Cliff Blezinski has a blog where he writes stuff. His latest post was about microtransactions, and the Hardcore are not very happy.
You can argue against any body of text if you look for stuff to argue against. I don’t agree with Cliffy’s comparison of the arcade business model as similar to micro-transactions for example. You weren’t BUYING anything in the arcade business model. The closer comparison would be subscription gaming like the MMORPG model. And MMORPGs do make it so you want to spend more time playing the game and keep paying the subscription.
Anyone who has studied the game industry for a long while will praise EA’s business performance. EA has been around since 1983, became a big dog, and is still a big dog. You don’t last that long in this industry by being stupid. As a gamer, I dislike many things about EA mostly due to my personal gaming tastes. But in a business context, EA is very solid.
Cliffy though makes points that I thought were Common Wisdom. I thought everyone knew this stuff. It reads like he is talking to five year olds because he is. The hardcore don’t like these points and are throwing a temper tantrum at him.
Here are the radical points Cliffy is saying:
The video game industry is just that.
An industry.
Which means that it exists in a capitalistic world. You know, a free market. A place where you’re welcome to spend your money on whatever you please… or to refrain from spending that money.
Those companies that put these products out? They’re for profit businesses. They exist to produce, market, and ship great games ultimately for one purpose. First, for money, then, for acclaim.
Who disagrees with this? Anyone? Apparently the hardcore do who think gaming should be computer science workshop community projects.
Another factor to consider is the fact that many game development studios are in places like the San Francisco bay area, where the cost of living is extraordinarily high.
This is true, but it is not my problem. You don’t need a certain geographical location in order to produce video games. The reason why they live in that expensive area of San Francisco bay is because they aren’t that bright. It doesn’t matter how much money you make in life, it matters in how much money you KEEP. If you want to live in a high cost, high tax area, then don’t tell us that it is ‘expensive’. It is expensive only due to your choice of living or the company’s choice of location. Smart businesses are fleeing California like a diseased carcass.
(Something that the hipster/boomerang kid generation seems to forget all too often.)
Zing! Cliffy mocks the hipsters/boomerang kids which means he is attacking the hardcore. The Hardcore gamer ARE the boomerang kids and hipsters.
They’re raging at “big and evil corporations who are clueless and trying to steal their money.”
Now he mocks people using blanket statements that a company is a ‘big and evil corporation’. Oh, oh, the hardcore are not going to like that!
I think it’s bullshit that EA has the “scumbag EA” memes on Reddit and that Good Guy Valve can Do No Wrong.
He defends EA and attacks the Valve Corporation! I cannot believe it!
However, it blows my mind that somehow gamers don’t seem to get that Valve is a business, just like any other, and when Valve charges 100$ for an engagement ring in Team Fortress 2 it’s somehow “cool” yet when EA wants to sell something similar it’s seen as “evil.” Yes, guys, I hate to break it to you, as awesome as Valve is they’re also a company that seeks to make as much money as possible.
They’re just way better at their image control.
Cliffy is exactly right here. The Valve Corporation is far worse than EA, but the Valve Corporation has better ‘image control’ (i.e. marketing).
I have no problem with EA except hatred at them killing Origin, Westwood, Bullfrog, and other game companies I loved. Valve Corporation is so much worse as they try to remove all ownership from gaming. At least EA is honest about what they do. I would even say that the Valve Corporation is the worst thing ever seen in gaming, and they should be stopped before we are required to load the Steam client for every PC game.
Making money and running a business is not inherently evil. It creates jobs and growth and puts food on the table. This country was built on entrepreneurship.
This is an obvious truth. The hardcore don’t like to hear it which I find hilarious.
People love to beat up on Origin, but they forget that, for a good amount of time, Steam sucked.
Steam did suck. I think Steam still sucks. But I love how Cliffy, again, is violating the Hardcore commandments by criticizing Steam. “How was that criticism?” Any mention of Steam without it being the best, most wonderful, thing ever to grace us on Earth and made of angel dust is considered criticism. Hardcore are going bonkers over it.
If you don’t like EA, don’t buy their games. If you don’t like their microtransactions, don’t spend money on them. It’s that simple.
Another simple statement! I currently don’t buy their games or their microtransactions. I also don’t like Nintendo’s 8th Generation consoles so I choose not to buy them either.
If you’re currently raging about this on GAF, or on the IGN forums, or on Gamespot, guess what? You’re the vocal minority.
Ohhhhh…. This statement has made Cliffy B evil to the hardcore. You do not, I repeat, you DO NOT, diss the GAMING MESSAGE FORUMS. In my list of ‘What the hardcore like…’, the Gaming Message Forum is number one on the list for that reason. It is the great temple where worthless members of society get together to pretend they aren’t worthless by debating video games. Perhaps they’re not all worthless members of society, but many of them are. I mean, the Gaming Message Forum is not full of movers and shakers of society, are they?
The market as I have previously stated is in such a sense of turmoil that the old business model is either evolving, growing, or dying. No one really knows.
Someone does know. I know.
If you don’t like the games, or the sales techniques, don’t spend your money on them.
You vote with your dollars.
Who can argue with that?
Well, the hardcore had a spasm and nearly choked on their Message Forum GIFs. Wasn’t Cliffy B one of them? Oh dear, he has become an Industry man!
I don’t think that is the issue. I don’t even think the hardcore going batshit insane over his post has anything to do with gaming.
I think it is ideology.
Consider the game journalist Chris Remo. I personally blame Chris Remo with the destruction of Nintendo since he put pressure on Miyamoto at E3 2008 to talk about a game for the ‘hardcore’. Miyamoto said Pikmin 3 is coming which I’m sure was a surprise to NCL as well (since the game hasn’t even come out yet five years later). Pikmin 3 is not going to sell Wii Us but make worthy gamers run away from the system even more.
Look at his twitter. Let us review it together, reader.
Jobe: It’s great that someone with as much clout as @therealcliffybhas the balls to remind people that the game business is in fact a business!
Remo: Pretty sure we’re all reminded of that day in, day out, to a fairly disgusting degree.
Jobe: I think you’d be surprised just how little understanding & acknowledgement many people have that it’s a business.
Jobe: Should they? I love reading and I’m glad I don’t constantly filter that through “books are a business.”
Much of the books industry is not a business as we think of a business. Take those super expensive textbooks you have to buy for college classes where a simple book costs $200+. You want to talk about gouging the consumer, there you go. In education, they can make you buy their book and eliminate all competitors. But education is not a business.
Gaming is purely a business.
Polack responds to the tweet saying:
it’s already disgusting to me how many gamers pay attention to sales and earning reports and pressers
He he he. That made my day.
In 2005 and 2006, most gamers didn’t pay attention to the business aspects of the game industry. They paid attention to sales and to CONSOLE WARZ!!11!!. But they never looked at the companies and asked, “What is their business strategy for the upcoming quarter?” Not even the gaming press asked that.
However, the Wii upended everything. Many gamers began to learn about business strategies such as the Blue Ocean Strategy and disruption. I’m glad to have played a part in that. I know many fell in love with the fun of examining the business aspects of the game industry. It was more fun than playing the games! At least it turned your entertainment time (gaming) into something of use (getting familiar with business).
The hardcore have gone bonkers over Cliffy B’s post only due to ideological reasons. Check out this hysterical post from NeoGAF.
So here’s his bottom line: if you don’t like it, don’t buy it. The implication is that if everyone votes with their dollars, the free market will take care of itself.
The only problem is that it doesn’t work that way, has never worked that way, and will never work that way.
The free market is not a perfect self-correcting entity. If you think a business is being scummy about what they’re offering, the correct response is to both not buy what they’re selling and spread the word that they’re being scummy and why.
You can tell the anger is ideological in nature. Apparently, Cliffy B saying ‘vote with your dollars’ is a RADICAL statement to the hardcore.
I love the hardcore. They’re. Just. So. Dumb. Yet, they think they are geniuses! It is too funny!
Ask yourself this: why do organisms like the Food and Drug Administration and the SEC exist, accusations of corruption aside?
For the same reason any government waste exists. The Food and Drug Administration hurts health by keeping many viable medicines off the market. And if the food is so great, why are Americans so fat?
Many Americans don’t realize there are other countries out there. And many of them don’t have the same programs. And they are poised to pass the United States economically if capitalist investment money keeps being frightened away by current policies.
Why do we try to break up monopolies whenever possible? It’s because there are certain things the free market is not good at, protecting consumers chief among them.
Now he is ranting about monopolies even though there are no monopolies in the Game Industry. Cliffy B hit their ideological funny bone!
I’m still waiting to hear why American oil companies, who compete against one another, are ‘bad’ but oil companies with a legally enforced monopoly as seen in China, Russia, and Mexico are considered ‘good’ despite their poor performance impoverishing the nation. The only way to have a true monopoly is for it to be legally enforced.
There are many, MANY things that “vote with your wallet” will not solve. In theory, the free market should weed out any unsafe medicines that make it to store shelves eventually, so let’s get rid of all safety checks and vote with our wallets.
He really believes that all medicines on the shelf are ‘safe’ because a bureaucrat declared it so.
Companies defrauding people on a scale to match Enron?
That’s nothing compared to defrauding people on Social Security, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, and so on. Enron didn’t waste tax money that belonged to the people.
Don’t like it, don’t buy the stock. It’ll work itself out eventually. A company has a monopoly on a necessary product? Don’t worry about it, you don’t need oil anyway. Vote with your wallet. That guy’s running a pyramid scheme? Whatever, man. No need to get your panties all in a bunch. Don’t like it, don’t join it. No need to broadcast why it’s a bad idea or anything.
Most of the Western social services are a pyramid scheme which is collapsing due to more older people than younger people.
I think Cliffy B was just trying to put out some sanity out there. However, the hardcore gamers are demonstrating to us that they are not sane.
If they are bitching about a statement like ‘don’t like it? don’t buy it’, there is no hope for them. Avoid them like the human debris that they are.
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