Topic: The game company apologist ("Companies Exist to Make Money" excuse)

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Relevant Link Here

I was browsing the site above and saw this article.

There are many gamers who basically end up saying the statement "Companies exist to make money. Gaming companies are no exception" (usually with a 'let's not forget' or 'let me remind you' or whatever other vitriol comes beforehand), whenever gamers are reacting to a gaming company ripping them off, or treating them with disrespect, or not listening to them.

I've even seen this here.  Yes, they are companies.  Yes, they have to stay profitable.  But that's not an excuse to just cross your arms and accept whatever underhanded schemes they may randomly concoct to swindle money from customers or whatever other "screw you" action they're doing.

So I figured I'd share.

[crisis]

I miss the era where every game didn't have to depend on DLC to stay relevant, aside from PC games that almost always had add-on expansions. Nowadays companies charge people to unlock stuff that's already "hidden" on the disc (*coughcapcomcough*), and I consider that to be a huge rip-off considering you've already payed $60+ for the product. Call of Duty gamers pay $15 for like 3 map packs. Then there's Konami's lackluster handling of Harmony of Despair but that's a different and debatable topic here. It's ridiculous.

These "big name" companies do owe us more than that, but it seems they just don't care most of the time (although there are some exceptions). Which is why indi-development is on the rise and showing a lot more uniqueness in their products than these companies that have been around for a decade or longer. There's also mobile phone gaming which has cut a huge chunk out of Nintendo's pockets in recent years, but that may be another topic too.

[DragonSlayr81]

I agree, it's no excuse. I always chaps my hide when I see someone willingly act as the "white knight" to corporate greed.

Remember, back in the day(I feel old saying that), corporate greed was actually FROWNED upon? Yeah, fat cat greedy bastards were villainized in movies and EVERYBODY hated them. When they'd get their "just deserts", either it being tossed in jail(and getting a giant cell mate named "Tiny") or even being killed in a hilariously ironic way(like being smashed under a multitude of gold bars), everybody just knew those creeps were bad news. Now, damn, people make excuses for guys like that. Sure, the comical portrayals might've been "out there", but it's still a pretty drastic change in perception when you had these same people, at one time, being the bane to underdogs and the good honest people of the world, now being sympathized and idolized. Times are a changin'... It kinda sends a chill down my spine if society, in the coming years, can go even further with this perception. What's next, "Oh, he's not a mass murderer.... he's just misunderstood!", "Sure, he's a drug dealer and he's killed people, but it was to ensure he doesn't get caught because, quite frankly, drug dealers need to make money too! They need to eat, buy cars and stuff!".

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I think it's the opposite of the statement.
It's not "Companies Exist to make money".
It's more like "Companies need money to exist".

[DragonSlayr81]

I think it's the opposite of the statement.
It's not "Companies Exist to make money".
It's more like "Companies need money to exist".

True. One would think that would mean a company would try to branch out to all demographics. Like I said, larger fanbase, more money. A wise company, by that logic, would be one that doesn't alienate an existing fanbase, because an existing fanbase is still a fanbase. Those are people who are familiar enough with what ever product you're selling to be a loyal customer. One would think the true goal, if a company INDEED seeks more money, is to keep their existing fanbase(because scaring them away means loosing valuable customers) AS WELL AS reaching out to new fans.

Sometimes people act like it can't be done. Either one way or the other, and you have to feed the old fanbase to the fire as a blood sacrifice if you want to gain the admiration of new fans. I think that's a load of shit. You can appeal to both old and new. I think it might be harder to do so, and might take more effort(certainly more effort than mindlessly throwing one fanbase to the lions and marking a big "X" on an older franchise canon just to start anew from scratch and act like you have no baggage), but it's entirely possible. Might take a little blood, sweat and tears, but anything of true quality does. Does seem strange, like the points I made above, people seem so much more content in the quick sacrifice and reboot than trying to do something different. It's always "reboot this" and "reboot that!". IMO, reboot is the lazy way to "do something new" without doing something "new". It's basically, "I have a great NEW idea, but I'm too much of a pussy to apply it to a new IP, so I'm going to find an existing franchise, kill it and restart it, but make it MY way, revolving around MY idea! Because, even if my idea sucks, the recognition of the familiar franchise name will be enough to sell my idea without the gamble of the 'new IP' thing.".

[Abnormal Freak]

A game company absolutely is a business first and foremost, but the thing is, customers ultimately decide what the businessman sells (to an extent). If people are fed up with bullshit and having to buy additional content or what have you, simply express your opinion if possible and then make it a point NOT to monetarily support something. Game has a load of DLC you don't wanna pay for? Either don't pay for DLC or don't buy the game at all, as a statement.

All too often I see people bitching and moaning about stuff but then they grudgingly fork over the dollars anyway. So long as people do that, companies will continue to do stupid shit as long as it makes them money.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

It's why I don't shop at Walmart.
I know my dollars are virtually meaningless in comparison to the money of the hordes of people who shop there, but I am happy that my money is not going to that company.

This is a tough argument because on one side we have very entitled, privileged gamers (not all of us! or all of you! Just a few, very vocal sort), who want everything and if something isn't 100% perfect, then it sucks.  It's very black and white (and annoying).  Yet, on the other side we have very greedy companies with very underhanded business practices (when it comes to just the gaming companies, EA and Capcom come to mind).  Companies who essentially are "Fuck you you'll take our shit and like it".  Usually these companies aren't producing shitty product... but they're basically acting like the 'company' version of the entitled gamer.  "We made this game, we're entitled to squeeze every dollar out of you for it.".  Thing is, their games aren't bad games.  No one is saying their games suck (at least most of the time)... just their practices suck.

So gamers are stuck between a rock and a hard place: Do you choose not to support a company like that?  Or do you swallow your pride and buy their game and try your best not to think about it?

It's a tough call.

[TheouAegis]

But- but- but, if you don't fork over the money, you don't have any right to begrudge and bemoan the current state of affairs said game company!

I've heard that line before (usually referring to MMORPG's). That's like saying if you don't vote, you don't have a right to complain about the government. Actually not voting IS voting, but the system is so corrupt that even if 90% of the population didn't vote, it wouldn't be taken as anarchy -- just apathy. There is no "no government" option on the ballots. If I could vote "no government" I'd partake in every election.

Or, "You get to play it for free, so you can't complain." I could see this in Counter-Strike and TFC, but as soon as the game companies open a cash shop, I believe you have every right to complain even if you don't pay. To say otherwise is like saying you can't complain that the produce at your local grocer isn't fresh if you don't buy any fruits or vegetables at that store.

[Shiroi Koumori]

I believe that we all have the right to complain however corrupt companies can always turn a blind eye to the complaints.
Plus there is the problem of privileged gamers who do not care about the prices they pay and companies are willing to siphon all those money.

I miss the good old days...

[son_the_vampire]

Its a money hungry addiction, fed by the society. Sadly its all built up off the simple premise that we will continue to be milked, so long as the developers hands will milk us. I too wish it were the old days, where if i wanted more in a game, i would simply wait for its sequel, but those days are no more

[Mooning Freddy]

I'm still mad as hell with EA for killing Westwood studios. Westwood had the heart and the soul of the Command & Conquer series and then EA raped it with sacrileges like Tiberium Wars and Tiberium Twilight. The two were still enjoyable games with cool gameplay. The story, however, sucked major bollocks.

[TheCruelAngel]

Well, I think there's also more to it than we're allowing to see here.

There are game companies, development studios, investors, publishers, etc. on a long chain for making a game. Some "Game Companies" manage to be multiple of these things in one (Valve, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft come to mind) to help ease a lot of the costs. They have in house development studios that they pay personally and self publish, cutting out a lot of middleman rubbish, and in some cases easy distribution that also cuts out external markets from cutting into their profits (eShop, Steam, Live Marketplace, PSN).

But some don't have that model and do have to deal with external factors. Distributors, publishers, investors; so a development studio only has so much say in what they can do. The development studio wants to make the best game you've ever played, generally speaking.

The studios only have so much money and time to development something (not like megahouses Blizzard and Valve who go "F*** you, it's ready when it's ready and you'll like it then!") which is dictated by~ Publishers, Producers, Investors, etc. so with a lot of hands in the pot, not everyone wants what's best. Hell, investors just want their money back + some ASAP! Well, that sucks. But they did just give us a million+ dollars to pay my artists, programmers, testers, actors, etc.

But the sad state of the industry (software in general) means that maybe 90% of projects never make it to fruition, or are never completed and have a lot of content stripped out of them just to ship it, and a lot of times never match the original vision for the project! It's a cruel cruel world, but...us programmers, artists, actors, testers, etc. do like to be paid. We do like to support our families. We would like to keep working and making amazing products for consumers to enjoy! What's that? Our game didn't sell enough to break even? Our studio is being shut down and everyone laid off? But...but...how am I going to support my family? The game was getting 9/10s all over the interwebs! What's that? It's because the publisher, the only person who believed in us and funded our project, has a bad rep so no one bought it?

Ok...that's a little hyperbole, but it is stuff I worry about (being a family man/dev) and I think a lot of us can relate. Do I think that excuses companies from treating their consumers poorly? HELL NO! I think companies like EA should be held accountable for bad business decisions. They make a crap ton of money off their minimal effort copy+paste money printer "Madden" (which thankfully let's them experiment with new IPs like Dead Space!), and I ain't even mad about Origin or day one DLC. So EA wants to sell their products live Valve does. Who can blame them? It cuts down distribution costs and sees more profit for them to invest back into their development studios. And day one DLC works, since art/content creation teams are usually sitting on their thumbs while the test/debug/dev teams are busy ironing out the wrinkles to consumers will have a stable product, meet platform specification requirements (Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo all say "You product needs to meet these requirements!" Stuff like, not crashing, not wiping out system memory, support these resolutions, etc.), so why not have your asset creation teams come up with new stuff to be released after the game has come out? Oh, the debug/test team are done already? Well, have them work on this extra content and make sure nothing bad happens! Oh...did that too? I guess make it available as extra content on release/pre-orders!

I think things that EA has done that actually bug me is in Battlefield 3 (for PC) I have to be on some stupid Battlefield facebook thing to organize matches, play with friends, etc. Why couldn't that just be integrated into the game's UI, instead of IE? I don't even care if you just load IE in the game and masked it with some snazzy in game stuff. Seriously, that stuff is dumb.

And always on DRM is annoying. Blizzard did it in Diablo 3, Ubisoft does it (I usually only play Ubisoft titles on consoles anyway so it doesn't bother me that much), and to an extent Valve and EA do it through Steam and Origin. Now a service like Steam and Origin I'm OK with, kind of, since you could still technically log in offline and access the titles you have locally. Not all titles work like this, but it's still smart to allow me to play HL2 without my Steam needing to be online.

I mean, hell, I remember when everyone hated Steam when HL2 came out. Now look at us!

What was I talking about again? Oh well...

tl;dr
The issues are deeper than we're allowing ourselves to see, people need money to survive in this society, but that shouldn't excuse companies from actually making bad business decisions which negatively effect consumers. I think that sums it up?

[Abnormal Freak]

I don't think you get it, TheCruelAngel. It's all about The Big, Evil Corporation. The Big, Evil Corporation. Remember that.

There are no people; it's only fat-cat swindlers.

[Highwind Dragoon]

I'm still mad as hell with EA for killing Westwood studios. Westwood had the heart and the soul of the Command & Conquer series and then EA raped it with sacrileges like Tiberium Wars and Tiberium Twilight. The two were still enjoyable games with cool gameplay. The story, however, sucked major bollocks.

....Not as bad as when Microsoft disbanded Ensemble studios; now we'll never see AoE 4 (Modern age) and AoE 5 (Futuristic space age).

[X]

Sometimes people act like it can't be done. Either one way or the other, and you have to feed the old fanbase to the fire as a blood sacrifice if you want to gain the admiration of new fans. I think that's a load of shit. You can appeal to both old and new. I think it might be harder to do so, and might take more effort(certainly more effort than mindlessly throwing one fanbase to the lions and marking a big "X" on an older franchise canon just to start anew from scratch and act like you have no baggage), but it's entirely possible. Might take a little blood, sweat and tears, but anything of true quality does. Does seem strange, like the points I made above, people seem so much more content in the quick sacrifice and reboot than trying to do something different. It's always "reboot this" and "reboot that!". IMO, reboot is the lazy way to "do something new" without doing something "new". It's basically, "I have a great NEW idea, but I'm too much of a pussy to apply it to a new IP, so I'm going to find an existing franchise, kill it and restart it, but make it MY way, revolving around MY idea! Because, even if my idea sucks, the recognition of the familiar franchise name will be enough to sell my idea without the gamble of the 'new IP' thing.".

You just described Lords of Shadow beautifully!