Own 10 Or More Games On Steam? You Are Too Core For Many Developers

[Amaror]

This kind of mindset always seems pretty closeminded for me. I am not outraged about it or anything, but I still don't think it's smart in any way to ignore "core" gamers like that.
Because in the end it doesn't matter how many of your copies are actually bought by those "core" customers. What matters is how many copies are bought because of those "core" customers.
Just as an example: I know nothing about cars. Like barely anything. Now there are obviously people that know a LOT about cars, but generally they would make up a very very small amount of actually car-driving people.
But if I, a person that knows nothing about cars, want to buy a car, where do I go? I could just go to a vendor and let him talk me into something, but that wouldn't be smart. No, instead I will go to the people that know a lot, to the "core" car-customers. I will read something in a magazine, ask a friend that knows a lot about cars, or just check out some test or rating system online in order to find out which car would be good for my needs.
And the same goes for games. All games really. Some people like to view mobile gamers as "casual" but mobile gamers have as much of a "core" segment as pc-gamers of console gamers do. Gamers that buy all sorts of mobile games, talk and write about them online and get information about those mobile games out there for everyone.
That being said I do think the videogame market is something special, as I think that the "core" audience for videogames can actually be more important than in other areas.
Just look at Paradox, for example. Their games are clearly designed and made for a rather niche and "core" audience. And it works. Their audience buys their games very consistently, allowing them to maintain their games through dlcs for a long time. Their audience is also incredibly easy to market to. Most of their marketing consists of written developer diaries or streams of the game. This is almost laughably cheap to produce if you compare it to the exorbitant amounts of money other game developers spend on marketing. And yet it works, because their audience is invested enough into their games to enjoy these markething techniques.

 

[Azkar Almsivi]

*puts developer name next to Bioware on the eternal boycott list*

All in all better than expected.

 

[thewatergamer]

Yeah lets see...hmmm I think a developer has gotten a little bit too fat of an ego and is feeling a wittle bit biased

 

[Eri]

This guy is an idiot. By definition the people who buy the most games [or any item] are the ones who matter the most to said business.

That's like saying if you eat out 5 times a month, you don't matter to the restaurant industry.

Just dumb.

 

[Sgt Pepper]

If I were a cynic I would suggest that this apparent focus on gamers that stick with products long term is similar to the f2p markets focus on "whales". There's not much point in making a game if you cash cow s are just going to wonder off.

Well I just looked up Spry Fox and their products are mainly freemium games so not just similar but intrinsically tied to whales by the freemium business model.

"You are novelty seekers," Cook said. "You are the smallest demographic in gaming."

My interpretation = "You're less likely to give me loads of your money via my mobile games."

 

[visiblenoise]

It could be argued that the people who play games very occasionally are the "novelty seekers." This guy doesn't sound especially bright.

 

[Frezzato]

So Cook opened the presentation by dividing the audience into who had and didn't have 10+ games on Steam...

and then concluded by saying that dichotomizing gamers is stupid?

I love it. Real life imitates art, it's straight out of Inception or Arrested Development:

Spoiler: Why you don't teach lessons

 

[BodomBeachChild]

Feeling is mutual, Mr. Whoeveryouare.

 

[shrekfan246]

Hahahahahaha. HAHAHAHAHA. [HEADING=2]AHAHAHAHAHA.[/HEADING]


I'm not sure if this is cognitive dissonance or just sour grapes (or potentially both), but I think it's worth mentioning that the reason mobile gaming is still primarily seen as "casual" gaming is because nobody has managed to actually make a good "core" game for mobile devices yet. Even the ones that have been touted as having the same sort of graphics or action-packed nature as a AAA console game end up just being on-rails games or heavily, heavily simplified versions of things that have been on PC/console for decades. And honestly, how much more simplified can a game like Diablo get in the first place?

The bigger issue to me is that a lot of people tend to automatically assume that because something is "casual", that makes it "bad". Come on, that's a mindset that even extends to "hardcore" games. If you really want to make waves in the industry, dispel that notion first.

 

[Saelune]

Most developers don't matter. Hell, most games don't matter. But thanks for reminding me why despite their flaws, I still am fans of companies like Capcom, SEGA, and Ubisoft. Yeah they need to often fix their shit, but at least their shit is worth fixing.

 

[Mikeybb]

I can almost see validity in the points he's trying to make here but I think he got caught up in trying to do it in a clever or shocking way to engage the audience (both present and extended) then in doing so didn't fully analyse some of his claims.

It is true that the concept of "core gamer" as a multi use definition that has grown less significant as the variety and availability of games grew along with the wider and more diverse base of gamers.
I find myself thinking that the concept of a "core gamer" should actually vary based on the studio and the title they are working on, rather than be some prepacked concept that defines gaming as a whole.

Even so, there seem to be a number of assertions that just feel faulty.

Size of demographic is obviously relevant to developers but can't be considered without also factoring what individual elements of that demographic are willing to soak as expenditure.
The free to play market recognizes the difference quite readily between those who dip into their games paying for nothing save with add views and those who throw dollar after dollar into the microtransaction money mill.
The same level of demarcation has to exist between a gamer who will buy a new title every three months on the app store and one who purchases at least one title a month at around the sixty dollar mark.
Failing to recognize that is akin to ignoring inconvenient data.

As stated above by NPC009, time is a more relevant factor in how many games you have on steam.
Having more or less does not indicate what kind of gamer you are, just how long you've been playing games.

I'd also contest the claim that owners of many games are seekers of novelty.
That may be an aspect of what drives a sale and it may be a motivation that an individual sometimes responds to, but it does not follow that size of library is an indication of this, nor what title said customer desires at that time is an indicator of seeking novelty in their gaming experience.
It is very possible to have a library full of nothing but strategy games, fps, rpg etc, etc and beat that arbitrary ten.

When I want a novelty, something fun but short lived as games go, I head to the app store and pick something up quite cheaply.
Or even free for that matter.
What I find there always seems more fitting of the term 'novelty' when applying it to games.

I also wonder if the worth of the demographic varies per developer.
Larger, more expensive titles require a higher investment of time and money to achieve the perceived standard expected, whereas a five dollar game on an app store requires less investment financially and while the individuals who work on it will work just as hard as the larger developers (in theory) they do make up a significantly smaller team and the final product requires significantly less man hours to produce.
Ergo, to the financially minded developer a game that requires low man hours, low investment but has the potential to turn a result like, for example, Undertale could be seen as much more desirable.
Therefore, the demographic attracted to that game would also be more desirable.
One could even say that they are the developers "core" audience of gamers...

While It's fair to say there's a lot of things being said by this speaker that I don't agree with, either based on reasoning gaps or conclusion, it's certainly been a topic that's got me ruminating over it and by that metric it has succeeded.

 

[Callate]

I'm sorry, people who actually spend money on games "don't matter"? What an insane delusional arrogant self-congratulatory interesting point of view.

Because I was reading recently that on average, a new game on the Apple market now makes less than $4,000 over its lifespan, and the mobile market is burning itself out at a truly remarkable rate as it floods with look-alikes and people tire of filling up the small amount of space on their devices with underdeveloped crap, choosing instead to keep playing a small number of games they actually like for their fifteen-minutes-at-a-time experiences.

And you might think that's fine if you're already at the top of the mobile games heap and somewhat reassured that your title isn't going to fall into the sludge pile, but for everyone in a different situation, your narrow view of reality isn't helpful to anyone else.

If we're going to define "core gamer" as narrowly as "owns ten or more games on Steam"- that's an audience that's still going to be there in ten years, and to ignore the value of that is asinine.

 

[NiPah]

Funny, Spry Fox's tag line is "making happiness", might want to incorporate that into your panels next time.
Just seems needlessly divisive, next time you propose a theory don't do it in a way that makes everyone cry bloody murder.

 

[lacktheknack]

Wait, if I buy too many games, I'm not a useful... audi...ence...?

I have so many question marks.

 

[Vigormortis]

* Small-time freemium developer says, "It's insulting to marginalize your audience by splitting them into a dichotomy. It hurts the medium."

-- Starts off his speech by spitting his audience into two groups and insulting one of those groups.

* Small-time freemium developer says, "Core gamers don't matter because they're 'novelty seekers'."

-- Developer is apparently unaware that his entire company's revenue stream is likely almost entirely reliant on novelty seeking "Whales".


Is this guy for real? The lack of self-awareness is staggering. He can't possibly be this dumb.

It takes a special kind of stupid to be this blatantly hypocritical. Same goes for those who blame their lack of creativity and originality on the audience. "I can't think of any new ideas! AND IT'S YOUR FAULT!"

What was the actual point of this panel, anyway? It seemed like more of a self-congratulatory wank-fest for small-time indie devs than it did anything constructive.

In concluding the session, Cook reiterated that the debate over terminology and dividing the player base will do more harm than good.

This was the only salient point the man made. Shame he didn't start off with it and then leave it at that.

 

[CaitSeith]

Uh-oh! I think Cook is going to get some hate from the Internet. Recent history shows that lots of gamers really hate when they are told that they don't matter in the gaming industry.

 

[hentropy]

At what point did GDC become such a shitshow? I mean, I'm sure there's still some decent stuff going on there, but in previous years all I hear from it are mobile developers either 1) trying to denigrate PC/console gamers and 2) talking about the best way to milk "whales" and psychologically screw with people to get their micro-monies.

I mean, was it always this bad or is there something I'm missing?

 

[weirdee]

While I guess it makes sense that the "core" majority is now mobile gaming, it's also where nothing is happening at all in games and anything that ever gets made is just cribbed from indies and converted into a digestible, mass appeal death-by-a-thousand-microtransactions affair. The high point of that man's career is living a lie. The belief that the best way for people to experience games is to figure out how to get more money from the customer, and to attempt to occupy all of that customer's time by spamming games at them or creating games whose express purpose is to waste that person's time without giving them anything except more reasons to waste their time/money IS NOT THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF A GAME. Even the barest, flimsiest excuses of games at least give the player what they want at the end. Yall stopped doing that when you figured out that it was more profitable to keep them hanging ("blue balls" if you will) just enough so that they don't quit out of frustration, but not enough to actually let them finish playing. The opinions of people who make a lot of money are NOT AUTOMATICALLY VALID BECAUSE OF MONEY. We do not have to pay any respect to anybody that phones in effort for profit. Are people who play mobile games any less of a person? No. Should we scold them for wasting their money on these games? It's their money, and their choice. But those people deserve more than what they're being given. Smokescreening behind "nobody agrees on what a game is" and "people who play mobile games spend a lot of money and are a very large group of people" still doesn't excuse the pathetic piles of shit that have been made in the name of gaming. I wouldn't even place them on equal footing with Sonic 2006. That would actually be an insult to Sega!

Why would people that play games matter to people who don't make games?

 

[Kajin]

This guy is has no idea what he's talking about. Who gave him a speaking position, and how long before they're replaced with an adorable cigar smoking monkey that'll clearly be doing a better job?

 

[Bat Vader]

10 games? That's cute. I own 533 games on Steam. Seriously though who the heck is this guy and why should I care about what he spews from his mouth?