Gamers Need to Send the Right Signals
If we ask for a game in which Broccoli Man and his sidekick Bariatric Bob beat the hell out of overweight kids to defeat Dr. Obesity, and Square Enix makes it, then we’d better buy it or at least hold off on the complaints. If we’re clamoring for something new and somebody finally tries a revolutionary mechanic, we should support them even if it’s part of a terrible game. If we don’t practice positive reinforcement for developers, the industry will stagnate.
Gamers are an odd bunch. We want game developers to have an original vision that they follow unflinchingly, yet any deviation from what we expect from a game is a travesty. Developers are in a no-win scenario. How do we expect the industry to effectively serve us if we give conflicting signals? I want to discuss a few situations in which gamers say one thing and do another, as well as how listening to fans can be both beneficial and detrimental to the development process.
When you’re right, you’re right
Before I jump into the discussion, I want to emphasize that there are certain situations in which developers rightfully ignore fans and the signals we send. When a developer has crafted something special, they know that the community will come around in the end regardless of people’s resistance to change.
Diablo II had a monotonous art style, and it likely deterred some people from trying the game (yes, it could have been even more popular than it was). So when Diablo III screens first came out, all the petitions in the world wouldn’t change the tone, and I’m pretty confident when the final product is released, that vocal minority will come around. The threat of ‘I won’t play your game unless you change this’ from somebody who cares enough to sign an internet petition about a game to be released 2+ years in the future lacks credibility to say the least.
Welcome to your gothic horror nightmare!
Similarly, when Infinity Ward developed a matchmaking system that they know is going to improve the experience and open it up to a broader demographic, all the petitions in the world to bring back dedicated servers aren’t going to make a difference. Sure, some people will lose out, but it’s all about maximum gain, and the relatively small ‘hardcore PC community’ is trivial in the long run. Go ahead, don’t buy MW2. Their accountants will think it was a rounding error.
These exceptions aside, there are many situations where developers are looking for input from the community, and we aren’t doing them any favors.
Listen to me! Well, only some of the time
Videogame community manager has to be the most frustrating job in the world. Not only are you attempting to squeeze valuable information out of the disorganized hive mind of the gaming community, but you need to constantly brush up on your sarcasm and racial epithet translation abilities. It would be manageable if this was the only obstacle, but you also have to deal with inconsistency.
Take the unveiling of the new Special Infected units in Left 4 Dead 2. Players had been discussing concepts for infected types on the Left 4 Dead message boards for months, some expressly with the hope that they would be implemented into the game. When Valve had the audacity to actually lift a few concepts from these suggestions, they were called thieves and liars.
It would be one thing if Valve took an idea and failed to give credit where credit was due. I understand those frustrations. Some of the criticism, however, was that Valve is lazy and they couldn’t even come up with their own infected ideas without resorting to stealing. This was surely exacerbated by some of the outrage over the timing and price of the game, but why else would the suggestions have been offered in the first place if not to be used?
EA had a huge breakthrough in Fight Night 4 vs. 3: Their revolutionary moobs engine!
There are plenty of situations in which players welcome suggested changes, however, which makes the inconsistency that much more confusing. Gamers welcomed new controls implemented in Fight Night Round 4 after the experiment of the analog stick controls were poorly received. They are excited about a potential Borderlands trading system which is one of the few faults with the game and a point of interest for the community. Congratulations EA Canada and Gearbox, you lucked out.
Put your money where your mouth is
Publishers that churn out sequel after sequel are corporate hacks, while innovative developers are the real friends of gamers, right? Not if you follow the money. As gamers we vocally demand creativity; reviews dock points for unoriginality, yet ‘Dragon Quest 55’ and ‘Pokemon Fuscia & Chartreuse’ consistently have sales figures that require measurement in scientific notation. We need to start voting with our pocketbooks.
The Wii is criticized for being childish. ‘Where is the love for hardcore gamers?’ is the refrain from the community. When Mad World and House of the Dead: Overkill finally came out, however, they sold terribly. I don’t care if they were bad games; we should have bought them to encourage development for that demographic. If we didn’t buy those, and developers give up on making ‘mature’ games on the Wii, then we have no basis for complaint.
I don't know what this is, but apparently you mature Wii fans asked for it.
Scribblenauts was held up as an example of the type of risks that developers should be taking. True, it was a terrible game, but I bought it anyway. I wanted to send the message to developers that efforts like these were ones I could get behind. Hopefully given the strong initial sales, we will see similar risks taken in the future. Some are bound to be good.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease?
Communication is approaching real time in today’s digital world, and Twitter has taken rapid fire dialogue to the next level. When Diablo 3 announces significant gameplay modifications on Twitter, and Infinity Ward sets up an entire website for Twitter suggestions, you know it has graduated into the mainstream.
The problem with this, however, is that the loudest party is probably going to win out. If there is an extremely vocal minority on Twitter, the community managers for a game might come to a mistaken conclusion about what their fans really want.
This is less of a problem in a game like World of Warcraft, where there are enough committed representatives of each interest group simultaneously clamoring for buffs and nerfs that they cancel each other out, but in games where the primary demographic isn’t the ‘core gamer,’ some things get lost in translation.
This is a pretty good representation of the World of Warcraft forum community
If gamers campaign too much and encourage lots of mainstream-unfriendly changes in a series they love, the next iteration will be better for them, sure. If sales fall off a cliff because of those changes, however, it might be the last Halo Microsoft decides to finance. Be careful what you wish for.
It’s in our best interests to work with developers and help them understand exactly what we want from their games. We should encourage them to listen to the community and facilitate helpful dialogue instead of berating them whenever they do something we don’t like.
Now, where’s my Broccoli Man game goddammit? I’m making a stand against Dr. Obesity, who’s with me? If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
