Plague of game dev harassment erodes industry, spurs support groups

[Foxrac]

Plague of game dev harassment erodes industry, spurs support groups | Polygon

"Games cost much too much money to focus on a niche market," she said. "To survive, they need to be such a broadly popular part of entertainment culture that you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn't play games. Women represent over 50 percent of the population, tend to be in charge of household finances, and are the majority purchasers of games (when factoring in games bought by women as gifts for husbands, children, friends, etc.). To indulge a community that is actively trying to alienate this powerful market segment (not to mention gay men, casual gamers of all types and anyone new to the hobby), is suicidal.

"It's important to listen to fans about what's important to them, but it's equally important to listen to people who are not currently gamers about why they aren't playing. Hardcore gamers want a product that is made specifically for them and is actively unfriendly to anyone new. They will beg and bully to get this product and then praise and wax nostalgic over any game that lives up to their standards even if the company that made it went bankrupt. They don't care about keeping companies in business or artists employed. Their only job as fans is to say what pleases them, and it would be foolish to expect them to think beyond that. But to cater to those desires without thinking about how to bring new audiences in and make them comfortable will ultimately result in a stagnant and money-losing industry.

Oh wow, I feel sad for game developers who worked hard to make games for us to buy and developing the game is no easy - it is time consuming, require a lot of programming skills, a lot of artwork, a lot of actors, a lot of scripts and many other things. They are strictly focus on economic that could lead to successful in gaming market. The hardcore gamers are smaller group of gaming market so that why many game developers toward to causal gamers that is larger group. There are many game companies went bankrupted, especially THQ and game developers prioritize their developing game that is appealing to causal gamers, so they can get a lot of money when they sell games.

I think pathetic, impatient hardcore gamers should take economic course to understand about economic of game industries. If hardcore gamers are not happy with game developers so they should go to school and take major in computer science and graphic design, but if they don't want so they are lazy and have no life.

 

[metalangel]

Or: it's far easier to keep existing customers than to try and attract new ones, and by messing with your successful product (in the case of games this almost always means simplifying or 'streamlining' it) you risk turning off your existing fanbase while not attracting any new ones.

For example, Microsoft tried it with 'Flight'. Rather than make a new version of Flight Simulator, they made a very simple, easy to play flying game. Existing Flight Simulator fans hated it because it was too easy and didn't offer anywhere near the scope of the old Flight Simulator (we're talking Hawaii vs the entire world, respectively) and the people Microsoft was trying to attract would probably have tried Flight Simulator by now if they'd ever been that interested in the first place.

The result was a product that failed because nobody wanted it!