Jimquisition: The Unholy Trinity Of Blind Greedy Bastards

[Demonchaser27]

Good video Jim.
I've believed something like this was the case. Not exactly this way, but I always assumed a bunch of rich guys that don't know nor care about video games were running the show. I mean that's how all of this crap ends up happening. An industry starts up for awhile and starts building up steam. Then once it gets popular enough for big business executives and marketers to notice. Then that's when it starts. They jump in and acquire companies, basically just ransacking everything in order to chase the next gold rush. That's all these publisher/marketing types really are. Their entire existence is chasing "gold rushes". Imagine that. What a sad existence. That's why they're never happy.


And to the 5:00 mark. I'm so so so sick and tired of this mentality in the industry. I'm so ****ing tired of this idea that games MUST be an endless fee. I hate and have always hated subscritions, on-going DLC, and Microtransactions. I mean seriously, what was wrong with just buying a game and that being enough? I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that buying your game once at full retail or sale price was and always will be the best deal and will garner the most support for the developer. At the very least devs will stop people from absolutely hating their guts.

I mean when I was younger I would stay away from certain games I didn't care for, sure. But these days I have to stay away from entire companies because I can't and won't risk being screwed by them nor supporting their shite business practices. The thing is that nowadays when I look up a game I now have to worry, is this going to be a GAME I can buy and fully enjoy, or a marketing trap (Microtransactions, numerous DLCs, etc.). I didn't use to have to do that. Even if I didn't like a game I could at least respect that when I bought it, it was the done deal. This is what they were offering and if I didn't like it I could say, "Well maybe they have another game I want". Now though you have guys like EA or Ubisoft where I buy one game and say, "I hate all this locked content and DRM" and from there I can no longer buy games from them. Mainly because all of their games are gonna be like that.

Thank you , some indies. I won't say indies have been much better. Some have, most haven't. So maybe one day enough people will get a grip on reality. And then maybe we can go back to games being fun, enjoyable, and not rip-offs. Then again, it might just take a crash for that to happen. Because sadly, you can never change big business. It always wants you to change for it. Which is the reverse that they'll have to realize one day soon.

Thank god for Jim.

 

[Demonchaser27]

I want to know how this happened. How is it that people who know nothing about video games ended up running video game companies?

This is how just about all companies work. I worked at Labcrop for a long time. They would hire people that just popped out of school with no knowledge of how this type of business runs. What position did they hire them? Head of management positions. Positions that really should be reserved for people who know the in and outs of the business. But no. They have their flashy degree and upbeat attitude, so they automatically get the job. While there's nothing wrong with a degree, you need experience in the field first. But they didn't care about that. They want new blood that they can taint. They don't want people that have common sense and have been working there for awhile. Because they're harder to corrupt. They've seen what higher ups are really like for too long I suppose. It was a train wreck up there.

 

[Demonchaser27]

So many people I work with do not play, or really make, video games. I'm going to ask anyone willing to read this to go on an experiment with me:

1. Download Fantasica, Rage of Bahamut, or Marvel: War of Heroes.
2. Play it. Or try to. If you can't or won't make it to the 10 minute mark, this is because you are sentient.
3. Once you're at this step, I want you to read this slowly and carefully: Right now, in a large portion of game companies, there are people who hold serious amounts of sway over money and resource allocation that believe these games are exactly what users want, and that they should not just be followed but outright copied. These are people who make 6 figures easily.

For those that want the crash course: These games are the most devious and obvious contenders for systems that are made exclusively to generate money.

To those that haven't heard of clash of clans, it is THE highest grossing game on all mobile platforms, rumored to be making millions of dollars a day. This game, while there are systems I find disturbing, has extreme amounts of polish which go a long way in making a game stand out on the app stores.

To balance out this negativity, realize that there are people within these companies who are working to make games, and are in the positions to do so. There's a lot of us, we're just not always given opportunities. Stay strong, and buy games you love -- it has a much larger effect than you may realize.

This isn't going against what you've said here. But you know what I find funny. The highest grossing mobile games never get the "real" popularity you would expect from a game that grosses so much money. Hilarious isn't it. A game like Dark Souls or Super Metroid which in a million years won't make as much as these games gets talked about and revered for years to come. Hell their are entire developer forums dedicated to discussing what make these two games so engrossing for the player STILL TO THIS DAY.

Mobile games never get that kind of deep discussion afaik. Its likely because of these supposed "whales" as their disgustingly called.

I guess as I've suspected for quite some time, "Highest gross profit" doesn't mean "Highest quality game".

 

[Demonchaser27]

So when we've been saying that those games are "destroying gaming" we've actually been right? Huh. Fancy that. It's not hyperbole when it's true, now is it?

I think that's inherently incorrect. It's doing a lot of things that long-term will be effective. A lot of people who never played video games are now playing them on mobile. The downside is that some of those experiences are taking advantage of them. BUT when their pallet grows and they experience better titles, their expectations will be adjusted.

But people who play games on mobile are not gamers. They just have a phone and play games on it. They did not make a conscious decision to game, they just do it when they have nothing better to do on the way to something else, waiting around, or in the bathroom.

I can attest to this quite frankly. I've worked with and have a few buddies who don't game. They have games like Candy Crush. They only play them in between conversations and during commercials on TV. They don't game to game.
Think of it this way. Remember back when people would sit on a bench and kick their feet or twiddle their thumbs. Yeah, well now instead of twiddling their thumbs, they play Candy Crush. The non-gaming buddies who play Candy Crush still ask me sometimes when I discuss games with other people, what I'm talking about. They don't know gaming news, systems, games or just about anything else in gaming. You don't have to know all of this stuff to be a gamer, but you should probably know at least a little about it to actually define yourself as a gamer. My female friend and work buddies do this to waste away idle time, and nothing more.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I want to know how this happened. How is it that people who know nothing about video games ended up running video game companies?

We live in a world of professional CEOs. If you were a great CEO of a shampoo company, and were able to double sales of X shampoo then it makes perfect sense (In the current world that is Corporate America) that you would be just as good running a company that has traditionally made RPGs. The idea is this, because you market shampoo, people like the ads for the shampoo and like the social stature associated with said shampoo, they buy the shampoo and use it. Thus if you market the game well, people like the ads for the game, and like the social stature associate with the game then you have done your job. The fact that shampoo is a bunch of chemicals put into a bottle and shipped out, whereas a game is a piece of art created by a collective group and then copied over a million times for resale doesn't really enter into the equation.

But isn't it the responsibility of the CEO to familiarize themselves with the product they are trying to sell?

Logically? Yes. In practice? No. It is the responibility of a CEO to increase the stock price. Whatever has to be done to achieve that goal should be done, if a CEO doesn't think product familiarity is important then they won't bother.

Well that doesn't seem to be working for many of these companies, does it?

 

[Erttheking]

...

I've never even heard of Clash of Clans. Is it a big mobile title or something?

I've seen the blonde looking warriors pop up in a few adverts but not actually seen the game itself, is it a stratergy game like Civ?

My little cousin plays it, it seems to be one of those games where you build a base along with buildings that churn out resources that you use to buy other things, including more buildings and army units, and then you attack other bases for their stuff. And then there are microtransactions for where you just want to buy gems that are worth a ton of resources It seems fun enough, but not something I want ruling the industry.

Then again, my little cousin also plays Minecraft, so he probably knows more about gaming than these people do. I'm not gonna lie, I actually felt embarrassed when he managed to build a REALLY nice looking castle complete with hidden trap door entrance powered by pistons (Though it gets stuck someones) when I still don't know how pistons work.

 

[Middle_Index]

I want to know how this happened. How is it that people who know nothing about video games ended up running video game companies?

Shareholders.

 

[hydrolythe]

What I don't get is why none of the AAA developers has tried to copy Minecraft?

My guess is marketing and image. Whoever copies it first (i mean AAA companys, i'm aware there a hundrets of low cost Minecraft clones)will get a very bad reputation as copycat. And don't forget: Everyone who like games like Minecraft owns Minecraft. So why should they buy a (high res?) clone of it.

Erm...but you could say the same exact same thing about CoD, CC and CoC, yet AAA's are all too anxious to copy them...

That's someting different (from a marketing perspective). They only copy from each other, companys on their level. In the gaming public the AAA companys are often seen as "evil, big dinosaurs". The indy companys on the other hand are seen as "underdogs who succeed against all odds" and are seen as "good".
When one of the "evil" companys clones a game of a "good" company, the backlash would explode the internet, especially in the case of Minecraft.

And smaller studios can copy big ones. I mean, what can hey loose? They don't have any reputation or goodwill to loose.

Sorry for my clumsy english. I studied Marketing and Trade Marketing in business school and i could explain it a lot better, but only in german, sorry.[/quote]

I disagree, there are plenty of indie developers that specialize in the marketing of shovelware games to the public (such as Data Design Interactive and Blast! Entertainment, just to name a few).
Usually those companies are doing questionable business practices which lead towards a backlash from a lot of people.

What I'm trying to get across here is that indie developers aren't necessarily good, the bad indie developers just get a more degrading label (such as that of a shovelware developer).

 

[hydrolythe]

Yeah I thought you already sorta knew all this stuff, Jim... I don't work in games but I am a student of the broader IT systems industry, and they TEACH this stuff as part of the business curriculum. Appeal to large audiences, appeal to demographics with money, growth is everything and if you're not growing you're losing. Whole assignments based around trying to sell unpopular monitoring and other features as important services. In information systems in general, there have been quite a few situations where I've been asked with new and creative ways to collect data from people. Social media is not viewed as a tool, but as the most direct way to collect information to tune business and marketing strategies.

The reason why those three are the models for success is not because they are good games, but because they've done everything "right" when it comes to marketing, growth, and siphoning as much money out as possible.

To be fair, my school does teach a variety of approaches, and niche audiences are taught to be just as potentially profitable, but you're also basically taught "look at the rest of the industry and do what works."

Just for fun, could you ask your Teacher's opinions about whether or not teaching outright Deception and methods for draining the Soul out of any and all Industries is personally satisfying? Is there a set amount of income at which it is considered appropriate to just toss all integrity out the window and utterly shit all over the customers whose very dollars are providing your supper? I would LOVE to hear an answer to that at the Teacher's level.

Also, could you ask said teacher's opinion of what directly amounts to plagiarism? I hear that Plagiarism is a bigg NO NO in academic circles.

Again, to be fair, it's not so much about what the teachers (keep in mind that there are multiple business classes and they all focus on the aforementioned aspects), it's about what businesses are looking for out of big-picture IT employees and marketers. It might seem strange or superbad that a marketer or CEO in the games industry has never worked in games before and know little about them, but that's the way it works in every industry. If you're a marketer for a produce company your job is not to know about every intricacy of the produce industry, your job is to market the product to the people the higher-ups want you to market to.

This is why executive decisions and the "tone at the top" is so important. Some companies just turn their marketing over to the marketing department and let them drive marketing, using a lot of employee and industry expert feedback to craft the best message. Some CEOs will try and direct marketing themselves and not bother to involve anyone who actually know the audience at the ground level, which is how you get Dead Space's "your mom is going hate it" commercials. You might hate what Clash of Clans stands for, but you have to admit that the commercials (which play quite frequently) are quite effective at appealing to multiple audiences. Your job as a marketer is not to make the game or even care about the quality of it, your job is to get people to download and buy it.

The difference between a disconnected, "soulless" company like EA and a company most people love like Valve is that Valve simply knows its audiences much better because the people at the top are gamers and experts themselves.

Yeah, I agree, but what gets me is not that we have CEO's without any knowledge of video games ruling the industry, but it is the restraint view the CEO's have of the video game industry. By that I mean the idea that games can be categorized in 3 groups. This is not something you expect a CEO to do. Imagine if a CEO of a big multi-million dollar clothing company would do the same thing and only produce 3 types of clothing. Not only do you hinder yourself because people who need clothing need more than just those 3 types of clothing but you are also allowing your competition to make more profit because your competition can fill that gap for the customers with less trouble and more profit.

 

[RunicFox]

So many people I work with do not play, or really make, video games. I'm going to ask anyone willing to read this to go on an experiment with me:

1. Download Fantasica, Rage of Bahamut, or Marvel: War of Heroes.
2. Play it. Or try to. If you can't or won't make it to the 10 minute mark, this is because you are sentient.
3. Once you're at this step, I want you to read this slowly and carefully: Right now, in a large portion of game companies, there are people who hold serious amounts of sway over money and resource allocation that believe these games are exactly what users want, and that they should not just be followed but outright copied. These are people who make 6 figures easily.

For those that want the crash course: These games are the most devious and obvious contenders for systems that are made exclusively to generate money.

To those that haven't heard of clash of clans, it is THE highest grossing game on all mobile platforms, rumored to be making millions of dollars a day. This game, while there are systems I find disturbing, has extreme amounts of polish which go a long way in making a game stand out on the app stores.

To balance out this negativity, realize that there are people within these companies who are working to make games, and are in the positions to do so. There's a lot of us, we're just not always given opportunities. Stay strong, and buy games you love -- it has a much larger effect than you may realize.

This isn't going against what you've said here. But you know what I find funny. The highest grossing mobile games never get the "real" popularity you would expect from a game that grosses so much money. Hilarious isn't it. A game like Dark Souls or Super Metroid which in a million years won't make as much as these games gets talked about and revered for years to come. Hell their are entire developer forums dedicated to discussing what make these two games so engrossing for the player STILL TO THIS DAY.

Mobile games never get that kind of deep discussion afaik. Its likely because of these supposed "whales" as their disgustingly called.

I guess as I've suspected for quite some time, "Highest gross profit" doesn't mean "Highest quality game".

So, Metroid and Dark Souls wouldn't sell well on a mobile platform because they aren't (weren't) made for a mobile device. You'll see some games coming out soon that are, a-la Ridiculous Fishing or the FTL iPad release, that seriously feel great and earn some fans. The reason most consumers aren't seeing in-depth conversations about how to improve mobile is that they either aren't reading the right sources (and normally wouldn't) or aren't at the places these conversations have been had (Any gaming conference, but specifically Pax Dev, Steam Dev Days, and even GDC).

Also, anyone who uses the word Whale is basically missing the entire point, but that's a rant for another time and another place. Currently though, you're right. There are no superb games, outside of minecraft, that hit the top 10-20 in top grossing and stay there consistently. These companies are looking for consistent, high value titles. What they don't know yet is how to make players happy. Churn is a big problem for games that aren't Clash of Clans -- Even Candy Crush has high churn

So when we've been saying that those games are "destroying gaming" we've actually been right? Huh. Fancy that. It's not hyperbole when it's true, now is it?

I think that's inherently incorrect. It's doing a lot of things that long-term will be effective. A lot of people who never played video games are now playing them on mobile. The downside is that some of those experiences are taking advantage of them. BUT when their pallet grows and they experience better titles, their expectations will be adjusted.

But people who play games on mobile are not gamers. They just have a phone and play games on it. They did not make a conscious decision to game, they just do it when they have nothing better to do on the way to something else, waiting around, or in the bathroom.

I can attest to this quite frankly. I've worked with and have a few buddies who don't game. They have games like Candy Crush. They only play them in between conversations and during commercials on TV. They don't game to game.
Think of it this way. Remember back when people would sit on a bench and kick their feet or twiddle their thumbs. Yeah, well now instead of twiddling their thumbs, they play Candy Crush. The non-gaming buddies who play Candy Crush still ask me sometimes when I discuss games with other people, what I'm talking about. They don't know gaming news, systems, games or just about anything else in gaming. You don't have to know all of this stuff to be a gamer, but you should probably know at least a little about it to actually define yourself as a gamer. My female friend and work buddies do this to waste away idle time, and nothing more.

That sounds to me like your friends don't want to associate their play time with something they deem inherently negative, a symptom all of us have seen for a long time. Just because they are not entrenched in the system doesn't mean they aren't reaping the benefits of fun. They don't play it for any other reason than enjoyment. I call that a gamer.

 

[hydrolythe]

And the Bible isn't an entertainment franchise. Thats just being facetious.

You didn't say "entertainment franchise" - you said "fictional franchise." And the Bible is both fictional, and the biggest literary franchise of all time.

So, I really don't understand how it's facetious to include the largest fictional franchise of all time among "fictional franchises." Hell it would also qualify as as an "entertainment franchise" because it has entertained so many people over the Centuries.

There are way more muslims then there are Christians. So why did they select the Bible? With all the previous in mind you find out that it makes absolutely no sense, as the Koran is because of it by far more recognizable and is therefore a better candidate to represent. But then again, you can not suppose that the guy who created that list did any research whatsoever.

 

[Disthron]

The Unholy Trinity Of Blind Greedy Bastards

Only three videogames in the world exist, according to those who now get to make all the videogame decisions. The blind lead the blind, and ignorance reigns supreme.

Watch Video

I had to pause the video and go and look up what "Clash of Clans" was. I'd never heard of it before. Though once I'd seen a few screen shots I did recognise it. I guess I just never paid attention of that game.

 

[hydrolythe]

Yeah I thought you already sorta knew all this stuff, Jim... I don't work in games but I am a student of the broader IT systems industry, and they TEACH this stuff as part of the business curriculum. Appeal to large audiences, appeal to demographics with money, growth is everything and if you're not growing you're losing. Whole assignments based around trying to sell unpopular monitoring and other features as important services. In information systems in general, there have been quite a few situations where I've been asked with new and creative ways to collect data from people. Social media is not viewed as a tool, but as the most direct way to collect information to tune business and marketing strategies.

The reason why those three are the models for success is not because they are good games, but because they've done everything "right" when it comes to marketing, growth, and siphoning as much money out as possible.

To be fair, my school does teach a variety of approaches, and niche audiences are taught to be just as potentially profitable, but you're also basically taught "look at the rest of the industry and do what works."

Just for fun, could you ask your Teacher's opinions about whether or not teaching outright Deception and methods for draining the Soul out of any and all Industries is personally satisfying? Is there a set amount of income at which it is considered appropriate to just toss all integrity out the window and utterly shit all over the customers whose very dollars are providing your supper? I would LOVE to hear an answer to that at the Teacher's level.

Also, could you ask said teacher's opinion of what directly amounts to plagiarism? I hear that Plagiarism is a bigg NO NO in academic circles.

Again, to be fair, it's not so much about what the teachers (keep in mind that there are multiple business classes and they all focus on the aforementioned aspects), it's about what businesses are looking for out of big-picture IT employees and marketers. It might seem strange or superbad that a marketer or CEO in the games industry has never worked in games before and know little about them, but that's the way it works in every industry. If you're a marketer for a produce company your job is not to know about every intricacy of the produce industry, your job is to market the product to the people the higher-ups want you to market to.

This is why executive decisions and the "tone at the top" is so important. Some companies just turn their marketing over to the marketing department and let them drive marketing, using a lot of employee and industry expert feedback to craft the best message. Some CEOs will try and direct marketing themselves and not bother to involve anyone who actually know the audience at the ground level, which is how you get Dead Space's "your mom is going hate it" commercials. You might hate what Clash of Clans stands for, but you have to admit that the commercials (which play quite frequently) are quite effective at appealing to multiple audiences. Your job as a marketer is not to make the game or even care about the quality of it, your job is to get people to download and buy it.

The difference between a disconnected, "soulless" company like EA and a company most people love like Valve is that Valve simply knows its audiences much better because the people at the top are gamers and experts themselves.

I see your points, and thank you, but you didn't really address my questions.
I understand that what is being taught IS what the businesses want. Which to go from the Games Industry, is people as skilled as possible in the art of Deception, Plagiarism, and the desire to Monetize Teens and Whales for the retention of Virility. Also if you know how to Silence people Opinions or Reviews of your product so that only good reviews can be read this is a bonus.
I am curious to know a Teacher's moral standpoint on this. Or even your own opinion on the fact that this is what IS if not WILL be taught in said curriculum given the way these Businesses operate? Unless of course, it's too late and HYDRA already has your College (University?) on lock-down.

Well, nothing is really industry, specific, and that includes games. There's nothing about monetizing whales or any of that nonsense in the previous Jimquisition. Nothing, however, is really taught as the "right way" to do something. I think it's just getting as many techniques as possible. From an IT perspective, the main tools we have is data, so you can't really blame people from wanting to find ways to come up with more. It's not just that, however, you HAVE to know how to utilize big data to keep competitive. At the same time, you also have to be aware of privacy concerns, and being considered one of the "good" companies in people's eyes can be its own large benefit. Packaged goods, in particular, isn't an industry that is built around a lot of customer goodwill, people want to buy the stuff and have it work once it's opened. It's largely the same with fast good, Walmart, etc. Those companies will exist so long as they offer low prices, and them being "evil" behind the scenes is something the vast majority of their consumer base won't care about.

Video games, however, are much different. Even from a theoretically perspective, these CEOs and marketing departments fail, because they should know that a multimedia video gaming experience is much different than those other industries. They also don't understand the makers of Candy Crush and Clash of Clans' business model. They're not in it for long-term viability, the reason why they want to make as much money as possible right now is because it won't be too long until something else comes along and knocks them off, or the whole industry bubble will burst. A proper strategy for a AAA game industry is to generate fandoms around your product, and increase the relationships with them. You can get valuable feedback and data organically, rather than trying to find new ways to collect metadata and derive what is often wrong conclusions from them.

You mention deception, plagiarism, etc., but those things have legally distinct meanings. No one "owns" the tower defense genre, nor should they. The only way you can "plagiarize" a game is if you straight-up use their assets, code, or copy the same exact game in most ways. You still have trademark trolling, of course, but that's sort of the opposite of plagiarism. You could say that light deception is pretty much what all marketing and advertising is based around. You're not legally allowed to knowingly advertise something that is false, however. I'm not a marketer nor do I want to be, and we're certainly not taught to outright lie. I don't think that monetizing whales is what is taught or what will be taught. General strategies which don't seem so bad without a specific context is taught, the problem is that they are applied to video games without considering context, audience, or industry. That is what should be and is taught, for the most part.

Perhaps he was a gamer from back in the 1990's, which is back when companies could own entire genres. A good way of putting it into perspective is by looking at the point & click adventures that were made around that period and comparing the amount of games made by Sierra and Lucasarts to the amount of point & click adventures that were made by other companies in that period.

 

[hydrolythe]

And this is where you have to give Nintendo credit. They know exactly what they want to be. They want to do their own thing. Make their fun games and systems and are trying really hard not go fall into the trap that these other companies did. I mean there was an investor that made news earlier this year. Saying "What if they could pay $.99 to make Mario jump just a little higher?" He didn't see anything but dollar signs and those dollar signs came from games like Candy Crush and Clash of Clans. Criticize them or their console all you want. You can't deny that Nintendo has stuck to its guns, unmoved for longer than anyone else, they're reaching out to indies these days and sure they may be late to the party but in terms of company practices I still say the worst thing they do is region lock and shut down youtube content. Which yeah is pretty bad but compared to trying to make money for money's sake and imitating games like the 3 mentioned in the video that's a pretty small crime. No company is ever innocent. We do have to at least acknowledge the AAA companies that haven't traded us in for an extra yacht.

I will have to be honest, I dislike how the company is dealing their third-party business practices. Just looking a little at the way they wanted third-party developers to cooperate with them tells us a lot about how nintendo views third-party developers (Of the few rules that I know I know that nintendo said that every company could only release 5 games every year and each game they released on the NES could not go multi platform (although games that weren't first released on the NES could get a release on it)). Only after Sony showed that you could be milder with third-parties nintendo finally realized how harsh their policies were and decided to make them much milder than those of Sony and thus attracted a bunch of shovelware developers on their console. During that time Sony, who did a bad E3 reception tried to get his good reputation back with good second-party games like Uncharted 2. One of their collaborations was with an indie team responsible for the creation of the game Journey. During that collaboration Sony realized how durable indie developers are and they decided to give them a lot of support in the future. Meanwhile nintendo neglected that particular market entirely. If you don't believe me you have to see when sony helped an indie game company to release a game on their platform and to compare that to the first time nintendo did the same thing (which I doubt they ever did).

What I am trying to show with that statement is that nintendo does not even try to attract indie developers and make of them a viable market and that of the industry was ruled by them they would put extreme restrictions to third-party developers, regardless of the developers own financial health.

 

[Demonchaser27]

So, Metroid and Dark Souls wouldn't sell well on a mobile platform because they aren't (weren't) made for a mobile device. You'll see some games coming out soon that are, a-la Ridiculous Fishing or the FTL iPad release, that seriously feel great and earn some fans. The reason most consumers aren't seeing in-depth conversations about how to improve mobile is that they either aren't reading the right sources (and normally wouldn't) or aren't at the places these conversations have been had (Any gaming conference, but specifically Pax Dev, Steam Dev Days, and even GDC).

Also, anyone who uses the word Whale is basically missing the entire point, but that's a rant for another time and another place. Currently though, you're right. There are no superb games, outside of minecraft, that hit the top 10-20 in top grossing and stay there consistently. These companies are looking for consistent, high value titles. What they don't know yet is how to make players happy. Churn is a big problem for games that aren't Clash of Clans -- Even Candy Crush has high churn

Yeah they wouldn't. But that's kind of my point. Mobile games aren't trying to make anything profound/deep and that's why they're getting the negativity. Most are trying to blatantly rip people off. There is a certain amount of blame to be attributed to the customers. But the real bulk of it goes to certain pubs/devs. They started this trend. They could have started it with deep, enriching games. These people are new to games. They will take what you give them. They can't be blamed for that. They're inexperienced and lack the understanding of games. It is, and you can quote me, 100% possible and viable to make a deep game that is for both audiences. Easy to get into, difficult to master or has enough deep mechanics and gameplay to justify a particular price. But instead we have infinite fees, countless microtransactions, and free to wait games. The choice started with the devs/pubs. New people are looking to get interested in new things, and they were taken advantage of.

That sounds to me like your friends don't want to associate their play time with something they deem inherently negative, a symptom all of us have seen for a long time. Just because they are not entrenched in the system doesn't mean they aren't reaping the benefits of fun. They don't play it for any other reason than enjoyment. I call that a gamer.

Just as an example:
I don't feel like a basketball player because I like to throw balls in a hoop on some weekends. Its not my hobby nor do I aspire to do it frequently. I don't think about it unless my friends call me up to hang out at the gym. To me it seems more like a title for someone who dedicates them self to it.

I appreciate the response(s) even though I was a little late into this topic.

 

[RunicFox]

Yeah they wouldn't. But that's kind of my point. Mobile games aren't trying to make anything profound/deep and that's why they're getting the negativity. Most are trying to blatantly rip people off. There is a certain amount of blame to be attributed to the customers. But the real bulk of it goes to certain pubs/devs. They started this trend. They could have started it with deep, enriching games. These people are new to games. They will take what you give them. They can't be blamed for that. They're inexperienced and lack the understanding of games. It is, and you can quote me, 100% possible and viable to make a deep game that is for both audiences. Easy to get into, difficult to master or has enough deep mechanics and gameplay to justify a particular price. But instead we have infinite fees, countless microtransactions, and free to wait games. The choice started with the devs/pubs. New people are looking to get interested in new things, and they were taken advantage of.

When people started making mobile games, it was to figure out HOW to make them. The control schema is still being experimented with. Now that there are some good examples out there, people are trying to figure out exactly what can work, and how long people *really* want to play them. Fast, puzzle games should probably last no longer than 3 - 5 minutes, as an example. They should also be "Portrait" and not "Landscape" in order to allow players to quickly go back to other apps, or take a call.

What you're addressing sounds more to me like being upset at people who aren't so much exploring the space, but exploiting it. Most of the games you will see on top grossing are carry overs from A) Web or B) Japan/Asia where these games have been around for awhile. What we will see within the next few years are people who experiment with what I stated above: How to play, how long, how to engage, what genres, how to mold old genres, and also how to stay in business to continue making their titles.

Just as an example:
I don't feel like a basketball player because I like to throw balls in a hoop on some weekends. Its not my hobby nor do I aspire to do it frequently. I don't think about it unless my friends call me up to hang out at the gym. To me it seems more like a title for someone who dedicates them self to it.

I appreciate the response(s) even though I was a little late into this topic.

You wouldn't do it if you didn't enjoy it. I would call that exercise specifically with your example. Mine was that they would not engage in play unless they were stimulated by the game. They are, in fact, playing.

Your example I'm unsure if you're playing basket ball or just shooting hoops. On the first, you are playing basket ball -- probably because you enjoy it. On the second, you're messing around with your friends -- probably because you enjoy it. Both of these are still playing. We arbitrarily assign words to these actions, but play is the main theme and I would say you are playing basketball. Basketball Player.

 

[Demonchaser27]

As someone working in one of the marketing departments in question, I have to disagree here. In our company, marketing consists of gamers who love games and want to see and make better ones, while the department actually coordinating the development are the cynical, business-driven people who couldn't care less about games that Jim is describing. I know, taking a stab at the marketing departments of the world is easy, and the point itself stands, but please keep in mind that sometimes the situation may be quite different from how it would seem.

The main point - that this industry is largely led by people who have no real connection to the product - is of course absolutely correct - but all that happens WAY above the level of "the marketing department".

That's pretty interesting information. Nice to hear from someone in the house.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

There are way more muslims then there are Christians.

No there, aren't. There are more Christians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations

With all the previous in mind you find out that it makes absolutely no sense, as the Koran is because of it by far more recognizable and is therefore a better candidate to represent.

There's also the issue that a lot more followers of Islam are illiterate, and couldn't even read the Koran if they wanted to. Christianity was spread by the printing press and technology, where Islam was spread much more orally and tribally. The Bible is famous as a printed book, and is crucial to the history of printed books.

"Franchise" was also part of the terminology being used. Christianity has also proven to be much more franchisable, with a lot of different permutations and obscure sects. While there are variant sects of Islam, they are fewer, and the Christians generally don't tend to fight each other about the different versions as vigorously (at least not recently).

But then again, you can not suppose that the guy who created that list did any research whatsoever.

It wasn't a researched list. It was just a few things off the top of my head challenging (the also completely unresearched) claim that Pokemon was the third-most recognizable fictional franchise in the world, and that Star Wars is the first. All I was saying is that is a highly skewed perspective with no evidence supporting it.

 

[Thanatos2k]

So when we've been saying that those games are "destroying gaming" we've actually been right? Huh. Fancy that. It's not hyperbole when it's true, now is it?

I think that's inherently incorrect. It's doing a lot of things that long-term will be effective. A lot of people who never played video games are now playing them on mobile. The downside is that some of those experiences are taking advantage of them. BUT when their pallet grows and they experience better titles, their expectations will be adjusted.

But people who play games on mobile are not gamers. They just have a phone and play games on it. They did not make a conscious decision to game, they just do it when they have nothing better to do on the way to something else, waiting around, or in the bathroom.

I can attest to this quite frankly. I've worked with and have a few buddies who don't game. They have games like Candy Crush. They only play them in between conversations and during commercials on TV. They don't game to game.
Think of it this way. Remember back when people would sit on a bench and kick their feet or twiddle their thumbs. Yeah, well now instead of twiddling their thumbs, they play Candy Crush. The non-gaming buddies who play Candy Crush still ask me sometimes when I discuss games with other people, what I'm talking about. They don't know gaming news, systems, games or just about anything else in gaming. You don't have to know all of this stuff to be a gamer, but you should probably know at least a little about it to actually define yourself as a gamer. My female friend and work buddies do this to waste away idle time, and nothing more.

That sounds to me like your friends don't want to associate their play time with something they deem inherently negative, a symptom all of us have seen for a long time. Just because they are not entrenched in the system doesn't mean they aren't reaping the benefits of fun. They don't play it for any other reason than enjoyment. I call that a gamer.

Someone who watches Lord of the Rings when it's on TNT on the weekends is not a movie fan.

Someone who only reads The National Enquirer is not a bookworm.

Someone who saw Star Trek: Into Darkness and liked it is not a Star Trek fan.

Someone who only plays mobile games is not a gamer.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I want to know how this happened. How is it that people who know nothing about video games ended up running video game companies?

Shareholders.

Thank you. You're about the 10th person to fill me in. I get the picture now.