Here is something interesting. Browsing various gaming websites, I look on the forum of GAF and see a thread with my name in it. “Sean Malstrom: Game culture never truly existed.”
I fully expected that post on ‘game culture’ to fluff some feathers. But discussion and conversation are always good. It is always good to question our premises to make sure they are correct.
I’ve been writing an article on the collapse of the Core Market (Core Market is defined, by disruption language, as the incumbent strategy which, in gaming, means more graphics, more complexity). I have been trying to understand how the Core Market got itself into its situation of ignoring the customers. It is clear that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 were designed more for hardware or other purposes than for the customer. Seriously, no one would put out a $400-600 game console if they were thinking of the customer.
So the question is how the Core Market lost its focus on making customers. When the email came in asking about game journalists and what the emailer thought of their anti-Nintendo sentiment and odd behavior, I gave the response that those in the Core Market are more interested in pursuing ‘culture’ than pursuing customers. ‘Culture’ is one of those odd words which no one really defines. It can be used so loosely (“drug culture”, “street-gang culture” as if the very absence of ‘culture’ is also ‘culture’) that I wonder whether it can be considered a pollution of the language.
The game industry’s desire to make ‘culture’ has opened my eyes and now I see almost most game articles are written about ‘culture’ of gaming. Game developers also seem more interested in talking about ‘culture’ than anything else. Whatever one thinks about ‘culture’, it doesn’t supply the cashflow. Only customers do that.
One could say the PlayStation 3 is the most ‘cultured’ game console. But what does that matter when the console goes broke?
Let me show an illustration of the game industry’s obsession of culture:
At the inaugural Project Horseshoe conference, I proposed a topic for discussion: how can games achieve legitimacy?
Brian Green then goes on several pages to answer this question. I will answer this question with two words:
MAKE CUSTOMERS.
Never once in the article are customers ever brought up. I suppose they don’t matter to developers anymore. Instead, the article calls for its audience to contact Congress.
In various game reviews, it is common to find the game reviewer talk as if he is filling out a customer form (“graphics”, “sound”, “gameplay”, etc.) or to ignore the customer and talk of the game in strict ‘culture’ terms especially how the game ‘advances’ the genre… or some such thing. This is why reviews from message forums or from friends are so much more accurate because these people are speaking as customers, not culture critics.
The movie, music, and (especially) book industries are facing ravaging disruptions of their own because they have moved their eye from the customer to something else.
We’re going to go through some of these replies:
Kajima says…
He concludes that game culture never existed in the first place after firing a full-scale broadside at “hardcore” gamers and game journalists. Also he rambles on for a few pages about how, I think, the word “culture” itself does not really exist or something and free market commerce is the soul of humanity. Or something like that.
I gave a short etymology of the word ‘culture’ which is first believed to have been spoken by Immanuel Kant went talking about Rousseau. It is clearly a fruit from the Rousseau influence that was going on during that time. ‘Culture’ is also a modern word that is being used only recently. People obviously loved the arts in the past, yet they could do so without using the word of ‘culture’. I tend to be suspicious of language that is very recent and has no known English substitute (as most words do). The fact that the word ‘culture’ cannot easily be defined by anyone means that its use is not a precise thought but something else… like a feeling.
I talked commerce and law because these appear to be the two things ‘culture’ wants to omit (from its extremely broad definition… if it even has a definition). How can you understand a society or country without understanding its laws or commerce? I gave the example of how if one relied on ‘culture’ to understand ancient Athens while ignoring its laws and commerce, one would not understand Athens at all.
Commerce is extremely important in everyone’s lives. It will determine whether you will retire (if you will even retire at all), where all the jobs emerge from, where investments are going, etc. Commerce is also the big factor in history. Revolutions are made over it. Empires grow because of it. I guess what I am saying is that ‘culture’ is a far inferior study than ‘commerce’. In other words, a business degree from college will find a person more jobs than a ‘creative arts’ degree.
He does open this can of worms:
“The purpose of games, just like all entertainment, is to please the customers. This is why games with high sales are the best since it shows these games are pleasing the most people.”
Once again, it is this old chestnut. It must be simple and convincing logic from the marketer’s point of view where the only concern is to shove Product (TM) out the door* but it seems like a pure dodge at answering the question, “what is quality?” For example, is a poorly made, generic, un-fun game that sells decently because it’s a movie tie-in or part of a popular franchise superior to a well-made game that sells poorly because it had bad marketing or was released at a bad time?
To you, sales are numbers on a page. To me, sales are PEOPLE, flesh and blood, equal to myself. It is the CUSTOMER who defines quality. Not the game company. Not the game developer. Not the game reviewer. Customers are the reasons why any business exists in the first place. Businesses do not exist to make ‘culture’ or ‘art’. They can do that if that is what their customers want. Apple can make slick electronics because their customers want it. And it is those customers that define quality.
Malstrom loves to argue at extreme length about how the “casual gamer” is a myth that hardcore / enthusiast gamers perpetuate to feel better about themselves. That doesn’t account for so-called “casual” audiences having the potential to be more guilible and less knowledgeable /even purely as consumers/ when it comes to the game market.
If this is true, then why is the Wii having trouble in Japan? Why do I hear whining (yes, whining) from third party companies complaining their sloppy games won’t sell on the Wii? Perhaps it is because the so-called ‘casual gamers’ are not dumb and gullible.
Remember, the ‘hype’ is always aimed at the hardcore. It is amazing how many gamers get sucked into ‘hype’ again and again even after being burned before. If anyone is showing signs of being gullible, it is the hardcore for falling for hype marketing again and again.
I am not saying hardcore and casuals are smarter or dumber than another. I am saying that hardcore aren’t half as smart as they think they are and ‘casuals’ are not as dumb as the hardcore thinks. Microsoft’s efforts in the so-called ‘casual market’ have fizzled. It is not as easy to sell to them as people suspect.
I think Malstrom would cite a game like GTA IV as being a classical example of ‘diseased’ hardcore game mentality, but in every instance I’ve seen the backbone of GTA’s popularity rests on the mass market; not the “core audience”. Somehow, I think he would not admit GTA IV was any good, therefore, by his own definitions.
I am using Christensen’s definitions of ‘Expanded Audience’ and ‘Core Audience’ (which is what Nintendo uses). ‘Core Audience’ in gaming is identical to ‘Next Generation’ meaning emphasis on better graphics and complexity. Expanded Market does not mean ‘mass market’. (Though, Nintendo uses the term ‘mass market’ to imply gaming for everyone, for gaming to have no barriers).
GTA IV is a fine game for what it intends to do. The problem with games like GTA IV is that its costs are rapidly increasing and the customers are not increasing at the same rate. Why? It is because the game industry took customer growth for granted. Instead of gaming becoming more popular, its growth has been tied to population growth, opening new territories in the world, and multiple console ownership. One can’t rely on new territories or multiple console ownership for long. Population growth, also, may not be around much longer as many nations will begin to have population decline (such as Japan). As Iwata said, if the gaming does not expand, all the industry can do is sit and watch the game industry die.
Mario Kart Wii has outsold GTA IV in America. I don’t know how much Mario Kart Wii cost to make, but it is certainly FAR cheaper than the $100 million that it took to make GTA IV. As a businessman, I would far prefer Mario Kart Wii as my product than GTA IV. The direction GTA is going, as is the Next Generation, means higher costs which means increased risk. Gaming just cannot keep going in that direction.
Edit: *yes I realize this bit makes it sound as if I am commerce-phobic and attempting to separate “real” gaming from mere commerce in precisely the way Malstrom waxes long about, but actually, I refer to /bad/, cheap, soulless, or thoughtlessly crafted product here. Game companies have to make money; big whoops, that doesn’t bother me.
Business is not about making money. It is about making CUSTOMERS.
Thieves can make money.
Frauds can make money.
Governments can tax people to make money (or print it).
But only business can make customers.
This was the only real worthwhile post in that thread and even this one didn’t seem interested in talking (or debating against) how the game industry focuses on ‘game culture’ at the expense of not serving customers.
The rest, as we shall find, are of far lower quality.
Brobzoid says…
The best games are the ones that sell the most? that isn’t true for any other form of entertainment, so why should it be so for games? gon read it, but if there are too many stupids in it I’ll go away.
Excuse me, Brobzoid, is there a New York Times Best Written List? No, there is not. There is only the New York Times Best Selling List .And I can assure you that every writer wants to be on that list. They’ll take the ‘best written list’ as a consolation prize, but they would far, far prefer to be on the best selling list.
So no, every entertainment industry looks at sales. The so-called ‘prestige’ products such as in Hollywood are a luxury based on other films that sell. I can’t remember any ‘prestige’ film being loved or remembered by people. They are all like vapor and are never remembered. However, movies like “Star Wars”, which made many customers, ARE remembered.
Threi says…
Somebody make a “Sales of Wii” to “Malestrom’s Insanity” graph plz
Insane how? They don’t say. Ad-hominem becomes embraced. Attack the messenger, not the message.
A “Sales of Wii” to “GAF’s Decreasing Influence” would be far more interesting.
DeeVoc says…
Thought everyone realized what a sham he was after his in depth analysis of how McCain was poised to win the election.
And here it begins. Apparently, because I guessed the 2008 general election wrong, everything I say now is wrong.
I dare someone on GAF to make a thread called: “Sean Malstrom: ‘The Sky is Blue’”
First reply will be: “Dude! He guessed McCain would win the election! So the sky can’t be blue!”
Gabyskra says…
I love the Wii, but man, is that guy a tool…
Can not stand him.
If I’m such a tool, wouldn’t you want to laugh at me? I, myself, enjoy laughing at tools and love having them in my blessed presence. This is also why I am highlighting this GAF thread.
I have a guess of why someone like Gabyskra ‘cannot stand me’. The reason why is that when I write and talk, I do so with full confidence and assertiveness. Some people become uncomfortable around such people. Life is short enough, why walk on eggshells?
In the introduction to Strunk’s book on writing, White talks about gruffy professor Strunk’s response to a kid who meekly raised his hand and quietly asked a question with softly saying a word he wasn’t sure how to say. Strunk said: “If you’re going to say a word, SAY IT LOUD. Do not talk softly or without confidence, say it loud! If you pronounce the word wrong, you will be corrected and will no longer have the error. If you pronounce the word softly and no one hears it, you will carry the error the rest of your life. So you are better off saying it loud.”
One of the greatest advice one can have for a college student is to allow yourself to be wrong with your questions to the professor. The purpose is education and how can you become educated without risking a wrong answer?
I try to carry this attitude in my own life. This is why the articles, once up, are never updated. I am allowing myself to become wrong. If I do not allow myself to be wrong, then I can never learn from my mistakes. And if I never risk making mistakes, then I’ll never succeed in anything.
jay says…
I liked him before he hated Obama and declared capitalism better than love.
Who said I hated Obama? Actually, I dislike most politicians and this is because I know some personally. There is a reason why many go to Washington starting on their meager salary and somehow exit Washington a multi-millionaire.
I’ve always said, from day one, my priority in my examination of Nintendo and the game industry is purely from a business standpoint. Of course, I’m going to support Capitalism.
However, this isn’t true in all cases. There is the saying that the capitalist will sell the rope for his own hanging.
sonicmj1 says…
Just because someone purchased a copy of a game, it doesn’t mean that they were pleased by it.
I hate this fallacy.
What happens is that bad word of mouth kills future sales. Games customers hate do not keep selling.
The game is also sold to a used game store for credit to purchase another game. This is currently something the game industry does not want the customers to be able to do anymore. (This is an example of the core game industry giving the middle finger to customers.)
So next time you hear a game company complain their game sales are being cannibalized by ‘used game sales’, you can quote sonicmj1. He is right. It is a fallacy but not in the way he thinks.
Stumpokapow says…
ahhahaa oh man his “mccain is going to win” article is REALLY REALLY funny
[puts in various quotes from the “Toast” post]
Stumpokapow might want to ask what would have happened if McCain had won. The hits on the “Toast” post before the election was greater than all my blog posts combined, and it spread all throughout the Internet. If McCain had won, without a doubt, I would have likely been invited on various talk shows among other (perhaps profitable) possibilities for myself. If Obama won, as he did, what are the results? Just some faceless people on the Internet laughing at me because they can’t debate me when I talk about the gaming business. As you can see, this was a very good bet for me to play a hand in. The odds were against me, but if I had won, I would have made out with much. If I had lost, I don’t lose anything.
Normally, I consider it tasteless to put in a post about politics or anything concerning politics within a non-political site. However, general elections come every four years. It was worth the roll of the dice.
Let me move this to a business analogy. You know why most people do not build businesses and become rich? It is because they are more interested in being RIGHT than in WINNING. If you are interested in winning, you are going to have to lose more than you win. But the key is to lose small and to win big.
Note that I kept the “Toast” post up on my blog without any edits, just as I do all my writing. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, and I let people laugh. But if I am right…
Anyway, note that Stumpokapow does not, or cannot, respond to what I said about ‘culture’ and gaming. All that can be done is quote from a blog post three months old about McCain winning and that somehow makes their argument either for or against what I say about ‘game culture worship’.
Flying Phoenix says…
“Gaming Culture” people actually believe that there is “culture” to gaming?
I can understand gaming tieing into a culture but being a culture itself? Seriously?
The word ‘culture’ is, and can, be tied to virtually almost everything. Internet Culture. Drug Culture. Computer Culture. Gang Culture. The only things that culture is not tied to are politics and commerce. So this implies that culture means everything soul edifying except law and commerce. When someone speaks about ancient Greek culture, you never hear them talk about the laws or the commerce at the time (which obviously shaped that society far more than any play or statue).
Gaming is a medium just films and music. Gaming, music, and film are built by the building blocks of culture, they aren’t culture themselves.
Now culture is ‘blocks’? Do the blocks form anything? Is there a shape?
This is why I dislike using the word ‘culture’ since it is very imprecise and no one seems able to say what it is. Anthropologists are certain that ‘culture’ exists, yet they cannot define it.
But whatever ‘culture’ is, it certainly doesn’t mean customers.
Perhaps a substitute word for ‘culture’ would be ‘sublime’. “I don’t want to make games that sell. I want to make sublime games.” Hmm, no, that substitute word still doesn’t quite work.
Kaijima says…
Actually, I have seen plenty of “casual” (or let us say “light”) gamers buy into popular titles and be bored with them or feel they’re not really good. This is in fact a reason why bad games are actually bad for the industry: release too many un-fun games, such as when cashing in on a trend, and people will get bored of it and stop playing videogames.
People have talked before about lots of lapsed gamers after the 16-bit generation, people who got tired of games in the Playstation generation. I know some of them. When questioned directly, they told me that one reason why they lost interest in games is that they “weren’t fun anymore”, referring to the early 32-bit wave of awkward games that tossed all the good design lessons of earlier eras out the window as they grappled with untested technology and genres.
It is actually possible for a game that is no fun for anyone to sell, just like it’s possible for a mediocre flavor of soda to sell for a while, or a mediocre movie to get a lot of initial profit due to hype.
The PS2 era had plenty of people who didn’t play that many games and had their PS2 collecting dust in a closet because they just bought a bunch of games with to them, popular themes (movies, sports), wondered what all the fuss was about as after a while, it wasn’t that fun, and stopped buying more games. They never stayed with it long enough to learn the ropes of the game market.
Then on the other hand, I’ve introduced plenty of people over the years to games that they never would have known existed and magically, they thought they were far more interesting than they would have ever thought. They didn’t have to be “hardcore” to appreciate them. Sorry but, I can’t see how poor timing and other factors cannot cause a decent product to fail when it doesn’t get attention.
There was no real expansion of game popularity from the 16-bit generation to PS2 Era. Rather, games became more stigmatized because they were becoming more and more exclusive to gamers.
The best game in the world won’t sell big numbers of nobody knows it exists. I’m sure Nintendog’s sales had nothing to do with Nintendo’s new brand power,
What new brand power? They ditched the Gameboy! The DS didn’t have any brand recognition at that time.
a market eager for what they were selling,
What market? This market did not exist back then. Everyone laughed when Nintendo unveiled Nintendogs. How can you analyze markets that did not exist? Nintendo couldn’t tell how many Nintendogs games they would sell. This is why it is fun and spontaneous about MAKING CUSTOMERS rather than going for CURRENT CUSTOMERS. You don’t know how people will receive it.
and the fact that they came up with significant marketing campaign and exposed the game everywhere at DS kiosks for months.
Yes, and I’m sure Nintendo’s significant marketing campaign, which lasted not that long, and DS kiosks, which were around for a few months, were the reason why the game outsold hardcore games for years. It was the DS Kiosks! ;)
beat says…
then you have far more patience than I do. I’m not usually one to say “tl;dr”, but he goes on and ON AND ON for far longer than he needs to to make his point.
Almost all these posts are attacking the messenger, but not the message. They are attacking how the message is given, but not what is in the message.
I don’t have to just make a point. I have to refute prior points and prove my own. This will make a longer text than the original incorrect position.
I do admit this gives me a rhetorical disadvantage. But I enjoy it nonetheless.
Also, I found his claims about casual/hardcore unconvincing; someone on GAF pointed out how he simultaneously tried to make the claim that WOW is a multi-tier game that lures in casuals and caters to the hardcore and that game devs needed to make more purely casual games because you can’t satisfy all parts of the audience with one game.
Notice how there are no quotes from me. It is because they do not exist. I never said game developers need to make purely casual games because I do not believe that ‘casual games’ even exists! (hello Birdman article) I’ve frequently mentioned how Blizzard’s games satisfy both so-called ‘casual’ and ‘hardcore’ gamers. This is because Blizzard has a mantra of “easy to learn, hard to master”. I wish more game companies would follow that example. The arcade games also had that mantra.
diffusionx says…
LOL Stump. I hunted down that blog post and it was made the day before the election. Virtually every sentence in it was proven wrong.
The analysis was spot on. I accurately analyzed McCain’s strategy and even Obama’s. As I said in “Toast”, the only way for Obama to win is if conservatives didn’t come out to vote for McCain. If they stayed home like they did in 2006, Obama would win. Remember, Obama got less votes in Ohio than Kerry did. Not only did many of the conservatives stay home, some voted for a third party, 20% voted for Obama because he was campaigning on tax cuts. Like Bill Clinton in 1992, Obama took the tax-cut issue away from the Republicans.
I’ve had some follow-ups from people, who enjoyed “Toast” even if it predicted the wrong victor, to do a more extensive follow up. I’ve declined since I want to stick to business and gaming on my site.
But since many people do not know what a political analysis is, I might put something up. My main focus is 2016 since that will be when most of the baby boomers retire. The demographic future is not what people suspect. I will show you the political alignments since the start of the Republic. I will explain what Obama has to do to win in 2012.
Politics is a very uncertain game because anything can appear within a day to change everything (such as a Lewinsky scandal, a 9/11, anything). Political analysis is not the same as business analysis. Business is about making customers. Politics is about making voters. And voters are far more difficult to predict. The pollsters got 2000 election wrong. They got 1980 WAY wrong. They got the 2008 Democrat primaries wrong. They couldn’t even get the Georgia Senate recount remotely close (the RCP average was ten points off!).
It’s impossible to take this guy seriously after that, especially when he talked shit about 538.com which turned out to be almost exactly correct. Man with prognostications like that I am surprised he’s not working for CNN or MSNBC or Fox News, to be honest. They have no problem paying people to talk bullshit.
538.com does not generate any data. Nate Silver takes other people’s data and puts it in his little boxes, adds on his ‘special sauce’, and calls it his own.
This is what GAF says that VGChartz does and bans the site based on this belief. Yet, when Nate Silver profits from other people’s data, GAF finds no problem with it. Nate Silver couldn’t get the Georgia recount even remotely close mostly because he was relying entirely on other people’s data. When other people’s data is wrong, so is Nate Silver. This is why he is a joke.
Call a spade a spade. Let Nate Silver generate his own data instead of ripping off everyone else.
Haunted says…
Why are all the American Nintendo fans conservatives? How strange.
Who said I’m conservative? And what does any of this political talk matter with my post about ‘gaming culture’?
jay says…
This guy’s not actually a Nintendo fan. He is a money fan and Nintendo is making money hand over first right now.
You’re getting closer.
Astrolad says…
some of his best friends are actually microsoft and sony fans
Heh.
Ghaleon makes a valiant attempt to get the discussion back on track…
I also don’t understand why he merits immediate dismissal.
That said, that appeared to be nonsense. Constructing a narrative of the industry and inventing the rules and conduct that people who care about video games follow doesn’t seem to invalidate the idea of culture.
You cannot start with ‘game culture’ existing as a positive. You must first prove that ‘game culture’ exists (or any such culture).
My argument is that game journalists, hardcore gamers, and core game developers want to pursue ‘game culture’ to validate their extensive time spent on gaming. Most people don’t want to admit they are wasting time or spending time on something whimsical and fun, so they invent ‘game culture’ and pretend they are sophisticated because they are in ‘game culture’. This occurs in other entertainment industries.
I do not argue that game culture is invalidated. I argue that it was never valid in the first place.
And I don’t understand what is wrong with the game industry celebrating the commerce aspects. I REALLY don’t understand why the game industry seems totally uninterested in making customers. Most articles I read talk about ‘game culture’ such as endless top ten lists.
I think how customers interact with games in their lives, and how more customers can be brought into gaming, is far, far more interesting and productive than ‘how to prove game culture is legitimate’ like that gamasutra article linked at the top. Do game developers have an inferiority complex or something? Why is there this sudden desire to be liked by politicians or academics?
It’s artificial, but our perception of it directly affects our actions and provides a method for objective evaluation. That’s the reason that most gamers reject horrible Wii games. The fact that most gamers also have lowbrow tastes of a different nature seems to condemn gaming culture without invalidating its existence. The example that he lied about (“You might have liked Star Wars, but the critics thought it ruined movies.”) is illustrative. Sure, “A New Hope” is awful, but critical acceptance of it doesn’t evaporate a constructed movie culture. It’s just a lapse in critical judgment to the extent that the judgment can be objective.
You misunderstand. Movie critics thought “Star Wars” DESTROYED movie culture. In the 70s, movies were increasingly becoming ‘dark’, increasingly talking about current events and making ‘points’. If I remember correctly, movies were in a type of decline then. When people watch a movie, they want to have fun. They don’t want political points shoved in their face. They don’t want directors showing off to other directors. They want to be entertained.
Star Wars brought many new people to the movie theater. Movies, since then, included special effects and tried to replicate Star Wars success. The old ‘movie culture’, if you will, was destroyed and movie critics were not happy about it. They sound exactly like those who scream that the Wii is destroying gaming.
Ironically, Reggie Fils-Aime cited Star Wars as what the Wii intended to do in his article in Brandweek that came out before the Wii launched. Reggie cited Star Wars as ‘disruptive’.
drkOne says…
“The purpose of games, just like all entertainment, is to please the customers. This is why games with high sales are the best since it shows these games are pleasing the most people.”
I hope this guy doesn’t really believe on what he’s saying.
In America, the NES was said to have destroyed American gaming. The NES brought in tons new Japanese games which Americans had not seen. Kids loved them! Experienced gamers then did not like the NES too much. Electronic Arts hated the NES with a passion.
Even though the NES was considered ‘bad’ back then, it is considered ‘good’ today. It is because customers remember it fondly. This happened with “Star Wars” as well.
In the future, people will not believe there were gamers who hated the Wii. I know this because people today cannot believe anyone hated the NES.
Sales are about pleasing people. Every console that is best selling was pleasing people in some way. While you can sell products that people are not happy with, it won’t last long.
Now, OS X is far superior to Windows. But by my definition, shouldn’t Windows be better since it sells more? The answer is no. Windows does not sell to consumers. Windows sells to hardware retailers who bundle Windows with the machine. Microsoft is very good at selling its product to other businesses. But Microsoft does not seem to succeed in selling to consumers.
Customers don’t have to be consumers. The customer can be many things. The customer can even be the government.
But it is the customer who defines the value ultimately.
diffusion-x says…
If you claim to be writing based on fact-based objective analysis of the topic, this is as damning as anything in the actual article. “I don’t look at the facts, I just say the opposite of whatever is popular”.
How does someone cut through the noise of the Internet? Or through the noise of any market? It is by saying something that no one else is saying.
I have many thoughts, analysis, and whatever. I do not post them. This is because there is no point in posting something that someone else is saying. The only reason why anyone would read me (or anyone else) is because that person is saying something DIFFERENT.
I hold my powder on most things. However, when situation comes up that the conventional wisdom is very contrary to what I think, I post my thoughts. This is how I become ‘interesting’ because when I do talk, I am ‘different’ because I choose to blow my trumpet when differences arise.
Who wants to read what everyone else is saying anyway?
I mean, Obama’s win was not exactly a surprise.
I assure you, Obama’s win was a huge shocker to many people. One political analyst, Shelby Steele, even wrote a book saying that Obama couldn’t win in the subtitle.
(Title of the book is: The Bound Man: Why We Love Obama and Why He Can’t Win)
Shelby Steele has quite a number of insightful things when he analyzes race relations. However, he knows that when he wrote the title of the book that he had to sell the book. So, he used a far more dramatic sub-title. This is one example of a political analyst being caught on the wrong side.
To illustrate another example, let me use Georgia in the election.
Georgia went to McCain by five points. However, the Republican senator didn’t get 50% of the vote and a run-off had to occur. While polls predicted the Republican senator to win in the run-off, they were ten points off which were WAY OFF.
Many conservatives have begun protesting the Republican party in greater and greater numbers mostly because of Bush’s spending. To them, McCain was worse than Bush. In 2006, too many sat at home.
Where I and the pollsters differed was that the pollsters were using the spread of 2006 for 2008. I thought this was wrong because I did not believe these conservatives would sit out for a general presidential election. So I put the spread at 2004 levels. (Remember, polling is very much defined by the spread, of how many more Democrats to be polled than Republicans, etc.)
The Republican senator won his special election with a whopping double digit lead. When looked at closer, this is not because of Obama voters not turning out for the special election. All these conservatives in that state that were sitting out, apparently stunned that Obama won, made an effort to go to the polls. The pollsters had egg on their faces. Nate Silver couldn’t explain it. Check out the comments on Nate Silver’s post on that special election and you will find people saying what I am.
Plus, I briefly looked at an earlier post he made where he talked about the bradley effect… something which was if anything the “conventional wisdom” (at least amongst conservative talking heads) yet which many many people (including Nate Silver) concluded probably doesn’t exist, because Bradley lost for other reasons and analysis wasn’t showing this effect. So what did this guy go with? The conventional wisdom about those lying devil white voters over fact-based analysis of past and present. Yea, contrarian when its convenient I guess.
Bradley Effect was in place during the Democratic primaries. The polling had Obama win states that he lost like New Hampshire. This was the most recent data we had up until election day.
One thing also you need to look at is that all those newly registered Democratic voters throughout the country never showed up on election day. There were many polls that used these ‘new registrations’ and these polls did end up being wrong. There was a debate among the pollsters whether to include all these new registrants. The major polling groups didn’t.
The polling for 2010 will be fun. I expect polling groups to use 2008 and 2006 spreads for 2010. I expect the spread for 2010 to be more like 2004 or even 2002. These voters aren’t going to be sitting out anymore.
