A Dirge for the Sinking Ship

Ask certain people in the know, and they will tell you that the current gaming market is unsustainable. It’s pretty rare that I turn my Sauron eye to the forums for support, but this particular comment about Electronic Arts’ recent layoffs is the kind of science I like to see laid on people. It ties together with troubling research I’ve done on my own end, and while I’m not on board with the full conclusion, there does seem to be some strong evidence that the gaming industry is stuck in the Death Star trash compactor and can’t seem to get 3PO on the communicator.

I honestly have a genuine fear about what the next 3 or 4 years might bring in the gaming marketplace. Even if there is not dire writing on the wall some troubling graffiti has turned up portending dark days ahead. The industry has been in a struggle for nearly a decade to monetize their transactions outside of the initial purchase, and instead of making progress the rise of the used market, an unreliable consumer base and the omni-present piracy revenue suck have just made things worse.

So, when Bioware and EA put so many resources into developing a hardcore gamers-game like Dragon Age, and people light pitchforks on fire because of optional DLC, I can’t help but feel intensely frustrated at what I see as thin-skinned entitlement and monumental naivete.

I consider many in the angry mob to be friends, and it does not give me pleasure to stand against them. But, I firmly believe that if you want to keep getting games like Dragon Age, like Fallout 3, like Uncharted 2, like The Beatles: Rock Band then gamers are going to need to get on board with or at least stop openly revolting against things like Day-1 DLC.

I have been watching with trepidation and concern the past 2 years as a conflict of game publishing ideology has erupted between the once mighty Electronic Arts and the laser-focused, unrepentant capitalism of Activision. And, as EA sheds hundreds of jobs, and more importantly dozens of projects, my worst fears are come true. The focus on scatter-shot approaches to new IPs and emphasis on driving quality over quantity is great for warming cockles in hearts, but ejaculating dozens of crappy iterations of go-to franchises has tragically triumphed as the profitable way to go.

The only way to sustain that emphasis on gamer-friendly qualities is by making a profit on the releases that do well to off-set the costs of doing business. Warden’s Keep isn’t about greedily slurping up the ignorance of gamers. It’s about funding the next Mirror’s Edge. It’s about having the resources to take chances on games that gamers love.

Have cake or eat cake. Sorry, kids, you only get to choose one, and I fear now even that choice may have been taken from our hands.

While we were all squabbling in the corner over meaningless skirmishes about DLC and dedicated servers, the war was waged on another front and it’s starting to look like we lost.

I hate to be dire, but I’ve seen 3 years of the Bobby Kotick doctrine, and if that’s what the future for companies like EA and TakeTwo and THQ is going to be then we’re going to sit back in a few years and long for the day when we got to whine about Day-1 DLC in a game like Dragon Age. Let me describe the future I see. Subscription based services married with microtransactions. Hobbled initial releases where the DLC is not just an optional quest, but key game mechanics. One-time required online authentication that prevents multi-player for used games. A virtual death of games like Mirror’s Edge, Dead Space, Ghostbusters, Brutal Legend, Borderlands or Dragon Age.

You're standing on the Titanic, and you're complaining about the color of the deck chairs.

If I sound mad, it’s because I am. It is an unfocussed rage that simmers and burns, because many of the kinds of games I adore are destined for the dust bin. And, the reality is that no one is clean in this fight. Publishers have adopted a model that is proving unsustainable to match the rising cost of development. Retailers who struggle against thin new-release profit margins have compromised the industry as a whole for their own profit. Gamers have waged their own zealot war against a changing marketplace, irresponsibly made unreasonable decisions about their entitlements and bent the rules as they see fit to get what they think they’ve got coming. Nobody comes out of this smelling like a rose.

As our well-informed forum commenter mentions in his post, the acquisition of Playfish along with the cancellation of mid-range games might as well be EA’s white flag waved in the breeze. You recall when Activision let go of Ghostbusters, Brutal Legend and the Chronicles of Riddick remake. These are exactly the kind of games that major publishers can’t afford to make any more if they can’t find a meaningful way to continue profiting beyond initial sales. These are exactly the kind of games that EA just ejected.

Let me put it this way, if having Day-one DLC in a game like Dragon Age means that Bioware gets to make the sequel, and not having it means they don’t, I will happily take the opportunity to make my informed purchasing choice and I will fold my arms and look sternly at those who gripe and complain. Drawing the line in the sand has consequences, and I’m not nearly invested enough in the ideology of consumer activism in the gaming marketplace to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

If you want an industry that can take chances. If you want an industry that can be agile and adaptable to niche demands. If you want publishers that are willing to explore new IPs and put resources behind projects like Dragon Age, then you, my stubborn and well-intentioned comrades, need to turn down the righteous fury.

Comments

I'm not sure how to feel about this but I just spotted this on Kotaku:
Activision CEO Kotick reaps $20.2 million in three-day stock sale!

http://kotaku.com/5403762/so-how-muc...

The best line" :Think he's an asshole? He can't hear you. His mansions are insulated with money."

V-O wrote:

I feel like the people who are truly outraged about this would be the same people that would go buy a new car and get mad about having to pay extra for floor mats. The floor mats don't make the car do what it was intended to do, it's just extra content.

Wait, are the mats not included?! *queue outrage*

Seriously though, I've never bought a car and I'm curious because I always see this example...

TheGameguru wrote:

I think the idea is that DLC is gravy.. no publisher goes into day 1 thinking their AAA title isnt worth full retail price with enough content to justify that price (thats a consumer decision)

I completely agree with you but I'm just wondering if some of this outrage could have been averted with that kind of strategy while winning some additional sales from people not willing to pay the full price on a new release. Then again, I feel that if publishers pursued a more aggressive pricing scheme they wouldn't have to complain about the used market stealing from them all the time, but that's a discussion for another day.

I think we've actually had it pretty good for a long time. PC versions, in general, are still much cheaper than their console equivalents. In the case of Dragon Age, I paid for the DLC, still paid less than the console title and more importantly, got a better game for it.

The bottom line is just common sense for me: DLC or not, It is still cheaper for me to own most games on the PC. Charging for additional game mechanics and stripping out content to DLC only? I'll just start being more picky about what I buy.

Too expensive? I like to think that being an adult now, I could wait until it hits the discount bin.

Funkenpants wrote:
Staats wrote:
While we were all squabbling in the corner over meaningless skirmishes about DLC and dedicated servers, the war was waged on another front and it’s starting to look like we lost.

Is this how people feel? Like there's a war going on? What are the sides?

Good guys and terrorists. Do you really want to let the terrorists win, dude?

I dunno. What's al-Qaida's stance on roster packs?

V-O wrote:

I feel like the people who are truly outraged about this would be the same people that would go buy a new car and get mad about having to pay extra for floor mats. The floor mats don't make the car do what it was intended to do, it's just extra content.

That's an apples to oranges comparison. When I bought my G6, it had floor mats but they were crappy. I could have paid for "official" GM floor mats but instead what I did was I went to Costco and bought generic ones that were both better and cheaper. The OnStar system was also not popping on while I was driving asking if I'd like to order a set of floor mats. When it comes to that product, I had a number of different options to choose from with different vendors and if I chose not to get anything, it wasn't being advertised to me until I did. Again, I don't have a problem with DLC and own plenty of it. Day one I don't think it all that tasteful but I can live with it. My problem is that when I'm playing a high fantasy role-playing game, that flow is being broken by an in-game character pitching a real world transaction and moreover, that holding back content to sell in-game was clearly their intent since this advertisement was programmed into the game. I personally find that a scummy thing to do to someone who just paid $60 for your game. And again, if you actually need that DLC sale to make your game profitable, you didn't budget it properly.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

That's an apples to oranges comparison.

That's where we can agree to disagree. Floor mats and other extra content is one of the first things that the salesman is going to try to get you to buy, along with a maintenance plan (glad games don't have that, yet), extended warranties, rust proofing, etc. In the world of car accessories you do have other options but when you are buying the car you are not at an aftermarket retailer, you are at the dealership. Is the sales person pitching the extra content, the chosen delivery of the sales pitch, or the extra content being available when you are purchasing the original product the problem?

I don't want to be confrontational but it looks like what you would accept from a car salesman (or anyone who up sells) you abhor in gaming.

It appears that Activision is well positioned for the future.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/104/...

Bear wrote:

It appears that Activision is well positioned for the future.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/104/...

I recall something from way back that suggested the same thing. For a company like activision I would be surprised if they didn't have people busy looking at every possibility.

Scratched wrote:
Bear wrote:

It appears that Activision is well positioned for the future.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/104/...

I recall something from way back that suggested the same thing. For a company like activision I would be surprised if they didn't have people busy looking at every possibility.

But is it entitled whining to be opposed to this?

Here's the thing.

I have no issue with companies that sell day one additional content DLC. I can even see possible reasons for it: someone comes up with some idea mid-cycle, and the managers decide there isn't enough time to implement it for the release, so they develop it as a side project. As it turns out, it's ready on day one. Or maybe they even planned it that way, that's fine. Whatever, it's a side quest not relevant to the central story.

What I'm angrily opposed to is when the company decides to sell additional functionality that makes the game easier to play after paying an initial $60. The vast majority of games lose money because they don't sell. Make the best game you can, and you'll sell more. Bioware took a chance, they figured their metacritic score would be high enough to take this hit, so they monetized it. But politically, it's a poor decision. It reeks of calculation. And it's insulting to players.

But who am I to say? Already bioware has done $1m in DLC sales, so most people don't see it my way. Or they're willing to forgive.

Just one point. Valve would never pull something like this.

Just one point. Valve would never pull something like this.

Never say never.. and don't be surprised when they do.

Though this statement does explain a great deal of perhaps why certain people react to DLC on these very boards.

I think everyone needs to realize that business is just business...you can't hold these companies to a higher standard outside of their duty to their stakeholders.

V-O wrote:

That's where we can agree to disagree. Floor mats and other extra content is one of the first things that the salesman is going to try to get you to buy, along with a maintenance plan (glad games don't have that, yet), extended warranties, rust proofing, etc. In the world of car accessories you do have other options but when you are buying the car you are not at an aftermarket retailer, you are at the dealership. Is the sales person pitching the extra content, the chosen delivery of the sales pitch, or the extra content being available when you are purchasing the original product the problem?

I don't want to be confrontational but it looks like what you would accept from a car salesman (or anyone who up sells) you abhor in gaming.

The difference is that when they're trying to make that upsell, it is in the process of me buying the car at the dealership. I haven't already bought it and am then being subjected to sales pitches while I drive. If you must use the car analogy in comparison to Dragon Age, that's what's happening here. BioWare isn't trying to sell you DLC when you're buying the game (I suppose to a point, they did that with the digital Collector's Edition which I don't mind), they're trying to get you to spend more money within a couple of hours of you first launching the game by having a character in a high-fantasy setting trying to sell you a digital download. That's really the only problem I have. It completely breaks the flow and setting of the game to have someone trying to sell you something from the real world in a fantasy world where such things make no contextual sense. I already paid my $60 for this game and I'd just like to enjoy it without being subjected to additional advertising while I'm just trying to enjoy the world. Want to put stuff on your web site about DLC? Fine. Want to flash the Downloadable Content menu option and pop up a one-time notification when new DLC is available like the 360 already does? Fine. But can we leave out turning NPCs into digital salespeople? I don't think that's a lot to ask.

TheGameguru wrote:

I think everyone needs to realize that business is just business...you can't hold these companies to a higher standard outside of their duty to their stakeholders.

Yes we absolutely can. I hate to keep harping on this point in multiple threads but it needs to be said: "It's just business" is not an excuse for anything. Businesses are representative of those who operate them and are responsible for the decisions made by those in charge. A business doesn't exist without people behind it and to absolve those people of responsibility for their actions because they're doing it for their company is nonsense. I had to personally become a co-signor for my company's startup loan. If it fails and goes bankrupt, I don't get to tell the bank "Sorry, just business." so why should I give Activision/EA et. al. that privilege? Businesses may have to act in the interests of their shareholders but the customers are the ones the revenue comes from and if you don't have them, your shareholders have no value. Nothing personal GG but that excuse really upsets me regardless of who says it. Shareholder value should not be the only thing that matters and frankly, that's irrelevant to us as customers.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Want to flash the Downloadable Content menu option and pop up a one-time notification when new DLC is available like the 360 already does? Fine. But can we leave out turning NPCs into digital salespeople? I don't think that's a lot to ask.

Can we stop pretending that the "digital salespeople" is really the issue? Seriously, it's a game that provides 40-50 hours of entertainment, but a blip of a guy offering DLC makes enough of an impact that it warrants internet outrage? It's the DLC that that if fueling the rage, and this is just an easy scapegoat, that ultimately weakens you argument.

What you are asking is for the company to sacrifice profits so that your sensitive ideals will not be tarnished. But the fact that more than 142,000 people have bought the DLC speaks volumes about what gamers really want. It turns out they wanted the deluxe version of the game for $7 more.

On the topic of digital salespeople, are we missing something by virute of the nature of our community? We are enthusiast gamers, the digerati, and we all know that the concept of DLC exists. We know where to find it if we want it, and how to use it.

Jimmy-Bob Noobapotamus, on the other hand, with his freshly minted 360, might not. Are we neglecting the possibility that including a big "DLC HERE" sign in-game is actually required in order to point the novice user towards it, who would otherwise be blissfully ignorant of it's existence?

Admittedly, this is an argument that holds significantly less water for the PC, but the occasional statistics that come out noting that X percentage of people don't even realise that their console is capable of talking to the internet suggest that this is Bioware catering to the less tech-savvy crowd.

Jonman wrote:

Jimmy-Bob Noobapotamus, on the other hand, with his freshly minted 360, might not. Are we neglecting the possibility that including a big "DLC HERE" sign in-game is actually required in order to point the novice user towards it, who would otherwise be blissfully ignorant of it's existence?

This is a problem I can appreciate. What I offer for that argument is that there are already means in place (at least on 360) to do this and I have no problems seeing those methods on PC or PS3 as well. On 360, you can make the Downloadable Content menu option flash and you can also have a notification pop up in the main menu saying "Hey, there's new content available! Want to check it out?" I have games that have done this and I've got no problem with that at all. And to be honest, I think that does a more effective job of clearly indicating there's new stuff available than having characters pitch it and since it is just at a menu when you start the game, has no impact on game flow when you're actually playing.

I'm also curious given how much this DLC has apparently made, if Dragon Age is selling well in general and how that DLC breaks down across all three platforms. Warden's Keep isn't just PC DLC right?

Jayhawker wrote:

Can we stop pretending that the "digital salespeople" is really the issue? Seriously, it's a game that provides 40-50 hours of entertainment, but a blip of a guy offering DLC makes enough of an impact that it warrants internet outrage? It's the DLC that that if fueling the rage, and this is just an easy scapegoat, that ultimately weakens you argument.

What you are asking is for the company to sacrifice profits so that your sensitive ideals will not be tarnished. But the fact that more than 142,000 people have bought the DLC speaks volumes about what gamers really want. It turns out they wanted the deluxe version of the game for $7 more.

Your unnecessary snark aside, I actually said what I meant so I'd appreciate you not putting words in my mouth. As I've said in many posts above, I don't have a problem with DLC and own a bunch of it. I don't agree with day one DLC but they're free to do it, I just won't buy it. But I don't like where actions like having NPC pitch it to me could potentially lead because it will not stop there. I'm happy to be proven wrong but I'm calling out a problem I see. If you disagree that's fine, buy the DLC. But I'm going to put my point out there for the consideration of others as well.

TheGameguru wrote:

Protip Stakeholders > Shareholders. Look it up.

My mistake for using the wrong word. It doesn't change my point though.

edit: never mind, my link was already posted

Protip Stakeholders > Shareholders. Look it up.

Nothing personal GG but that excuse really upsets me regardless of who says it. Shareholder value should not be the only thing that matters and frankly, that's irrelevant to us as customers.

Frankly.. its insulting to the level of intelligence of this website to keep thinking in this narrow frame of mind.. I would think that we ALL know that running a business is FAR more complicated than simply doing everything to "satisfy" customers.. since by definition that in itself goes beyond some simple concept that is completely black and white.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Protip Stakeholders > Shareholders. Look it up.

My mistake for using the wrong word. It doesn't change my point though.

What if you factor in that customers are stakeholders?

If you run your business solely thinking of the benefit to the "customers" then you will NOT have a successful business.. ever.

ever ever ever.. never ever.. ever.

Balance baby balance.

If you run your business solely thinking of the benefit to the "customers" then you will NOT have a successful business.. ever.

ever ever ever.. never ever.. ever.

Hell, I can't even think of a good non-profit group that runs solely thinking about the benefits to it's customers (beneficiaries?).

TheGameguru wrote:

If you run your business solely thinking of the benefit to the "customers" then you will NOT have a successful business.. ever.

ever ever ever.. never ever.. ever.

I understand that, as customers are stakeholders along with employees, vendors, and owners. They all have to be taken into account for a business to flourish, as any of them can bring a company down.

"They only care about their shareholders" is not exactly a fantastic argument in favor of me giving them money, frankly.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

"They only care about their shareholders" is not exactly a fantastic argument in favor of me giving them money, frankly.

As long as you understand that, "They only care about their customers," isn't such a great reason either.

who said they only care about their shareholders? the point was that they can't only think about their customers. when you fly from one end of the spectrum all the way to the other, you pass over a lot of ground in between.