I’m in the industry and can tell you EXACTLY how - because I see it every day. The people making decisions at the executive level are of course the business end of the industry, and their goal is money. Unfortunately, they rarely have the insight of actually BEING a gamer, or knowing the fan base of an IP to give proper direction as to what gamers truly want. That’s a big part of it.
Another large part of it is risk – doing anything different is always risky business and people generally don’t like to play with their money. Even if lead designers have a certain vision, it’s often shot down because it isn’t a proven model and thus risky.
Lastly, the reason is simply all the challenges (technical, financial, etc) which limit what a company CAN accomplish. Games generally ship with maybe half the features the game designers wish to accomplish. To make deadlines, all sorts of sacrafices have to be made, sadly.
I can totally see that. I am a programmer myself but in 'regular' business world and what I see all the time is a failure to see how spending a little more money can save or make money later on. So I can see how business will get in a loop of trying to simply reduce the cost of their MMO development without thinking much about how customers might flee when features are removed or marginalized
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Of course no knows.But I will conjecture .I think it can be a few things:
- some game producers are implementers for someone elses idea.They are technicians.They know how to manage a team to produce an mmo.But they lack a vision and a passion for a central idea which come hell or high water they insist on implementing.
-ideas for games are formulated based on what they think investors will buy and give they money to produce a game
-some game decision makers may lack a clear understanding of the marketplace.The consumer...the various existing market segments... market opportunitys.They may lack an understanding of basic marketing...and the need to provide a STRONG reason why a potential subscriber should try and more importantly STAY with a gaming product
-I think some game producers underestimate the experience levels and sophistication of a signifigant segment of the gaming populous.
-I think some game producers fail to understand the cost to produce their project .....run short of funds and push a game out thats not finished enough....completly undoing the reason for doing the project in the first place.(the main reason new businessses fail...they lack enough capital to stay in business long enough to become successful)
There are more teenagers playing games than adults. Today's games are being created for teenagers. Older folks like myself miss for the "old days", where MMOs were flooded with complexity and adult aura.
I personally believe that MMOs aren't as hot as they were back during WoW's peak. There are less "new" MMO players emerging. The initial baby boomers of WoW are growing up and starting to yearn for more depth in their games.
I'm waiting for ArcheAge.
So you can tell us how it was for you then decide you actually hate it?
Can you be specific on what companies and games you have on mind?
Regarding STO and CO, you still did not point out what the issue is supposed to be.
Originally posted by mgilbrtsn
However, they are so far off the mark on what players wanted, that they just fail to attract the masses.
Are they? So you say you know what players want or do not want? Out of curiosity, how did you find out?
Polls, forums, etc. Just look at some of the polls here, and youwill see what so many would like. But they settle for dumbed down games and just go along with it. I personaly feel many dont even know what a MMORPG should be or what it use to be like. These games released now are console games made for pc with the words MMO labeled all over them.
Take SWTOR for example. Its nothing more than KTOR console game which allows a handful of people to share an instance. Full of eye candy but none of the mmo features so many games have/had. They are charging 15/month to play KTOR online and there is nothing special about SWTOR. Just shocked how people can like dumbed down games, with no indepth gameplay, and the lack of features that should be there. Its new and has wonderful eye candy, but when that wears off, TOR will be just an average single player console game.
I mean they just took a poll here not to long ago asking how people felt about console mmo's. 70% said no they didnt want to play them if i remember right. But then turn around and play them, probably because nothing good has been released for a long time.
Couple things...
1) Gamers are a diverse lot. There is no one thing all gamers want because everyone wants something different. In my opinion this problem is more with selection of target audiences. Most new games try to mimic the popular kid (in this case, WoW), hence ending up going after the same target audience.
Mimicry of a known successful game is considered "safe". "If it worked for them, it'll work for us", as the saying goes. The problem with this is that it ruins the market because everyone starts to do it, and it gets to the point where there are so many shoddy knock-offs, a large portion of the populous gets fed up and quits looking. Look up "Video Game Crash of 1977". It's basically a repeat of what happened then. Which was basically a larger scale repeat of what happened to Pong when it first hit arcades.
2) As unfortunate as it may be, graphics sell. With non-gamer investors having their hands deeper into the industry than ever before, the creative side of the spectrum is given a back seat to graphics, cinematics, effects, and voice acting. Its easier to make a game look pretty than it is to come up with new and inventive ways to play it, and the graphics are the first thing a potential customer notices about a game. As long as players keep buying games for their looks, and ignoring others because they appear "kiddy" or "unrealistic", this trend will continue.
Because they don't design games for gamers they design games for a quick buck.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Because they don't design games for gamers they design games for a quick buck.
It does seem like Developers now are designing 'HYPE" instead of games -- hoping the hype will sell enough boxes to make a profit, and then treat the P2P aspect as seperate revenue source.
Because they don't design games for gamers they design games for a quick buck.
and people should think about that stradgey wise.
What I mean is they might think this:
'instead of making a game that will get subscriptions why dont we create a cheap game, advertise like crazy then millions of people will buy it for $50, play for 3 months then disapear but we STILL make bank'
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Because they don't design games for gamers they design games for a quick buck.
It does seem like Developers now are designing 'HYPE" instead of games -- hoping the hype will sell enough boxes to make a profit, and then treat the P2P aspect as seperate revenue source.
Exactly. The gaming community is beginning to catch on to this though, that tactic isn't going to work much longer. Hype is a dangerous thing and is becoming more and more obvious as gamers see it time and time again.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
There are more teenagers playing games than adults. Today's games are being created for teenagers. Older folks like myself miss for the "old days", where MMOs were flooded with complexity and adult aura. I personally believe that MMOs aren't as hot as they were back during WoW's peak. There are less "new" MMO players emerging. The initial baby boomers of WoW are growing up and starting to yearn for more depth in their games. I'm waiting for ArcheAge.
LOL .. you have NO CLUE about the demographics about MMOs.
In the US, in 2011, 69% of MMO players are over 20. Teenagers??? It is amazing how people just spew whatever comes to their mind as facts when they don't have a shed of evidence.
BTW, the web editor has issue, so i apologize for the odd formatting. My point stands though.
1. They're chained to investors. Someone has to fund them, those people want a return on their investment. So analysts look to the market to see what's successful and what isn't, risking money on untested innovation is a poor financial decision.
2. Game companies continue to hire programmers as lead designers. No amount of experience and no amount of technical knowledge can ever replace imagination and creativity. It takes a certain type of mind to understand algorigthims and to write code for hours/days on end, basically it takes a very trained and focused mind to do so. A more flexible and adaptive mind is needed to create; to have a vision comprised of many parts, and to understand the why and how of what they're interested in creating.
1. They're chained to investors. Someone has to fund them, those people want a return on their investment. So analysts look to the market to see what's successful and what isn't, risking money on untested innovation is a poor financial decision.
2. Game companies continue to hire programmers as lead designers. No amount of experience and no amount of technical knowledge can ever replace imagination and creativity. It takes a certain type of mind to understand algorigthims and to write code for hours/days on end, basically it takes a very trained and focused mind to do so. A more flexible and adaptive mind is needed to create; to have a vision comprised of many parts, and to understand the why and how of what they're interested in creating.
for the most part number 2 is not true.
Programming (I say this as a programmer myself) requires a lot of creative thinking and often the good programmers are amazingly creative people. That said, there is another 'brand' of programmers who are trained to only do exactly what they are told and I have to admit that is cultural more than anything else and you dont see much of that culture in the gaming industry.
Most people are delisional when it comes to creativity. the 'idea phase' is a teir 1 level in actual mental effort. In other words the idea phase is the easy
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
They not only try to attract children they also try to attract women and that is a big mistake.
We don't have mixed football teams. Physical education in school is also seperated and the same goes for gaming.
Girls like makeup but i don't want that shit in my game.
Sorry but it's the truth.
*snort*
The problem is not that women play MMOs. If there is any problem that you have seen where an MMO has become girly, I can fair guarantee it's because, somewhere, a man sat down and tried to work out what a woman wants to play. Not a clue.
I like playing games that are challenging and deep, with professions that aren't just this cakewalk, and mechanics which allow for complexity. I like losing a mission the first time I do it, if I've got it wrong, and I like working out how to do it right so that I can succeed. I like the satisfaction of completing really challenging content, and working with other players to complete goals. Okay, I also like having good armour and I possibly spend a little longer in character creation that other people, but how is that something that only women do?
If there is ever a problem with the "casual market" infecting MMOs, it is going to be the fault of a bunch of men in suits who've never even touched a game, but hold all the bank notes and would like another 10million subbed WoW with their name on it, thank you very much. It's just a shame that sort of thing isn't going to happen again.
I think ego is a factor "look at this awesome raid we designed" "look at this awesome battleground we designed" Rather than "look at these systems we put in place to enable longevity by other players being the content"
Seanm: Agree, programming is a creative job, its not number crunching, programming is finding ways to solve problems creatively, programers make micro design decisions like every 5 minutes as part of they're job.
To add people not in the industry think of programming as "production"
But its not, pressing the dvd is production. Programming is r&d
Most of the better companies don't user analysts / designers / programmers etc.. they use "developers"
Heck if you write test first - code second style There is a strong argument that testing is analysis and coding is design
As for the personality types, the ideal that you need to he kind of anal and fixed on a task to program is a misnomer, most programmers, particular in harder fields like games are typically a bit flaky and disorganised from my experience. They need the more anal retentive types to do the paperwork for them.
I think all of them MMOs are kind of girly and it is not possible to create a game that attracts both genders equally.
Bioware's is also a candidat for that. It should be clear from the start who the suits trying to attract.
The same you have in the music industry, there are target audiences for different styles of music.
It's your free choice if you want to play a game that was created for males.
But both genders will suffer if you try to combine Hello Kitty and DOOM.
The interest are just too different.
I still don't think it's a case of "design a game for men" or "design a game for women". It's more "design a game for people who like X feature", or "design a game for people who like Y feature". If the majority of that audience happens to be one gender over the other, then so what? Why exclude people who are interested in your product because they happen to be the opposite gender to the majority of your playerbase?
I know men who love FPS and I know men who enjoy The Sims. I know women who enjoy both types of game too. At the end of the day, categorising an aspect of gameplay as only for one gender only makes this problem worse. If the suits stopped trying to make games for men and games for women, and started making more games for people who enjoy a specific gameplay type instead, perhaps this part of the problem would go away.
i think developers should do whatever they want. they still need to please the people in order for them to get us to play their games. they shoudl take into consideration what people want but majority of the people can't agree on one thing. its like should i get a pepsi or coke.
it's hard for developers to please everyone since they're not trying to please just 1 person, but they have in minds millions of people.
If the suits stopped trying to make games for men and games for women, and started making more games for people who enjoy a specific gameplay type instead, perhaps this part of the problem would go away.
I agree with that but I don't think that it is so easy because of art styles and overall presentation. The only games I could call genderless would be games like chess, poker, backgammon, tabletops and card games. I haved played the Sims too but I still think it is a game for girls and I lost interest in that very fast.
I'll tell you the truth. I'm not sure what 'the community' wants. Depending on what camp you're in 'sandbox or not.' 'pvp or not' 'death penalties or not' Many of these factions tend to be more vocal than the majority of players, I believe. Because of this, I understand how games will alienate a certain amount of the gaming population. Let be honest with ourselves. The MMO community (at least on the forums), tend to be a very fanatical group. I want sandbox and everything themepark is bad, or visa versa. I could point to many examples. Thats not to say that my generalization fits everyone, so please don't flame me. Its just my impression from lurking and participating in these forums.
Because of this type of polorized community, one or another faction is gonna feel left out. So I understand, why an MMO fails to get some slice of the pie, so to speak. But some games, and once again, I'll point to STO and CO seem to have failed to get a significant slide of any of the pie. If you're going out of your way to make a themepark or sandbox or pvp centric or pve centric, you should at least get a share of those pieces of pie, if you researched or done any kind of analysis on your piece of pie. But some companies seem to fail to do this. That's what I just don't understand.
Comments
I can totally see that. I am a programmer myself but in 'regular' business world and what I see all the time is a failure to see how spending a little more money can save or make money later on. So I can see how business will get in a loop of trying to simply reduce the cost of their MMO development without thinking much about how customers might flee when features are removed or marginalized
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Of course no knows.But I will conjecture .I think it can be a few things:
- some game producers are implementers for someone elses idea.They are technicians.They know how to manage a team to produce an mmo.But they lack a vision and a passion for a central idea which come hell or high water they insist on implementing.
-ideas for games are formulated based on what they think investors will buy and give they money to produce a game
-some game decision makers may lack a clear understanding of the marketplace.The consumer...the various existing market segments... market opportunitys.They may lack an understanding of basic marketing...and the need to provide a STRONG reason why a potential subscriber should try and more importantly STAY with a gaming product
-I think some game producers underestimate the experience levels and sophistication of a signifigant segment of the gaming populous.
-I think some game producers fail to understand the cost to produce their project .....run short of funds and push a game out thats not finished enough....completly undoing the reason for doing the project in the first place.(the main reason new businessses fail...they lack enough capital to stay in business long enough to become successful)
So you can tell us how it was for you then decide you actually hate it?
Couple things...
1) Gamers are a diverse lot. There is no one thing all gamers want because everyone wants something different. In my opinion this problem is more with selection of target audiences. Most new games try to mimic the popular kid (in this case, WoW), hence ending up going after the same target audience.
Mimicry of a known successful game is considered "safe". "If it worked for them, it'll work for us", as the saying goes. The problem with this is that it ruins the market because everyone starts to do it, and it gets to the point where there are so many shoddy knock-offs, a large portion of the populous gets fed up and quits looking. Look up "Video Game Crash of 1977". It's basically a repeat of what happened then. Which was basically a larger scale repeat of what happened to Pong when it first hit arcades.
2) As unfortunate as it may be, graphics sell. With non-gamer investors having their hands deeper into the industry than ever before, the creative side of the spectrum is given a back seat to graphics, cinematics, effects, and voice acting. Its easier to make a game look pretty than it is to come up with new and inventive ways to play it, and the graphics are the first thing a potential customer notices about a game. As long as players keep buying games for their looks, and ignoring others because they appear "kiddy" or "unrealistic", this trend will continue.
Because they don't design games for gamers they design games for a quick buck.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
It does seem like Developers now are designing 'HYPE" instead of games -- hoping the hype will sell enough boxes to make a profit, and then treat the P2P aspect as seperate revenue source.
and people should think about that stradgey wise.
What I mean is they might think this:
'instead of making a game that will get subscriptions why dont we create a cheap game, advertise like crazy then millions of people will buy it for $50, play for 3 months then disapear but we STILL make bank'
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Exactly. The gaming community is beginning to catch on to this though, that tactic isn't going to work much longer. Hype is a dangerous thing and is becoming more and more obvious as gamers see it time and time again.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
LOL .. you have NO CLUE about the demographics about MMOs.Here is a research report for MMOs in 2011.
http://newzoo.com/press/Newzoo_Trend_Report_MMO_Games_NOV2011.pdf
In the US, in 2011, 69% of MMO players are over 20. Teenagers???
It is amazing how people just spew whatever comes to their mind as facts when they don't have a shed of evidence.
BTW, the web editor has issue, so i apologize for the odd formatting. My point stands though.
I blame the women.
They not only try to attract children they also try to attract women and that is a big mistake.
We don't have mixed football teams. Physical education in school is also seperated and the same goes for gaming.
Girls like makeup but i don't want that shit in my game.
Sorry but it's the truth.
i didnt want to but i LOL'd
Two major reasons imo.
1. They're chained to investors. Someone has to fund them, those people want a return on their investment. So analysts look to the market to see what's successful and what isn't, risking money on untested innovation is a poor financial decision.
2. Game companies continue to hire programmers as lead designers. No amount of experience and no amount of technical knowledge can ever replace imagination and creativity. It takes a certain type of mind to understand algorigthims and to write code for hours/days on end, basically it takes a very trained and focused mind to do so. A more flexible and adaptive mind is needed to create; to have a vision comprised of many parts, and to understand the why and how of what they're interested in creating.
for the most part number 2 is not true.
Programming (I say this as a programmer myself) requires a lot of creative thinking and often the good programmers are amazingly creative people. That said, there is another 'brand' of programmers who are trained to only do exactly what they are told and I have to admit that is cultural more than anything else and you dont see much of that culture in the gaming industry.
Most people are delisional when it comes to creativity. the 'idea phase' is a teir 1 level in actual mental effort. In other words the idea phase is the easy
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
*snort*
The problem is not that women play MMOs. If there is any problem that you have seen where an MMO has become girly, I can fair guarantee it's because, somewhere, a man sat down and tried to work out what a woman wants to play. Not a clue.
I like playing games that are challenging and deep, with professions that aren't just this cakewalk, and mechanics which allow for complexity. I like losing a mission the first time I do it, if I've got it wrong, and I like working out how to do it right so that I can succeed. I like the satisfaction of completing really challenging content, and working with other players to complete goals. Okay, I also like having good armour and I possibly spend a little longer in character creation that other people, but how is that something that only women do?
If there is ever a problem with the "casual market" infecting MMOs, it is going to be the fault of a bunch of men in suits who've never even touched a game, but hold all the bank notes and would like another 10million subbed WoW with their name on it, thank you very much. It's just a shame that sort of thing isn't going to happen again.
Reality Bites. I'm only Barking
I think all of them MMOs are kind of girly and it is not possible to create a game that attracts both genders equally.
Bioware's is also a candidat for that. It should be clear from the start who the suits trying to attract.
The same you have in the music industry, there are target audiences for different styles of music.
It's your free choice if you want to play a game that was created for males.
But both genders will suffer if you try to combine Hello Kitty and DOOM.
The interest are just too different.
"look at this awesome raid we designed"
"look at this awesome battleground we designed"
Rather than "look at these systems we put in place to enable longevity by other players being the content"
Agree, programming is a creative job, its not number crunching, programming is finding ways to solve problems creatively, programers make micro design decisions like every 5 minutes as part of they're job.
But its not, pressing the dvd is production. Programming is r&d
Most of the better companies don't user analysts / designers / programmers etc.. they use "developers"
Heck if you write test first - code second style
There is a strong argument that testing is analysis and coding is design
As for the personality types, the ideal that you need to he kind of anal and fixed on a task to program is a misnomer, most programmers, particular in harder fields like games are typically a bit flaky and disorganised from my experience. They need the more anal retentive types to do the paperwork for them.
Sounds like someone got majorly pwnd by a chick. If it makes you feel any better, just keep telling yourself she was probably a dude IRL.
sure sure of course.
I still don't think it's a case of "design a game for men" or "design a game for women". It's more "design a game for people who like X feature", or "design a game for people who like Y feature". If the majority of that audience happens to be one gender over the other, then so what? Why exclude people who are interested in your product because they happen to be the opposite gender to the majority of your playerbase?
I know men who love FPS and I know men who enjoy The Sims. I know women who enjoy both types of game too. At the end of the day, categorising an aspect of gameplay as only for one gender only makes this problem worse. If the suits stopped trying to make games for men and games for women, and started making more games for people who enjoy a specific gameplay type instead, perhaps this part of the problem would go away.
Reality Bites. I'm only Barking
i think developers should do whatever they want. they still need to please the people in order for them to get us to play their games. they shoudl take into consideration what people want but majority of the people can't agree on one thing. its like should i get a pepsi or coke.
it's hard for developers to please everyone since they're not trying to please just 1 person, but they have in minds millions of people.
I agree with that but I don't think that it is so easy because of art styles and overall presentation. The only games I could call genderless would be games like chess, poker, backgammon, tabletops and card games. I haved played the Sims too but I still think it is a game for girls and I lost interest in that very fast.
I'll tell you the truth. I'm not sure what 'the community' wants. Depending on what camp you're in 'sandbox or not.' 'pvp or not' 'death penalties or not' Many of these factions tend to be more vocal than the majority of players, I believe. Because of this, I understand how games will alienate a certain amount of the gaming population. Let be honest with ourselves. The MMO community (at least on the forums), tend to be a very fanatical group. I want sandbox and everything themepark is bad, or visa versa. I could point to many examples. Thats not to say that my generalization fits everyone, so please don't flame me. Its just my impression from lurking and participating in these forums.
Because of this type of polorized community, one or another faction is gonna feel left out. So I understand, why an MMO fails to get some slice of the pie, so to speak. But some games, and once again, I'll point to STO and CO seem to have failed to get a significant slide of any of the pie. If you're going out of your way to make a themepark or sandbox or pvp centric or pve centric, you should at least get a share of those pieces of pie, if you researched or done any kind of analysis on your piece of pie. But some companies seem to fail to do this. That's what I just don't understand.
I self identify as a monkey.
"It's more "design a game for people who like X feature", or "design a game for people who like Y feature"."
Thats part of the problem, the goal has not been "design a good game" for a looong time...