Time to prove them wrong. My new year pledge is to not buy a single game that involves EA, and I am encouraging others to vote with their wallets as well.
I feel like this is something they haven't taken into account... the analyst says EA (and other games companies) have a 'tailwind' due to digital 'add-ons' and 'services', but this is only the first generation of these types of games (i.e. full price with additional monetisation) and already the reaction has been very negative*; SW:BF2 being the biggest case (so far), but even Destiny 2 (praised by many at launch) is now struggling to maintain players (with an increasingly aggressive lootbox system that is in no way helping).
Not that I expect EA (or Activision) to become unprofitable any time soon, but with the path they are treading a lot of gamers (especially those in their 30's, 40's and 50's who have money) are going to stop buying their products, and if they can't sell their products (the quality of which is generally questionable to begin with) how are going to sell all of these 'high margin' add-ons?
* While the negative reaction hasn't been fully reflected in product sales thus far, this is hardly surprising (fool me once and all that); it is the second and third generation of these games that will (start to at least) feel the impact... i.e. How well do you think Anthem is going to sell if it includes lootboxes? How well do you think Destiny 3 is going to sell given the current state of Destiny 2?
If games become grindie messes, I am out. Loot boxes could kill the genre simply because the companies THINK that it is a way for them to make a lot of quick money. I look at it from the consumer point of view. Why would I spend money on a game that is grindie which makes it no fun in a short time. Take Destiny 2. It was fun for the first 20 hours maybe. Now, everything revolves around the grind. Not fun. I should point out that I stayed away from SWBF2 simply because of the loot box issue for exactly the same reason.
Lets pretend investors really are gamers (which I'm sure some are). Its too broad of a term to use. You have to look into what kind of gamer they are, not just that they enjoy playing games. They could the type that plays the game on the lowest difficulty or with cheat codes and move on to the next title, or the type that pushes themselves to the next difficulty or challenge if presented. Its just like when you hear developers (yes I'm looking at you IH from Blizzard) that claim to have been original players of the project they are currently working on yet we dont know their gaming history. They could've been casual or hardcore, who honestly knows? I'm sure some are looking at this response and wondering what does it matter if they just play it but it defines the direction and integrity of the product depending on the history of the people working on it and supporting it.
Because there is no way it was a proportionate reaction to a moronic move that should have cost the company billions. The bean counters can spin this all they want but the truth is people are sick of this cash shop cancer and they had better start taking it seriously.
The 1 year and 5 year delta, trend, and current recovery point to this being investors being spooked.
Here is the one year delta. EA is 34.58 points above where they were last year this time and currently trending towards recovery along the same long term slope it was trending on. The most recent trend, before the publicity fiasco, was increasing at a dramatically steeper rate and ballooning into a bubble. This sort of popped that bubble and put them back on a more steady realistic trend.
I estimated, not calculated, the rate of curve. As you can see from the last year it looks like EA is far behind their curve. The problem is their stock growth rate was too rapid and unsustainable, in my opinion.
Looking at the 5 year trend you can see the curve is nearly linear when smoothed out. They're on course and returning to their stock norm. If I was an investor, which I'm not, I would be very happy with the direction it's taking.
Looking at the 5 year curve it is a shallower more modest rate of increase. Even with their setback their stock price is still trending up at a higher rate than their 5 year plot.
In other words, the investors matters more than the players.
Well...pretty much.
This should not be a revelation. It is the very business trend that has brought us to the cash shop fiascle we are in today.
Some of us just saw the trend and connection far earlier than others and knew where we were headed and the impact it would cause. We now continue to see, across all business and legal fronts that the individual consumer is being stripped of all influence, rights and power though limitations of choice.
This is a global trend. This should have worried every single one of you here a very long time ago. It is now institutionalized however, so there is likely nothing that can be done on the consumer level other than taking full control of new and innovative business platforms before venture capitalism does.
This why crowd funding and direct online services evolved but are highly volatile as anything new is.
Yeah these guys have their heads up their asses. They study business but have no idea about gaming. These same kind of guys were totally bewildered how LOL wasn't charging people to play the game a couple years ago. They place zero value in player experience. Games are not as simple as other products- they must be good and valuable for the individual player.
Not to mention this is simply the straw the broke the camel's back. EA has been trying to pull shit for years. People have finally had enough.
All this is really about is the stock, and one financial analysts view is not the to be taken as the be all and end all.
That said I am not surprised, the game was the second best selling game launched around that time, only falling behind CoD. So they will make a profit, big time. What they won't have is a large MT revenue stream which extends over the next several months.
So back to an old question, is that revenue stream needed? Well its the way every business likes to go now. Get them on a subscription or extra payments; from smartphones to charities to video games. The game can be produced and make a handsome profit without it, this is just treating players like cash cows.
EA own rights to things that are popular and people will buy no matter what. FIFA & Star Wars for instance are super popular things. No matter how bad the video games are, or how bad the movies are, or how corrupt FIFA gets, they still remain very popular. It's a genius plan if you think about it. They call it, "owning the goose that lays golden eggs." People want those eggs, damn it, and they don't care how rotten they are.
In other words, the investors matters more than the players.
Well...pretty much.
Now the company is the product and the stockholders are the customers and the sheeple are there to be fleeced.
It will be interesting to see how long this business strategy lasts.
'now'?
that is how publically traded companies have existed for decades.
did you know that in some cases a CEO can be SUED for not fulfilling his obligations to the company charter which in the case of publicly traded companies is ALWAYS to put profits above anything else.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
In other words, the investors matters more than the players.
Well...pretty much.
Now the company is the product and the stockholders are the customers and the sheeple are there to be fleeced.
It will be interesting to see how long this business strategy lasts.
Honestly, I played the campaign over the holidays, along with my boys, and the unanimous feedback was it was good. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was good. I don't think that it was any less worthy of my money than, say, Destiny 2 or Call of Duty WWII. In fact, I'd say that if there are any sheeple, it's those focusing on the political aspects and projecting that onto the game itself.
In other words, the investors matters more than the players.
Well...pretty much.
Now the company is the product and the stockholders are the customers and the sheeple are there to be fleeced.
It will be interesting to see how long this business strategy lasts.
Honestly, I played the campaign over the holidays, along with my boys, and the unanimous feedback was it was good. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was good. I don't think that it was any less worthy of my money than, say, Destiny 2 or Call of Duty WWII. In fact, I'd say that if there are any sheeple, it's those focusing on the political aspects and projecting that onto the game itself.
In other words, the investors matters more than the players.
Well...pretty much.
Now the company is the product and the stockholders are the customers and the sheeple are there to be fleeced.
It will be interesting to see how long this business strategy lasts.
Honestly, I played the campaign over the holidays, along with my boys, and the unanimous feedback was it was good. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was good. I don't think that it was any less worthy of my money than, say, Destiny 2 or Call of Duty WWII. In fact, I'd say that if there are any sheeple, it's those focusing on the political aspects and projecting that onto the game itself.
Yeah, but you also have a pretty good idea of what your customers want, right? You aren't creating a mass-produced product, unless I'm remembering incorrectly.
I have a friend who works as an engineer. They build parts for the automotive industry and also the aerospace industry. Now! There is a bearing that is shared between both plants, to the point that if they are out of that part for an aerospace customer, they simply transfer stock from the automotive. Now, the cost of that part to an automotive customer is like $30, but when it's sold to an aerospace customer, it costs that customer $15,000.
You can look at that as being crazy and unfair, or you can accept that there is probably a great deal of knowledge that you're unaware of. For instance, you're making the assumption that this isn't already happening to some degree. The fact that these companies are patenting stuff shouldn't be alarming. However, if you ever saw Blizzard's control room, I think that you'd be fairly confident that these large companies already have a great understanding of what customers are doing and how they want to leverage that knowledge. They are simply putting it on paper so they cannot be sued for doing it later, a la the whole "buy now" debacle circa 2007.
The reality is that information is power, and you should realize this. So I would be surprised if they WEREN'T patenting this. If you want a payday, though, try to predict their next step and patent it!
In other words, the investors matters more than the players.
Well...pretty much.
Now the company is the product and the stockholders are the customers and the sheeple are there to be fleeced.
It will be interesting to see how long this business strategy lasts.
Honestly, I played the campaign over the holidays, along with my boys, and the unanimous feedback was it was good. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was good. I don't think that it was any less worthy of my money than, say, Destiny 2 or Call of Duty WWII. In fact, I'd say that if there are any sheeple, it's those focusing on the political aspects and projecting that onto the game itself.
Yeah, but you also have a pretty good idea of what your customers want, right? You aren't creating a mass-produced product, unless I'm remembering incorrectly.
I have a friend who works as an engineer. They build parts for the automotive industry and also the aerospace industry. Now! There is a bearing that is shared between both plants, to the point that if they are out of that part for an aerospace customer, they simply transfer stock from the automotive. Now, the cost of that part to an automotive customer is like $30, but when it's sold to an aerospace customer, it costs that customer $15,000.
You can look at that as being crazy and unfair, or you can accept that there is probably a great deal of knowledge that you're unaware of. For instance, you're making the assumption that this isn't already happening to some degree. The fact that these companies are patenting stuff shouldn't be alarming. However, if you ever saw Blizzard's control room, I think that you'd be fairly confident that these large companies already have a great understanding of what customers are doing and how they want to leverage that knowledge. They are simply putting it on paper so they cannot be sued for doing it later, a la the whole "buy now" debacle circa 2007.
The reality is that information is power, and you should realize this. So I would be surprised if they WEREN'T patenting this. If you want a payday, though, try to predict their next step and patent it!
I think your friend is exaggerating just a little bit on the $30 to $15000 part. Unless maybe its concerning a Government aircraft maintenance contract.
I like many other small business's in my area do a lot of work for Boeing. Now *Commercial Airliner* parts are a lot more costly than automobile parts (nowhere near the $30 to $15000), but the quality control standards are vastly different between the two products. Did you know that every bolt and rivet in a commercial airliner is X-ray inspected.
The reality of the situation is, that in these times... the Video Game Industry is taking their customers base for a bunch of chumps.
In other words, the investors matters more than the players.
Well...pretty much.
Now the company is the product and the stockholders are the customers and the sheeple are there to be fleeced.
It will be interesting to see how long this business strategy lasts.
Honestly, I played the campaign over the holidays, along with my boys, and the unanimous feedback was it was good. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was good. I don't think that it was any less worthy of my money than, say, Destiny 2 or Call of Duty WWII. In fact, I'd say that if there are any sheeple, it's those focusing on the political aspects and projecting that onto the game itself.
Yeah, but you also have a pretty good idea of what your customers want, right? You aren't creating a mass-produced product, unless I'm remembering incorrectly.
I have a friend who works as an engineer. They build parts for the automotive industry and also the aerospace industry. Now! There is a bearing that is shared between both plants, to the point that if they are out of that part for an aerospace customer, they simply transfer stock from the automotive. Now, the cost of that part to an automotive customer is like $30, but when it's sold to an aerospace customer, it costs that customer $15,000.
You can look at that as being crazy and unfair, or you can accept that there is probably a great deal of knowledge that you're unaware of. For instance, you're making the assumption that this isn't already happening to some degree. The fact that these companies are patenting stuff shouldn't be alarming. However, if you ever saw Blizzard's control room, I think that you'd be fairly confident that these large companies already have a great understanding of what customers are doing and how they want to leverage that knowledge. They are simply putting it on paper so they cannot be sued for doing it later, a la the whole "buy now" debacle circa 2007.
The reality is that information is power, and you should realize this. So I would be surprised if they WEREN'T patenting this. If you want a payday, though, try to predict their next step and patent it!
I think your friend is exaggerating just a little bit on the $30 to $15000 part. Unless maybe its concerning a Government aircraft maintenance contract.
I like many other small business's in my area do a lot of work for Boeing. Now *Commercial Airliner* parts are a lot more costly than automobile parts (nowhere near the $30 to $15000), but the quality control standards are vastly different between the two products. Did you know that every bolt and rivet in a commercial airliner is X-ray inspected.
The reality of the situation is, that in these times... the Video Game Industry is taking their customers base for a bunch of chumps.
again....not the industry, PARTS of the industry
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
In other words, the investors matters more than the players.
Well...pretty much.
Now the company is the product and the stockholders are the customers and the sheeple are there to be fleeced.
It will be interesting to see how long this business strategy lasts.
Honestly, I played the campaign over the holidays, along with my boys, and the unanimous feedback was it was good. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was good. I don't think that it was any less worthy of my money than, say, Destiny 2 or Call of Duty WWII. In fact, I'd say that if there are any sheeple, it's those focusing on the political aspects and projecting that onto the game itself.
Yeah, but you also have a pretty good idea of what your customers want, right? You aren't creating a mass-produced product, unless I'm remembering incorrectly.
I have a friend who works as an engineer. They build parts for the automotive industry and also the aerospace industry. Now! There is a bearing that is shared between both plants, to the point that if they are out of that part for an aerospace customer, they simply transfer stock from the automotive. Now, the cost of that part to an automotive customer is like $30, but when it's sold to an aerospace customer, it costs that customer $15,000.
You can look at that as being crazy and unfair, or you can accept that there is probably a great deal of knowledge that you're unaware of. For instance, you're making the assumption that this isn't already happening to some degree. The fact that these companies are patenting stuff shouldn't be alarming. However, if you ever saw Blizzard's control room, I think that you'd be fairly confident that these large companies already have a great understanding of what customers are doing and how they want to leverage that knowledge. They are simply putting it on paper so they cannot be sued for doing it later, a la the whole "buy now" debacle circa 2007.
The reality is that information is power, and you should realize this. So I would be surprised if they WEREN'T patenting this. If you want a payday, though, try to predict their next step and patent it!
You nailed it. That's why machine learning, AI, and analytics in conjunction with big data is the hot thing in tech right now.
I'm surprised it's taken this long for the industry to patent game systems. It's been a fairly open cooperative tech environment up to this point. People are worried about EA and Activision squeezing them for more money, but that's short-sighted. The real issue here is how this could affect the rest of the development landscape and what it could mean for the future. If studios and publishers start patenting gaming systems and technology it could dramatically alter the landscape with small studio and indie projects taking the biggest hits. The one small saving grace here is that there is a sea of preexisting implementations to combat a tech takeover.
In other words, the investors matters more than the players.
Well...pretty much.
Now the company is the product and the stockholders are the customers and the sheeple are there to be fleeced.
It will be interesting to see how long this business strategy lasts.
Honestly, I played the campaign over the holidays, along with my boys, and the unanimous feedback was it was good. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was good. I don't think that it was any less worthy of my money than, say, Destiny 2 or Call of Duty WWII. In fact, I'd say that if there are any sheeple, it's those focusing on the political aspects and projecting that onto the game itself.
Yeah, but you also have a pretty good idea of what your customers want, right? You aren't creating a mass-produced product, unless I'm remembering incorrectly.
I have a friend who works as an engineer. They build parts for the automotive industry and also the aerospace industry. Now! There is a bearing that is shared between both plants, to the point that if they are out of that part for an aerospace customer, they simply transfer stock from the automotive. Now, the cost of that part to an automotive customer is like $30, but when it's sold to an aerospace customer, it costs that customer $15,000.
You can look at that as being crazy and unfair, or you can accept that there is probably a great deal of knowledge that you're unaware of. For instance, you're making the assumption that this isn't already happening to some degree. The fact that these companies are patenting stuff shouldn't be alarming. However, if you ever saw Blizzard's control room, I think that you'd be fairly confident that these large companies already have a great understanding of what customers are doing and how they want to leverage that knowledge. They are simply putting it on paper so they cannot be sued for doing it later, a la the whole "buy now" debacle circa 2007.
The reality is that information is power, and you should realize this. So I would be surprised if they WEREN'T patenting this. If you want a payday, though, try to predict their next step and patent it!
I think your friend is exaggerating just a little bit on the $30 to $15000 part. Unless maybe its concerning a Government aircraft maintenance contract.
I like many other small business's in my area do a lot of work for Boeing. Now *Commercial Airliner* parts are a lot more costly than automobile parts (nowhere near the $30 to $15000), but the quality control standards are vastly different between the two products. Did you know that every bolt and rivet in a commercial airliner is X-ray inspected.
The reality of the situation is, that in these times... the Video Game Industry is taking their customers base for a bunch of chumps.
Bingo! Yes, it's very much about liability and paperwork.
In other words, the investors matters more than the players.
Well...pretty much.
Now the company is the product and the stockholders are the customers and the sheeple are there to be fleeced.
It will be interesting to see how long this business strategy lasts.
Honestly, I played the campaign over the holidays, along with my boys, and the unanimous feedback was it was good. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was good. I don't think that it was any less worthy of my money than, say, Destiny 2 or Call of Duty WWII. In fact, I'd say that if there are any sheeple, it's those focusing on the political aspects and projecting that onto the game itself.
Yeah, but you also have a pretty good idea of what your customers want, right? You aren't creating a mass-produced product, unless I'm remembering incorrectly.
I have a friend who works as an engineer. They build parts for the automotive industry and also the aerospace industry. Now! There is a bearing that is shared between both plants, to the point that if they are out of that part for an aerospace customer, they simply transfer stock from the automotive. Now, the cost of that part to an automotive customer is like $30, but when it's sold to an aerospace customer, it costs that customer $15,000.
You can look at that as being crazy and unfair, or you can accept that there is probably a great deal of knowledge that you're unaware of. For instance, you're making the assumption that this isn't already happening to some degree. The fact that these companies are patenting stuff shouldn't be alarming. However, if you ever saw Blizzard's control room, I think that you'd be fairly confident that these large companies already have a great understanding of what customers are doing and how they want to leverage that knowledge. They are simply putting it on paper so they cannot be sued for doing it later, a la the whole "buy now" debacle circa 2007.
The reality is that information is power, and you should realize this. So I would be surprised if they WEREN'T patenting this. If you want a payday, though, try to predict their next step and patent it!
You nailed it. That's why machine learning, AI, and analytics in conjunction with big data is the hot thing in tech right now.
I'm surprised it's taken this long for the industry to patent game systems. It's been a fairly open cooperative tech environment up to this point. People are worried about EA and Activision squeezing them for more money, but that's short-sighted. The real issue here is how this could affect the rest of the development landscape and what it could mean for the future. If studios and publishers start patenting gaming systems and technology it could dramatically alter the landscape with small studio and indie projects taking the biggest hits. The one small saving grace here is that there is a sea of preexisting implementations to combat a tech takeover.
Yeah, and it's not just that, in these games with social channels (mobile specifically) they will actually analyze your chat history and even hire people to talk to you in chat. One system I'm VERY surprised I haven't seen that much yet is gifting. Fuck! I should probably patent something about that. Once that happens, though, that's like the next level of leveraging whales. Hot "woman" talks to a whale and gets them to buy her some RNG boxes. After all, there are a finite number of boxes a whale needs to open, so getting others to hit them up for packages is the next step.
In other words, the investors matters more than the players.
Well...pretty much.
Now the company is the product and the stockholders are the customers and the sheeple are there to be fleeced.
It will be interesting to see how long this business strategy lasts.
Honestly, I played the campaign over the holidays, along with my boys, and the unanimous feedback was it was good. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was good. I don't think that it was any less worthy of my money than, say, Destiny 2 or Call of Duty WWII. In fact, I'd say that if there are any sheeple, it's those focusing on the political aspects and projecting that onto the game itself.
Yeah, but you also have a pretty good idea of what your customers want, right? You aren't creating a mass-produced product, unless I'm remembering incorrectly.
I have a friend who works as an engineer. They build parts for the automotive industry and also the aerospace industry. Now! There is a bearing that is shared between both plants, to the point that if they are out of that part for an aerospace customer, they simply transfer stock from the automotive. Now, the cost of that part to an automotive customer is like $30, but when it's sold to an aerospace customer, it costs that customer $15,000.
You can look at that as being crazy and unfair, or you can accept that there is probably a great deal of knowledge that you're unaware of. For instance, you're making the assumption that this isn't already happening to some degree. The fact that these companies are patenting stuff shouldn't be alarming. However, if you ever saw Blizzard's control room, I think that you'd be fairly confident that these large companies already have a great understanding of what customers are doing and how they want to leverage that knowledge. They are simply putting it on paper so they cannot be sued for doing it later, a la the whole "buy now" debacle circa 2007.
The reality is that information is power, and you should realize this. So I would be surprised if they WEREN'T patenting this. If you want a payday, though, try to predict their next step and patent it!
I think your friend is exaggerating just a little bit on the $30 to $15000 part. Unless maybe its concerning a Government aircraft maintenance contract.
I like many other small business's in my area do a lot of work for Boeing. Now *Commercial Airliner* parts are a lot more costly than automobile parts (nowhere near the $30 to $15000), but the quality control standards are vastly different between the two products. Did you know that every bolt and rivet in a commercial airliner is X-ray inspected.
The reality of the situation is, that in these times... the Video Game Industry is taking their customers base for a bunch of chumps.
Bingo! Yes, it's very much about liability and paperwork.
Sorry
There is a little bit more involved than just paperwork. Rejections rates are a huge factor.
Comments
I feel like this is something they haven't taken into account... the analyst says EA (and other games companies) have a 'tailwind' due to digital 'add-ons' and 'services', but this is only the first generation of these types of games (i.e. full price with additional monetisation) and already the reaction has been very negative*; SW:BF2 being the biggest case (so far), but even Destiny 2 (praised by many at launch) is now struggling to maintain players (with an increasingly aggressive lootbox system that is in no way helping).
Not that I expect EA (or Activision) to become unprofitable any time soon, but with the path they are treading a lot of gamers (especially those in their 30's, 40's and 50's who have money) are going to stop buying their products, and if they can't sell their products (the quality of which is generally questionable to begin with) how are going to sell all of these 'high margin' add-ons?
* While the negative reaction hasn't been fully reflected in product sales thus far, this is hardly surprising (fool me once and all that); it is the second and third generation of these games that will (start to at least) feel the impact... i.e. How well do you think Anthem is going to sell if it includes lootboxes? How well do you think Destiny 3 is going to sell given the current state of Destiny 2?
Let's party like it is 1863!
This should not be a revelation. It is the very business trend that has brought us to the cash shop fiascle we are in today.
Some of us just saw the trend and connection far earlier than others and knew where we were headed and the impact it would cause. We now continue to see, across all business and legal fronts that the individual consumer is being stripped of all influence, rights and power though limitations of choice.
This is a global trend. This should have worried every single one of you here a very long time ago. It is now institutionalized however, so there is likely nothing that can be done on the consumer level other than taking full control of new and innovative business platforms before venture capitalism does.
This why crowd funding and direct online services evolved but are highly volatile as anything new is.
The gaming industry is CORRUPT!
You stay sassy!
Not to mention this is simply the straw the broke the camel's back. EA has been trying to pull shit for years. People have finally had enough.
That said I am not surprised, the game was the second best selling game launched around that time, only falling behind CoD. So they will make a profit, big time. What they won't have is a large MT revenue stream which extends over the next several months.
So back to an old question, is that revenue stream needed? Well its the way every business likes to go now. Get them on a subscription or extra payments; from smartphones to charities to video games. The game can be produced and make a handsome profit without it, this is just treating players like cash cows.
Now the company is the product and the stockholders are the customers and the sheeple are there to be fleeced.
It will be interesting to see how long this business strategy lasts.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
that is how publically traded companies have existed for decades.
did you know that in some cases a CEO can be SUED for not fulfilling his obligations to the company charter which in the case of publicly traded companies is ALWAYS to put profits above anything else.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Honestly, I played the campaign over the holidays, along with my boys, and the unanimous feedback was it was good. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was good. I don't think that it was any less worthy of my money than, say, Destiny 2 or Call of Duty WWII. In fact, I'd say that if there are any sheeple, it's those focusing on the political aspects and projecting that onto the game itself.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
But companies like EA
https://www.mmorpg.com/news/ea-files-patent-for-matchmaking-system-algorithm-that-can-track-player-spending-1000046982
and Activision/Blizzard
https://www.mmorpg.com/news/activision-granted-patent-that-pairs-players-to-increase-microtransaction-purchases-1000046029
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Yeah, but you also have a pretty good idea of what your customers want, right? You aren't creating a mass-produced product, unless I'm remembering incorrectly.
I have a friend who works as an engineer. They build parts for the automotive industry and also the aerospace industry. Now! There is a bearing that is shared between both plants, to the point that if they are out of that part for an aerospace customer, they simply transfer stock from the automotive. Now, the cost of that part to an automotive customer is like $30, but when it's sold to an aerospace customer, it costs that customer $15,000.
You can look at that as being crazy and unfair, or you can accept that there is probably a great deal of knowledge that you're unaware of. For instance, you're making the assumption that this isn't already happening to some degree. The fact that these companies are patenting stuff shouldn't be alarming. However, if you ever saw Blizzard's control room, I think that you'd be fairly confident that these large companies already have a great understanding of what customers are doing and how they want to leverage that knowledge. They are simply putting it on paper so they cannot be sued for doing it later, a la the whole "buy now" debacle circa 2007.
The reality is that information is power, and you should realize this. So I would be surprised if they WEREN'T patenting this. If you want a payday, though, try to predict their next step and patent it!
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
I like many other small business's in my area do a lot of work for Boeing. Now *Commercial Airliner* parts are a lot more costly than automobile parts (nowhere near the $30 to $15000), but the quality control standards are vastly different between the two products. Did you know that every bolt and rivet in a commercial airliner is X-ray inspected.
The reality of the situation is, that in these times... the Video Game Industry is taking their customers base for a bunch of chumps.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Bingo! Yes, it's very much about liability and paperwork.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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Yeah, and it's not just that, in these games with social channels (mobile specifically) they will actually analyze your chat history and even hire people to talk to you in chat. One system I'm VERY surprised I haven't seen that much yet is gifting. Fuck! I should probably patent something about that. Once that happens, though, that's like the next level of leveraging whales. Hot "woman" talks to a whale and gets them to buy her some RNG boxes. After all, there are a finite number of boxes a whale needs to open, so getting others to hit them up for packages is the next step.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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There is a little bit more involved than just paperwork. Rejections rates are a huge factor.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
The people who play these games will complain but they will not play something different. they will commit to these games regardless
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me