Jimquisition: The Unholy Trinity Of Blind Greedy Bastards

[geier]

They don't know GTA? Really? I can't believe that.

Now excuse me, I've got a Sudetenland to annex.

Can i come? My grandfather was from the Sudetenland and was driven out from there after WWII. He visited it 4 years ago, his old home still stands.

 

[hentropy]

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.

 

[Jandau]

What the hell is Clash of Clans? I'm serious, what the hell is it? I know what CoD is, and have a vague idea what Candy Crush Saga is (a match 3 Facebook game, right?), but I've never heard of Clash of Clans. Is this game a big deal somewhere? I mean, it's supposed to be a big deal for marketing people, but I've never seen it marketed...

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Throwing all the marketing shit out might be a good way to start. It's something a lot of sectors are suffering from atm.

It even takes on the form of self-fulfilling prophecies imo. Look at the stuff with female protagonists. "Games with female protagonists sell less copies", they say. So what happens? No mainstream games use female protagonists, only niche games that sell less by default do, further reinforcing their own beliefs while they aren't actually based on anything.

 

[ars731]

When I first started gaming, I remember when an game sold an million copes, it was an achievement. Now an game is an failure if it sells less than 5 million. This is the worse thing COD did, it convinced Publishers that an game wasn't successful unless it sold an massive amount of copies. hence why we have an million Modern Military Shooters, and why the publishers are eager to make Free to play games so widespread. Publishers weren't content to have an modest success hence why niche genres got tossed aside. an perfect example is Bravely Default. Nintendo had to publish it because Square-Enix couldn't be bothered to. Mr Sterling nailed it on the head in this video about making no money as opposed to the some of the money. The industry is going to crash hard unless they change their ways

 

[softclocks]

I was kind of hoping that we would get some arguments to follow up on the statement, but I guess we'll have to wait for the next one to come out. Good episode, wish there was more to it.

Mr Sterling

1) You really should go see Captain America 2. It was so much fun while still being mentally engaging.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

 

[Namechangeday]

....What? Jim is part of Hydra? Does that mean The Escapist is also part of Hydra? It's like no one can be trusted anymore!!!!!

OT: I have to say, I feel like it is because of the mind set of AAA publishers that most people I know who are not into video games think that the only existant games are shooters, Mario and cellphone games.

Loved the episode as always!

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Fucking Pokemon, probably the most recognizable fictional franchise of all time next to Star Wars and Superman,

How do you figure that? Sounds like a highly dubious and unsupported claim to me.

 

[schwitz]

For those that want a url to follow to vote:
http://pv.webbyawards.com/2014/web/general-website/games-related

THANK GOD FOR YOU JIM
Loved the backdrop, finally no glare!
As somebody stated earlier about problems with the anonymity

However, I'm an incredibly skeptical person when it comes from the account of ANONYMOUS sources, especially without some proof. There's just so little information about the source (position in games industry, what publisher they may be working for or talking about) that I can't help but be on the side of skepticism.

I just don't like anonymous sources because it usually means they can't be held accountable for what they have said, but I do understand the necessity of anonymity in this case. I just wished there was more than one source, or at least some idea where they are in the food chain. Unless I just didn't notice or something.

Yet that's what I loved about this episode, there was no one person for this discussion to be pointed at. For instance be it whatever company he/she worked for, they would've copped the blame by people trying to deny the obvious.

Anonymity in this case makes it more of a global game developer statement even though it has only come from one person.

As a student/gamer/indie-dev (I'm about to finish University and have the knowledge I need to pursue my own games) this pretty much confirms what I have already assumed in the past. Don't get me wrong, I am not happy with my correct assumption in the slightest because the more I'm right about this, the less I want to work for the industry.

 

[Warstratigier]

So these narrow minded people want "all the money or no money?" huh? Well I'll gladly choose no money for them and even throw in a bonus "Fuck you".

I also have to wonder about consumers that follow this same mindset as well, particularly in the numbers. If there's one thing I hate about downright horrible aspects like blindness, ignorance, and/or outright stupidity, its how they thrive by compounding with one another.

 

[Sarge034]

Long time watcher, first time poster, what piques my interest in this episode is why these 3 & only these 3 games grab marketeers attention and no others.

I'm sure I could play devil's advocate and come up with a couple of half baked ideas as to why but I'm fairly sure there are some nuanced arguments beyond the all or nothing motivation put forward in today's episode.

Many thanks for a compelling episode.
Love the new banner, but please don't start making the set too nice, I appreciate the skeezy under & overtones of the show.

Very simple, they are the highest grossing games in their perspective fields in addition to being the top three grossing games in general and having massive name recognition.

OT- As Jim said these are things I already knew. I do believe it will get slightly better as time goes on. You have to remember that gamers have to saturate the personnel supply before they can be hired.

 

[Magmarock]

While I agree that you do preach the the quire a lot Jim I wouldn't say that as criticism. Rather I mean it as a complement. What you say NEEDS to be said. I agree with a lot of what you said and 100% what what you said in this video. I'm not that surprised that marketing idiots are running things but this still needs to be said and people in charge need to see this.

There's been talk of a second game crash floating around the internet, but if such an event saw people in the marketing departments losing their jobs to people who know what they're talking about; well is such a bad thing?

Keep up the great work Jim I look forward to your next video

 

[truckspond]

...I hadn't even heard of one of the games before the video (Clash of Clans)

You are one lucky bastard. I have an iPad and basically every time I use it to do anything outside of reddit I am automatically kicked out of Google Chrome and to the app store where the thing egerly asks me to download Clash of Clans. I have never actually downloaded it and I have no plans to because I already have The Simpsons Tapped Out which uses all of the gameplay elements of every other F2P iPad game ever and it features the simpsons (As in ALL of the simpsons! Some you have to buy with Donuts but most are available for the free currency which is called "Money").

 

[Chessrook44]

I watch this video, and only one thing runs through my mind...

What the hell is Clash of Clans?

 

[persephone]

Well clearly what I'm taking away from this video is that Jim really needs to go see Winter Soldier. Amazing movie! Shame he already knows the big twist, though.

Let's hope that at least some of the major gaming companies don't get taken over by this tunnel vision. But honestly, I'm not too worried, at least in the long run; eventually economic failure will balance the scales, forcing the blinded AAA companies to either change or fold.

For now, though, it sucks. Working for these guys must be painful.

 

[Timewarpman1]

I think I've come to a true insight into why the game industry, namely publishers, are hurting the media.

The publishers treat games like how most manufacturers treat their products.
Every competitor has got to be as good as better as the next guy. They will do everything in their power to convince or lie to their customers in order to sell more products than their competition.

But there is one major flaw in this process.
"Video games are stories.

Now hear me out. Humans have been telling stories since the dawn of time. It's almost primitive but one of core products of creativity, to create a unique world according to out views. These stories have their own settings, characters, feelings, reasons...etc. It is through our creativity that breathes life into these worlds we call stories.

Products on the other hand are simply no more than tools that serve functions. There no creativity in a hand-saw or a bowling ball. Things like this only serve their intended functions and nothing more. So the only thing you can do with them is to improve their function, which at best is just a need or a want.

I understand now that publishers make the mistake of mixing the two together, as if each story was solely design to just serve a function and not actually be something unique.

Can you imagine if someone made a commercial blitz on say Shakesphere's Hamlet but now it has all new characters like a drunk cop with a heart of gold? Michael Bay explosions in every chapter? And printed on finely made cotton texture patterns to make the book feel even better than the original? Doesn't that sound fucking weird and stupid?
It is because it is. You can't take someone's unique world and try to make it better.

Same with video games. Trying to make these stories into something they were not originally intended to be because you needed to compete with Brown shooter '13 is as fucking stupid as the example I gave above.

Maybe that's why we all view the gaming industry as the over bloated cancerous mutant that it is today. A self-indulgent perversion of pure wonder and enjoyment for the illogical selfish desire to make a buck.

I think we need a surgeon for this problem."

I only bring this up again since the last video because Jim you really lined up most of your arguments with my points. I am quite disgusted with these old bankers in charge of our media.