, Day one DLC, microtransactions, making a game "appeal to a wider audience" or any other practice that might happen to be where the money is? How can you fault the publisher for making choices that are unpopular for the consumer if it helps their profit?

If those practices were actually unpopular with the consumer base, then it would hurt their bottom line. If people stopped buying their games because of those practices, then they would quickly come to an end.

 

[Tilly]

I'd think randomising the race is a fairly good idea. Given that so many people care about that sort of thing, which I don't entirely understand but whatever, it's a good way of avoiding any squabbles about it.
If they only include white characters, they get people trolling them with "why is your character creator exclusionary?"
.If they include all races but let people choose, they'll likely end up with demographics that roughly fit their audience (mostly white men) and then another group will be trolling them with "look at how this game is a haven for privileged white people" (as if that'd somehow be their fault). This way, they significantly narrow down the number of angles that people with social agendas can criticise them from.

 

[inmunitas]

When I say "adventure", I mean "adventure", not "action-adventure" like Assassin's Creed or Tomb Raider where you don't go two minutes without killing somebody, I mean "adventure" like what TellTale Games puts out or Double-Fine or... TellTale Games put out. Not exactly a robust genre, only recently seeing a resurgence because TellTale had a relatively big hit with The Walking Dead.

Spoiler: You mean this TellTale Games' The Walking Dead?

Spoiler: This Double-Fine?

Spoiler: Or this Double-Fine?

What is the point you're trying to make here? Is there an end goal to this? Because I can cherry-pick and make broadbrushed claims solely based on my personal experience too.

 

[Aerosteam]

Is there a part in the game where you see your own character?
Does race affect the gameplay?
Are there actual characters to speak of in the game?

If "no" to all, I don't see a problem with this.

 

[Gladion]

snip

Generally when determining if something is a success, companies look at the initial influx of sales for a variety of reasons (not the least of which is because they make the most profit on those. Further sales can occur at discounted prices, or as pre-owned in which case the company receives a big 0% of the profits). Another reason is because Tomb Raider was sold on multiple systems while Uncharted was only sold on one. Had Uncharted been multi-platform, I'm sure that it would have outperformed Tomb Raider in total as well.

And what game are you talking about? IIRC the most popular game ever is Tetris.

Oh, I'm not doubting what companies in general look at when determining if something is a success. But we as consumers are under no pressure to apply those same, flawed practices. I don't know if you're interested in going through all the different possible reasons for why Tomb Raider sold badly compared to Uncharted (which you're right to point out), but there are quite a few, and none of them have to do with the protagonist's sex. But this specific case isn't my point anyhow. I'm just saying that it's pointless to take these false industry-wisdoms for anything other than what they are: bogus.

And I was talking about San Andreas. Afaik, when you look at single games that weren't bundled with consoles, that's the one that sold the most. At least it's the overall best-selling PS2 game.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

If those practices were actually unpopular with the consumer base, then it would hurt their bottom line. If people stopped buying their games because of those practices, then they would quickly come to an end.

Well, they certainly haven't. Are you saying that people shouldn't voice those issues because it's clearly a profitable practice?

EDIT:

Most of their justifications are self-fulfilling however. People spend less money marketing female protagonists because they don't think female protagonists will sell well, which causes the game to undersell, which perpetuates the idea that female protagonists don't sell well. In fact, same thing applies to new IPs as well. Lots of new IPs don't sell well because they're not marketed because they don't think they'll recup the marketing costs because new IPs don't sell well because people don't know about the game because...

I can't be the only person who sees this stupidity for what it is, right? I'm not going to pretend that I'm immune to the mental pitfalls that all people run into, but you'd think that people whose jobs are to approach a situation as rationally and mathematically as possible would be more on guard against this.

Not going to deny that marketing definitely plays a large role, but I'd say that it's more than just the individual marketing of a single game and more the marketing of the whole genre of video games. Video games aren't typically marketed towards women, and men aren't always the most comfortable playing women or being connected to something effeminate. Games with female protagonists would probably sell just as well as games with male protagonists if you had closer to even demographics.

It's stupid, because more women playing games would mean more sales for everyone, but no one wants to bite the bullet for it. It's a situation where everyone benefits but the companies that take sales hits by pushing into a slightly riskier, less established market first. Once the audience gets more developed or adjusted and the sales figures reflect that then everyone else will slowly feel comfortable reaping the benefits.

Basically I agree with you, lack of marketing on an individual case hurts, but I also think that avoiding marketing to women for decades contributes to it pretty significantly as well

 

[Wizardly-K9]

Does the game randomize your gender too?