Gamers Uncomfortable with Change, Says EA's Peter Moore

[faefrost]

"Gamers fear change"? Ummm? Sorry no. Gamers embrace change, if and only if, the change offers what they perceive is of value to them. What they fear, or rather despise is the loss of ownership of products they pay up front for. What they dislike is change that treats them as the product being sold between third parties, rather than as the customer. What they truly loathe is change for corporate sake that in fact reduces the fun of gaming.

Gamers will pile on change when done well and done right. Steam is the best example of this. Mobile gaming is a great example. It strike me more that EA is the one having change issues in their bloated corporate culture. They toss out badly derived half assed ideas that look vaguely like new cutting edge change, but service some internal EA need and not the paying customer, and cannot understand why they are not embraced. So they get twits like this to blame the customer. It's a simple rule EA. CHANGE MUST SERVICE THE CUSTOMERS NEEDS TO SUCCEED,

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

The problem EA is i want to buy complete fully functional GAMES, Not a piss poor broken fucking service masquerading as a game.

 

[kaizen2468]

That would really depend on the change. New games? Perfect. Better combat systems? Awesome. Killer graphics? You bet. Holding back content that used to be free to sell to us later? Bullshit.

 

[Something Amyss]

Better combat systems? Awesome.

Of course, a better combat system runs the risk of being accused of being "dumbed down" "for the casuals" because shitty controls/mechanics weed out the undesirables and leave only us true godly hardcore elite.

"Gamers fear change"? Ummm? Sorry no. Gamers embrace change, if and only if, the change offers what they perceive is of value to them.

While technically true, the qualifier of perception is such to basically weed out almost any change. Which is kind of the problem. Gamers don't readily embrace change. Moore's trying to spin this a different way, that people hate EA because they fear change, but gamers as a whole aren't big on change. That's why the best-selling games are rehashed franchises. Your Calls of Duties. Your Legends of Zeldas. Your Marios. Your Maddens. Even the indie scene is lousy with games which are basically retro/throwbacks for nostalgia's sake.

And that's fine. But actual new ideas don't usually do that well. You will get bust-out, surprise hits, but you usually don't. And even if you do, it doesn't encourage new games so much as encourage clones. Look at Minecraft.

Now, if EA was churning out new games with new ideas and they weren't selling, I'd be on Moore's side. Because the gaming community really hates actual new ideas. But when it's something about how gamers don't like your games because you're a lying sack of crap who sells partial games that re frequently broken and locks the full experience behind a paywall, yeah. crew him. But not because gamers embrace change.

Eh, he isn't wrong.

Like any competent politician, he's entirely dodging the main problems that gamers have with EA, but he's not wrong.

Exactly.

 

[AwesomeDave]

Hey Moore, I'm a gamer and I have no problem with change. I do however, have a problem with your company trying to milk me for all my change. THEMS MY NICKLES!!!!!!

 

[Pinky's Brain]

also fail to accept or understand when necessary change comes in forms that they aren't in 100% agreement.

I WIN at not accepting it, saves me money and aggravation ... I don't need new games really.

If they want my money they have to make a game aimed at the cantankarous 30+ year old PC gaming demographic (I don't give a crap about day one DLC though ... it's the console gamer generation which is hung up on selling or trading in their games). Or make it cheap

 

[geizr]

I remember Peter Moore from back in the day when he was in charge of SEGA of America (I forget the name of the guy who was before him); didn't like him too much back then, either. However, since he's been with EA, Peter has just turned bat-shit crazy, in my opinion. It takes deliberate, concerted effort to develop this level of schizophrenia with reality and to convince yourself of something that is so obviously logically erroneous. As many have stated, while gamers DO demonstrate a considerable inertia to change, especially with favored series and franchises, they have been clearly more vocal of negative or exploitive changes as implemented in EA's business models of late. Gamers can be pulled forward to accept changes, but only if those changes demonstrably provide value and edification to the gaming experience. However, if those changes are deleterious to the gaming experience (broken DRM, broken and unnecessary always-online requirements, unnecessary access codes and logins, incomplete content, exceptionally buggy content), shamefully self-serving (i.e. having no merit other than existing for its own sake as a mere check-off, such as multi-player modes in an inherently single-player game), or serve no purpose other than purely to SWINDLE (and I mean it just like that, because that's how the gamer often feels after the purchase) more money from the gamer (micro-transactions, season passes, exploitive free-to-play implemented as pay-to-win models, content unnecessarily withheld to be sold as DLC later), then it can only be expected that gamers will eventually rebel.

I think most gamers do look forward to changes in how games are marketed, packaged, and sold such to make the games more freely available and accessible to gamers. However, they're not for changes that are implemented with such clearly, deliberately, and remorsely villainous intent as EA (and Ubisoft) has demonstrated. Try making changes that ACTUALLY BENEFIT the customer and see what happens. I think you'll find that gamers will be much more amenable to those kinds of changes.

 

[Twintix]

Is he seriously suggesting that micro-transactions are the way of the future, again? That gamers hate it because it's new, and will embrace it with time? Sure, that'll happen, EA, when you stop trying to screw consumers over by offering them half the deal for twice the prize.

But, like others said, he's not that off the mark. Some gamers tend to react very negatively at the prospect of change. What I'm wondering is how we can be so sure that it's the majority. Maybe it's just a vocal minority that is so opposed to change? Rehashes may sell well, but that doesn't have to mean that the people who buy them don't want anything new ever. I like my Mario and Zelda, but I'm not opposed to new game ideas. Hell, my dream is to become a game designer and offer new experiences. That's my stand point, at least, and I hope that I'm not alone in thinking that.
(Not to mention, just because it's new doesn't mean it's good, or executed well. A game can have the most original idea, like a goat man shooting old ladies with a keytar, but if the game is shitty, nobody is going to want to buy it.)

So, it's a correct statement. It's just not said by the correct person.

 

[sageoftruth]

A textbook example of the phrase, "Some of the best lies are concealed within truth."

 

[orangegasm]

Ladies and Gentlemen, the "Asshole of the Year" award goes to...... Mr. Peter Moore!!!

 

[Extragorey]

Sounds like the typical "change is inevitable; microtransactions and such are change, so get used to them" argument.
Sure, change is inevitable, but that doesn't mean some changes aren't just plain dumb.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

No, he's right. We don't like change generally. PEOPLE don't like change generally. Doesn't excuse you living in your own little fantasy world where you can do whatever the fuck you like because people just don't know they want it yet.

I swear EA has so many stupid reasons for the anti-consumer bullshit they pull that I actually think they themselves believe it.

 

[Dragonbums]

If you make a black, female, or LGBTQ character for the sole reason to "represent" them, then you are not helping anyone.

I'm just going to say what someone else said on this matter.

As someone who has a total of maybe 5 characters in the entirety of video game history representing me as a whole, I'd rather take one mediocre shoehorned character that represents me than nothing.

So you would be totally okay with a Character in a game who's sole defining trait and feature was that they were gay? Or black? Or if a character was a stereotypical portrayal of a gay person or a black person while not being downright offensive?

After all, you were "represented" but thats hardly what you'd want i imagine. So my point stands, first a character has to be a character, a person cant be reduced to skincolor, gender or sexuality, there is more to it than that and we shouldnt expect less of fictional characters in games.

Yes I would. Because at this point this argument ONLY comes up in relation to women, people of different sexuality, and those of different colors. But nobody gives two shits about being swarmed by characters that are white because the checklist says so and back it up with demographic statistics.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

The only ones afraid of change are companies, the public will easily buy whatever crap they are selling, so there is no reason for the industry not to improve gameplay, diversity, depth, writing,ect,ect...

 

[Lightknight]

EA : "Our consumers don't like X because Y". Does it really matter what Y is?

 

[stroopwafel]

I also wonder what 'change', objectively, EA themselves brought to videogames as of late. They only rehash their annual Battlefield, NFS and sports games. Like their latest game Battlefield Hardline; that looks like a fucking watershed moment of 'change' in the history of the medium!

The only original IP EA had recently was Dead Space which they let go to waste b/c it didn't confirm to their preposterous sales projections of 5 million copies minimum(!)

EAs modern games are the epitomy of stagnant and conservative game design aimed largely at the lowest common denominator so any 'change' they bring to the table is not in their games but in their pricing schemes. That of all people a representative of EA than calls gamers 'uncomfortable with change' when he screws them over is just...well not only hypocritical but unbelievably arrogant as well.

 

[Bashfluff]

I would imagine that EA would want to court the community after winning Worst Company of the Year award twice. EA doesn't seem to be riding high at the start of a new generation. They're failing to meet sales projections due to their absurd budgets and sales expectations, and their increasingly disturbing anti-consumerist practices lost them a CEO and more than a little consumer confidence. If he's talking about how DLC and micro-transactions aren't being accepted by the gaming community, it must be because they DLC and the micro-transactions are not working out for them any better.

What is the point of making a reactionary statement and telling us, the gaming community, that we'll warm up to it all and that there's no real legitimate reason we haven't already? That strikes me as a similar practice to sticking your fingers in your ears as a kid and yelling insults to your parents to try to block them out. It's clear that it isn't working. It's clear that it has worked for other companies. A smarter EA might try to look at those and see why. This EA seems to exist solely to lose money and piss everyone off in the process.

You don't want to alienate your consumers anymore, EA, if that's even fuckin' possible at this point.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Spoiler: Journey

[sub]Widely considered to be one of the most artistic and visually brilliant games ever to come out. Completely different from any other[/sub]
[sup] game on the PS3, or any home console for that matter.[/sup]

Spoiler: Oh, look, that game.

[sup]The same thing as 3, but without babies and pools. The reaction to this announcement was obvious. Outrage.[/sup]

His logic is absoloutely flawless. I mean, EA is changing so much recently. I mean, in Inquisition, there are how many new party members? The Inquisitor, Iron Bull, and Sera? Out of an 8 person party? I know it's not our fault, Bioware, but it could not be.

He does almost have a point, especially with the kind of audiences The Sims and other casual games draw in, but how is this going to sound to EA's fans? "You're a stupid, uncreative and unadventurous dickhead, come get din-dins."

 

[Bashfluff]

Spoiler: Journey

[sub]Widely considered to be one of the most artistic and visually brilliant games ever to come out. Completely different from any other[/sub]
[sup] game on the PS3, or any home console for that matter.[/sup]

Spoiler: Oh, look, that game.

[sup]The same thing as 3, but without babies and pools. The reaction to this announcement was obvious. Outrage.[/sup]

His logic is absoloutely flawless. I mean, EA is changing so much recently. I mean, in Inquisition, there are how many new party members? The Inquisitor, Iron Bull, and Sera? Out of an 8 person party? I know it's not our fault, Bioware, but it could not be.

He does almost have a point, especially with the kind of audiences The Sims and other casual games draw in, but how is this going to sound to EA's fans? "You're a stupid, uncreative and unadventurous dickhead, come get din-dins."

That is what baffles me. It would have been much more acceptable to say something along the lines of, "In this tough economy, we've already seen gamers are more hesitant to take chances on new IP coming out from AAA studios. Independent games have risen to prominence by taking advantage of this by costing less. However, many of them can be far shorter than gamers want. We here at EA want to push forward utilizing two strategies: making the AAA games you buy last longer through the use of DLC, and putting out more games with the F2P model. This allows us to satisfy as many of our customers as possible.

Unfortunately, both of these ideas are recent and subject to scrutiny as developers and consumers alike try to decide how these should be used in their games. We hope that in time players we come to accept these ideas and blah blah blah blah give us money"

Instead they throw out this caustic remark that appears to attempt to shame gamers as a whole for rebelling against EA's terrible business practices. If you shroud what you say in corporate doublespeak and vague half-truths, you don't get as much backlash as you would if you straight up lied to people. Not only did he lie, but he insulted us with that lie intentionally and seemingly assumes that we'll be ashamed of not lapping up whatever it is EA wants to sell us and then drop any and all complaints.

It's...I legitimately don't understand this. Not even as a smart business decision. It seems like an awful thing to say no matter who aims to benefit.

 

[sniddy_v1legacy]

Am I the only one smelling a jimquisition