Boon: Hardcore Reputation Hinders Sales In Fighting Genre

[Pulsar_t]

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2010/07/mor ... core_r.php



"The hardcore player is the most vocal. If you just went online and just kind of look at forums and all that stuff, you'd think that everyone was a hardcore player," he continued. "But the reality is that those are the ones who care to the point of getting online [to express their opinions], and they're passionate and they're very opinionated. They're very important certainly from the standpoint of they're the ones that communicate the most, but the reality is that there are more casual players out there."

I agree with him, 'hardcore' gamers are the vocal minority and many-a-publisher tanked because they listened to said people. With regard to fighting games, the hand-to-hand fighting has become a basic part in several other genres, and people nowadays don't really feel like learning hundreds of moves and combos and the competitive element is almost extinct.

[d123456]

many-a-publisher tanked because they listened to said people.

Huh? rewind that back.....
Publishers that tanked did not do enough marketing.
Marketing sells games, good games do not sell themselves.
Does it matter is a game is played? no, it´s all about selling.
You buy a game you got interested in because of marketing and then found it very dull so now you hate the fighting genre and think fighting gamers are idiots.

I do not know of any publisher who ever listened to their public.
They simply make what might be a good marketable product which will be bought. Good reviews do help more and more, but casual gamers do look on the internet for games. They do other stuffs on the internet.

Most of my casual gamer friends bought stuff Like Mortal Kombat 6 for PS2 or part 5 or whatever, what a waste!


MKII is the best one, but cannot be compared to SFII in any way

[Pulsar_t]

You buy a game you got interested in because of marketing and then found it very dull so now you hate the fighting genre and think fighting gamers are idiots.

Was that addressed at me? Because up to 7th gen I had had a collection of several high-profle fighting games.

I do not know of any publisher who ever listened to their public.

You'd be surprised how many companies dedicate at least one team to keep up with feedback online and off. Many 'quality' titles failed to sell because the vocal minority shunned said titles, consequently taking the publishers down with them.

[jp1]

I don't really see why accessibility and hardcore gaming have to be mutually exclusive. Some games are easy to pick up and play but also include a lot of depth for hardcore gamers. It should be on the developer to strike that balance to make a great game.

[Xonticus]

Publishers that tanked did not do enough marketing.

That could be debatable.

Marketing sells games, good games do not sell themselves.

Many great games sell by word of mouth, aka they sell themselves. Of course it is never exclusively one or the other.

Does it matter is a game is played? no, it´s all about selling.

Maybe initially, but in the modern day if you want to maintain a high userbase especially in online modes, you need to make sure it is played all the time. Unfortunately very few companies focus on longevity of their titles beyond one or two dlc packs.

You buy a game you got interested in because of marketing and then found it very dull so now you hate the fighting genre and think fighting gamers are idiots.

I don't see how you derived this assumption on his initial post at all. The initial posting assumes that many of the fighting genre developers listen to their online community the most, an it was stated that the online community usually consists of the most hardcore players of that genre. So the problem seems to lie in the fact that these companies may be focusing too much on satisfying these more vocal players, instead of the market as a whole.

I do not know of any publisher who ever listened to their public.

Ever heard of Valve?

[Hatta]

To be honest, fighting games have always been pretty hard core. Every once in a while I pull up SF2 on MAME and give it a go. I'm lucky if I can beat one opponent. Many people would rate SF2 as the best fighting game ever, but the difficulty scaling sucks.

I'm not suggesting that they should make fighting games easier for people like me. There's definitely room in the market for difficult games. But it does limit your audience. Beat-em-ups are in general a lot easier to pick up and play. Why can't vs. fighters do that?

[ujnhunter]

I think being a sh$tty game hinders sales... did you think about that Boon?

[AppleQueso]

I think being a sh$tty game hinders sales... did you think about that Boon?

that doesn't explain the number of shitty games that have sold well though, or the number of great games that sold poorly

[t0yrobo]

He has a point. But I'm still stuck on wondering if anyone thinks that he's even remotely relevant to the games industry anymore. Pretty much his entire track record is MK games, that's not exactly an impressive list.

[J T]

There are examples of immensely difficult games that sell just fine, and there examples of immensely easy games that sell just fine. There is a problem in assuming that those that speak on gaming forums are representative of the larger population of gamers- Boon is correct there. It doesn't naturally follow that they are always wrong either.

From what little analyzed data I have seen, there is a correlation between game sales and metacritic ratings, but it is far from a one-to-one relationship. Great games can tank and games that we would likely consider crap still manage to sell. There are several amateur data collectors out there, usually combining rating scores from metacritic.com and sales ranks from vgpricechartz.com. Here's a few I found in a quick google search:

http://www.dreamdawn.com/sh/features/sales_vs_score.php
http://www.bitmob.com/articles/the-infl ... game-sales
http://www.bricemorrison.com/?p=267

It seems pretty clear that game quality (as defined by critic ratings) is a factor in how well a game sells, but game quality alone does not explain sales. I would like to see more complicated models for predicting game sales that also factor in marketing, online buzz, and other factors.

As for me though, I'm still an advocate for game developers putting their heart into games they want to make rather than relying too much on focus groups or online opinions. Even if I don't like a game very much, if I can see that somebody's artistic vision was realized, I can appreciate it. It's just that we too frequently see marketing research vision and not artistic vision in our games. I think that is a shame.