Jimquisition: The Unholy Trinity Of Blind Greedy Bastards

[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.

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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.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Would it be odd if I admitted that I have literally never even heard of Clash of Clans? I mean, I have literally not even heard the name casually in passing. Why is it suddenly a "thing" that manages to be so influential?

 

[PCPLX]

Good episode, Jim. I like it when the criticism is well balanced with humor, and when you don't rant at us in the second person too much. I genuinely laughed out loud at "Fake Geek Guy". Good times.

 

[Voulan]

You know, there are times when I genuinely want to either cry my eyes out or bash some skulls over at the games industry for being so blind and obviously greedy. We seriously need to share this video around so that the masses know just how commercialism is ruining every form of entertainment because of seeing their audience as nothing more than wallets - from the homogenised brown shooter games to the rebooted Hollywood films from popular franchises whose only purpose is to make the same thing again and have the gall to ask for more money for it. Seriously, thank god for you Jim, no joking.

And I'll admit I've never heard of Clash of Clans until now, which could very well be a good thing.

 

[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.

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

No problem dude, Theres a Que started behind me.

 

[marioandsonic]

Clash of Clans...is it really that popular? I've seen some commercials for it, but I didn't think it was that huge.

And really, those are the only games? No Mario? Pokemon? Halo? GTA? Hell, not even Angry Birds? (say what you want about it, you can't deny its popularity) Did all of the companies behind those games just go bankrupt while I wasn't looking?

 

[Jacco]

Imagine how wonderful the gaming industry will be when all of us are finally in positions to take over. Actual gamers running gaming companies. It'll be like a utopia.

Heil Hydra! Cause that's what they're trying to create.

 

[Atmos Duality]

baiscally Jim was doing a lot of youtube videos with early acess games and the comments often told him he cant blame the game because its early acess and thus will be fixed, as in you cant criticize early acess, hence the retort.

It seems both sides of that tussle missed the point of Early Access then.
Though to be fair, apparently so did 90% of the market.

 

[Strazdas]

baiscally Jim was doing a lot of youtube videos with early acess games and the comments often told him he cant blame the game because its early acess and thus will be fixed, as in you cant criticize early acess, hence the retort.

It seems both sides of that tussle missed the point of Early Access then.
Though to be fair, apparently so did 90% of the market.

yes, quite clearly the whole point of early acess is missed by majority of market, but, that includes plenty of developers as well it seems sadly, which only encourages this thinking. Which is why i dont buy early acess, i dont do betas, i have enough finished games in my backlog as it is. and this was true before early acess was a thing so its not like im changing my behaviuor in any way. Though i admit i want to play Rust with my cousin (hes playing cracked one, but a legal copy can still connect to his server) so i may have to give in for this exception and buy it.

 

[telaros]

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

That was bloody beautiful. Now if only the developers could find a way to break off from those CEOs and create their own independent studios or something.

Great new background, that person is pretty awesome to have donated such cool and practical stuff for your show. My hats off to the person!

I wonder whatever happened to that company whom Candy Crush was trying to buy the patents to the game that predated their Candy Crush game which is trying to or was trying to get the last thing that stood in its way of total control from being any sort of whatever threat Candy Crush makers thought them to be. Supposedly some game that was made in the memory of the dude's late mother that Candy Crush company wanted to steal the rights from.

Anyhow, this game industry has been shit for years. Slapping better paint on a turd doesn't make it any less of a turd. 3DS and ps2/ps3 and Steam is all I ever needed. And honestly I barely play the ps3 outside of RPGs and fighters. DLC can rot, never supporting that.

 

[Atmos Duality]

yes, quite clearly the whole point of early acess is missed by majority of market, but, that includes plenty of developers as well it seems sadly, which only encourages this thinking.

The profiteers are always the biggest part of the problem in gaming, it seems.
A statement that sadly becomes increasingly true every year.

I don't care what Mr. Sterling says: if you're doing any kind of Beta (regardless of who is paying), you need to adopt a very different attitude than if you were buying a full released game. One that includes doing your research on the state of the Beta and how/if the developers respond/work with the public that's testing their game.

 

[I.Muir]

This is all very sad and fairly old news but is there any way that we as consumers can have them FIRED. One of these days they will figure out they are out of their depth if enough of them get chewed up and spat out.