Vormaerin wrote...
bEVEsthda wrote...
And we also return to these old problems of drawing conclusions from data-mining metrics. Are they representative? Who are we mining? And when? Who are we not? What is the story the metrics don't tell? And, very important, what people have sofar done, has little to do with what they intend to do, expect to do, or want to do.
If it was just DA2 that showed these results, you might have some basis for disputing. But its pretty consistent across games that many of these "neat" features are barely used outside the hardcore fanbase. Given NWN's focus on toolset and downloadable content, you'd expect that most people would have tried it. But you'd be wrong. The vast majority of NWN buyers never downloaded a single thing. The vast majority of ME players played a male soldier shepard. The bulk of DAO players played the human nobleman origin.
These are facts. They are not, however, the reason decisions were made. No one said "hmm, no one plays the dorfs, lets cut them." Instead, it was more likely "Hmm, voiced protagonists give us these options. W hat will it cost us? No origins? Well, ,most of our fanbase doesn't use them, I suppose that's a reasonable sacrifice."
It doesn't matter. Both those versions are the same fallacy. I also see that my main point failed to stick. So I'm going to elaborate on this a bit, that you maybe may see the light.
When Spore originally shipped, the game was limited to only three installs, for ever. Faced with the market's outrage, EA's marketing directors were so clueless they actually tried to publically defend their decision by pointing to metrics, thereby shamelessly exposing their own,.. eh,.. mhmm,... bad luck
. Do you think three installs is reasonable? If metrics show most gamers don't install games more than three times? Given that customers knew a lot of hardware or system changes would require a reinstall? You have to remember that most users then still believed Spore would be a great simulation, Maxis style, that they would live with a long time.
A fool only sees metrics, and figures it's a basis for being clever.
A customer, otoh, knows desires and can imagine needs. A customer have plans. A customer feels much better about lots of features and options. What is ever used doesn't matter at all, which is also why such metrics don't matter at all.
What is far more interesting to keep track of, is what they will actually flock to buy. We then see, for instance, that retailers refuse to receive any DA2:ultimate edition. And between the lines there's been pretty fair evidence for DA2 late dlc to have sold dismally. DA:O otoh, did very good indeed. I still remember DA:O ultimate outselling DA2 for instance, when the latter was still new. DA2 also achieved most of its sales in the early days. Preorder was almost a mil, other purchased it in the first days, before the sh, hit the fan. Did DA2 then make these sales? Dialogue wheel? Voiced protagonist? Nope! DA:O sold those DA2 games. If you're unable to make that analysis, then you're a,.. eh,.. mhmm,.. guy with bad luck.
Try the failed metrics reasoning on other products, and try to guess the sales you'd achieve. What about cars, for instance? Smartphones? Sailing yachts? Shoes? Mustard? Mineral water?
Modifié par bEVEsthda, 15 juin 2012 - 06:06 .
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