Hardcore gamers came down hard on Oblivion but it didn't stop the game from selling millions of copies and Fallout 3 becoming a copy of it (and again selling millions).
We have an entirely different problem here.
It's the "targeted groups of customers".
Companies tend to cater those who promise the gretest excess of profits.
Which leaves others sour and angry, because they grow the feeling - "get the message" - that no-one is interested in them. In doing games for them.
Kind of "hardcore gamers" have been lucky so far - to put it rather cynically - because they have always been the loudest voices.Their voices are strong, everyone hears them. They are like ... a pack of wolves among the sheep. he wolves always get the attention first. Or, if you put it like a group of black sheep among a bigger group of white sheep, it's always the black sheep that get the attention first.
Anyway, what I want to say with this picture is that the companies have so far been listening to the relatively small group of ... either black sheep or wolves
... because they have louder voices. In forums, in commentary functions, elsewhere.
But the mass of the silent 2white sheep" is much, much stronger; and bigger, of course. They could easily trample down any wolf or black sheep when in full force. Sheer numbers.
And now, comopanies begin to listen to them. They seem to think (at least some
people in there, if not "the company" as a whole entity, but meta-beings is an totally dfferent subject now
) : "Well, it's hard to cater this small group of hardcore players. We m,ight succeed, but only at the expense of lots of money - directed at a group so mall they can't bring us the development costs back.
So, better leave them out, completely."
Quote from "tv tropes", entry "pandering to the base" :
So, just give the fans exactly what they want and everything will work out — simple, huh?
Not quite. Generally speaking, the more intensely devoted fans in a fandom are usually outnumbered by the casual fans, but the more devoted a fan becomes, the more active — and louder — they become in the fandom. So while a few million casual fans might enjoy an episode without ever making it widely known, a handful of devoted and occasionally unhinged fans screaming on a web forum about how the show is now Ruined FOREVER can be seen and heard by everyone... including the people making the show. The producers may then start pandering to these voices exclusively, believing them to be the voice of everyone watching — but 'everyone' in this case may in fact consist only of a handful of people, and what this minority wants and what the other, less noisy fans want can differ drastically.
This presents a major problem. The property can end up becoming a private club, accessible only to a select few. Excluding the casual fans means they'll simply drift away to find something else to spend their time on, and raising the entry bar too high means you run the risk of locking out new fans who may have possibly been interested in the property, but now find it too difficult to access. While the Vocal Minority might now be satisfied (and you can't even count on that), they rarely translate to enough ratings and / or sales to justify the property's continued existence — and to make matters worse, even this hardcore minority may begin to drift away for numerous reasons (changing tastes, burnout, lessened interest, etc). This results in diminishing returns ending in eventual cancellation if unchecked.
Furthermore, the overall quality of the property can begin to suffer; just because someone is intensely committed to a particular work of fiction doesn't necessarily mean they know what makes good fiction work. The hardcore fans are generally fascinated by the backstory, trivia and continuity which can build up around a franchise, but this doesn't necessarily make riveting entertainment to anyone less interested in all of this stuff. And if you somehow get the continuity hopelessly tangled up or make mistakes, this makes things worse; not only have you lost the interest of the people who don't care about this stuff, you've annoyed the people who do, and it's now guaranteed they won't be shy about saying so. In many cases, Pandering To The Base rarely succeeds in making anyone happy, not even the fans it's supposed to win over, because ultimately what most devoted fans want is the same as the casual ones; interesting and engaging stories, not just constant pandering.
If you haven't read this again. And think about it - with "fans" being replaced in this text with "hardcore gamers".
So, from a completely economical point of view, what these companies do it totally right. FRom an economical point of view.
But, however, there's something that profit-oriented companies nowadays totally fail to see : Money doesn't make your belly full, your brain happy, and your
serotonines flowing.
There is something called "social behaviour". There is something more than just this that people adhere to.
People take into cosideration things which publishing companies don't consider as important . Reputation, for example. Fun. Simply fun. Players of games want to fee like ... being respected. As humans, as players. They just don't want to receive the impression (and the message, too) that they re only "cash cows".
Reputation is insofar important to them as it defines the success of a game - at least to some extend. Too many bugs are noticed. They are told. What goes round comes around.
People want to feel at least a mild form of challenge. At least I guess so. I couldn't imagine any other rweason - apart from the simple ( but not unimportant ! ) "fun factor".
People want to talk bout games. "How's been your experience ?" And some people want to compete among themselves ("Munchkins" or so).
I often cpmpare the mass market vs. the "small market" like museums vs. ... well, let's take shopping malls, for example.
Museums are small, sometimes tiny (not all, I know; I know some very big ones where one can literally get lost within), and they cost a LOT of money.
Within the current financial crisis, Museums and other outlets of Culture are often axed first - in order to save money.
Governments believe that the almighty "Consume" is everythibng people need. No need for museums, no need for theatre, no need for cinemas (smaller ones, that is), no need for dancing and musicals. These are too often axed first.
But this is just the economical view on them. Museums create costs, so let's axe/close them first.
But there is more in people than money. People want to see paintings !
Why do people want to see paintings ?
Because that's what I call the "spiritual" and the social sides of human beings, of societies as a whole. People want to see
new things, people want to see new impressions (pun intended in terms of paintings). People know that money alone doesn't make their bellies and their brains full - and not at all their hearts.
Therefore I consider culture and spiritual & social aspects as much, much, much more important than profit-oriented companies can ever notice. At least now.
"We live in a mterial world" is what Madonna was singing already in the 80s. We live in some kind of "economical dictatorship".
EVERYTHING is measured against economy, against money. Even our lives. Which is Nazi-thinking to me. The Nazis decided to kill everyone who could not produce - handicapped people, for example, and I fear that if their reign had become longer, thesy would have probably even had the idea to kill everyone who could not consume.
We are merely considered as "cash cows", as some thing that can be milked out of money. Consume or die ! might be the motto of "the companies". Even our workforce is considered against the profits we generate - or otherwise we are layed off.
Games are much more than just vehicles to generate money.
And as long as "the companies" don't see that, we will be seeing them heading straight to the most profits generating group / outlet of money.
We just *need* museums. we just *need* games that are *not* = the mass market.
We need niches. We are individuals.
