Do you think gaming companies know how much their consumer base hates them?

Do you think modern gaming companies know how much their consumer base hates them?

  • Total voters
    183
64gigabyteram

64gigabyteram

Reverse groomer.
Between all the angry videos lambasting modern gaming, consistent complaints amongst most forums and social media, and this new major wave of gamers logging off from modern gaming and gaming consumerism (sales on older games, piracy, older hardware, backlog bros) do you think any of these companies know or are they really just blind and tone deaf to the common gamer's view of them?

I feel like in the past these companies used to bend to our whims more easily. Something like the 3DS price drop would be near impossible to pull off today, or even as recently ago as the Sonic movie design- they probably would have gone through with that ugly design in modern times as opposed to 2020. These days though they seem to care less and less, be more deaf to ever increasing screams of hatred and disillusionment from most gamers. Maybe they do know, and they just don't care. They think keeping silent is the best strategy. Or maybe they really are ignorant and are too deep in their own circle of wealth and decadence to care about the consumers they serve?

Or maybe they do know, and they consider that outrage as marketing. There was a great video on this made a while ago, someone said how these companies are betting on you becoming outraged by their consistent mediocrity and flippance in order to promote their stuff.

Leave your thoughts below
 
If it's not as big as the Diablo's don't you have phones dibbacle, No.

I assume they put any negative coverage against them as Youtubers inciting people with false information for their own monetary gain and some small percentage will always be unhappy.
 
I think you are grossly overestimating the "hate" and backlash these companies get based on terminally online shrill "fans" screaming about every single thing on Twitter and YouTube
 
Remember when EA was voted worst company in America more than once? Remember how much of a difference it made to FIFA sales?

It needs to be a whole lot of hate or not a lot of company to start affecting sales. Companies are more likely to crumble from within than for customer "hate" to make a difference.
 
The bigger they are the less they care.
They hear the noise but it doesn't effect the money flow, so they didn't care
 
Board of directors and all those folks? It probably never reaches them. They're blissfully ignorant to the strong dissatisfaction found in the gaming community. Out of sight, out of mind. Developers are the ones who take the flack, unfortunately.

They are getting more concerned about the rise and popularity of people flocking to high profile Youtubers though, since they're beginning to have a noticeable affect on spending habits and game release performance.
 
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I think a lot of the actual developers are very aware of it and the feeling is mutual. They resent that they are so reliant on people they would otherwise prefer didn't exist, and that the imaginary audience they tried to will into existence never happened.

Most of the decision makers only care about numbers. They only care about games or what gamers think in so far as it impacts those numbers.
 
calico said:
I think a lot of the actual developers are very aware of it and the feeling is mutual. They resent that they are so reliant on people they would otherwise prefer didn't exist, and that the imaginary audience they tried to will into existence never happened.

Most of the decision makers only care about numbers. They only care about games or what gamers think in so far as it impacts those numbers.
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came in to say this. They hate the consumer base much more than we hate them.
 
They only care about the money and investments and the quickest and largest return in mind.

When their current financial plans isn't working, they come up with a new one with the same intent. Most care little about long term sustainability. Next quarter is the focus.

But the bitch is how long it takes to make AAA games. Everything that has released just now was set into motion roughly 2019 and 2020. They either can't nor won't veer the massive ships of big projects in most cases. Chances are, they end projects in secret that are disclosed years later more than they fundamentally change them. It's easier.

The repercussions and lessons learned of now won't be seen in product until 2029 minimum on the AAA scale. So yeah, they care about financials now but projects take 5 years which leads to paradoxical shit.
 
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Every public facing company of at least some notoriety probably keeps tabs on public opinion about them.
Larger companies (usually publishers) don't give a shit unless it starts affecting their profits. I'm pretty sure if you could somehow convince the board of any major corporation that doing a live stream of them murder puppies will increase profits and not get them in any legal trouble 90% of them would do it.

Smaller companies (probably devs) might be more affected by it but it seems to mostly push them even further in that direction to "prove the haters wrong".
 
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As long as the money is there, they don't care .



Hey, that rhymes.
 
Why should it bother them? The people who spend all their time on the Internet complaining about how much they hate everything are the losers.
 
yes, they should know, but usually they will shrug it off and trying to be smart ass and thinking that the fans are not too important, until it's too late.
there are some exception though, i heard some devs, their board have no clue about overseas fans, because they never thought that there are overseas fans (you know, japan) because most devs (their oldman boards usually) there, not even understand english well.
 
I think many of them brush it off as just some vocal minority, which to some extent it is, but to the average joe consumer if something rides the line of mid they might consume the slop or they'll just ignore it rather than pitch a fit. Really depends on if there is a better option available at the time I think, or how pre-invested in the IP people are.

The issue with game devs treating the core audience like crap, is that core audience is often what springboards initial hype and marketing for the product to reach the normie crowd's eyes.

If the quality of the game is good enough, people will overlook some woke/cringe content if it's not heavy-handed, evidenced by not that many people caring about Body Type A & B in Elder Ring/Oblivion Remastered because it's a minor aspect...vs DA: Veilguard having garbage-tier dialog with Taash that got meme'd on even by the people who have no investment in the "culture war".

The other problem is some of these devs do engage in "toxic positivity" and gas up each other's mediocre to crap ideas, actually thinking they're doing great when they're making Concord for years.
 
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I can imagine the devs themselves caring a lot, but not the people counting the money.
 
First off, I don't know that WE know how their consumer base at large feels. It's hard to tell from inside the bubbles we build for ourselves. Sometimes the things that matter to ultra-core gamers like Gaffers are reflected in larger consumer spending habits. Other times our concerns and convictions on what publishers are doing wrong have all the impact of a fart in the wind.

With that said, going by the way some devs talk about gamers, they are at least aware that some buyers don't like their decisions--either their business practices or social stances. Whenever they do address it, though, they seem convinced that the larger consumer population either approves of or doesn't care what they do. When sales go their way, they say, "See?" And when their games bomb, they blame hate campaigns or unrelated factors.

So, to make a long answer short... kinda?
 
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They maintain a narrative that the only ones complaining are a hate-filled minority with no legitimate grievances. That all backlash is fueled by bad-faith actors, bigotry and terminally online malcontents and that most gamers are 'regular' people who think just like they do.

It's why they feel so comfortable telling folks "if you don't like it, don't buy it" - they imagine it's a tiny handful of their audience who'll be alienates. The feedback loop between customer and producer is broken, which is why the industry has gotten so shitty - it's run by people trained to dismiss negative feedback
 
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8fbf6d3b590248e470e80e19d0ffaf9c.jpg
 
It's more nuanced than the poll suggests. People in the shit actually writing code and doing art and all that kinda stuff? A lot of them are pretty acutely aware. The business side is either totally ignorant or, if they are aware, tends to shrug it off as a vocal minority of people that complain about stuff. Then they wonder where they went wrong when their game shits the bed.
 
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We all work in corporations, right? I honestly don't think a lot of these executives are aware. They're in their own little bubbles.
 
Judging by how out of touch my company's senior leadership is, no, they have no idea some people are mad.
 
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They don't care. There is a modern audience they are chasing that isn't the boomers on NeoGAF, and they are playing GaaS. If you can control a Counter Strike, CoD, GtA, FIFA, or Fortnite you have a captive audience of people begging their MILFs for the debit card constantly rather than spending $60-$70 once.
 
I own a PS5, had all PS systems except the PS2.

I honestly like Sony, and I'm sure the vast majority of people who own their consoles are happy with them.

Same for Nintendo owners.

Only xbox loses sales each gen as far as consoles are concerned.

But for publishers this is an entirely different story, again... if you are one of the haters, you probably are not one of their client.

They do tons of market research and what not, so they know what people think of them.
 
I think it's a child parent relationship for the most part, it matters to parents when their children gives a shit more than being disagreeable.
 
If they're making money, they don't really care. It's only when the money dries up do they stop and look, not out of a desire to fix what's wrong so they can be better, but to get the money rolling again.
 
64gigabyteram said:
was considering adding that in the poll "they know but they just don't care because they keep getting $$$"
Click to expand...

Ok, but this is a moot point.

Why would any company care? Thats like saying McDonalds should care someone hates them

No company should care, I'll go a step further and state no person should care if they make something that someone hates, focus on those who like what you are making and move on.

This weird childish popularity contest of desperately seeking this odd validation by a corporation is funny and weird. Even this fucking argument that "consumer base hates them" is based on a minority of people, those companies are also moving record units, which very much questions how much even give a shit about this perception.
 
Most probably have internal data that show the vocal people online matter vary little to overall game performance.
 
I know these companies don't give a shit so I also don't give a shit about their product even if its their last hope to survive.

They forgot that they are suppose to make us interest in buying their product.
 
We who consume all this community multimedia and whine online comprise a really marginal number compared to the whole consumer base of big publishers sadly
 
Btw, to illustrate how little the top people actually care and how out of sync they are, recall the entire GTA trilogy remastered debacle? Some savvy group of upset buyers found Strauss Zelnick's (Take2 CEO) social media account and voiced their dissatisfaction through comments made on his public posts.

image.png


What was his response? He privated his account instead and shut off comments.
 
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They probably know but will always blame gamers.

Besides, the only opinion they care about is that of shareholders.
 
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