Weekend Recovery: No U!
It's Weekend Recovery, your Monday morning, 9 AM intellectual gaming discussion fix. Have a suggestion for a Weekend Recovery topic? Send your ideas to mixvio@gaygamer.net and you might see your name on the grand marquee!
----
Happy post-Thanksgiving, US readers!
Last week Ars Technica ran an interesting article discussing ways that PC gamers can make their voices heard to game studios when they're upset about decisions those studios have made. I'm not sure why they narrowed in specifically on PC gamers, since I think their advice would work equally well with respect to console releases or even customer/company interactions that have nothing to do with gaming whatsoever. Perhaps it's because the majority of what they touched on was regarding anonymity within internet communities that led them to keep their focus on PC players-- I'm not sure.
At any rate the advice was really good: touching on the common refrains of "I'll boycott you!" or "I'll pirate your game!" when customers are irate about changes or problems they dislike, the article had spokespeople at various companies explaining that those comments are usually the surest way to get studios to cover their ears and ignore the fanbase. I think that's pretty good wisdom for anything in life, personally.
The article also highlights the very salient point that a lot of customers seem to miss: vote with your wallets. If a game studio has done something you disapprove of, actually refrain from purchasing said game instead of frothing in the comments section of a fan site that you intend to boycott it, only to end up playing the game anyway:
PC gamers make a lot of noise online, but the amount of concrete action pales in comparison. By spending less time organizing public boycotts and more time simply buying good games, by choosing not to fly the Jolly Roger and changing the discussion to things publishers can do to earn your money, by organizing in a real way and criticizing productively, you can make things better for PC gaming.
In the end the article brings up a lot of good, concrete advice for how PC gamers can better engage studios when those studios do something they disapprove of, and reward studios when they do something they enjoy.
So do you think this is good advice to take to heart, or is it fluff? I definitely think there's something to be improved upon in terms of how people act online when they're upset about something, but that's just my own opinion.
mixvio
Posted to Miscellany on 30 November 2009
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: manners, opinion, weekend recovery
You're quite right when you say "vote with your wallet" if you don't like a particular publisher's/dev's approach to a game. The way I usually avoid the aggravation is to buy the game used from someone else for cheap. That way you still get to experience the game, but the publisher/developer doesn't get rewarded with your money. I can usually wait a while on a new release if it is from a publisher I hate ( Activision ) until I can get it used.
"Voting with your wallet" is good, but if you really want to send a message you need to go all the way with it. Publishers can still tell if their game is selling well in used sales or has a high pirate rate, so if they see lots of those then they know that people still want that kind of game and will continue to make them. If you really want to send a message, don't buy the game AT ALL and don't pirate it. Avoid the game entirely, and the message will be sent that the game isn't desirable. Even when you aren't directly rewarding a specific publisher/developer with your money, buying used and pirating are still reinforcing that there is an audience for whatever objectionable game they are making.
And it would be nicer for comment passerby types like me who are sick of idiots frothing that they're boycotting.
I once had somebody on my Steam friends list (who is no since gone for reasons that will be soon obvious) who recently changed his handle to "Now Boycotting TF2" (Team Fortress 2). That's funny because I met him playing TF2. Clearly this idiot doesn't understand that you can't boycott something you already bought. (he was mad because they took away his items he acquired through idle-hacking.)
The problem with most PC gamers is that they're spoiled brats, I find. I used to think the Valve-community types were a little higher class than most gamers, but with the outrages over TF2's idle-hacking bust and L4D2 in general, well, that opinion has since retracted a great deal. Though they're still nicer to play with than most X-Box Live online games.