Poll: Transparency and the VG Industry

[chronobreak]

Since the boom of the internet, the video game industry has become more and more accesible due to the sheer amount of information one can get about companies and their specific policies, among other things. Back when I was a kid playing games, I didn't know who the CEO of Capcom was, or what Nintendo's stock price or anything was, I just played the games. Now, because of the advent of petitions, preorders that can be cancelled, and other things, the industry has changed to one that is much more open about almost every aspect of each individual company. We know names, salaries, and a lot of other information that I personallly would have never really cared about if it wasn't availible.

Allow me for a minute to go on a tangent. I work in the professional wrestling business, and I know there's a lot of people here who think that's whack, and I'm ok with that, but the analogy makes sense. The wrestling business used to be very closed, "protected" they called it, because there was a bigger level of immersion as long as as many people as possible thought it wasn't scripted, and even if they knew, it's not like they knew everything that went on backstage. That's what sold tickets and put butts in seats, because you saw everything unfold only in the ring.

With the advent of the net, and newsgroups and stuff, things started leaking like crazy, to the point where no storyline or angle is really a surprise anymore, because you hear about it weeks prior to it happening. This has destroyed a lot of the business, and made it very hard for promoters, especially the big ones, to draw a crowd.

So my question to you is, do you think transparency in gaming is a good thing? Do you think it potentially is hurting the business?

 

[QuirkyTambourine]

I think transparency in general with gaming is a very good thing. To me, buying a game is an investment of my time. A bad movie's a bad movie, but that's only two hours or so of my life wasted. It could take me ten minutes to figure out a game's bad, but since I paid 60 some odd bucks for it, I'll want to play it all the way through, as many hours as that takes.

I like the idea of developers showing progress on their games, it helps let me know if that game's the right one for me. However, sometimes I wish developers would shut the hell up. I just posted about MW2 and the ridiculous amount of hype coming from it. I don't think that IW needs to keep releasing videos and updates and things that add to they hype. I know it'll be a phenomenal game, but the bigger they build their tower, the easier it is to fall so to speak.

 

[Remember_the_name]

Hmmm, well I suppose it could, what with every facet of storyline and gameplay availible before release day your kind of just paying for an experience you already have an in depth familiarity with. On the one hand though for the videogame industry it provides an endless hype machine for VG companies.

 

[mstickle]

In light of recent events (the MW2 saga) I think it's a good thing. Not just because I find the uproar amusing, but because the whining would have been even worse if they'd left it till people had brought the game home. It's good to have the details - in todays situatuion you can pretty much tell if you are going to like something before you buy it because we can find out so much about it.

Though I personally avoid most of the details leaked by either the developers or elswhere becuase I hate being spoiled, I won't even watch a trailer if it's a sequel, it's nice for people that want to know everything as soon as possible.

 

[Leodiensian]

I think it's important to not confuse "leaks" with "press releases disguised as leaks". In the same way as we the public have discovered the net, so too have the companies and they use it to their advantage. They'll create fake user ID's on Amazon to talk up their own products in user reviews, or talk down competitors. They'll make ARG's to draw people in and then hit them at the end with a sales pitch. Viral marketting is booming and the best viral marketing campaigns are indistinguishable from hackers 'releasing information the company doesn't want you to know'.

I think one problem with OP's analogy is that where gaming is all about one final and physical product, wrestling is about the appearance of sincerity in what is essentially sweaty, muscular ballet. Wrestling presents itself as serious and genuine, but when people find out it's not, they're going to feel betrayed. I think it's a little hypocritical for an industry fundamentally built on presenting fiction as truth to complain when it turns out people don't like being lied to.

The 'leaking' equivalent in gaming would be when someone gets their hands on source codes of unreleased games. This is actual theft of a product, rather than simple information dissemination, but let's set that aside for a minute. A game company can put measures in place to prevent people from just spreading this leaked code - a good recent example being the cracked Arkham Asylum in which Batman lacked the ability to jump, which was only put into the finished product. The wrestling equivalent is someone leaking the script, but they can't actually leak the experience of going to a match and watching two wrestlers dance/fight.

Anyway, I think industry transparency isn't a problem for the video game industry, and this is something they have realised. It's not uncommon to find 'behind the scenes' looks at products in development being used as essentially advertisments for the final product (plently of examples on YouTube, such as for Wet) They're using this transparency to their advantage. People are becoming more savvy about what making video games actually involves and it's becoming a more widely accepted entertainment medium, as seen by big movie stars lending their voices to video game characters.

There's also the point that while the information is out there, it's up to a person to go out and find it. Nintendo's stock prices are out there for almost anyone to find out, but most people won't really want to know about it unless they're a stock broker, to use one of your examples.

 

[Ernie Devlin]

I think transparency in general with gaming is a very good thing. To me, buying a game is an investment of my time. A bad movie's a bad movie, but that's only two hours or so of my life wasted. It could take me ten minutes to figure out a game's bad, but since I paid 60 some odd bucks for it, I'll want to play it all the way through, as many hours as that takes.

I like the idea of developers showing progress on their games, it helps let me know if that game's the right one for me. However, sometimes I wish developers would shut the hell up. I just posted about MW2 and the ridiculous amount of hype coming from it. I don't think that IW needs to keep releasing videos and updates and things that add to they hype. I know it'll be a phenomenal game, but the bigger they build their tower, the easier it is to fall so to speak.

I pretty much agree with this guy here.

 

[chronobreak]

I think one problem with OP's analogy is that where gaming is all about one final and physical product, wrestling is about the appearance of sincerity in what is essentially sweaty, muscular ballet. Wrestling presents itself as serious and genuine, but when people find out it's not, they're going to feel betrayed. I think it's a little hypocritical for an industry fundamentally built on presenting fiction as truth to complain when it turns out people don't like being lied to.

Everyone knows wrestling is scripted, even when I was a kid I still knew, but I suspended disbelief in order to enjoy watching it, to try to get immersed in the product. This is where a whole other thing (worked shoots) started cropping up, which is basically things that you would think were actually real, like an injury, but it turns out it was planned all along. This was kind of wrestlings answer to the industry not being able to keep secrets, and to try to keep people guessing.

The business isn't the same anymore in regards to keep things under wraps. There are constant times where the third wall is broken down, and wrestlers deliberatly make mentions to how it is scripted, because the illusion is totally done, beyond maybe kids under 10 who may think it is real, so I don't think it is so much the case of presenting fiction as truth anymore, more like presenting both sides and letting the person watching make up their mind for themselves. I dunno, it really is a complex business, but only because workers have made it that way, it's hard for me personally to simplify it, because what I do isn't necessarily that simple, or maybe it is.

But, you're right maybe it isn't the best analogy, I just went with something I knew that also had issues with overexposure to the fan base.

 

[Leodiensian]

Actually, it's the fourth wall that gets broken (although, given that it's a theatre term and one views a wrestling match from all four sides, maybe it's the fifth wall that gets broken here?)

I suppose it was somewhat naive of me to assume some people are still unaware about the falsehoods of pro wrestling, but I will admit it's something I'm not exactly very much into. (I live in the UK where boxing is much bigger and wrestling is pretty much just on cable)