Why do corporate perceive gamers as idiots?

[Animusisters]

If it walks like a duck an quacks like a duck.............

[Irritablesquid]

They know gamers aren't idiots.
Business oriented people have taken power in the companies and all they see is money.

You can't shoulder all the blame on corporations as people continue to throw money at them and defend them when things go wrong.

[fenrif]

Why do publishers percieve gamers as idiots? Because most gamers are idiots. They buy locked down consoles and pay to play online on peer-to-peer servers. They defend microtransactions and lootboxes. They preorder Bethesda/EA/Activision's latest crapfest and convince themselves it's good. This is called "mass appeal." Get enough casuals into a hobby and you can market to them instead of the enthusiasts. They have no experience, knowledge, or taste. How many people have praised a game for being "diverse" when the dev team is all white women?

The sad fact of the matter is that gaming was better when it was an enthusiast hobby. People didn't stand for this shit, and they certainly didn't advocate for it or defend it. Now for everyone who understands the decline in quality of gameplay, or the bad design decisions, or the rampant greed... For everyone one of them there are 100 people who watch a TV advert for Battlefield: gender fluid edition and say "PREORDER!" Who spend £50 on a game, spend £10 a month to pay on peer to peer servers, and then buy cheatcodes or character skins.

[xadu]

When the interest rate is 5%, it means that investors are willing to pay 100$, to profit 5$ each year.

So, if your company makes 5$ in profit, his value is 100$, which is 20X more. So if the gamers, your customers, give you 1$ in profit, then Wall Street gives you 20$.

Who would you heard? The gamer which gives you 1$, or the wacko in Wall Street that gives you 20$?


Wall Street rules, and it doens't care for the future of the company. It only cares for instant profits, because it is just speculating. If your company makes 1 extra dollar today, shares go up, but the dude in the stock market has no plans to keep the shares for 20 years. As soon as the shares go up, he sells them to guarantee an instant profit. Then he takes his money to another fast growing stocks, like amazon, or samsung, or huawei. He doesn't care if the company goes bankrupt in 1, 2 or 5 years, at that time he will be long gone away. He only cares for short term profits.

[TheDorkyDane]

Well... I don't think this is unique to gaming corporate.

This kind of applies to ANY big corporate, if they see an option for quick easy money they will do it! At worst they will loose a few bucks on failure, it is a safer gamble for them to put out a cheap quick game with micro transactions, than it is to pour millions of dollars into a game that wont have continues revenue even if it does get popular. And it might not sell and they will have lost all those money they invested.
Investing in art is ALWAYS a huge gamble, which is why they would rather want to play it as safe as possible. If the Gamble doesn't pay off, the money are just gone forever.

But yeah, this is an clear result of the suits and the artists not being on wavelength with each other. It is a delicate balance, also found in hollywood.

Like it or not, to make big giant games or movies... You NEED the suits, and the suits needs the artist.
Without a suite the artist wont be able to fund their game or even how to go about marketing and so forth, the suits also create budget and time restraints... Time restrains can both be a good or a bad thing depending on the situation and the restraint itself.

But yeah, the suit has lost contact with the artist, as is seen in the horrible practices as Blizzard and EA, they have ALSO lost contact with the consumer. They don't care about games, and that would be fine if they did their job well, but they don't.
They look at numbers, trends and so forth, and makes decision based on numbers not art, as is their job as the suite, being the voice of reason. Except yeah, you know... They are so out of touch you can't call them a voice of reason any longer, at all.

[Rickhardmann]

Fundamentally its not a change in how they view the customer, its a change in the corporate cultures of these developers and publishers. I am guessing you are a boomer and remember the period when gaming was dominated developers, ideas and innovation drove growth in the industry at the time. Both hardware and software were advancing rapidly and innovation meant growth and profit. Things slowed down, around 2000-2005 the hobby achieved normalized broad appeal. Video games saturated the market and hardware performance increases slowed to the point where an innovative title would make no more money than a guaranteed successful sequel.

Marketing, and monetization became where money was made in the industry. Its been over ten years since this process began at the big companies. They have been repeatedly promoted and taken over the corporate culture. Games themselves are no longer the focus, how they are sold is. Popular trends will be chased and aggressive marketing of in-game transactions will determine what games are made and how.

[Aidy]

Also, why is this rant in the news section?

The "Complain about micro transactions" section of the forum hasn't been created yet.

[lostaname]

they dont perceive gamers as idiots: they perceive their consumers as idiots. I think there is a real distinction to be made between gamer and a *insert term for person who wants to game for the heck of it* and who doesnt care to be educated on why a game or a practice in a game is bad.

Also, why is this rant in the news section?