Will Boycotting a video game EVER work?

[Chancie]

I doubt it'll ever work. You'd need a LOT of people on board with it and the odds of that happening are well...small.

 

[Enzeru92]

What no of course not sure some people will not buy the game but there is still a huge amount of other people willing to buy the game

 

[hobo_welf]

Seriously? Valve flew people out and showed them a game they had been lovingly crafted just because they were being spoiled bitches. Of course boycotts work! But not in the sense that you're talking about.

 

[asinann]

It worked once that I can think of. One of the Everquest expansions was slated to come out before Sony had actually gotten the prior one working properly. Players boycotted the new expansion and Sony announced a 3 month delay during which they made the previous expansion playable.

 

[DemonicVixen]

This is the question I'm facing here, with two recent boycotts of CoD:MW2 and L4D2, and the seeming fact that it won't do squat. I mean, the Left 4 Dead 2 boy-cotters were over 37,000 strong at one point, but after the leaders of it played the actual game, they disbanded the group. Then there's the Modern Warfare 2 boycott, which did nothing to stop it from selling over 7 million in it's first day alone. So, with these two boycott groups doing not much to the cause, (MW2 more, considering Valve's ears), how can boycotting a video game ever work?

No because there are so many people willing to play the games or at least try them. If they like them they then tell their friends and so on. I used to look at games or read the reviews and think "god i refuse to play these!" but when i eventually found them cheap to buy or tried them at a friend's house, i liked them and couldn't stop telling my few friends to try it.

 

[Blatherscythe]

No, even with thousands you won't hurt the companys profit by 1%.

 

[Bigeyez]

Boycotts don't work in the videogame industry because most consumers don't even know a boycott is going on or even care. The average videogame consumer DOES NOT visit gaming sites or forums which are the only sources to even find out about boycotts. Sure the 100k LFD boycott may have seemed like big numbers, but whats 100k in the face of millions of consumers who will buy the game without the knowledge (or care) that the boycott even exists? Answer: It's nothing. Boycotts in this industry are irrelavant at this point.

Thats ignoring the issue of most gamers being thickle and giving up on the boycott as soon as said game launches.

 

[Vredesbyrd67]

It'll only work if enough people boycott it that they'll be unable to make their money back by releasing it. That means several millions of people worldwide have to unanimously agree with the boycott and support it actively. And the heads behind the whole thing have to actually stay the course. Games like L4D2 and MW2 are mainstream juggernauts, and a few tens of thousands of whiny fanboys on the internet aren't going to dissuade the respective developers from releasing the game they've spent bucketloads of cash on already. Not when there are potentially millions of consumers willing to buy it.

 

[TheSeventhLoneWolf]

Boycotting busses was far more effective.

There's just more people who like the game, i guess.

 

[Imat]

This is the question I'm facing here, with two recent boycotts of CoD:MW2 and L4D2, and the seeming fact that it won't do squat. I mean, the Left 4 Dead 2 boy-cotters were over 37,000 strong at one point, but after the leaders of it played the actual game, they disbanded the group. Then there's the Modern Warfare 2 boycott, which did nothing to stop it from selling over 7 million in it's first day alone. So, with these two boycott groups doing not much to the cause, (MW2 more, considering Valve's ears), how can boycotting a video game ever work?

If everybody who planned on getting the game got together (Perhaps not in a physical sense, that's be one big gathering) and boycotted the game, it'd fail. Otherwise we're talking a few thousand against several million, clearly the group with millions of people will win out.

 

[The_Deleted]

I was a vocal Activision Boycotter, however, my integrity went to shite when I saw Sainsbury's were selling it for £26. I'm not the only one either. I figure it'll be worth just as much in trade when I complete it in a couple of days.

Not that that is any excuse for giving up my morals like a skint whore.

 

[mrhockey220]

NO they NEVER work! The L4D2 boycott was almost like a fad.

 

[RanD00M]

It could work if they did anything instead of just bitching about said game.

I'm not trying to bash you here, merely curious. What it is that you think they should do? Maybe provide a hypothetical example?

Try and reach to the company.Talk to the retailer.Anything that get's the off the internet and off they´r asses.

 

[HaloHappy]

NO they NEVER work! The L4D2 boycott was almost like a fad.

Yea, I think people were just joining it because of the publicity it was getting.

 

[Chrissyluky]

the left 4 dead 2 boycott failed because the game turned out to be very very good. I wouldnt call this failure it wasnt the boycotters fault the game is turning out good so the boycott will lose a lot of support. and in some ways this boycott helped put a little pressure on valve to make this more than a copy paste.

 

[TelHybrid]

What I find confusing is these "gamers" who boycott games probably think of themselves as the true hardcores. The elites of gaming. You get the idea.

If they were actually successful with their plight, they would be contributing to killing gaming.
We as a community have enough crap from society about video games and whether certain games should be released and even get some games banned, and this is by people who just generally take a stance against video games due to some delusional belief that it's developer's responsibility to stop kids getting these games, not their parents' responsibilities.

Now, we have people from within our community trying to do these pathetic boycotts, so they're contributing to one of the leading problems in our community. I swear if these boycotter's weren't so pathetic I would really hate them.

 

[lacktheknack]

I dont think they'll ever work, what do they want the companys to do? Stop making the game?
No chance

Pretty much this. While I could see a mass boycott of something like MW2 working, L4D2 was a joke. They'd already started pouring resources, they aren't just going to stop.

 

[HaloHappy]

Boycotting busses was far more effective.

There's just more people who like the game, i guess.

Well yea, the bus thing worked because that was a community. The videogame is international, which is very different.

 

[HaloHappy]

This is the question I'm facing here, with two recent boycotts of CoD:MW2 and L4D2, and the seeming fact that it won't do squat. I mean, the Left 4 Dead 2 boy-cotters were over 37,000 strong at one point, but after the leaders of it played the actual game, they disbanded the group. Then there's the Modern Warfare 2 boycott, which did nothing to stop it from selling over 7 million in it's first day alone. So, with these two boycott groups doing not much to the cause, (MW2 more, considering Valve's ears), how can boycotting a video game ever work?

What are you actually boycotting? It's just a freaking video game. Not like something actually important.

Me? Boycotting? I'm no boycotter, I'm just asking if a boycott on video games seems likely to ever work.