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[FunkyPajamas]

Except that abstaining from purchasing a game puts you in with the vast majority of the population. It's the extreme minority that will actually purchase any particular game. People looking at it your way have it backwards.

Nobody in their right mind would think that the pool of potential buyers for a product would span the entirety of the earth's population, or an entire country, or even a large percentage of that. As long as the product/strategy/etc is making *enough* money, it'll be seen as something that's viable to continue to exist. So if enough people are buying a product (enough being the key) then (again) enough people "voted with their wallets" to keep the product/strategy alive.

 

[bidguy]

i bet you dont vote at elections either

 

[TSM]

Nobody in their right mind would think that the pool of potential buyers for a product would span the entirety of the earth's population, or an entire country, or even a large percentage of that. As long as the product/strategy/etc is making *enough* money, it'll be seen as something that's viable to continue to exist. So if enough people are buying a product (enough being the key) then (again) enough people "voted with their wallets" to keep the product/strategy alive.

This is what I'm saying. The only people that actually vote are the people that purchase a product. The rest are either people that were never going to be a customer or potential customers that passed on your product for one reason or another. It's ludicrous to not buy a product and expect the publisher to come to the realization that your specific reason for passing on a product is the reason their sales are lower then expected. Then there are the games that sell big anyway and your lack of a purchase isn't even a peripheral thought.

 

[sector4]

I didn't buy evolve and that seems to be working

Yeah that one worked, I also didn't buy MK X but I'm pretty sure that did quite well, despite it's bullshit DLC practises.

 

[FunkyPajamas]

It's ludicrous to not buy a product and expect the publisher to come to the realization that your specific reason for passing on a product is the reason their sales are lower then expected.

I guess we're agreeing then? I'm not sure what's going on.

 

[Syrus]

The future is buying something and refunding it.

I bought assassins creed unity from Amazon. I asked for refund and they refunded and didnt ask for the game back

Win win

 

[cakely]

Voting with my wallet works fantastically for me. If there's something I don't want, I don't buy it.

 

[TSM]

I guess we're agreeing then? I'm not sure what's going on.

I was just commenting on the majority/minority aspect. An extreme minority of gamers will ever buy any particular piece of software, never mind the general population.

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

No. In theory it works, but in practice a few people getting mad about Battlefield 4's launch and saying they're voting with their wallets on future games isn't going to do anything to the millions of people who couldn't care less and will continue to buy Battlefield games. People on Gaf voted with their wallets when Destiny came out but it's still ridiculously popular and selling loads.

 

[VincentMatts]

Batman Arkham knight for PC?

Voting with your wallet works, it just doesn't work when 99% of people buy it anyways.

So it only works when the majority also does it. Seems obvious

 

[FunkyPajamas]

I was just commenting on the majority/minority aspect. An extreme minority of gamers will ever buy any particular piece of software, never mind the general population.

Sure, that much is obvious, which is why you don't use the total number of humans on the planet as the basis for your market pool. You take a segment of the human population (say, males between ages X and Y with disposable income of Z in country A, etc, etc) and assume that's your 100%. Then if a percentage of that 100% (a number that makes sense given your projections, it doesn't even have to be 51%) buy into your product, you can then determine whether your product met its sales expectations or not.

I guess then the use of the word "majority" and/or "minority" is what we're discussing here? If so that's just semantics, I suppose.

 

[ugh_the_boot]

It works for me because I don't end up with shit game = all that matters.

 

[Red Devil]

Voting with your wallet means that you don't give the company any money for the related product in question not for example pay the game but ignore the part that made it a deal breaker which seems to happen in many cases.

 

[Atlas AS7-K]

Voting with my wallet works fantastically for me. If there's something I don't want, I don't buy it.

This guy gets it. Expecting your reasons for not buying to have any impact other than saving you the purchase is silly. Everyone can vote with their wallet but they should know that nobody cares what you personally liked or disliked about the product. Maybe, if your opinion is shared by enough then someone might notice, but mostly any statement of "preorder canceled, or i'm boycotting because of ______" is pretty much met with a resounding meh from the world.

Its like how I'm skipping Transformers Devastation even though I love G1 transformers and normally having the voice talent alone would make it day one. I personally don't feel like supporting activision in light of some anti-consumer decisions they've made recently. But I dont expect anyone to give a rats ass about it, least of all activision.

So yea, vote with your wallet, but do it for you and forget about doing it "for the hobby, or for gaming" or whatever, because nobody cares.

 

[Mik317]

It works and when it doesnt work, that just means whatever the issue was isn't an issue to the majority. That sucks but is what it is. You aren't some special butterfly after all.

 

[dickgumshoe]

When I voted in the Bundestagswahl, the party I voted for didn't win the election. Clearly the system doesn't work.

 

[Steiner84]

doesnt work for me. Im voting with my wallet everytime, yet they still make more Call of Dutys and Assassins Creeds..

 

[NinjamicWZ]

A lot of the time when it's revealed a game is doing something anti consumer or adopting an unpopular financial model, a lot of the time there are people who make the "vote with your wallet" argument

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

With games in particular, a lot of the stuff they are implementing doesn't cost much to add into the game, and even if most players ignore it, the few that don't will make it worthwhile, and keeping this kind of thing in games will cause the majority to get used to them being there anyway

If anything, microtransactions making a publisher less than expected will probably cause them to push for the design of the game to change in order to recoup more from them in future games

If you outright don't buy the game at all, that doesn't send a message either, if a game sells 4.5m and not 5m, and they lose 500k in sales from people "voting with their wallet" they have no idea that was the case, there is no way they will analyse that data and think "shit, we lost 500k in sales because we included a pay to win mechanic"

You ARE just a drop in the bucket, but if everyone conceded to the idea that they're just drops in the bucket, there wouldn't be any buckets of water... not even an occasional one that works. You still have to not-support or support things you believe in strongly enough, if it's important to you.

Keep in mind, though... any drops you don't put into the buckets you don't like are drops you can put in the buckets you DO like. Empower the content creators you enjoy who practice business the way you like.

Vote with your readership and your views too. Mass backlash online isn't going to always work by itself either. You also want media to call out what you call out, instead of either ignoring the forum/social-media rumblings, or trying to minimize it with "I don't see what the big deal is" - that's what spreads the gospel, so to speak, and plays public defender instead of devil's advocate.

 

[Pro from Dover]

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

I always thought the reversal was Microsoft worrying on how wallets will vote...

 

[Steverulez]

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

I bet they looked at Xbox One pre-orders after E3 2013 and everyone shit their pants at the same time from the Microsoft executives sitting their tower making the decisions to their third-party partners who signed deals (marketing or otherwise) with them and the developers making games with/for them either internally or not.

I don't believe it was about anything less because money is really all that talks, they realised that thing was more than likely DOA if they released it as it was.

 

[PdotMichael]

Works just fine here. Not buying means I am not forced to deal with the shit.

 

[Striek]

The XBOne is proof it works. The entire direction of a company and an industry was changed by consumers. Hell it was still probably a billion dollar bungle from MS with how much good will they lost and how slowly consumers have come around.

 

[yurinka]

Revenue and sales is the main goal of the companies, so make sure to vote with your wallet works. Companies use games and features that generates money.

Example: big companies focus consoles instead of PC because computers are like 10% of their revenue. And some of them are betting in mobile too because games are cheaper to make, sometimes are more profitable and the revenue in this market has a huge growth since several years ago.

Same goes with DLC, pre-order bonus, or microtransactions. If people wouldn't pay them companies wouldn't spend money and time on them. And the same goes with genres, innovative games vs more of the same genre, new IP vs sequels, etc.

 

[RPGam3r]

It's not that "vote with your wallet" doesn't work, it's just that the voters need to be better informed for it to work.

This kind of statement is made various times in this thread.

It's always possible that the things some us here deem important are just not meaningful to others, specifically the majority of voters.

 

[Atlas AS7-K]

The XBOne is proof it works. The entire direction of a company and an industry was changed by consumers. Hell it was still probably a billion dollar bungle from MS with how much good will they lost and how slowly consumers have come around.

meh, it only worked because it went viral after Mattrick said enough really stupid things that gamers took offense to. It's not like anyone really knew anything about hot it was supposed to work, it just became cool to hate MS.

 

[Striek]

meh, it only worked because it went viral after Mattrick said enough really stupid things that gamers took offense to. It's not like anyone really knew anything about hot it was supposed to work, it just became cool to hate MS.

Uhhhh no, it was an incredibly dumb, arrogant anti-consumer setup that dominated headlines in media and provided the ammunition for their competitions own E3 show. Lets not revise history like it was nothing or it was all interwebs outrage. It had nothing to do with what Mattrick was saying and everything to do with the nuts and bolts of the system.

 

[Soodanim]

This kind of statement is made various times in this thread.

It's always possible that the things some us here deem important are just not meaningful to others, specifically the majority of voters.

But that's why it doesn't work in a lot of situations. A minority of silent missed sales won't be noticed or have any context. The thread's general direction is right - you need to be vocal to be heard.

 

[Ambient80]

Yep, I always think of this picture when people try a boycott or whatever and it fails miserably. The idea is absolutely valid, but it requires follow-through from the protesting crowd.

Anecdotally, my buddy says every year he will refuse to buy the next CoD because the last one sucked and he doesn't want to support a bad game. Like, every single year he says this since I think WaW. What's he doing on launch day? Playing multiplayer with me on PSN/Live.

 

[RPGam3r]

But that's why it doesn't work in a lot of situations. A minority of silent missed sales won't be noticed or have any context. The thread's general direction is right - you need to be vocal to be heard.

Depends on the size of like minded voters that are in the minority. They don't need to be the majority to be noticed, they just need to be big enough, which is relative.

Sales matter, and being vocal matters.

 

[Madness]

So what do you want next? To take to the streets when you don't like something. Voting with your wallet works. It's always worked. The only problem is, you think it's not working for the other guys also voting with their wallets FOR the game. If you hate something and absolutely loathe it, if you're the only one not buying it, of course it won't change.

That's true for almost anything. And if a majority of the people are still buying the game when they hear something bad, then it could also mean it's not as bad as you personally think. There's a reason we use the term vocal minority. Because oftentimes the people who are the loudest are the minority, especially in smaller communities like GAF where problems get amplified.

 

[Durante]

Yeah, cause CoD is soooooo huge on PC right now.

Yeah, I feel like people never really make the point they want to make when they post this picture.

 

[Alienous]

I doesn't have to 'work'; it's a personal decision.

The alternative is casting a vote in favour of the thing by spending money on it.

 

[dead souls]

I doesn't have to 'work'; it's a personal decision.

Agreed. It saves me money and there are plenty of other things to spend my time on.

 

[JDSN]

"Voting with your wallet" its what people say when they want others to shut the fuck up but are cowards to actually say it.

 

[levyjl1988]

I bought Dead Space 1 & 2. I didn't buy Dead Space 3 new, I bought it used so I don't support EA.

 

[Atlas AS7-K]

Uhhhh no, it was an incredibly dumb, arrogant anti-consumer setup that dominated headlines in media and provided the ammunition for their competitions own E3 show. Lets not revise history like it was nothing or it was all interwebs outrage. It had nothing to do with what Mattrick was saying and everything to do with the nuts and bolts of the system.

Uh, no. It was arrogant comments and assumptions made based on rumors fed to already irratated gamers. It was never actually revealed what was going to happen with digital liscenses, lets not pretend like the backlash was informed. There was a vocal minority core that latched on to their plastic drm protectively and the unwashed masses picked up on it and amplified it. none of them really knew anything, hell people still spout completely inaccurate shit about the XB1 today. Just a few days ago someone tried to tell me its completely incapable of 1080p and never had a game run at that res...

 

[LincolnSixVacano]

Xbox One 180 on policies was due to backlash against said policies. There was a wave of hate and disdain on Twitter, Facebook etc. Its some revisionism to say it was only voting with the wallets.

The 180 on the policies had nothing to do with wallet-voting of course. I'm not saying public backlash doesn't work.

I'm saying the mediocre sales in the first year were in part due to that same backlash. The backlash ended up having financial consequences.

Both ways need to exist. Combined they can do great and powerful stuff.

 

[AmaterasuOni]

I'm not buying Ubisoft or EA games. My wallet is happy. Damn EA and Mirror's Edge (and maybe SW:BF) though!

 

[Cyrano]

I cannot think of any actual research that lends credence to the "vote with your wallet" argument but anecdotally it does seem like consumer opinion (not spending, necessarily) has the ability to change business decisions for videogames.

 

[FunkyPajamas]

"Voting with your wallet" its what people say when they want others to shut the fuck up but are cowards to actually say it.

Post with your wallet.

 

[Northeastmonk]

"Voting with your wallet" its what people say when they want others to shut the fuck up but are cowards to actually say it.

That's probably true to an extent. With movies you can't really complain to the director, but you can give it a bad recommendation and tell your friends not to go see it. You can somewhat complain to a musician, but it rarely happens from what I can tell. Games now a days can be patched and there's a huge social curve to it. It would be hard explaining how much of a voice someone has. You have an almost unlimited amount of established and unastablished creators. You have extremes where people care about it and the extremes of someone who doesn't care at all. The middle or wherever that sits depends on how well the person enjoying it or doesn't goes about their life.

Gaming has probably the most confusing depiction of whoever enjoys it. At times it's easy and at others it isn't like going to the movies on a Sunday evening. It still has its departments of good and bad. People still want to censor it or love it.

If someone doesn't like something they can easily load up a social media website and contact the publisher, developer, or the creator. The days of gaming magazines being the only public voice have gone to the wayside. Developers can know how people feel just by following their feed. Some people probably don't mind it, while others are probably just annoyed by it.

 

[Kamina]

It doesnt work for the whole community but it certainly works for me.

 

[ElCidTmax]

Simply not buying a game is not enough to send a clear message to publishers. There are lots of ways in which to send a message to publishers beyond simply boycotting.

Remember that introducing f2p money extraction schemes are done by publishers because they work. Also, the majority of the money made from microtransactions comes from a relatively small slice of the user base. If users who hate microtransactions don't buy the game, the publisher doesn't really see a drop in the success of the microtransaction piece, because those users wouldn't have participated in that piece. The lack of a sale of the game doesn't necessarily mean the publisher will think microtransactions are failing.

It's important to get the message out in more ways beyond boycotting. The Xbox One launch is a good example, because it wasn't just low sales, it was all the outrage on social media and in the games press, getting trounced by Sony, Tretton's big moment at the launch announcement where the press went bananas. It was all of those things together that drove home the point to Microsoft that they had to change course.

 

[DSix]

Last time I checked it worked on Evolve and The Order 1886 just fine.

On the flipside it also worked amazingly well for Dark Souls and Bloodborne.

 

[Dremark]

SFV isn't even out yet.

They've said straight out they aren't doing certain business practices people were against in SFxT. No P2W gems, no on disc DLC, etc.

 

[pompidu]

The xbox 180 happened because every blog, website, newspaper etc ripped them a new asshole over their foolishness.

I'm sure preorders were fine.

 

[Acerac]

Voting with your wallet works, it just so happens that others can vote with theirs too.

If 25% of people buy overpriced dlc for a game, who won that vote? I'm guessing said dlc comes back in the next game with that ratio.

I'm amazed so many people ignore this. No vote is occurring here.

 

[Kinyou]

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

Weren't the pre-orders lower than those of the PS4?

And you're essentially saying that they reacted to the consumers saying "I wont buy that"

Sounds like voting with your wallet to me

 

[pigeon]

Full disclosure, I work in the game industry.

Voting with your wallet is something that game companies definitely pay attention to, in the sense that they generally won't do things that they don't think will make money. The problem is that the people who organize boycotts on social media and forums aren't necessarily representative of the people who fund game companies.

Almost everybody who works at most game development studios are gamers who care a lot about game experience, quality, and often have the same experiences with free to play, microtransactions, DLC, that everybody else does. At the same time, though, in order for the studio to stay open, it has to find a way to bring money in so that people can get paid. This is a problem with, like, capitalism, but not with games specifically. Every company, from EA to the Red Cross, has a few people whose jobs are to find a way to fund the work everybody else actually wants to do, so that it can get done.

If someone doesn't like something they can easily load up a social media website and contact the publisher, developer, or the creator. The days of gaming magazines being the only public voice have gone to the wayside. Developers can know how people feel just by following their feed. Some people probably don't mind it, while others are probably just annoyed by it.

So this is true, but there's a big problem with adverse selection here.

If your game is unsuccessful the people who contact you on social media are mostly the people who like it -- meaning that they're not really representative of the people who are causing your game to be unsuccessful. Those people have generally checked out entirely and are not posting on your Facebook page.

If your game is successful the people who contact you on social media are mostly the people who are angry about it -- meaning that they're not really representative of the people who are causing your game to be successful. Those people are generally having fun and see no reason to post.

In both cases the people who make the active step of reaching out are people who feel much more motivated than the average user to reach out and contact the developer -- which means that they probably have an agenda. That makes them unrepresentative and potentially unreliable.

That said, definitely anything you post on social media or first-party forums is going to get aggregated by a community manager and, depending on its frequency, raised as a potential topic of conversation with the dev team. But it's only one slice of data to add to a huge pile of data explaining not just what people say, but actually what they're doing.

 

[tilomite!]

It's just like voting in a democracy. Sometimes people don't agree with your position. It doesn't mean that voting didn't work, just means your vote is in the minority.