Jimquisition: Damn Fine Coffee

[zinho73]

A little tale to illustrate how focus groups should be used.

Several years ago I was a marketing manager at a shopping mall and the supervisor insisted in making a focus group to see what kind of store we should bring to the mall. A lot of people said that they wanted store X (a sportswear brand) and the super was intent on inviting that same store to the mall.

But this is how I read it:
. We have a lot of sportswear fans at the mall that are not buying sportswear stuff here because they are already buying elsewhere. Their loyalty is already elsewhere and to change that is an uphill battle.

Conclusion:
. Let's bring another sportswear brand that people never heard of. It is novel but aligned with our costumers tastes. They say they want brand X because it is all they know. The new sportswear store was a huge success.

In the words of Henry Ford: If I've had done exactly what people want me to do I would have given them a faster horse.

 

[zinho73]

Jst to finish my thoughts: Focus groups data are data for interpretation not to follow blindly.

 

[Bazaalmon]

I actually love black coffee, if the beans are good. Preferably Ethiopian or Brazilian, always fair-trade. If I'm getting coffee from Starbucks or whatever, I add milk and splenda, but when I use my french press, I love blacker-than-midnight-on-a-moonless-night coffee. It's freaking delicious.
Yeah, I'm a coffee snob.

Spoiler: Deal with it

 

[Akytalusia]

but... but i really do like my coffee black as midnight on a moonless night... anything weaker might as well just be coffee flavored tea, or water... anyway.. it would benefit us all if the industry started listening to you. i wonder if there's anything we can do to get that to happen. it's a damn shame if none of your words are reaching any significant ears.

 

[TheKrigeron]

You could have just made a GTA background jeez Escapist

How do you make this shit in a week? damng good content

 

[Proverbial Jon]

Except it WORKED for them. You'll note he said nothing about how much publisher interference was involved in the games in question. Somehow I doubt focus groups and publisher demands were responsible for any major changes in AGWAS/R&C. Whereas you can be damned sure they were responsible for the major changes in Overstrike/Fuse.

Yeah, you have a point there. From what I understand both Half Life and Halo were very different games during the iniial stages of their production. We may have ended up with far inferior games had the respective developers not decided to change things for the better.

It's just a little odd that the concept of Girl with a stick is SO different to Ratchet and Clank, I mean you'd think a game development studio would have a clear idea of the type of game they are making first.

The article linked by Headdrivehardscrew contained this line from CEO Ted Price regarding Overstrike/Fuse

At the time, when we showed Overstrike in 2011, we weren't where we needed to be with the weapons. We had some cool concepts on paper and in the video, but ultimately, when we started playing the game, the weapons lacked heft, they lacked impact, and they lacked that fun factor that we believe is at the core of every one of our games.

In short, Insomniac themselves orchestrated the changes to the game, it was not a product of publisher pressure. The most baffling part of the whole thing is that Overstrike, a fun, stylised and colourful 4 player shooter, turned into Fuse, a grey, gritty, cover based shooter, because they thought the guns weren't "fun" enough. Why would you change the tone of the game so dramatically when your guns were the problem? Surely the OTT nature of Overstrike gave far more opportunity for fun guns and silly gameplay.

 

[Vegosiux]

And this is why it's so hard to be a rational consumer. Because the entire market is skewed towards people who spend cash they don't have, on things they don't need or want, to impress people they don't even like or care about.

Keep going, Jim. While I could have said all you've said yourself, I could not have put it even remotely so well.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I think a lot of the pretentiousness we see in games (especially "story driven" games) is also thanks to this social desirability bias. I think many people want to sound like the kind of person who wants to play a slow moving "story driven" game like Heavy Rain because then people might think they're not the kind of gamer that goes onto CoD shouting slurs.

Hmm, I didn't think of that before. What do you mean when you say "pretentious"? I get the feeling it means that the game's story is calling you the player an awful person, or something like that.

I mean the habit of making something relatively mundane and trying too hard to make it seem like its so much more important. Like in the aforementioned Heavy Rain you have to sit and watch your character's kid eat dinner and do his homework. Doing these things with your real life kid is important when you're doing it but I would never make someone else watch and doing this with a game npc you've just met is absurdly tedious.

Or in GTA4 (minor spoiler you probably already know BTW) where they kill off that girl you went on a date with that time and expect you to get all emotional, not taking into account that you probably killed 60 people just driving to that location...on the sidewalks.

Brother, that's a pretty profound start to the week. Nice going.

You should hear me after I've smoked a couple of spliffs.
It's not all that profound when you think about it. How many people did you know in HS who tried really hard to "fit in." How many HS graduates have you met that have matured since then?

 

[Lilani]

Jim did you seriously talk about beating a dead horse while bitching and moaning about EA?
Seriously Jim? Your teaching the same lesson with a new spin every week now.

Dear God man Diversify.

Not saying it sucks, not saying it's bad.. it's an awesome lesson... And i like reputation Lord knows i play diablo 3,

But come on man Just a little something else. I swear to God we won't all start magically respecting EA 1 week later if you shelf bitching about them just a little bit.

Pretty please?

He'll have a reason to stop talking about it when it stops being a problem. He kicked off this video with the new Insomniac trailer as evidence that this still is a problem. Also, I don't think he's had an episode completely dedicated to focus groups. He's talked about them a lot, but never gone this in depth.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

I think, in a certain sense, the online community circlejerk also has it's own social desirability demands.

What do *you* want from games? "Innovation" seems to be a popular demand, that makes us all sound refined and knowledgeable, but it's one of those cases where the word ounds good on paper, but in practice, most of us would rather play a comfortably familiar genre with nicely fine-tuned mechanics, and slightly curious setting, than something with no familiarity at all.

Dear god, all my this^^^

I hate it when people in threads don't even realize they've turned in the buzz word spewing people they're criticizing.
I hate brown shooters!
Indi games all the way!
Games need color!

Just ranting as thought putting those things into a game is some kind of magic recipe for success.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.395876-Sonic-06-Objectively-Better-Than-Portal

Best. Thread. Ever.

 

[Something Amyss]

On the other hand, the reverse of this is also true, if you imagine online movie geeks as a kind of focus group, that just weren't asked by studios.

The only reason why we tend to imagine "New IP" as the pinnacle of enjoyable entertainment, is because just like with my earlier post's example of "innovation", it's one of those things that we all like to repeat in an echo-chamber as it sounds very sophisticated and intelligent.

Go to a specialized TV show or game or movie fandom, ask people what they want, and they will admit "More of our favorite thing". But ask them all in front of the Escapist forums, and they will all say "New IP", because none of them wants to admit to being That Guy who cares more about a franchise than about the Freshness of the Industry.

Personally, I've gone on record as thinking the "innovation" craze and the whole "new IP are necessary" are ridiculous, and I'll keep doing it.

Also, throw in immersion, since most people keep using that word and I don't think it means what they think it means.

 

[TurboPanda]

The most ironic thing about this problem is that market research almost prevented Modern Warfare 1 from happening. If it wasn't for Infinity Ward practically begging Activision to give them a chance the generic modern military shooter wouldn't exist in the first place. http://uk.gamespot.com/news/activision-did-not-want-modern-warfare-infinity-ward-6232123

 

[Arawn]

Once again Jim makes sense. But I'm curious how it's gotten like this. I've done so many alpha and beta tests, you'd think with the feedback companies would see the error of their ways. But really how can this happen? You don't walk into a T-Mobile store and start asking who likes T-mobile. You're supposed to get John Smith And Sally Jane on the sidewalk and see what they think. Yet it makes sense if you are targeting a certain group. With every survey I've taken I've spoken my mind as best I can. Still there's no telling if it made a difference. It's been pointed out that they shift results to favor their desired outcome. Or as mentioned they rather play it safe than go out on that limb alone. Sure the studies show if we add Unicorns and Rainbow cats to the game everyone will like it. But when the sales don't come through it's not my fault. We all saw the data. Abit lame, but innovation is risk and no one wants to try too hard. Stick to the formula.


http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/previews/9916-Overstrike-Becomes-Fuse

Yeah I remember when I saw that announcement. I was shocked to say the least. Who made that call? While it's nice to see that parts of Overstrike lives on in Fuse. The original idea looked so much more appealing. But it's possible it would have had the same mechanics as the current game has. Would the appearance and style have pushed the sales? Hard to say at this point.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Uh, New Coke was a massive success.

It refocused attention on the Coca Cola brand, and away from Pepsi. People were buying Coke in massive quantities and stockpiling it. And then they got to re-release Coke as "Coke Classic" to incredible sales. Meanwhile, Pepsi was left in the corner getting no publicity for their brand.

 

[Loop Stricken]

I couldn't help but think of Team Fortress 2 while watching the over strike video (similar art style), which immediately made me excited, then crushed by the Fuse video. Dammit Jim!!

I couldn't help but think "what fool wouldn't want to play as this [http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/screenshots/Overstrike/os_izzy.jpg] cute asskicking redhead?"

 

[badgersprite]

Focus testing is riddled with problems. Ever hear the phrase, "A cow is a horse designed by committee?" That's what you get when you try and make a game that pleases everyone by adding one element and taking away another. You please nobody at all.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

I am a girly-girl and gay and full of cooties![footnote]And you can quote me on that.[/footnote]

That is to say, I am more inclined to play a female protagonist than yet another grizzled space marine in boxy armor.

And I drink mochas. With whip. Blended if it's a warm day.

238U

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

Uh, New Coke was a massive success. It refocused attention on the Coca Cola brand, and away from Pepsi.

Um...no [http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/newcoke.asp]. It was a well-salvaged flop.

238U

 

[Baresark]

I'll expand on what Jim was talking about further with my good old friends, Kahneman and Tverski. Their work revealed that peoples tastes are NOT constant. People by their nature are irrational. That means that when people said they wanted those things in the focus groups, they may have actually wanted to see those things. But people's taste are not constant. Everyone's tastes actually change from situation to situation in completely unpredictable ways. It's the irrational mind of the average person they are trying to design a game for, and that will always lead to failure.

Edit: I do take my coffee black. But I have never met anyone like me, who actually likes to take their coffee black. That said, if you take your coffee black, you probably prefer a lighter roast, not a rich dark roast. When you add cream and sugar to your coffee, you need typically need to have a darker richer roast to even have a discernibly noticeable flavor of coffee. Focus groups are twats.

 

[Jewpacabra]

Just a thing about new Coke... didn't Coke make massive amount of cash re-releasing "traditional" coke back into the wild? And the people went nuts over this old thing they had loved, released as new again, at a massive mark-up, because when the new thing came out all trace of what we loved was...well not scorched from the earth, but my point is the console market now is like the soda market of the mid to late 80's