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Stanley Woo wrote...
The likely reason we have to do soJoy Divison wrote...
"we think a lot more about the commercial elements than we used to," Zeschuk explained.
EDIT: I think I fixed it
We're just going to have to disagree to disagree.
I do not think entertainment and fashion companies are very good at predicting what will sell or what will be trendy, cool, chic, etc. Zeschuk made it clear that marketability is a higher priority now that it was concerning game development. This may be a logical response to the rising costs of producing these games as you imply with the link (thanks for taking the time to show me evidence rather just make a generalized statement), but I doubt it is the correct one. Games, books, art, music, movies, whatever have sustained sales because of their quality, not because elements were included that are thought to appeal to a certain demographic or how much marketing is put into them. I think most consumers are savvy enough to detect when something is less than genuine in terms of art and are being catered to. Being a "sell out" is bad, right? Why even tempt the perception of being one?
I do not doubt the Bioware team made honest attempts to innovate DA2, please core fans, improve from DA:O, and build upon what was already good from DA:O. I don't doubt these were genuine efforts at all. Where I question this process is the designer team made no secret that they wanted to attract what they identified as a specific gamer demographic. Now an unsavory question has been added to the process that should not be there at all - what can we do to appeal to these gamers? The emphasis on "streamlining" in the marketing campaign is also a huge red flag. We can disagree on semantics, but this sounds to me like dumbing down. Maybe that's because I'm a cynic. Still, I'm not sure its good business to boast about streamlining anything because, again, it is easy to be perceived as a sell-out...something we surely want to avoid because of the high cost in making these video games.
I think a later response you made is very telling:
we failed to adequately prepare the community for just how different
DAII was going to be from Origins. We mentioned some of the differences,
but at that point, people still thought "oh, it's going to be similar
to Origins but for these differences." We were neither loud enough,
articulate enough, nor persistent enough in managing the community's
extremely high expectations..."
This to me sounds like you believe successful marketing would have made fans respond better to the game. In the end, it is about the game. No matter how pretty or accurate the packaging is, if a game does not distinguish itself, its not going to make consumers feel better about the purchase. Is it really good business to market a game as, "Hey, we know we hit a home run with DA:O, but we've decided to make some fundamental changes and there will be major differences such that you should not have unrealistic expectations."? I will agree that there would have been less disappointment is the fanbase, mostly because a number of fans who were married to DA:O would not have pre-ordered and never purchased the game, but is the abscence of criticism really the goal here? Managing my expectations would not have made made me spend more hours playing or like the game more than I do.
In the end, I think consumers are more intelligent than they are given credit for. They will detect when efforts are made to cater to them, they will recognize even the smallest details and wonder why they were changed/included/discarded, and while a successful marketing campaign might entice them to buy a product, marketing will neither make them think better of that product nor prevent them from voicing their displeasure.
Modifié par Joy Divison, 12 octobre 2011 - 04:43 .
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