ThePinkServbot
Banned
You understand that you're saying that the average participant only buys, at most, two new games per year?
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How do you deal with the problematic aspects of the games culture & industry?
- Thread starter Lime
- Start date
You understand that you're saying that the average participant only buys, at most, two new games per year?
More Fun To Compute
Member
Probably computer games are harmful to some degree and have an impact outside your own room. But I wouldn't necessarily want to preached to by someone who eats meat or has flown in a jet air plane.
SliceSabre
Banned
I do not care.
No, I'm not insulting your topic I'm saying me as a person and consumer I do not care almost a lick about any of those things because I don't find them to be all that really major or important enough for me to actually spend any time of my day caring about.
Hell this one:
Exploitation of the people who develop your video games
I almost laugh at because the people making video games actually make pretty damn good money and I'm certainly not out worrying a lick about people who make 2-4 times as much money as I do.
No, I'm not insulting your topic I'm saying me as a person and consumer I do not care almost a lick about any of those things because I don't find them to be all that really major or important enough for me to actually spend any time of my day caring about.
Hell this one:
Exploitation of the people who develop your video games
I almost laugh at because the people making video games actually make pretty damn good money and I'm certainly not out worrying a lick about people who make 2-4 times as much money as I do.
ThePinkServbot
Banned
Which would be relevant if my point was that it was the fault of the consumer for it being that way. That person denied that it was an upper-class hobby, I established reasons why it is. If you feel like you want to absorb some of the blame for games being $60, please feel free, but I don't know why you would when no one is telling you to.
And what percentage of the gaming audience do you think does that?
Fixing the problems on the manufacturing end just seems to be a non-starter when all those problems are true of pretty much anything we consume. Change is only going to come from sweeping reform there, and videogames are too small a slice of the pie to be the engine that starts that.
The social aspects, I feel like the best offense is to just hold your ground. The "angry kid" subculture of gaming can only be counteracted with sustained but subdued positivity on the things they attack; overplaying your opposition to them just fuels their rage and makes them push back more.
The social aspects, I feel like the best offense is to just hold your ground. The "angry kid" subculture of gaming can only be counteracted with sustained but subdued positivity on the things they attack; overplaying your opposition to them just fuels their rage and makes them push back more.
DoktorEvil
Banned
Games have been historically 60 dollars and up!
They've actually came down or held in price over the past 2 decades.
If you feel gaming is an upper class hobby, go to the Fed and bitch about the devaluation of the US dollar. Gaming as a whole has gotten cheaper.
God Dayumm
Banned
The percentage that is not upper class. Thus demonstrating that gaming is not an upper class hobby
Ryouji Gunblade
Member
I read about it on GAF and give my opinion.
We need some change.
We need some change.
ThePinkServbot
Banned
I'm quite aware. I paid $80 for Chrono Trigger myself, and that was in 1995 dollars.
Guess how that impacts my point? (it doesn't)
ThePinkServbot
Banned
To use the already mentioned golf example, there are YMCA golf classes and open-to-everyone courses, too. Are we going to pretend that the people who use those services make up an even remotely noticeable percentage of golf hobbyists?
It's even worse with video games. The video game industry is actively and openly spiteful of the kind of consumer you're talking about, and tries to undermine and hamstring their ability to participate in video games at every turn.
You know, folks, you don't have to split your ass in half to defend some of the crappier components of your hobby at every turn.
DoktorEvil
Banned
This is your point:
which
1) you have not proven to be true(could use some sources)
2) Discounts the existence of previous gen hardware and video games(which are SUBSTANTIALLY reduced in price).
3) Discounts the existence of online retail and secondhand shops.
Am I following correctly?
ThePinkServbot
Banned
You want me to prove to you that the vast majority of games are bought within the first month of release? You could pay attention to sales numbers, I guess. This is something you're really taking issue with?
I don't see how "majority" discounts anything.
llAuburnll
Banned
It's absolutely not an upper class hobby. Where on earth did that come from.
The other reasons I don't care about or have varying degrees of validity. I think there's an argument to be made against your point about taking advantage of people that make the games (?).
Developers don't get recognized and the company or ceo does. That's literally every company ever. Do you know anyone on the assembly line that made your car? Anyone that moves boxes that you get shipped from amazon? Do you know anyone that makes anything you use or enjoy? No.
The other reasons I don't care about or have varying degrees of validity. I think there's an argument to be made against your point about taking advantage of people that make the games (?).
Developers don't get recognized and the company or ceo does. That's literally every company ever. Do you know anyone on the assembly line that made your car? Anyone that moves boxes that you get shipped from amazon? Do you know anyone that makes anything you use or enjoy? No.
The attach rate of the Xbox 360, over the lifespan of the system was around 8 games. That was considered astoundingly high. That lifespan was ~7 years. If we say the average person played their 360 for around 4 years, that's 2 games per year.
So yeah, that's about correct.
Globally, any type of luxury good is upper class. To the first world, though, video gaming is lower-middle class in terms of necessary investment.
That's statistically true, though.
I'll be honest, I try to ignore the ways in which game production is harmful to the environment and to people involved in producing the games. It's pretty terrible, but also something I see as inevitable in a capitalist society. I feel like I wouldn't really be able to function in a regular, normal way if I boycotted every single thing that was bad for the environment and supported poor working conditions.
Association with military is pretty bad, but I deal with it by not playing and purchasing most games associated with the military.
I'm not sure if I entirely agree with the point that gaming is a luxury upper-class hobby. It is, indeed, a luxury, but it's only really upper class if you have to have top-of-the-line performance with new releases. You can pick up older games for cheap, and with the rise of PC download services, games can be really cheap and playable on a platform the majority of the developed world owns. And lots of games now are quite literally free, with the rise of F2P games.
Games mostly targeting western men is pretty awful, and I deal with it by thinking about it and reading articles about it and trying to foster a community that is more welcome to other people. I really think it's something that the industry is slowly improving at, but I think it's important not to be too self congratulatory in that sense that we're still very bad and have a long ways to go.
Association with military is pretty bad, but I deal with it by not playing and purchasing most games associated with the military.
I'm not sure if I entirely agree with the point that gaming is a luxury upper-class hobby. It is, indeed, a luxury, but it's only really upper class if you have to have top-of-the-line performance with new releases. You can pick up older games for cheap, and with the rise of PC download services, games can be really cheap and playable on a platform the majority of the developed world owns. And lots of games now are quite literally free, with the rise of F2P games.
Games mostly targeting western men is pretty awful, and I deal with it by thinking about it and reading articles about it and trying to foster a community that is more welcome to other people. I really think it's something that the industry is slowly improving at, but I think it's important not to be too self congratulatory in that sense that we're still very bad and have a long ways to go.
ldcommando
Banned
How do you deal with it, op ?
ThePinkServbot
Banned
The problem with parsing this shit into "averages" is that it doesn't lend an accurate depiction of who is actually the one that is buying the bulk of this stuff. The "average" video game consumer is your mom playing Candy Crush, but who is it that is buying Destiny? Who is it that Uncharted, and Halo, and the Resident Evil games are meant for? How many of them have an 8-or-below attach rate on their consoles? How many of you have an 8-or-below attach rate on your consoles?
The people who buy COD, Destiny, and the big AAA games generally are the people who only have an attach rate of 8, because that's literally all they buy.
llAuburnll
Banned
Yep. And again, the people who make those things never get credit either. They work for a company. The company gets credit.
ThePinkServbot
Banned
And there's literally a lot more than 8 of those types of games, so I'm not sure where you're going with that. Wasn't there at least 8 CoD games the previous generation? And four (five?) GoWs? Two GTAs plus the side story expansion for IV, all the sports stuff of every stripe... I'm really not sure I understand the logic you're following here. "I only buy AAA dudebro games" isn't exactly a limiting feature when it comes to pure game numbers.
DoktorEvil
Banned
NPD Sales are posted every month in Gaming. Please show me how you are correct.
You could maybe be less condescending? The OP and you have not given much other than lipservice about gaming as an upper class hobby.
NeoGAF is a site for what the industry considers "heavy users", people who buy more than just a few games a year and for people that actively follow the industry.
GAF is not the majority.
Gaming is most definitely a luxury, but it is not meant solely for the upper class/wealthy. To what extent does one have to buy games/systems within a given time until they're considered rich (sizeable amount of disposable income)? Where's the line? A boy saves up a year to buy a new NDS and a copy of Pokemon White, is he rich because he saved for an entertainment product and his basic needs were provided by his family?
Clearly for every person with 30 games there's going to be someone who bought one (that attach rate also doesn't account for used game filtering through and recycling through consumers).
But to be honest, gaming offers way more bang for buck than most deliverable hobbies. I spent more time with games in the years I lived well below the poverty line because paying $5 to see a two hour movie didn't make sense when I could get Dark Souls for 7.50 in a steam sale and play it for 100 hours. Or 4 games in a Humble Bundle for a dollar.
Even console gaming, I pretty much never bought a game for more than $20 (brand new, pretty much every time). I just waited. Games like God of War do more than half their sales around $30 and that makes that series profitable. The long tail is even more prevalent now.
At this point, you're going to have to argue that people having to wait to play new games isn't "right", which is going to be a tough sell. If you don't care about hype cycles, playing Half Life 2 in 2008, like I did, was just as magical of an experience.
llAuburnll
Banned
It's arguably the extreme minority.
I've played with people who never bought anything BUT COD; not halo, not gears, nothing but COD. Then I've played with people who've only ever bought Halo games for their 360 and maybe an occasional gears. It's not at all uncommon.
llAuburnll
Banned
I think people also forget how much someone who is "poor" may spend on cigarettes, alcohol, movies, cable television, etc in a single month alone. Gaming is not an expensive hobby. Shooting is. Cars are. Golf is incredibly expensive. You get the point.
the one of these that i've put thought into is violence in games. i think it's weird and a little gross that we've made entertainment products out of war (across all mediums, not just videogames). i've definitely cut down the number of 'real-world' war games that i've bought.
DoktorEvil
Banned
Indeed. We have very fleshed out OTs for extremely niche games such as Senran Kagura, a game the majority is not buying in droves.
nortonff
Hi, I'm nortonff. I spend my life going into threads to say that I don't care about the topic of the thread. It's a really good use of my time.
This right here.
ThePinkServbot
Banned
March 2013 NPD numbers.
April 2013 NPD numbers.
Between March and April, Tomb Raider is gone. Both GoWs are gone. The Walking Dead crapfest and Naruto game, gone.
Most games sell the bulk of their output in the first thirty days. Are there examples of "evergreens" like NSMB and Mario Kart A Million and whatnot? Sure, but I said most.
I'm pretty sure I could put forward a better argument for why video games sell most during the first month than you could argue why it would at all serve me to reduce my tone.
"Heavy users" make up the bulk of dollars being exchanged within the kind of scope of gaming that we're talking about. Is there more money being exchanged on the mobile end of things? Probably. Is that what the subject of the thread is? Absolutely not.
And who creates a larger impact on industry choices? The person with 30 games or the person with one?
This is great and everything, but it doesn't actually have anything to do with my point. You are not the majority of cases, so this still does nothing to change the fact that gaming in a way that actually allows for any sort of real participation (the "talk, report or review") in gaming culture requires a lot of bank, or draining that bank from other places to allow for it. Furthermore, you're certainly not the person that the industry considers when they choose to make X or Y game because they have no measure of tracking you.
...Isn't "right"? What do you think my argument is? I'm seeing a lot of people assuming I'm "attacking" video games as a medium because I'm calling it a rich man's game. I don't hold anything against the game of golf, I don't hold anything against video games for being expensive to follow, but I can at least call a spade a spade.
It's "not uncommon", but it isn't particularly common, either. Most people don't adhere purely and fundamentally to CoD, they play CoD and Rock Band and Gears and whatever their friends are playing/whatever has been most heavily advertised to them.
Given that every GameStop seems to consist of 95% used games with the only new games being behind the counter...a pretty damn big one. Why do you think publishers wanted to combat it in the first place? Certainly wouldn't have tried if no one bought used games in the first place.
Hell that's like half of GameStop's business strategy: Poorer folks buy a few new games a year, beat them. Trade them in, buy another game.Trade that in etc.
NipplesAndToes23
Member
The responses in this thread is fucking sad.
I wasn't aware of the issues from 1-5. I'll need some time to answer those.
6. I can't really change how someone runs their company, but what I can do is run my own and not treat my people like shit.
7. Is not a problem. Why is it listed?
8. I don't think I entirely agree with this. I grew up in the hood, but I still managed to play video games. If I grew up in wealth of course I would've been able to play more, but it is still feasible if you're poor, even more so nowadays since we have Steam and emulators.
9. My solution to this is to great big budgeted games that break the mold so other people will follow suit. Copycatting is popular in this industry and if I create a big enough hit, then I'll have other studios out there making games with diverse characters and settings.
I wasn't aware of the issues from 1-5. I'll need some time to answer those.
6. I can't really change how someone runs their company, but what I can do is run my own and not treat my people like shit.
7. Is not a problem. Why is it listed?
8. I don't think I entirely agree with this. I grew up in the hood, but I still managed to play video games. If I grew up in wealth of course I would've been able to play more, but it is still feasible if you're poor, even more so nowadays since we have Steam and emulators.
9. My solution to this is to great big budgeted games that break the mold so other people will follow suit. Copycatting is popular in this industry and if I create a big enough hit, then I'll have other studios out there making games with diverse characters and settings.
This is irrelevant as to whether someone can enjoy video games while not being rich.
Real participation in games is playing them. If you think otherwise, you live too much in the hype cycle.
"Gaming Culture" as a prescriptive term is a myth. As a descriptive term, it covers most anyone who plays games. Talk, report, and/or review doesn't have a timeliness associated with it. Minecraft is pretty heavily talked about. So it Dark Souls and Last of Us ad nauseum. There's a LTTP thread about Binary Domain every other 20 minutes. Real (good) discussion of games happens outside the hype cycle.
It's also totally irrelevant to playing games. Which is what games are all about.
Honestly, I don't know.
You started by saying that video games are for the rich. Now you're saying that while poorer people can and do play games (sometimes quite a bit), it's still a rich man's hobby because they aren't able to "review" games at launch or participate in day one hype cycles.
You also added that poorer people can't enjoy video games like rich people can because the market doesn't cater to them because they don't buy games at full price. Which is weird, unless you are implying that poor people have differing tastes than the rest of the populace. Which I would say is wrong.
It's very common, actually. Statistics bare that out pretty well. That's how the whole 8 game attach rate thing works.
There are also a lot more people in the latter group than the former. So, the person with only a few games makes a bigger impact. That's how AAA functions.
J
Jotamide
Unconfirmed Member
IDGAF
I'd also like to add to this: the broad audience (the wide one that drives down the attach rate) is absolutely the one that AAA companies cater to. It's what GAF types constantly whinge about as enthusiasts (and those more likely to buy 10+ games a year): games are too easy, too hand holdy, too dumbed down, and too broad.
The AAA companies aren't doing this for the hard core. They are reaching for the audience that specifically DOESN'T PLAY A LOT OF GAMES. That's where the money is at, breadth of audience.
Randomizer123454444
Member
I play games for fun. I buy games that I think will be fun to play.
Industry and culture are not boxes where everyone inside has the same colour, shape or opinion. Gaming industry and culture are filled with people. People are different. I like some industry people more than others, but I do not label the gaming culture or -industry as <insert_adjective> based on actions of few people in it.
So yeah, I deal with gaming industry and -culture the same way I deal with music industry and -culture. Ultimately it's the product that matters. It doesn't matter to me if the game was made by worst company in the history, if the game is great (I'm including stuff like port quality in this statement).
Industry and culture are not boxes where everyone inside has the same colour, shape or opinion. Gaming industry and culture are filled with people. People are different. I like some industry people more than others, but I do not label the gaming culture or -industry as <insert_adjective> based on actions of few people in it.
So yeah, I deal with gaming industry and -culture the same way I deal with music industry and -culture. Ultimately it's the product that matters. It doesn't matter to me if the game was made by worst company in the history, if the game is great (I'm including stuff like port quality in this statement).
ThePinkServbot
Banned
Which is not the point, either. I can go to any rich ass bakery in Beverly Hills and get day-old cakes at a discount. I'm enjoying their product while not being rich. Am I representative of their core consumer base? Does the fact that I can buy orange butter creme liquor cakes at time-based discount make said cakes not a premium product meant for the upper class?
And you're discounting the size, scope, and encompassing magnitude of what the "hype cycle" (which is a very disingenuous term) takes up of any video game discussion, from here to the GameStop counter. Outside of video game forums such as this (which, y'know, I thought we were all considering this an 'extreme minority'...), "LTTP" discussions about Binary Domain aren't the way of things. The Last of Us, PS4 rerelease aside, has had its day in the sun. This is not the way your average consumer looks at games. You go to that Walmart electronics section, people are not interested in GTAIV, they want GTAV. This is a hobby where, for the vast majority of people, games depreciate with age.
Given the massive amount of people I've seen comment here who admit that they really don't play video games nearly as much, but they follow the news and the culture like a fiend, obviously this isn't "totally irrelevant". Christ, look at how much those GamerGate assholes fought for "Gamer Culture."
Yeah, I'm starting to see that there's a lot of hyper-sensitivity to any sort of... not even criticism, in this thread.
The insinuation that I've changed my argument is off-mark. Poor folks being able to play video games doesn't make them not "for the rich" anymore than my ability to dig (passed the "best by" date but otherwise fine) tins of caviar out of a grocery store's dumpster makes caviar not "for the rich."
Why would you say that's wrong? What gives you reason to believe taste remains unchanged across classes? What makes you think that the vast majority of video game protagonists being white men has nothing to do with those class dynamics?
ThePinkServbot
Banned
Except that person with 30 games makes 30 votes. The person with one game makes one vote. There are not, in fact, that many more people making only one vote to overcome or even cancel out the person making 30 votes, and with that, the industry output becomes weighted towards the person putting the most cash into the system.
If you want to convince me otherwise, you're going to have to do more than say "statistics" like you're saying "expecto patronum."
Fredrik
Member
I guess I never really thought about many of those issues, which makes me feel kind of bad right now tbh 
The only thing I think about is to buy the games instead of pirating and I get all the platforms too, hopefully my money ends up in the hands of at least some of the people in the industry who really needs it. Don't know else I can do really.
The only thing I think about is to buy the games instead of pirating and I get all the platforms too, hopefully my money ends up in the hands of at least some of the people in the industry who really needs it. Don't know else I can do really.Call of Duty still sells 8-digits with every single entry. So does FIFA. And Ass Creed. Of course they do.
Way more people focussing on a small amount of different titles vs a small enthusiast base covering a broad area of different titles.
Also (though this is pretty unscientific), just to give you an idea at the difference in size of those groups:
NeoGAF has 160k members
/r/gaming (lowest common denominator) has 8.4 million subscribers, so about 50 times more members than GAF.
The way that I deal with it is by admitting that there are issues with the games industry. The key is to not be a complete jerk about the issues but also not be completely passive as well. Try to take small steps, like stopping buying physical, participating in electronic recycling programs, advocating for change, not purchasing things that you'll use infrequently, supporting more independent developers are steps that I personally take to create positive change. I don't believe that small changes can change the industry, but I do believe that small changes over time have the ability to make things better for people in the long run.
Thanks for the laugh. The long tail makes a lot of games profitable. Games rarely, if ever (outside of CoD and a few Nintendo titles) sell more than a million copies in their launch month. Lots and lots and lots of games sell well over a million. Stuff like Uncharted sells 400k in their opening month and then goes on to sell 4 million copies LTD. Skyrim sells less than a million its first month and is coming up on 25 million. Same for Borderlands games. Same for Resident Evil games. Same for Dark Souls.
Steam sales are a massive revenue stream for publishers, so much so that there is now big worries about a "race to the bottom" for PC prices and "sales culture" hurting games. Ditto for PS+ and Games with Gold.
What you are seeing with games is not a catering to the rich: it's the ultimate capitalist dream of perfect price flexibility. You have a singular product that sells for $100 to those who are willing (Special editions) all the way down to $1 (Steam sale/Humble) for those who can't afford anything else or aren't really interested in the first place.
And then F2P games. But you've already discounted mobile games as irrelevant to gaming so I don't know why you'd count those.
Big companies want everyone. Games are a commodity now and are sold at volume to the broad market. Like my point above - the marginalization of AAA games isn't to suit those that play lots of games, it's to cater to those that don't play any or many at all.
The vast majority of AAA games by the conglomerate 5 companies do, but the majority of games do not star white men.
I don't have to prove a negative. You have to prove that different classes (irrespective of culture) prefer different games.
Auto-Reply
Member
Unfortunately I only reduce my energy consumption by not having my electronics on standby all the time. I ignore the other problems you have outlined.
Surface of Me
I'm not an NPC. And neither are we.
Baseball is more upper class than vidya, yall.