Editorial Change Is Inherently Scary But Everything Will Be Fine

[Drakron]

Demands, schmands. Sit and watch as people eventually find out that having a Sword-wielding Shepard is so awesome they realized they don't really miss choosing their race, and that Bio has done it again, etc.

But here is the thing, Mass Effect audience and Dragon Age audience is not the same.

Dragon Age managed to attract many of Bethsoft usual consumers but I see no indication that Mass Effect did that.

ME2 got away with a large departure of ME1 but will ME3 retain the audience? if ME3 sales return to ME1 levels or worst what will happen to DA2?

Having all your eggs in the same basket is a unacceptable risk, especially in this case were DA setting and ME setting are very different, I know UE was used in some RPGs but its still a PoS engine and unless you have a miracle work team (Batman: Gotham Asylum) you end up with Mass Effect, its not really something designed for meele combat.

Customers only hold any power if they know what they want, and that happens as often as Volly making a coherent sentence.

Pretty much sadly, also things can get rave reviews from the media and nobody buys it ... there will always be deranged fanboys that will praise it no matter what.

 

[mondblut]

if BioWare delivers a compelling tale with characters I fall in love with, the game is a success.  If I take something out of the story or if I feel bad about a particular decision I made that had negative consequences result from it, it’s a success. If I feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction mixed with sadness and depression as the final credits roll when I beat it, it’s been a success.

Storyfags are so storyfag.

 

[Davaris]

"YOU'RE A FUCKING CONSUMER. THE GAME COMPANY CATERS TO YOUR INTERESTS, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!"

Not neccesarily true.m Only arrogant, piece of fuckin' shits actually believe this crap.
_________________

Exactly! AAA game companies would never put profit$ before art!

As for the AAAs not making games we like any more: Old news.

I've got two words for you: Indie Games.

 

[Castanova]

Indie games fill demand for certain game types but there aren't enough successful indie projects to fill demand for ALL of the neglected types. Case in point: party-based RPGs, a sub-genre in which Knights of the Chalice is the only game in town (but is awesome, thankfully).

Anyway, this greywarden guy is a fucking clown and I would recommend he discontinue his video gaming and take up reading novels as a more appropriate hobby for his tastes. Then again, he'd probably spend all his time reading books set in the Star Wars universe and crying at the end.

 

[Volourn]

"Durr. Firms produce goods that satisfy consumer wants or needs. Consumers don't buy shit because a firm has put it on the market; they buy it because it's something they want. In other words, firms respond to consumer demands, and not the other way around. If a company is making a product that isn't what you want, it's not your job to justify their decision making, but apparently that hasn't yet occurred to gamers."

While it is true a consumer should only buy products they want/need; it doesn't mean a company has to cater to every single whim of individual consumers or small groups of them. A customer neededn't justify a company's decisions but a company doesn't need to do somehting just because big mouths demand.

BIO can make any fuckin' kind of game they fuckin' want THEN we decide if we are gonna buy it. period. This is why I bough DA and did not buy Sonic RPG. But, BIO mostc ertainly doesn't owe me shit nor do i owe them shit.

Or should I be butthurt because company x didn't make product y that I wnated to but instead made product z? No. I just fuckin' move on.

Or should everyone make a Sper mario/Call of Duty style of game since those are the type of games most people want? Bullshit.


"We're the ones paying their fucking salary,"

This is why customers are the biggest pieces of fuckin' arrogant scumbag toolbags in the entire world. We do not pay their salaery. The BIO/EA owners pay BIO employee salaries. We pay x amount of $ to buy the game. That's fuckin' it. This is the stupid sports piece of fag fan who claims to be paying the athelete's slaaryn or the psycho restuarant goer who gets butthurt and goes pyscho on the waiter and justifies it by claiming 'i pay yer saalry duh'. Fuck that bullshit.


"But here is the thing, Mass Effect audience and Dragon Age audience is not the same. "

Bullshit. They most certainly are for the most part.

 

[circ]

Gee Volly, you think EA shits out money through magic or something?

 

[BearBomber]

I actually liked the decision of using preset character. The preset char can have more complicated backstory; unique character and traits, more sophisticated role in the story. For example if you make a story about some fantasy kingdom and you let player customize character he will be forced to be some adventurer, or a mercenary with standard bland personality. If you force a character on player he may be local archmage, trusted advisor of the king who is having an affair with the queen. Some of the best RPGs had preset characters like Gothic, Torment or Deus Ex. Of course Bioware already failed at creating preset player character once by making Shepard completely unoriginal and boring, so I'm not expecting much. I'd also like to add that most RPG races are banal shit boring, dwarf/elf/funy race/wild race so I don't miss customization that much.

Sorry for not fallowing the flow of the debate

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Or should everyone make a Sper mario/Call of Duty style of game since those are the type of games most people want? Bullshit.

What sort of an idiot are you? This is EXACTLY what has been happening, though at a 'remove one piece at a time' evolvement. Surely...this is Volly's finest hour.

In any case, this whole business of DA2 being dumbed down made me think of some naive twit being talked into taking it up the arse. "Shh, it will only hurt the first few times. After a while, you will be able to accept it".

Hilarious watching the further dumbening. Easy to tell we are in a new decade eh?

 

[Joe Krow]

Rpgs are now part of popular culture. In pop culture the hardcore rpg fan is, and always has been, a reject. It might have seemed otherwise for a brief moment because D&D was popular once and you were a reject but didn't know it. That day is done (although you may still be a reject). Approach the new stuff with the same skepticism you do anything else produced by popular culture... expect garbage.

The good news is that pop culture is fickle. Rpgs, by their nature, are too demanding for the mass market. They can only simplify the genre so much. Eventually they will just move on. I'm hoping.

 

[Hobo Elf]

if BioWare delivers a compelling tale with characters I fall in love with, the game is a success.

Good luck with that.

 

[Moray]

This is why customers are the biggest pieces of fuckin' arrogant scumbag toolbags in the entire world. We do not pay their salaery. The BIO/EA owners pay BIO employee salaries.

And where does the money BIO/EA uses to pay various employees come from?

Herp derp.

That's right - the consumers. Strange concept, that.

 

[Volourn]

"Gee Volly, you think EA shits out money through magic or something?"

Considering all the bashing EA takes from the so called consumers and all the whining about EA 'sucking' yet they continue to make money.



"And where does the money BIO/EA uses to pay various employees come from?"

The money comes from them being good at what they do. We do not pay their salary. We buy their product because are interested it.

Let me ask you something. If we were paying their salaries we'd be able to fire them when we want and hire who we want. So.. when is Troika Triecta gonna be hired by EA.

Sorry, but the EA bosses pay the saalries. they make the decisions. And, they do what they feel is best for the company even if the arrogant butthurt retarded customers cry about it.

But, hey, i guess you approved of the restuarant goer who verbally abuses the server because afterall they pay thats erver's salary? Right.

Idiot.

We pay $ for the game than EA decides what to do with that money. Hell, they could decide not to pay the employees' salary and there's not a DAMN thing we customers could do about it . FFS

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

Volly, EA makes payroll each month through two sources: credit and revenue. Revenue comes from sales. Sales happen when retailers buy units of one of their products. Retailers buy units when they believe that consumers will buy them. Retailers believe that when consumers buy similar products. EA Developer Joe only gets paid if consumers like you or me bought his last game. Hence, we, through this chain of causation, pay his fucking salary and the salary of the HR drones who handle payroll to begin with.

 

[Cassidy]

if BioWare delivers a compelling tale with characters I fall in love with, the game is a success.  If I take something out of the story or if I feel bad about a particular decision I made that had negative consequences result from it, it’s a success. If I feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction mixed with sadness and depression as the final credits roll when I beat it, it’s been a success.

Storyfags are so storyfag.

I'd rather watch a movie than play a game with shitty gameplay and a totally linear story devoid of choices with any significant consequences.

After seeing this post I can do anything but agree with mondblut, even though, in all due honesty, I tend to put oldschool FPS combat in my enjoyment table second only to turn-based combat systems with action points like in Fallout and JA2.

Of course, both turn-based and FPS combat without popamole cover systems and regenerating health are extinct.

 

[Nihilism]

YOU'RE A FUCKING CONSUMER. THE GAME COMPANY CATERS TO YOUR INTERESTS, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!

More like game creators discover a formula which appeases and thus creates a base of consumers, and then rinse and repeat until the rare occasion another company discovers formulaic freshness, which is then ubiquitously mimicked.

No one consumer is going to change a studio's development plans; and no congregated whimpering of codexers will incline them to do, either, because the vast majority of those buying their games aren't discussing them on internet forums.

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

YOU'RE A FUCKING CONSUMER. THE GAME COMPANY CATERS TO YOUR INTERESTS, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!

More like game creators discover a formula which appeases and thus creates a base of consumers, and then rinse and repeat until the rare occasion another company discovers formulaic freshness, which is then ubiquitously mimicked.

No one consumer is going to change a studio's development plans; and no congregated whimpering of codexers will incline them to do, either, because the vast majority of those buying their games aren't discussing them on internet forums.

The larger point is that gamers and consumers in general are not somehow obligated to love everything a company does, and buy every product it sells. This idea that we need to show obeisance to our developer overlords is ridiculous, because they work for us, not the other way around. We're their customers, it's there job to serve us, hence why any company has a department called Customer Service. If customers aren't properly served, then customers go away, and if customers go away, then sales decline, and if sales decline, there isn't the revenue to pay people.

Over the last few years, Bioware has lost me as one of their customers. As an individual I don't matter much to them, but at the end of the day, they stopped making games I wanted to buy, so I'm under no obligation to continue giving them my business. That applies to anyone else who thinks Bioware, or any game company, or any company of any industry, is going the wrong direction.

So Greywardens needs to stop rationalizing bad design decisions out of misplaced loyalty, and instead start saying, "Hey, Bioware, we're your paying customers and we don't like what you're doing to our favorite game."

 

[circ]

I'd like to consumer you. Hurr hurr hurr hurr.

 

[Davaris]

it's there job to serve us, hence why any company has a department called Customer Service. If customers aren't properly served, then customers go away, and if customers go away, then sales decline, and if sales decline, there isn't the revenue to pay people.

A company's first duty is to be profitable and they will only serve the customers, that they deem it profitable to do so. So if they aren't serving people like us any more, its because they believe there is more money to be made elsewhere. Its sad for us, but that's the way it is.

 

[StrangeCase]

Yeah, companies that produced games the Codex likes have this habit of not existing anymore.

 

[circ]

Fucking Codex, killing those companies just like that.

 

[Shannow]

it's there job to serve us, hence why any company has a department called Customer Service. If customers aren't properly served, then customers go away, and if customers go away, then sales decline, and if sales decline, there isn't the revenue to pay people.

A company's first duty is to be profitable and they will only serve the customers, that they deem it profitable to do so. So if they aren't serving people like us any more, its because they believe there is more money to be made elsewhere. Its sad for us, but that's the way it is.

And here we're back at the specifics which started the whole argument and indicate that a significant portion of their fans/customers/potential customers for DA2 want to be able to chose their race (and backround) as they could in DA:O instead of having it shoved down their throats.

What is it with you guys and circles.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

it's there job

I actually liked the decision of using preset character. The preset char can have more complicated backstory; unique character and traits, more sophisticated role in the story. For example if you make a story about some fantasy kingdom and you let player customize character he will be forced to be some adventurer, or a mercenary with standard bland personality. If you force a character on player he may be local archmage, trusted advisor of the king who is having an affair with the queen. Some of the best RPGs had preset characters like Gothic, Torment or Deus Ex. Of course Bioware already failed at creating preset player character once by making Shepard completely unoriginal and boring, so I'm not expecting much. I'd also like to add that most RPG races are banal shit boring, dwarf/elf/funy race/wild race so I don't miss customization that much.

Thing is, DA already had non generic backgrounds for each race, even flaunting it in the game's title (quality of said backgrounds doesn't matter for this argument, they are there). In a way, it's a retrocess. It's this design philosophy of discarding what isn't working quite well, instead of trying to improve it.

 

[chzr]

It's this design philosophy of discarding what isn't working quite well, instead of trying to improve it.

Mass Effect 2, anyone?

 

[Davaris]

And here we're back at the specifics which started the whole argument and indicate that a significant portion of their fans/customers/potential customers for DA2 want to be able to chose their race (and backround) as they could in DA:O instead of having it shoved down their throats.

What is it with you guys and circles.

Where's your market research to prove that statement? Big companies do market research before all of their ventures, because they have shareholders to answer to.

All that has happened, is they believe they have found a more profitable market and they've thrown the old one under a bus. To these people you are not a person or a fan, you are just a potential income source. If they find a more profitable one, they'll change their products accordingly.

I'm not saying I like it, but that's capitalism.

 

[Shannow]

And here we're back at the specifics which started the whole argument and indicate that a significant portion of their fans/customers/potential customers for DA2 want to be able to chose their race (and backround) as they could in DA:O instead of having it shoved down their throats.

What is it with you guys and circles.

Where's your market research to prove that statement? Big companies do market research before all of their ventures, because they have shareholders to answer to.

All that has happened, is they believe they have found a more profitable market and they've thrown the old one under a bus. To these people you are not a person or a fan, you are just a potential income source. If they find a more profitable one, they'll change their products accordingly.

I'm not saying I like it, but that's capitalism.

See, that's much better. Now you're not simply going around in circles trying to argue something that has already been covered. Now you're following the logical tangent:
Does a majority of potential customers really prefer customization over non-customization? And how can "we" determine an answer? How can Bio determine an answer?

The rest of your post is pretty much inane summation of stuff we already mentioned or stuff that's so obvious nobody bothered before you.

A few points though:
Bio won't do market research on every little design feature. Market research is not an accurate science and costs money and they can simply use past experience.
As whorish as Bioware and industry itself is seen, they still have stuff they want to do. That's how niches come into existence. Otherwise everybody would be trying to do the same thing at the same time.
Bio know from experience that both a customizable backround and a cinematic experience can sell.
People, even big companies are far from infallible, the financial crisis should have given you a hint.