It's the oddest thing about Game designers. They simply won't get that we are not your average customer.
We're not the idiots who go to Apple and ask if their new Mac whatever comes equipped with the internet. We are not parents who have to bug their children when the printer isn't printing and asking if they should call the repair shop. We are not people who know nothing about cars and pretend to get what the mechanic is saying when he's explaining what's wrong and why it needs to be thousands of dollars.
We know computers. We know games. If you tell us the specs, a good number of us can tell us what it can do and what it can run, then explain it to the rest of us. While sometimes juvenile with opinions, we are probably the smartest consumer base there is for any market. Because we take great pains to understand our hobby.
Therefore, you can't make this market into sheep for the most part (InB4 Call of Duty). You can not really dictate what we should or should be ok with. We will bury your sales. We have mountains of Critics to make sure you understand that you're getting screwed here. Both professional and non. I find it amazing that the industry with one of the highest percentages of Consumer Intelligence is constantly belittled and overlooked by that very industry.
Simple Economics, The Gaming Industry is a Flexible Demand. You don't need it. And you can find other outlets to sate your itch if you can't control it. So the gaming industry must cater to their consumers more than any other industry. And before apologists get up and arms, let me pre-emptively say that yes, they fucking need to. That's not being entitled. That's being the guy with the money who decides who or what I spend it on. I do not owe the Gaming Industry my money simply because I've been in a gamer all my life. I chose to give them my money as long as they provide me with a service I desire.
That's why you have a favorite food or place to eat. That's why you have a favorite music or movie genre. That's why you even have a favorite place to vacation. Something about that subject makes you want to come back. If that favorite place to eat decided to change all the recipes, fire all but one waiter or waitress who picks and chooses who s/he is going to served based on how fancy their clothes are or how new their phones are... you'd get up, leave the eatery, and choose any other place on the street that doesn't do that.
If your favorite vacation spot decided to make an out-of-towner tax for all hotels of 35% of your bill, make it that each room has to have at least two different families in it, you'd find a new place to go.
But hell, let's dial it down. If that eatery says they that 'fucking hate queers', would you be comfortable giving them your business? I wouldn't. I'm not even gay. But it's an opinion that disgusts me. If that vacation spot says it doesn't need any money from any stupid northerners, that's fine. They won't be getting my cash because I am from the North and I don't need to make them a little bit richer when they can't stand me.
Likewise do I not need to give my money or time to a gaming company that shows such disdain or willful ignorance to what the gaming community is saying we want less of. There has been controversy after controversy with always online. Since day one. We hated it on Ubisoft's products, Origin, Diablo III, Starcraft II, Simcity, and we'll continue to hate it because we want to enjoy what we paid money for WHENEVER and REGARDLESS of what happens in our lives. And to stand in front of all of that, look at it, and say 'Whatever, we still want to do it' shows a callous disregard to my and our wants. And given that it's a hobby and not a inflexible demand... it's a death sentence.
My business is with the majority of yours; it's elsewhere, Microsoft. Wise up. Screw reading the 'changing times'. Pay attention to your consumer base. Or fail.
~edit whee! my 400 hundred post! I only been here five years. That's eighty posts a year! Math rocks!
