A satire from this story:
The games industry doesn’t always properly recognize the passions and contributions of customers, sex-God-and-super-rich guy Sean Malstrom told Gamasutra during a recent interview.
“I don’t think the industry values customers as much as it could. I really don’t,” said Malstrom, who has been hammering the importance of a customer satisfaction orientated business model. His comments came as part of a complete echo of himself as no discussions set to appear on Gamasutra, or any other game publication, about the value of customers and the importance of making games that fit with customer behavior.
The Malstrom compared the games industry’s attitude towards creative talent to that of the music industry. “When the music industry stopped valuing their customers, such as selling CDs with only one good song, the customers struck back. They began to not only lose their guilty conscience, but they actively promoted music piracy as a way to get back the industry that looked at the customer as a dumb animal whose destiny is only to be gored. The customers of the game industry engage in piracy because they don’t feel valued as customers. They buy pre-owned games for the same reason. If game companies want to make games worth playing or keeping, then they would have nothing to fear from pre-owned games as only mediocre games appear there. Instead, publishers are trying to attack the customer further by trying to dismantle the pre-owned market by going digital publishing. Customers have the power to crash the market. They are the ones in charge. Publishers and developers need to take humble pills. The game industry was not made by game developers or publishers. The game industry was made by customers. And the customers can unmake the game industry as rapidly as they built it up.”
Malstrom singled out a few ‘wrong’ examples — admittedly ones more recognized than most. “Look at Bleszinski saying we need to spend more time celebrating ‘visionaries’. Is he insane? I mean, what else does the game industry do but celebrate its visionaries? Game journalists drool puddles when Magnificent Game Designer comes around the corner. But the game industry does not revolve around visionaries. It revolves around customers. As praised as Miyamoto and Wright are, their vision is nothing more than a customer orientated model. When Windwaker disapointed at its E3 showing, Miyamoto visibly looked devastated. Humility kept guys like Miyamoto from getting inflated egos.”
While Malstrom was sure to state that game development is a heavily-visionary process, he noted that other creative industries more willing to acknowledge that only one value matters and this is the customers and their behavior.
“The billions of dollars of red ink that is the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 came from focusing on the product and not on the customer. The success of the Wii came from making a product in tune with customer behavior. There is only one vision: that of the customer. Everything must yeild to the customer as master. A sure fire way to fail is to tell the customer that he or she is wrong, that he or she is stupid, that he or she is too dumb to appreciate your ‘visionary’ title. Rather, the customer is the only measure of value.”
Malstrom added, “Games do not exist in a vacuum of themselves. They are created to be sold to customers. Customers are the reason why game developers exist in the first place. It would be absurd to say that the ‘visionary’ game developer is the reason why customers exist. It would be like saying the baker is the cause of hungry people when, rather, it is hungry people who give the baker his employment.
“Gaming did not become big because game developers had ‘visions’. Rather, it is the fact that customers wanted such entertainment that allowed game developers to make ‘visions’ in the first place.”
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