The game industry doesn't need to change its practices...

[JohnHayne]

...the consumers, however, do.

I've heard this argument over and over, that the game industry must change its practices, that they are doing evil by introducing "always-online" features, micro-transactions in games that doesn't need them, and so on. The industry is fine. They are profiting well as usual. Moreover, the average consumer doesn't seem to care.

Well, the only significant way to show discontentment with such 'evil' practices is through money. It does not matter if we complain about them and still buy loads of licenses to play their games. The way I see it, the consumer is embracing too much of a passive role in the game culture.

I know it may sound tacky but supporting ?good? publishers and independent developers seems the way to change the chasm that game culture seem to be.

What you think?

 

[scorptatious]

Welcome to the Escapist! And someone with a Vivi avatar! I think you and I are going to get along well.

OT: I do feel publishers like EA are going to have to change their business practices in order to survive in the long run as the whole SimCity thing (among other things) has shown.

At the same time, I agree with you. People need to vote with their wallets. If enough people actually choose to not do business with publishers who use questionable business practices and take their money elsewhere, perhaps things will turn out a little bit better for everyone.

 

[DoPo]

What you think?

Sorry I have to bring it to you like that but you said nothing original - the "vote with your wallet" idea has been around for quite a while and has also been repeated pretty much all the time around here and elsewhere, too. Jim Sterling has also tackled this issue multiple times. I'm not entirely sure what a discussion on the matter would do, as it has been discussed for years now - I'd like to think people are already familiar with the topic.

 

[JohnHayne]

What you think?

Sorry I have to bring it to you like that but you said nothing original - the "vote with your wallet" idea has been around for quite a while and has also been repeated pretty much all the time around here and elsewhere, too. Jim Sterling has also tackled this issue multiple times. I'm not entirely sure what a discussion on the matter would do, as it has been discussed for years now - I'd like to think people are already familiar with the topic.

Just trying to start a conversation. I don't dismiss a subject only because someone else discussed before. Someone else did the talking, not me, not you, not us together... See my point?

There is a lot of things we can discuss about, even without addressing the "vote with your wallet" idea:
[ul]
[li]Is the industry is healthy and profitable still? [/li]
[li]Are the AAA publishers losing profit because of their practices? [/li]
[li]Is it really "evil" what they do? Do the average consumer don't really care about all this?[/li]
[li]Can we change things by rallying up (even virtually) against such practices?[/li]
[/ul]
What do you think?

^_^

 

[JohnHayne]

Welcome to the Escapist! And someone with a Vivi avatar! I think you and I are going to get along well.

OT: I do feel publishers like EA are going to have to change their business practices in order to survive in the long run as the whole SimCity thing (among other things) has shown.

At the same time, I agree with you. People need to vote with their wallets. If enough people actually choose to not do business with publishers who use questionable business practices and take their money elsewhere, perhaps things will turn out a little bit better for everyone.

Thank you for the welcome. It's good to be here in The Escapist.

OT: I don't know the figures, but it doesn't seem that EA lost money with SimCity, for instance... It seem that the big ones are not losing money yet, even with such business practices.

However, I've seen that some studios bankrupted recently... What was that all about?

 

[MysticSlayer]

The whole "vote with your wallet" ordeal has been worked around a lot, and I think it is pretty obvious at this point that people only "vote with their wallet" when the DRM, microtransactons, etc. directly affects their enjoyment with a game. If DRM doesn't affect me, why should I care? If microtransactions are optional and aren't obnoxious in their effort to get me to use them, then why should I care? They don't affect my overall enjoyment of the game, and many people may actually enjoy the microtransactions. If games are becoming too homogenized, then I'll look for games that break away from the mold, or I'll continue buying the homogenized games if they remain enjoyable to me. It is only when practices, like the always online DRM of games like Diablo 3 and Sim City, negatively affect a person's enjoyment that they begin to "vote with their wallet" in the way so many have called for.

Edit: I should add that I think this is the way things should be. No use it getting worked up in "what if" scenarios and slippery slopes if they don't affect the enjoyment the person gets with game in question.

 

[ResonanceSD]

What do you think?

^_^

I think this is bloody similar to what I wrote a few days ago.

You know, here.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.406340-Weve-brought-this-on-ourselves-Musings-about-the-state-of-the-industry#16908308

And yes, I said that we have to stop preordering and giving shitty publishers money. We have to stop pirating games entirely, because doing so allows publishers to justify shitty drm, but most of all, we need to be smart consumers. Because right now, gamers are the worst consumers in the world.

 

[sanquin]

The 'average' gamer doesn't seem to care about poor business practices. All they seem to care about is 'omg this title looks awesome, I must have it!' yet still complain once they did buy it, even if others warned them of those bad practices weeks in advance. And as long as such companies can still make money off of those sheeple that follow the new hot upcoming thing, not thinking about it properly and only going 'but I wanna play!', companies won't change.

What needs to be done by the 'average' gamer:
-No more pre-ordering. Pre-ordering gives you menial benefits at best, and really it's not that hard to wait 1 or 2 days longer before you can play.
-No more buying into marketing and pre-retail reviews. Instead, waiting for the general public to have given it's opinion. Or at the very least, waiting for non-'bought' reviewers to give theirs.
-No more making 'but this time it's different' excuses when a new game comes out with more always online DRM or other such practices. It won't be different, don't give companies money for bad products.

The person above mentioned piracy having to stop as well. I agree with that to an extend, but that has nothing to do with this really. When consumers don't pirate, companies will find a different excuse for their practices. They care less about piracy than they're letting on. What they instead care about is control over the consumers that DO pay. When they can play, how long they can play, when they can't play a game any more at all. And probably more importantly: So that consumers can't sell their games so others can buy them used. I personally think that game companies find the used games market a larger problem than piracy, because used games sales are from paying customers, yet the company that made the game didn't see a dime of that money.

 

[Vivi22]

The industry is fine. They are profiting well as usual.

Actually, in a lot of cases they're not. Just look at Dead Space 3 or the most recent Tomb Raider for example. The former needing to sell more copies than either of the first to games came close to to turn a profit. The latter being considered a financial failure despite being the most successful Tomb Raider game ever made.

And I'd be pretty surprised if EA made enough money to justify making Sim City an always online title given the number of sales it undoubtedly cost them when that blew up in their face.

Sorry, but no. Many companies in the industry are not "doing fine" because they're run by morons who expect every game they make to be the next Call of Duty, and spend more money punishing their paying customers than giving them real incentive to buy their games.

Honestly, the industry tends to be a disturbing melting pot of some companies doing pretty well, and then a whole bunch of companies and the largest publishers in the industry acting like they're pants on head retarded.

 

[TheSteeleStrap]

Welllllllllll not exactly. See, a business exists to make money, and they do so by making their customers happy. If they fail to make their customers happy, they will lose money. Simple as that.

 

[Glaice]

Too many gamers are blindly buying the games without doing any research on the game itself or the developer or publisher's behaviors. They get stuck with a shitty game with locked down DRM or some other unpleasantness, that is their fault.

 

[Doom972]

Agreed, but as others have said, this isn't a new idea. The problem is that the majority of gamers aren't the kind of people who visit forums such as this and care about this sort of thing. Most aren't and won't be aware, and just continue to throw money at publishers without thinking of the consequences. In addition to that, there are young gamers who have that childish brand loyalty based on nothing.

 

[shadow skill]

Of course they do but most people don't go to sites like this and the gaming press is entirely suspect. I would argue that a superior level of discussion among the people who visit sites like this would do some good. I find it sad that I have yet to see anyone point out how Ninja Gaiden 3 truncated its moveset to one that has existed since at least Ninja Gaiden 2. No one talks about how Resident Evil 6 tried to merge about three different types of games into one and ended up failing at it. Sure I see flashes here and there like the Mass Effect 3 threads or DmC, but overall the discussion about what really makes games work or not seems to be rather low. (Though the general quality is higher here.) People have this mistaken idea that because they focus on one aspect of these products that they are somehow connoisseurs. Instead what they end up being is incapable of properly analyzing products in their totality.

That said Colonial Marines and disasters like it are proof that the industry should be changing the way they do things. It doesn't make a bit of sense that Tomb Raider could sell as much as it did and end up being a failure in the eyes of the publisher.

 

[Joccaren]

The industry is fine. They are profiting well as usual.

Really. That is why the last 3 or so Ubisoft was it? Games have been considered financial failures, why EA just laid off more people, why THQ went broke and why, generally speaking, the AAA industry is having trouble sustaining itself. Yep, definitely seeing that as 'fine'.

Well, the only significant way to show discontentment with such 'evil' practices is through money. It does not matter if we complain about them and still buy loads of licenses to play their games. The way I see it, the consumer is embracing too much of a passive role in the game culture.

Yes and no. Yeah, more people need to learn to think before they buy, but at the same time boycotting gets nothing done. Even if you were to organise a mass boycott against one game and have no-one buy it the publishers would conclude that the IP doesn't have a fan base, that the game needs to be focused more towards the CoD crowd, and have more 'wide audience appeal', and needs more money pumped into advertising as that's what their industry analysts tell them.
They don't think their shitty practices could impact their sales. That would be too obvious. Boycotting games simply runs them into the ground where they aren't made again, rather than affecting any change in a companies business models. Complaints, however, can. People don't need to "Vote with their Wallets", they need to actually complain. Be load. Get support. Look at the ME3 ending. Was it because people boycotted ME3 that the extended cut was released? Nope. It sold a huge amount of copies, more than it needed to. EA would have been happy with its profits there. It was the fact that there were several months of loud, constant complaints sent against the game's ending, in an unending torrent of disappointment by the fans that changed things. Had people not bought ME3 in huge numbers, EA would have concluded that they were right to finish the IP here as people were no longer interested in it. Had they complained like most people do about DRM and such - aka not at all unless its on forums like these, and even then its barely organised - nothing would have happened. By complaining for months, getting on public news, sending cupcakes, being the biggest story in gaming ever - they changed things. Welcome to what having a voice can do. Only thing is, like a boycott, you need people to agree with you. That's easier than with a boycott though as people who still want and will buy the game despite its crappy practices as they don't really affect them - I.E; me with always online DRM as my Internet is more than good enough, doesn't drop out, and I get them after the server issues have been sorted anyway - are more than happy to complain alongside you about practices they don't agree with. I won't not buy a game with always online DRM that I was looking forward to because it might affect someone else. I will take a stand and complain to the developers about it though.

I know it may sound tacky but supporting ?good? publishers and independent developers seems the way to change the chasm that game culture seem to be.

What you think?

Define a good publisher.
There are people who think EA and Activision are great publishers.
There are those that think Ubisoft and 2K are.
There are those that think Valve and Bethesda [Zenimax I think was the publisher actually] are.
There are those who think CD Project are.

And for all of them there are those that hate them with a passion. There are no "Good" publishers, and if we're going by who the masses like as publishers than Activision-Blizzard is the best publishing company to grace gaming ever.
Supporting Indie devs is a good start, but they can't make the sorts of games AAA studios do. 99.99% of the time they don't have the money, nor the expertise. Kickstarter is good for this, but even then its not enough. There really isn't a lot we can do at this point to fix the industry other than let it 'collapse'; let its profit margins continue to fall, and studios continue to get laid off and possibly form independent studios funded by Kickstarter. Beyond that you'd need to organise a large portion of the gaming community to loudly complain about DRM and such, but that's never going to happen.

 

[Caiphus]

Moreover, the average consumer doesn't seem to care.

Well, the only significant way to show discontentment with such 'evil' practices is through money. It does not matter if we complain about them and still buy loads of licenses to play their games. The way I see it, the consumer is embracing too much of a passive role in the game culture.

I think that those who frequent these forums, and who pay attention to things like Jimquisition, Yahtzee etc will give a shit and change their consumption habits because of poor business practice. It remains to be seen if there are enough of us to make a difference. It looks like, unfortunately, there aren't. DRM seems to be more and more popular in some areas of the industry (see: Diablo III, Simcity in the last year & Microsoft's new xbox rumours), while admittedly less popular in other areas (CD Projekt still stands against it, Ubisoft is dropping their DRM scheme iirc).

You're right, I don't think the average consumer will care, until it actually affects them. If the average escapist community member was the average consumer, then the industry would be a lot different; Call of Duty would be a lot less popular for one.
But it's not a lot less popular, it's gaming's biggest release year-on-year. Which gives some sort of indication as to how important we are.
Not that we're unimportant, I have a feeling that we're driving some of the more obscure gems in the indie scene like FTL, or To The Moon. We just don't seem to be important enough to change business practices.

So what do we do? Fucked if I know. We could try and change the average consumer, but... There's like millions of them! I don't have nearly enough energy.
I regularly disappoint one woman. I don't think I could handle disappointing millions.
We might just need to wait until DRM and microtransactions become asinine enough to actually annoy the average consumer. We get angry about online passes and day-one DLC; I'm not sure the average gamer actually appreciates what they are.

But what do I know?

 

[Caiphus]

People don't need to "Vote with their Wallets", they need to actually complain. Be load. Get support. Look at the ME3 ending. Was it because people boycotted ME3 that the extended cut was released? Nope. It sold a huge amount of copies, more than it needed to. EA would have been happy with its profits there. It was the fact that there were several months of loud, constant complaints sent against the game's ending, in an unending torrent of disappointment by the fans that changed things.

Sorry to pinpoint just one part of your post. I know what Jim Sterling says, I saw the video. I agree with this to an extent. The ME3 ending was changed, but the game was still sold on Origin, which attracted more than it's fair share of ire from the gaming community (even more than its arguably shady ToS merited, I would wager). But Origin is still around, and EA removed their stuff from Steam to boot.

So yeah, whining will change things to an extent. It won't stop Dead Space 3 from being turned into an action game (although I hear that it turned out OK in the end), or Resident Evil 6 being turned into an action game (which didn't turn out OK, I hear).
Which is a shame. But you have to pick your battles, I guess.

 

[rob_simple]

Well I was going to start my own thread, but I'll just leave it here:

Hey all, I'm having a whip-round to try and collect enough money so we can buy our own island. We'll take all our consoles -past and present- with us (there might be a shack at the back of the island to plug a PC or two in, maybe) and a fuck-ton of booze.

Then we're going to kick back and play some video games while we wait for this whole interminable festival of stating the obvious to blow over. I anticipate that, upon our return, things will be exactly the same as they always were, but won't it be nice to just enjoy playing games for a while?

I'm...80% sure that it won't turn into a Lord of the Flies type situation.

 

[viranimus]

It is absolutely true that we as gamers have the industry we have raised.

On one hand is the industry doing wrong by participating in capitalism and fulfilling their role in capitalistic culture? No. Thats WHY they exist to make money. There is no harm in that.

However on the other hand, the Industry is in fact just as much if not more to blame than the consumers because it is the various players in the industry who proactively keep pushing boundaries that should not be crossed many of which are protected by laws to combat just such behavior all because they KNOW this generation of gamers are self centric, with a instilled sense of dis concern for ownership and too apathetic to defend themselves and others like them against not even hidden manipulation. That is where the true harm lies. When gamers allow such undermining of their rights and consumer protections they establish a model of acceptability. As time goes on what they did to push the envelope today will have become accepted standard operating procedure, and when one industry finds a way to manipulate an advantage, it is again simply best capitalistic practice to find a way to alter that manipulation to benefit your only remotely related industry. What people let steam get away with today, Microsoft will try tomorrow and by next week General Electric will try to follow suit. Next month it expands to auto manufacturers, And by next year it is pervasive in every economic circle. Something as insidious as trying to portray a companies product not as a product but as a service. Then a decade down the road you do not buy your food, you have to sign license commitments and comply with terms of service contracts to have access to a box of cotton swabs or bag of Doritos.

Its been a long established track history that has shown this eventuality over and over again. Only the industry has never enjoyed having such an oblivious public from which to manipulate. Only NOW after Sim City and Diablo 3 are you seeing even the slightest glimmer of resentment and resistance against this, when this should have been defended against for the last decade pushing even into two.

 

[Joccaren]

Sorry to pinpoint just one part of your post. I know what Jim Sterling says, I saw the video. I agree with this to an extent. The ME3 ending was changed, but the game was still sold on Origin, which attracted more than it's fair share of ire from the gaming community (even more than its arguably shady ToS merited, I would wager). But Origin is still around, and EA removed their stuff from Steam to boot.

Thing is, the Origin TOS were changed because of consumer complaints, and the complaints about ME3 being on Origin weren't even in the same galaxy as those about its ending - it was a few people who mostly hadn't got the memo about the TOS change, vs a few thousand that turned the entire internet on its head for a few months. Scale is important, like with boycotts. 50 people not buying a game means nothing. 50,000 people not buying a game means something, though they'd be better off complaining vocally IMO.