Gamers vs The Industry - Let's get stronger!

(Agrocr0c) #1

We are gamers. We play games. To play games, we must buy games. When we buy games we become customers. What industry but for the gaming industry treats its customers with less respect?

Imagine dining in a restaurant, ready to pay £40 for a fillet steak and classy bottle of wine, only to receive in return a rump-cut and a bottle of Ribena. You’d become distressed:

#1 You could complain, “Give me my fillet steak or I will leave without paying.”. If they flatly offered no alternative to the Rump’N’Ribena, or some lame excuse about having it ready for you in two hours time, you could simply leave the premises. You would be angry and remain hungry, perhaps even hungrier then before, but you keep your money in your pocket and therefore all of your choices of what’s next. You also know you did the right thing and feel stronger for it because you were in control of the situation. Next time you enter the restaurant, you know you’ll probably get a thousand apologies and a free meal.

#2 You could politely complain, “Excuse me. This isn’t what I ordered. Perhaps there’s been a mistake.”. If you then waited patiently for the problem to be recitified but it never happened, and the waiter ignored you… and so did the kitchen… and the rump was going cold… and you were very hungry… and you were weak-willed, then the probability is high that you would just eat the rump, swear at the ignorant staff, thump the £40 on the table and walk out telling yourself you will never eat there again, but not believing yourself because when they have got it right in the past, it was delicious.

Surely, it has to be #1 every time. In #2 the restaurant has made a mug of you. You lose.

The gaming industry has stopped serving their fine fillet steaks and fine wines and are beginning to get used to fobbing us off with Rump’N’Ribena because we don’t complain about it enough en masse and keep handing over our money.

Right now, as it stands, we put the money down first in response to a pack of lies about what is on the menu. This has to stop. If we try to take a game back to a shop and the game has been opened and installed, there’ll be no refund available. Why not? As customers we pay money for a product. If the product does not match the description closely enough (e.g. you pay for a banana and receive an orange)then customers inherit legal rights to receive a full refund. This is European Law and thus applies to all EU countries.

There are many ways to address this and I’d like to hear some of them from you lot. However, there are many issues with gamers that will make change very difficult. Let’s hear those too.

What about mob rule? Mobilis Vulgaris. Revolution…

(zenstar) #2

Your argument is a bit of a “straw man”.
I can understand your need to stick it to the “fat cats” but you’re not only oversimplifying the issue but also making assumptions that are not correct.
Firstly your “1 or 2” example is a false dichotomy. There are thousands of things you can do in the situation.
Also, the gaming industry has not gotten better or worse really at all. There are plenty of awesome games that have been well worth the money they ask. If anything you could say that advertising has gotten slicker and gamers have gotten more impulsive with their money.
Far too many gamers nowadays will hand over their cash as soon as they see some glitzy artwork on a box. Then when they get home and find that teh game is lacklustre they try to blame the store for selling it. If they did a little more research into their games they’d be a lot more satisfied.

(goat72) #3

Probably not such a great idea to start your campaign on a game developer’s forum. Unless you started this thread for some other reason?

(CalUKGR) #4

Presumably the same industry that gets the least respect from its over-indulged, over-entitled, obnoxious, infantile customers.*

*I still want that 360 controller support, Splash Damage.

(McAfee) #5

>>> #1 Next time you enter the restaurant, you know you’ll probably get a thousand apologies and a free meal.
Or kicked out. You were a “problem” not a solution, and they have other customers who they are happier with.

Option #3: You work with them to resolve the issue.
Sure you have to wait a bit. But in the end you’ll have your meal, and you’ll help the restaurant get better. Sometimes you might even get a free perk for the inconvenience.

People who always walk out of problems or run away from problems tend to not get very far in life. Sometimes you have to help solve the problem. Everybody will fail you at least once, if you call it quits, you’ll end up alone and nowhere to go.

(goat72) #6

This is good advice, here ^^ :smiley:

(obsidian) #7

I’m pretty sure people in the industry are also gamers. Not sure though.

(Agrocr0c) #8

Now seems like a relevant moment to quote a forum contributor called Orthias. We were discussing why gamers just hand over money and tolerate poor products just like desperate junkies.

[I]"[Game buyers] ignore the unpleasant facts and continue to hope for the sake of hoping that things “really aren’t that bad”, until they come to believe it.

"Sometimes the illusion persists even after the game is launched - these are the fan-boys that defend the game no mater what because they lie to themselves to protect themselves.

“And sometimes the illusion breaks down, and people are jagged and hurt and angry.”[/I]

  • I think there are too many people that fit the description above, some of them are writing in my thread.
  • My analogy is simpified of course, I am making a point not describing a trip to a restaurant. It attempts to differentiate the assertive from the meek.
  • I fail to see what is infantile about confronting this issue.
  • I believe Splash Damage forum is more than adequate place to voice this issue. They have released the latest example of a mainstream FPS videogame of substandard quality.

We hand over money for consistently crap games. I am asking for reasons why we do this and what we can do to stop it.

(goat72) #9

[QUOTE=Agrocr0c;317594]Now seems like a relevant moment to quote a forum contributor called Orthias. We were discussing why gamers just hand over money and tolerate poor products just like desperate junkies.

[I]"[Game buyers] ignore the unpleasant facts and continue to hope for the sake of hoping that things “really aren’t that bad”, until they come to believe it.

"Sometimes the illusion persists even after the game is launched - these are the fan-boys that defend the game no mater what because they lie to themselves to protect themselves.

“And sometimes the illusion breaks down, and people are jagged and hurt and angry.”[/I]

I think there are too many people that fit the description above, some of them are writing in my thread.

My analogy is simpified of course, I am making a point not describing a trip to a restaurant. It differentiates the assertive from the meek.

I fail to see what is infantile about confronting this issue.

I believe Splash Damage forum is more than adequate place to voice this issue. They have afterall released the latest example of a mainstream FPS videogame of substandard quality.

We hand over money for consistently crap games. I am asking for reasons why we do this and what we can do to stop it.[/QUOTE]

FWIW, I actually agree with you overall, I think many areas of the games industry do take the p***. However, I personally don’t believe Brink is substandard - I think it needs a patch or two, but then PC games have always been like that because of the huge number of PC configurations.

And these forums are not a place to start a crusade simply because your thread will get locked! Surely you can see how silly that is? Start a blog, or create a website if you want to fight “the industry”.

And for the record, I am not a fanboy - not everyone who loves this game is a fanboy. I’ve really enjoyed playing Brink this week, I’m sorry if that offends you. And I don’t have to “protect myself” - i have more money at the moment than I know what to do with so if I didn’t like the game I’d just buy another one. And I am very assertive when I need to be, thanks very much!

It’s just a normal game release, stop getting so angry and wait for a patch :rolleyes:

(zenstar) #10

[QUOTE=Agrocr0c;317594]Now seems like a relevant moment to quote a forum contributor called Orthias. We were discussing why gamers just hand over money and tolerate poor products just like desperate junkies.

[I]"[Game buyers] ignore the unpleasant facts and continue to hope for the sake of hoping that things “really aren’t that bad”, until they come to believe it.

"Sometimes the illusion persists even after the game is launched - these are the fan-boys that defend the game no mater what because they lie to themselves to protect themselves.

“And sometimes the illusion breaks down, and people are jagged and hurt and angry.”[/I]

  • I think there are too many people that fit the description above, some of them are writing in my thread.
  • My analogy is simpified of course, I am making a point not describing a trip to a restaurant. It attempts to differentiate the assertive from the meek.
  • I fail to see what is infantile about confronting this issue.
  • I believe Splash Damage forum is more than adequate place to voice this issue. They have released the latest example of a mainstream FPS videogame of substandard quality.

We hand over money for consistently crap games. I am asking for reasons why we do this and what we can do to stop it.[/QUOTE]
You are employing an argumentative fallacy known as “the straw man argument”. If you don’t understand why this form of argument is the wrong way to argue then I suggest doing some research on it.

There is nothing wrong with trying to find out why there are so many jaded gamers nowadays but people have been putting forward valid points and so far all you’ve done is subtly suggest that they are just “fanboys”. This is known as an Ad Hominum fallacy. You’re attacking the person and not countering the points that they are making. Again: a bad argument.

You also make 2 assumptions that I disagree with in this latest post:
1 - “- I believe Splash Damage forum is more than adequate place to voice this issue. They have released the latest example of a mainstream FPS videogame of substandard quality.”
I don’t think this is substandard quality. That may be your opinion but I knew pretty much what Brink was going to be before I bought it and I got what I expected and think it was worth it. Perhaps your expectations were different but I’ll mention something on that later.

2 - You assume that the gaming industry is to blame for the situation. I think the problem lies more with the people buying the games.

People listen to advertising and then hype themselves up about games without doing proper research. They also impulse buy things based on very flimsy evidence. What ends up happening is that the game they think they’re going to get is not the same as the game they are getting. The gamer is then dissapointed and complains.
This does not mean that the game is bad.
If the gamer did some proper research on the game or waited for reviews before handing over his/her money then they are far less likely to be disappointed.

Taking Brink as an example: if you watch all the prerelease videos, ESPECIALLY the get smart series that all came out before release you would see exactly how the game would play. If you looked back at the other games SD have made you’d know their style and you would have known what to expect with respect to levels and gameplay. If you were properly armed with this knowledge before getting the game you may have seen it in a different light.

As for bugs at release: This is called “the early adopter’s problem” and happens with almost every game out there that has an online focus (and some that have offline focus too). It is not unusual. It sucks for the people it affects but if you don’t like this sort of thing then you need to become a “late adopter” where there is less risk.

Anyway: i need to get back to work.

EDIT:
Please note that I don’t mean there are no bad games. I mean that gamers nowadays don’t stop and think but instead buy and then complain instead. Also: I don’t mean your argument is wrong (although I do disagree with it) but is put forward in an incorrect way.
If you reworded it and didn’t use certain argumentative fallacies then you’d have a much stronger and more cogent argument (this doesn’t garauntee that it’ll be correct however).

(Agrocr0c) #11

[QUOTE=McAfee;317583]>>> #1 Next time you enter the restaurant, you know you’ll probably get a thousand apologies and a free meal.
Or kicked out. You were a “problem” not a solution, and they have other customers who they are happier with.[/quote]

Yes. Precisely, they are much happier with meek customers that roll over easily. Passive aquiescence perpetuates the situation. Understand this - unless we all stop rolling over, they will always keep relying on the suckers that do put up with and pay for low quality products that fall below our expectations and the vendors obligations. Who wants to give money to a business that perceives you as a problem?

Option #3: You work with them to resolve the issue.
Sure you have to wait a bit. But in the end you’ll have your meal, and you’ll help the restaurant get better. Sometimes you might even get a free perk for the inconvenience.

If there is no fillet steak, it won’t matter how long you wait. If you have to wait too long for them to rectify the situation, you leave. You either leave or have rump.

People who always walk out of problems or run away from problems tend to not get very far in life. Sometimes you have to help solve the problem. Everybody will fail you at least once, if you call it quits, you’ll end up alone and nowhere to go.

We must all help solve the problem by not buying games on release day that are broken or unfinished. Hyper-competitiveness and rabid anticipation may account for this massive surge of purchase on release days, and other people are getting rich on your money without providing good quality products in return.

(Aza) #12

I agree with goat. Brink, if anyone actually took the time to do research about the game before its release, would not have been surprised with it as far as gameplay. They may have issues with the bugs/issues the game has since release. But anyones who’s played any pc game knows it comes with the territory, though I do find it somewhat appalling that the console versions were released in the state that they were, but sony and microsoft are also to blame in that respect because they do have to go through a certification process before it gets the go ahead on their respective consoles. I will have to concede that Bethesda’s marketing from what few commercials I’d see on tv did seem a bit misleading, in the fact that it basically never really explained what kind of game it was.

You like to blame the dev’s as if it was their fault but the reality of it is it’s the consumers fault for the direction that the gaming industry as a whole is going. Take your drug analogy…if no one bought their drugs there wouldn’t be a market for it. If people would stop buying the endless crap that gets churned out on a yearly basis and actually support the innovative games that do come out once in a blue moon (which more often than not never sell very well) the developers would be more inclined and be able to push ideas to their publishers to make more innovative games. As it is now, its safer for them to make what sells, this doesn’t only apply to games but music and movies as well in my opinion.

So if you want to start a crusade to change people’s habits…good luck.

(McAfee) #13

I agree it was a bumpy launch, mostly from the stability point of view. Other issues like taste of features, are not really of my concern from this perspective. Some people love the features some don’t

But stability is a problem, I’ll give you that.

The thing is, what action to take:
a) A boycott action. And step away from the product.
b) Work the problems out.

And personally I think you are somewhere between the two. You feel you don’t want to spend on the game, so that your voice can be heard in the form of bad sales. But at the same time you do want to fix the problem, at least from the perspective of the Industry. They don’t have to be connected to each other.

Let me tell you that boycotts don’t really work. Not as much as the threat of a boycott. Just look at past experiences with other games. People actively boycott EA games all the time, they still make a lot of money. They organized a bit better for L4D2, they ended up buying it anyway, but they were actually heard.

You will make a stronger action by organizing your ideas in a blog, having people follow your ideas. Then complaining as “1 person”. Reviews and Blogs is the way to fix the problem. It’s not the threat of sales, it’s the threat of public opinion, even if one goes back to the other. Otherwise you’ll just be the 1 person that made a big fuss at the restaurant the other day, and nobody is going to care.

(zenstar) #14

[QUOTE=Agrocr0c;317622]Yes. Precisely, they are much happier with meek customers that roll over easily. Passive aquiescence perpetuates the situation. Understand this - unless we all stop rolling over, they will always keep relying on the suckers that do put up with and pay for low quality products that fall below our expectations and the vendors obligations. Who wants to give money to a business that perceives you as a problem?

If there is no fillet steak, it won’t matter how long you wait. If you have to wait too long for them to rectify the situation, you leave. You either leave or have rump.

We must all help solve the problem by not buying games on release day that are broken or unfinished. Hyper-competitiveness and rabid anticipation may account for this massive surge of purchase on release days, and other people are getting rich on your money without providing good quality products in return.[/QUOTE]
Please drop the steak argument. It doesn’t work well.
And why do you assume we must all follow your way of thinking?
If noone preorders games or buys games on release day then publishers are not going to get a steady trickle of cash before release which means that they’ll be releaseing games with a shorter development cycle which means less content.
At least that’s one possible consequence to following your logic. Or in your case: If noone tries the rump steak until they see someone else eating a rump steak then no rump steaks will get sold and the restraunt will take rump steak off the menu because it’s not popular.

Seriously. People need to take some responsibility for their purchase choices. Advertising is a known thing to everyone. It tries to show you the best side of whatever they’re selling. Do some research before you spend your money.
If you end up with a crummy game but can back up your claim that you were tricked with something more than a glossy magazine advert then you may have a case. Unfortunately nowadays most gamers get into a frothing frenzy and throw their money at tiles like Vampire Rain and then wonder why the gaming industry hates them.

(Wildkarrde) #15

If you want to do something.

  1. Try to take your game back to where you got it and get another copy and repeat about hmm 10 times till they give a refund.
    2.scream bloody murder on their website(doesn’t do much)
    3.have blind faith that they will fix it and wait however long.
    4.hire a solicitor to take legal action
    5.organise and petition to take action
    6.look at the credits of the game and make sure you have no business dealings or social interaction with anyone on there
    7.only buy used versions of any future Sd/Bethesda games(there’s always a sucker who buys new ones ain’t there SD/Bethesda nudge nudge wink wink)
    8.don’t buy anymore games at all because the industry is under regulated.
    9.Be a good little minion and don’t complain
    10.Learn your lesson and pay it forward by ripping off as many people as you can(Be proud of your teachings Sd/Bethesda :-D)
    Think that’s pretty much all the options broadly covered,sell swap trade complain complain harder convince yourself game is flawless warn people be less of a sucker and finally do unto others as others do unto you
(Agrocr0c) #16

This is PC Xbox and PS3. The latter have fixed hardware.

And these forums are not a place to start a crusade simply because your thread will get locked! Surely you can see how silly that is? Start a blog, or create a website if you want to fight “the industry”.

I am not Richard LionHeart! I want things to improve.I love the industry, I’ve been a fan all of my life but that doesn’t mean things can’t go awry. That would be naive. Recently, there’s been a drop in quality of finished products.

And I don’t have to “protect myself” - i have more money at the moment than I know what to do with so if I didn’t like the game I’d just buy another one.

How to lose friends and alienate people. Also, you do not represent the majority gamers if those are your circumstances.

It’s just a normal game release, stop getting so angry and wait for a patch :rolleyes:

This is precisely the attitude we need to change. A buggy game with missing features and poor performance is normal and we should not stand for it. I want to play good polished games, thank you very much, not be drip fed minor enhancements that do not keep up with my attention span.

(jaggerzz) #17

I do agree with the op. and I think the solution is quite easy. Well easier said then done. If we gamers could keep our OCD in check for a couple of weeks after a game is released and wait for professional reviews we could accomplish a lot.
For instance we would not be making these companies rich by buying games that aren’t finished. but more importantly we would only buy the games that, after reading the reviews. we decide we want to own. And no longer going off the hype.
Or rent the game for a couple of days first to see if you actually want to buy it.

(Agrocr0c) #18

We agree that customers buy games too soon. The ‘suckers’ that do buy too soon then complain, and the ‘suckers’ that don’t research their games first, are the very ones that are going to keep this trend of unfinished-games-being-released-too-soon going. Companies like Bethesda are banking on it.

We agree that the developers are not entirely to blame, if at all. I don’t blame the developers. I have another thread, my only other you may be pleased to know, that makes this clear as day, called ‘Over a barrel ready to give two big coughs’. The developers are gamers and fans, but their products are being diluted and rushed from above.

We agree that it is the ‘norm’ to buy a game that is not as marketed, has limited functionality, and will be patched at their convenience at some time after purchase.

We also agree that Brink is riddled with problems. You cannot look at the forums and tell me anything contrary to that. This is not about the gameplay or the design, not once has it been mentioned by me other than that the developers have obviosly spent a lot of time on both.

Our tolerance is unacceptable. The ‘suckers’ referred to above need to do a self-check and make changes. Not just accept it because everyone else does. And if you are taking this personally like a lot of you are, consider this - I am a sucker. I’m a sucker because I fall for it all the time. I do do my research on games before I buy, but still have blind faith sometimes, thinking that I know better. These days I am always disappointed. Old and Jaded? Or just perceptive? That is why I am writing about it. If I can recognise that, try to change it, and not cry about it, why can’t you?

PS One exclamation mark and a slogan doesn’t make a crusade!
PPS You are right that a threat of boycott action is better than the real thing.

(zenstar) #19

You know what is a good analogy for the games industry?
The movie industry.
Grabbing a movie ticket, a popcorn and a drink costs about the same as a new game (games are slightly more but last a lot longer). Both industries try to hype their product before release with advertising and previews. Both industries have a similar setup with a publisher who releases things made by smaller divisions / companies.

Somehow people aren’t crying for blood about a bad movie. Somehow people are able to judge a movie by the information available before they see it and then decide whether to see it on opening night or to pick it up later when the dvd is in the cheap bin. Why can’t they do that for games?

I think your “crusade” is misguided and you’re arguing from an emotional point (which is bad) because you’re disappointed.
Also: trying to denegrate people who disagree with you (like calling them “fanboys”) without actually countering any of their points is indicative that your argument does not hold water.

Consumers need to take some responsibility for their actions too. If you value your money then make informed decisions with it.

(ratioguy) #20

http://www.interstellarmarines.com/articles/aaa-indie/why-aaa-indie/