[Goudaquisition] Do Gamers Really Know What they Want?
Apr 11, 2014 12:44:39 GMT -8
┌༼ຈل͜ຈ༽┘ likes this
Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2014 12:44:39 GMT -8
Recently watching The Game Theory's video about the same premise, I have to disagree with him. I know, it's just a video that's meant to be based on speculation. I know it's just a bait video, but I don't care. His video has the wrong belief about what gamers want. While I do agree on aspects such as "innovation" and the sales figures of certain games, but I'll come back to it later.
Now let's get this out of the way first, according to writer David Sheriff in his book 'Game Over', Gunpei Yokoi never planned on bringing the Virtual Boy to the market. It was, at most, a prototype, but Nintendo rushed it out to appease the impatient gamers on the Nintendo 64 and to focus more resources on the said console. So, first of all, while the Wii U is a colossal failure for Nintendo; at least it's actually finished in development and not released as a prototype -- even though it was released rather half-assed with some of the functions not ready, like Nintendo TVii. Game Theory should have mentioned that, which is odd as to why he didn't. He really didn't look far into the research and just did the typical "Conclusion first, then explanation later." Yeah, it didn't work out.
Again another thing, the Virtual Boy only lasted 18 months on market and only had 22 games at the time of its death. It also only sold about 1.4 million. The Wii U is already in its 6 millionth sale unit. Granted, the pace of the sales range from 10,000 to 80,000, so it's not really much of an accomplishment. However, the difference is there and he really didn't talk much further of that - if at all.
Now, let's talk about the real issue: do gamers really know what they want?
The answer is simple: Yes.
They know what they want and here is why.
Gamers, like movie-goers, have different tastes in their medium. For movie-goers, they enjoy different genres of movies: Horror, Thriller, Comedy, Romance, Action, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, etc. The list goes on and in most cases, the genres will combine to appease both crowds. With video games, it's a whole different ballpark, yes there are culmination of genres in games such as Fallout being an RPG, Third-Person shooter Sci-Fi game. Yet, it won't attract everybody as would a movie. In fact, that would alienate a certain crowd; ranging from the fact that the game can be "too hard", "too empty", or "not my type of rpg" at the very least.
Many gamers have a certain taste for games. Many gamers want a certain type of game.
Going to my favorite forum, NeoGAF, I can see the multitude of people sharing what they believe is their ideal game. Some would like Zelda to go the Skyrim route. Some would like a Nintendo All-Star Kart game. Some would love David Cage to just disappear from the face of the Earth. It's varied between many people.
Now, does that mean the situation is easy? No. Far from it. The many critiques against game developers and publishers are that they don't listen to their fans. The fans, as they put it, have control over them in the regard that they don't have to buy the product from them and can just watch the company suffer... Yeah, that's a false belief and many companies ignore that belief, thank myself for that.
However, the critique is in fact valid. Developers and publishers sometimes ignore what their fanbase wants/needs. An example of this would be in 2K Sport's latest 'NBA 2K14'. The developers have ignored the cries of their fans for the "brokenness" of the game, from inaccurate plays from the AI, microtransactions, and from the fact that if you buy a contract of a character and use it online then to find yourself disconnected from the online, you will lose that contract. Many people, even one of my friends who plays this game religiously, comaplained hard on the official forums... only to get no response from the developers.
However, there are developers and publishers do that listen to their fanbase and try to appease them. Sometimes successful and sometimes failures. Let's look at Microsoft and the Xbox One. It was a marketing disaster the moment they talked about the DRM policies and the always-online debacle. Many people were outraged that Microsoft were basically being anti-consumerists. Then, hearing all the negativity, Microsoft made a patch that essentially removed aspects of these "anti-consumerist" policies.
As a result, we can see gamers do know what they want and if it becomes big, many people will outright call for a change.
Now here comes the downside of it all, gamers as I've said before, vary in their interests. As a result, their interests will conflict with the interests of the developers in how the game should be made. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is a huge example. Many despised the game, calling Nintendo out on it for "making it for babies" and whatnot. When the game did release, while it was a success, many of the more vocal deniers called out to Nintendo for a more "darker" Zelda. This in turn brought upon the release of Twilight Princess and it was a boom in success both in critical acclaim and success... only for many to turn away from the game and cite Wind Waker to be the best Zelda game ever.
There's this infamous 4chan post about Shigeru Miyamoto "speaking" to the board about how they hated Wind Waker, which caused Twilight Princess to be made. Then the loved TP, became despised and WW became loved. So, as a result, Skyward Sword was made, and everyone "hated it". This caused "Shigeru Miyamoto" to say, without the engrish, "This is why I made Wii Fit and Wii Sports, at least soccer moms will like it."
Now, as funny as that post is... it's somewhat true and false. The belief that everyone hated Wind Waker was true at first, but when it came out it became a beloved game in the franchise. This all stems from what was spoken about gamers: our interests vary too much.
Thus, it's hard for developers to actually please all the fans. This leads to a catch-22 situation with many of the developers. Should they attempt to listen to their fans and do as they say, while upsetting the other fans that wanted things differently, or do their own thing and possibly ending up getting flake from the fans for "ignoring them"?
This is a dilemma that is still present and will always be present.
This dilemma also responds to the word "innovation". Innovation is the idea that something new will "revolutionize" the way things are done. The Wii was an innovation with the inclusion of motion controls and games bringing in the casual market. However, the term can also be brought down to "gimmick", a term in which tends to end up being negative. A gimmick is something to entice the people, bring them in and to reap the rewards. Due to this, the Wii is considered a gimmick by many as it did entice "non-gamers" and have Nintendo reap the money, making so much profit.
Yet, the innovation we've been talked about isn't really innovation at all. Nowadays in the gaming community, the term innovation is just PR. This means that it's just thrown in to catch the interest of many people and at times, the term can actually work. Some games can be "innovative", such as The Last of Us being considered innovative for the story telling and gameplay mechanics.
The downside is that the term is just thrown everywhere, from publishers to pr firms to even journalists. Gamers have become so jaded to the term that when we hear it again, most tend to roll their eyes and scoff. With Game Theory talking about it, MatPat stated gamers don't like innovation. In fact, we do. It's that nothing can be considered innovative unless it's proven to be true and most of the time, it isn't proven at all.
To which he states Nintendo has always been about innovation and to which I can agree on. They try to revolutionize the way games are played. The NES with the D-Pad and the B-A button layout, the SNES with the shoulder buttons and the inclusion of Y-X. The N64 being fully 3D. The Wii for being accessible to the casual market with motion controls. The Gameboy for bringing full-fledged games to handhelds, the DS for the touchscreen functionality, and the 3DS for 3D without glasses.
However, innovation doesn't always work and it didn't work with the Wii afterwards and the 3DS with the 3D. The Wii U isn't even considered innovative, regardless of the PR saying otherwise. Innovation sometimes never equals to revolutionizing and in fact, becomes the term thrown out: gimmick.
Innovation has become so out of line hat gamers just want what they find comfortable: the way things have been. Innovation is supposed to benefit the people, not just be up in your face and proclaim this is the way. This is why Call of Duty sales, it's because the formula that keeps it successful is still there. There is no need to "innovate" the game to the point it's something else. People tend to rip on Call of Duty for this, but if you think about is it warranted? I've stated in a previous Goudaquisition that Call of Duty gets hate for not changing enough to keep it fresh. I said it was a stale series, because of the lack of depth to it.
It's still true, but I praised the series for keeping the formula the same regardless. Sales have increased dramatically for the series because it keeps true to its formula and its ease of use. Kids see this new game and can just jump right in, thus causing the userbase to grow. This is why the sales have been astronomical, it's because new people keep joining the fray due to the accessibility.
With Mario, as MatPat stated, has been on a downward trend in home consoles, and while that's true, it's not hard to forget that the sales of the games have always been consistent afterwards. While opening launch of these games can tend to be low, the overall "leg" of the series remains high and causes it to sell constantly high.
With this, I don't believe MatPat truly knows about the audience he keeps referencing to and while he did have some points, he overlooked many other views and as a result, his videos aren't as well thought out. I like the guy, but these two weren't his best. At most, these were just for getting more views (which it did) and I believe he didn't deserve it. I'll still watch his videos, but I consider them to be the "blacksheep" of his lineup.
