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Voting with your wallet doesn't work

Dicer

Banned
Too many sheep not enough shepherds...

No matter how shitty a deal seems to be, there is always a line of morons with cash in fist ready to buy in...
 

Arthea

Member
Ok, so what you're saying is that it doesn't work for you. But it certainly works as a principle, as all those people that bought games with the stuff you mentioned got what they wanted. The system works, the problem is that the consumer base as a whole doesn't agree with you

You'll need to prove that, not taking your word that all those people got what they wanted.
 

Anth0ny

Member
step 1: complain on the internet

step 2 (if it comes to it): vote with your wallet

nowadays, the first one works more often than the second
 

Ploid 3.0

Member
The reason I vote with my wallet is so I can avoid wasting money on something I don't like or I don't wish to encourage (which also means I don't like it). It works 95% of the time for me. Sometimes I end up trying the games when they reach trash price like GTA 4 Episodes from Liberty City. I really regret giving GTA4 another chance, there was no redeeming that game For Me.
 

Dremark

Banned
Look at what Capcom is doing with SF5 compared to what they did with SFxT.

Voting with your walet works if enough people cast thier votes.
 

Arthea

Member
If they didn't, they weren't "voting with their wallets". They were begrudgingly accepting a game regardless of their own personal tastes

you can vote a little, the same way as you can be a little pregnant or dead. You or vote or not, if you buy something against your better judgement or begrudgingly accepting or not caring enough you still vote with your wallet for anticonsumer policies. It's that simple.
 

Majukun

Member
how can people say it doesn't work when the caouple of times we managed to do it on a large scvale it worked brilliantly?

also..voting wih your wallet and making an outcry is the same..you make an outcry to alert people NOT to buy the game..the complaint by it self does nothing..if it makes people stop buying,"magically" things change

problem is,most gamers still have to learn how to stop themselves to buy their favorite game at day one,and prefer to say that there's "nothing they can do",because it is an easy excuse
 
Works for me. I've been gaming since NES and if I see a bad practice then I won't support it. If the industry doesn't change for the better then oh well. If it crashed and burned, I'd still have plenty in my library to play. The problem is people who complain and then buy the game anyway.
 
Is there any proof that this has ever worked?

Don't publishers just assume the complaints on forums lead to no sales influence in the grand scheme of things and just pass any poor sales onto other reasons?

There are genuine big deals like the batman pc debacle though. Man that was something else.
 

Anth0ny

Member
In response to this, in some cases, it's hard to tell what are the right places to deliver feedback in which the companies will actually listen/care.

Like, I would absolutely love to tell the heads of Nintendo to deliver GBA/SNES VC support to the 3DS, but I have absolutely no idea who to email/tweet/etc that will make a difference.

you need to get a bunch of people to spam their facebook and twitter all at once

worked for xenoblade
 

Doc_Drop

Member
you can vote a little, the same way as you can be a little pregnant or dead. You or vote or not, if you buy something against your better judgement or begrudgingly accepting or not caring enough you still vote with your wallet for anticonsumer policies. It's that simple.

Right, so you are voting with your wallet. You're telling them it's ok. You can have strong enough convictions to actually vote with your wallet to match your desires saying "I don't like this aspect of your game, so you have lost a sale". I think you're misunderstanding things. You may have personally lost "votes" on certain games, but the people who didn't agree with you won. So voting does work for the majority, unfortunately you are in the minority
 

Nyoro SF

Member
The thread OP has a poor base but he is absolutely correct in a different way; poor sales don't tell the publisher the reason why the game didn't sell.
I've been to many industry panels where I've been told that on the business side of video games, once they see poor sales, that's that for a series.
That's why not only should you not purchase the game or content in question if you disagree with it, you should be very vocal on social media as to why you feel like a game has not lived up to your expectations. The larger the group doing so the better. That is far more effective than *just* voting with your wallet.

Now as for microtransactions? No matter how hard you vote with your wallet or complain on social media, those are never going away. Even if less than 1% of the people who buy a game purchase its microtransactions, it's a very profitable venture for a company. So yeah...

you need to get a bunch of people to spam their facebook and twitter all at once

worked for xenoblade

And Dark Souls 2
God damn people really did not like what From did to that game lmao
 

N30RYU

Member
Every rant that we as consumers won was a voting wallet. The companies won't do shit about our rants if they didn't think that were gonna lose sales aka money from our wallets.
 

system11

Member
The thing that's missing is a way of saying to companies "I didn't buy your game because of X".

I think this is one reason companies love Twitter, unless you can cause a deluge everything gets lost in the noise with no expectation of a response. See how hard it is these days to find an actual email address to send comments to. Nope, just throw them in the spam and pretend someone listened.
 

Sephzilla

Member
I don't think we would have gotten Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition if DmC didn't put up franchise low numbers. Voting with your wallet works.
 
This discussion is bollocks.

Voting with your wallet as a means to critique a singular aspect of a game (be it microtransactions, representation, game mechanics etc.) is utterly useless. Even if "enough" people vote the developer is unlikely to be able to figure out what they problem is, or have an idea of how many sales they lost. Voting with your wallet is an exceptionally shitty way to convey a message. It's utterly inefficient.

Unless it is accompanied by clear, focused criticism towards the aspect of the game you don't like, the developers are probably not going to change. But put that criticism somewhere where they might see it (official Facebook pages, major gaming forums, hijacking hashtags etc.), and they might start doing something about it.

Combine they two and you've got a good idea. But just opting not to buy the game is not going to change practices. Just complaining (loudly and publicly) but still buying the game might actually change something, but simply not buying it will just maintain the status quo.
 

inky

Member
The only way these companies understand is when they get a hit to their financials, so I'd like to think that it works. Letting them know vocally is no substitute for it, more like a plus
must
.

If Microsoft XBONE preorders were where they wanted them to be after the announcement or above they wouldn't have reversed their decisions. They only start to give a shit once there's tangible outcomes involved.
 
Voting with your wallet is extremely effective on a systemic level.

The problem is, there are a lot of people especially on this forum that have this deluded believe they represent some majority or significant percentage of the population. They are so used to being in the bubble called GAF.They fail to grasp the simple truth that 99% of the people who game probably do not read any of the gaming forums.
 

joecanada

Member
Well it does work... Everyone just has to join in.

Why do they have to join? It's called voting because everyone has an equal say. So if 10 million people bought a game you didn't like, you still voted with your wallet but so did they... why would they be denied a game that they want because you "voted" against them? It still works as intended in this case.

the problem with the entire concept of "vote with your wallet" is that many seem to think it means "get what I want by initiating a boycott" when it actually means you got your ONE vote. and in this case you saved money too which is bonus.
 

Arthea

Member
Right, so you are voting with your wallet. You're telling them it's ok. You can have strong enough convictions to actually vote with your wallet to match your desires saying "I don't like this aspect of your game, so you have lost a sale". I think you're misunderstanding things. You may have personally lost "votes" on certain games, but the people who didn't agree with you won. So voting does work for the majority, unfortunately you are in the minority

I feel like we are going in circles. Voting with the wallet doesn't work exactly because it's not decision to vote for bad things happening to gaming industry, it's or not caring enough, or not "voting" because it's stupid, or accepting you can't change things and list goes on. Some people are fine with how things are, I don't doubt it, what I'm saying that voting with your wallet doesn't work, because obviously it didn't work until now, not even on things most of us agree aren't good, not the way it's intended or why we talk about it at all.
 

Neiteio

Member
Voting with your wallet is just that: Voting with your wallet.

If you're in the majority, you win, if not, you lose.
 

joecanada

Member
Some gamers just don't care and buy anyway.

don't care about what though? Again the issue is that you are basically stating you know what's good for other people and so they should vote the way you say they should.

saying "it works" is the same in this case as "doing what I say"
 

Doc_Drop

Member
I feel like we are going in circles. Voting with the wallet doesn't work exactly because it's not decision to vote for bad things happening to gaming industry, it's or not caring enough, or not "voting" because it's stupid, or accepting you can't change things and list goes on. Some people are fine with how things are, I don't doubt it, what I'm saying that voting with your wallet doesn't work, because obviously it didn't work until now, not even on things most of us agree aren't good, not the way it's intended or why we talk about it at all.

I think you're missing the wood for the trees a little. As Silvermember said above, I think most people don't think it works because they aren't getting what they want. On a lot of practices, the majority has spoken and as much as you or I don't like them, enough people have bought into these practices or don't care enough have it effect their purchasing choices, thus they have continued or even flourished. Going deeper, I personally feel Capitalism has a finite existence in this world, which a lot of this is based off. I would prefer if a gaming governing body existed that could actually say to publishers "hey, no, you can't do that, that's exploiting people. charging them for things that they used to get as part of the deal". But that's a whole different matter entirely. Within capitalism, money talks. And if you are of a minority regarding your opinion you may have to make a protest elsewhere to reinforce that opinion.
 

Into

Member
Is there any proof that this has ever worked? Even the infamous Xbone reversal was something that happened before the console came out, so it wasn't something they reacted to because of poor sales, that was entirely down to them realising what it was offering wasn't something consumers wanted


Its amazing to me that you have taken a example where consumers did win, and trying to twist it around.

The likelihood is that MS saw pre orders for the Xbox One, and they were so abysmal, that they had no other choice but to change their initial vision. They did not just look foolish to consumers they also had to explain the whole thing to their own higher ups at MS.

Why else would they change their stance? Your theory is that they just realized it out of the blue, how? How do you invest millions of dollars into a project and then just randomly by the watercooler go "my god, this might not be the right thing to do! LETS CHANGE IT!". How do you measure interest from consumers? Well pre orders are a good way to measure just that.


The MS XB1 fiasco is perhaps the best example where voting with your wallet worked. Its the shining beacon of people actually banding together and saying no to the bullshit they wanted to implement. Despite all the damage control of MS and "video game journalists" who of course had no balls to call it out when it was ongoing, but later on in the year when MS changed, rewrote their own history.
 

oni-link

Member
Voting with your wallet is just that: Voting with your wallet.

If you're in the majority, you win, if not, you lose.

Well if your voting based on a very specific issue, then your vote doesn't have any meaning behind it, most of those who own MGSV would probably have voted to not have the FOB stuff work as it does, but they still brought the game, and thats 100% fine

But if you don't buy the game because of the FOB stuff, then what can that possibly accomplish? No one will have accurate information on how many people didn't buy the game because of that specific issue, so it won't make it back to the publisher, and even if it does, the handful of whales will bring in way more than the indeterminate number of people that skipped the game by "voting with their wallet"

Perfect example. I didn't buy DmC, and got more of what I originally wanted.

In this case it was cut and dry, as a lot of people just didn't want that DmC experience, and so didn't buy it. In other cases people will 100% want a game, but dislike a certain aspect of that game, and then either get it anyway and hope it doesn't ruin the experience, or choose to skip a game they want on principle
 

Arthea

Member
I think you're missing the wood for the trees a little. As Silvermember said above, I think most people don't think it works because they aren't getting what they want. On a lot of practices, the majority has spoken and as much as you or I don't like them, enough people have bought into these practices or don't care enough have it effect their purchasing choices, thus they have continued or even flourished. Going deeper, I personally feel Capitalism has a finite existence in this world, which a lot of this is based off. I would prefer if a gaming governing body existed that could actually say to publishers "hey, no, you can't do that, that's exploiting people. charging them for things that they used to get as part of the deal". But that's a whole different matter entirely. Within capitalism, money talks. And if you are of a minority regarding your opinion you may have to make a protest elsewhere to reinforce that opinion.

you are looking at it from totally wrong angle, let's forget games for once because it lets you to assume that people are OK with this, that's why it is as it is, and I can't prove you wrong as you can't prove you are right, let's get to pricing, my favourite topic.
Capitalism argument totally worked (as in nobody cares about poor, why are you poor in the first place?) while we had no regional pricing, not that I liked it, but it's one of those things "it's how system works", but now we have it, most of stores have it anyway, there are regions that pay less because they can't afford to pay more, very consumer friendly policy, isn't it? Not so friendly for richer regions, but they can live with paying more. What's not to like? I'll tell you what's not to like. For example, the poor part of Europe is excluded from it "because of reasons", nobody knows what those reasons are, but in fact they play more than the rest of the world, (except maybe Aussies), even publishers or devs from that region are OK with charging more because apparently nobody cares. Now try to prove me that people from that region are OK with this or that voting with your wallet works. Good luck with proving, btw
 

joecanada

Member
I think you're missing the wood for the trees a little. As Silvermember said above, I think most people don't think it works because they aren't getting what they want. On a lot of practices, the majority has spoken and as much as you or I don't like them, enough people have bought into these practices or don't care enough have it effect their purchasing choices, thus they have continued or even flourished. Going deeper, I personally feel Capitalism has a finite existence in this world, which a lot of this is based off. I would prefer if a gaming governing body existed that could actually say to publishers "hey, no, you can't do that, that's exploiting people. charging them for things that they used to get as part of the deal". But that's a whole different matter entirely. Within capitalism, money talks. And if you are of a minority regarding your opinion you may have to make a protest elsewhere to reinforce that opinion.

yes in fact what we see often is British posters stating that they have tough laws to protect consumers, like dealing with refunds and broken products. Personally I prefer that system for sure.
 
Q

Queen of Hunting

Unconfirmed Member
Xbox reversal did work for wallet. Pre orders were piss poor accross retail online. Ps4 was charting top on pre orders etc.
 
Well if your voting based on a very specific issue, then your vote doesn't have any meaning behind it, most of those who own MGSV would probably have voted to not have the FOB stuff work as it does, but they still brought the game, and thats 100% fine

But if you don't buy the game because of the FOB stuff, then what can that possibly accomplish? No one will have accurate information on how many people didn't buy the game because of that specific issue, so it won't make it back to the publisher, and even if it does, the handful of whales will bring in way more than the indeterminate number of people that skipped the game by "voting with their wallet"

There are official channels to explain any displeasure you have with a game or publisher. Spamming a message board isn't one of them, but making a reasonable post on their official forums/fb or a message to their customer service email or Twitter will suffice.

They also do consumer surveys, look at online player stats, and get extensive post launch npd data.
 

purdobol

Member
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

It works but the majority of people have to hop in. And that ain't happening without some form of social media outcry. People act like sheep and will follow the flock but that first initial push is necessary.
It's worth to mention that this is double edged sword. If people scream too much, the publishers/devs will start to treat them with hostility. It can be observed with a lot of interviews when gaming community is criticised by this companies for being terrible/shitty.
 
Arkham knight on PC, any game that doesn't do well. The reason many games continue to sell that many of gaf take issues with is simply because most everyday casual gamers just don't care.
 

joecanada

Member
you are looking at it from totally wrong angle, let's forget games for once because it lets you to assume that people are OK with this, that's why it is as it is, and I can't prove you wrong as you can't prove you are right, let's get to pricing, my favourite topic.
Capitalism argument totally worked (as in nobody cares about poor, why are you poor in the first place?) while we had no regional pricing, not that I liked it, but it's one of those things "it's how system works", but now we have it, most of stores have it anyway, there are regions that pay less because they can't afford to pay more, very consumer friendly policy, isn't it? Not so friendly for richer regions, but they can live with paying more. What's not to like? I'll tell you what's not to like. For example, the poor part of Europe is excluded from it "because of reasons", nobody knows what those reasons are, but in fact they play more than the rest of the world, (except maybe Aussies), even publishers or devs from that region are OK with charging more because apparently nobody cares. Now try to prove me that people from that region are OK with this or that voting with your wallet works. Good luck with proving, btw

I'm unsure what the actual point is though... that some people can't afford a certain item? they already voted with their wallet maybe they are buying ps3 games or pc games instead....... so your premise is that we should all subsidize games for people in slower economies? I mean I'm for it, but it's not really the way consumer products work. The company markets a product and there is demand for it or there isn't.... simple as that. voting with your wallet is either buying it or not, regardless of your reasons. that includes if you cant really afford it.
It may not "work" for those who can't afford it, but it must be working for someone or they would be forced to change their model.

"we have a product for those who can't afford to vote with their wallets, its called xbox 360"
 

Tigress

Member
step 1: complain on the internet

step 2 (if it comes to it): vote with your wallet

nowadays, the first one works more often than the second

No, 1 works because they are afraid it will lead to people doing 2. If they thought people would buy it anyways, they wouldn't care if you didn't like it. You gotta remember their end goal is to sell their product. Not make you happy. Making you happy sells their product and that is the only reason why they care about making you happy. So yes, voting with your wallet is essential. Or at least make them believe you are going to vote with your wallet (but it won't work if people never do. That's why you get things like EA insisting on online on Sim City even though people kept saying they didn't like it. EA didn't believe they would lose sales because of that, they felt people were just talking the talk but not walking the walk. Same reason why Microsoft thought the xbox one's original policies would sell despite a large outcry even before they announced it, remember "deal with it"? They didn't think gamers would put their money where their mouth was and that's ultimately all they cared about).

Some gamers just don't care and buy anyway.

And that is a huge problem unfortunately. The biggest problem. What really pisses me off are the gamers who bitch about it and then say they'll buy anyways. Well, you are why the companies don't care when people complain about something. They see that most gamers will buy it anyways. I actually got fed up with the voting EA worst company. Quit voting them worst company when you still buy their stuff!! If you really don't like them, quit supporting them! Otherwise shuttup because obviously you have shown EA that they can do whatever and you'll still buy.

This discussion is bollocks.

Voting with your wallet as a means to critique a singular aspect of a game (be it microtransactions, representation, game mechanics etc.) is utterly useless. Even if "enough" people vote the developer is unlikely to be able to figure out what they problem is, or have an idea of how many sales they lost. Voting with your wallet is an exceptionally shitty way to convey a message. It's utterly inefficient.

Unless it is accompanied by clear, focused criticism towards the aspect of the game you don't like, the developers are probably not going to change. But put that criticism somewhere where they might see it (official Facebook pages, major gaming forums, hijacking hashtags etc.), and they might start doing something about it.

Combine they two and you've got a good idea. But just opting not to buy the game is not going to change practices. Just complaining (loudly and publicly) but still buying the game might actually change something, but simply not buying it will just maintain the status quo.

You are correct. You also need to vent why you are not buying. Companies can be notoriously bad about figuring out why sales aren't working on their own. And very biased towards believing it's not what they don't want it to be (They aren't holding off because they don't like online only, we must not have given it enough online functions).
 

Doc_Drop

Member
you are looking at it from totally wrong angle, let's forget games for once because it lets you to assume that people are OK with this, that's why it is as it is, and I can't prove you wrong as you can't prove you are right, let's get to pricing, my favourite topic.
Capitalism argument totally worked (as in nobody cares about poor, why are you poor in the first place?) while we had no regional pricing, not that I liked it, but it's one of those things "it's how system works", but now we have it, most of stores have it anyway, there are regions that pay less because they can't afford to pay more, very consumer friendly policy, isn't it? Not so friendly for richer regions, but they can live with paying more. What's not to like? I'll tell you what's not to like. For example, the poor part of Europe is excluded from it "because of reasons", nobody knows what those reasons are, but in fact they play more than the rest of the world, (except maybe Aussies), even publishers or devs from that region are OK with charging more because apparently nobody cares. Now try to prove me that people from that region are OK with this or that voting with your wallet works. Good luck with proving, btw

So I'm assuming you're talking about pricing of games right? because you don't really talk about what product has different pricing and you mention publishers or devs.

I would imagine that if people are unhappy with the rrp of games in their region that if people voted with their wallets brand new games sales numbers would go down, and used games sales up, games bought several months after release (price slashing) would go up, and piracy would be on the rise. If people are ok with the regional pricing then the numbers of sales wouldn't be affected. I do find myself unhappy about regional pricing, and traditionally I have been ok with buying games used, on sale, or via someone like amazon who may be able to take some of the financial hit on my behalf. However, some games on PC are only available via a steam code, which hasn't been discounted and I have to make the decision on whether or not to buy or not buy. Sometime I will, sometimes I wont. But if 70% of the market doesn't like the regional pricing structure and decides to not purchase the game then it will certainly send a message. How the message is interpreted is on the company.
 

Merc_

Member
What happened with DmC was a perfect example of it working. I suppose it also helped that Ninja Theory went out of its way to continue to piss the fanbase off the entire time they were promoting it.
 
Why do they have to join? It's called voting because everyone has an equal say. So if 10 million people bought a game you didn't like, you still voted with your wallet but so did they... why would they be denied a game that they want because you "voted" against them? It still works as intended in this case.

the problem with the entire concept of "vote with your wallet" is that many seem to think it means "get what I want by initiating a boycott" when it actually means you got your ONE vote. and in this case you saved money too which is bonus.
I was kinda referring to the flaw you pointed out.
 

ElCidTmax

Member
There probably is no one thing that guarantees results when trying to influence companies.

GAF- help me rack these (currently in no particular order):

negative twitter post
negative facebook post
negative coverage by popular youtuber
negative coverage by popular game culture web site
negative coverage by mainstream media
negative thread on neogaf
voting with your wallet

Of all these, what would say an Ubisoft or EA (some company with not an entirely tin ear) pay the most attention to. Maybe some community managers might be able to weigh in here.
 
Arkham knight on PC, any game that doesn't do well. The reason many games continue to sell that many of gaf take issues with is simply because most everyday casual gamers just don't care.

Good example, not buying a game "on principle". If your principle is unreasonable (ie, "I'm not buying this game because it used to be exclusive and now it's multiplat, I'm not buying this game because the port drops 2 frames, I'm not buying this game because it's not full HD, I'm not buying this game because you bought exclusivity"), they aren't paying your console war nonsense any mind.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
It ONLY works if there's a majority.

It works for me 100% of the time. The company doesn't get my money and I don't get screwed.

Nobody has a reasonable expectation that someone else will vote the same way. Others aren't obligated to not buy something just because I wouldn't.
 
I don't understand what this op is saying.

Xbone reversal worked because the media and consumers went WILD against it. This wasn't a case of voting with your wallet because you couldn't buy it, so this shouldn't even be mentioned. No idea why you're mentioning it as a reason why voting with money failed or something. This is irrelevant here.

Now where it does work it where you can buy stuff. If the majority doesn't buy something because it sucks, the policy is often changed. If a company takes a risk and people buy it, the risk continues. This has happened time and time again, so why are we acting like we need to scour resources to find examples of it?
 
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