 |
 |
 |
-icon.gif){kind=icon}
21 comments + 95764 views
 |
||||||
|
get involved register or login post a blog post a forum enter a contest discuss a review contribute a news tip write a guest editorial |
support new member's guide login assistance tech support report abuse email our editors read our dev blog nuclear crisis? |
keep in touch RSS feed Myspace Flickr Game nights Meet-ups |
seriously about us advertising terms of use privacy policy jobs at MM buy our crap |
our network Tomopop Japanator 
|
|
Living the dream since March 16, 2006 |
||||||
owned
Left 4 Dead PS3.
k, thanks Gabe.
Look man, Carnival Games was the most realistic game I ever played. Winning was completely up to chance instead of skill, and I really felt like I was being ripped off (just like a real carnival).
I just got Garry's Mod the other day. The sparse documentation for it speaks volumes on his confidence on the intelligence of gamers in general.
Garrys mod is not a great example, since it is just that: a mod. It used to be free too, and as far as i can tell, it only costs money now so Garry can get a little money for it, not because Valve have anything to do with it.
I think his view has to be a little skewed because hes from a pc gaming company that makes really good games. The average pc gamer who likes Valve games is going to be smarter about games than the average wii owner who's never owned a console before.
I don't know, I mean yeah I guess the core gaming demographic does know what's trash and what's gold but take gamers as a whole and no... the 'average' gamer is not that smart.
Gabe just knows who is reading this copy of Game Informer. The informed consumers of games. Just as there are a group of gamers who know all about the products that are launched in each fiscal quarter, there are those uninformed gamers who buy things like Cruis N' for the Wii. Those people won't be picking up Game Informer. So I think this is just him patting us all on the head and saying that we know what we're doing most of the time.
Also, lets face it that the average publisher is split between the development team that knows everything about the game and the rest of the company that knows nothing about the game and are there because they know how to run a business.
If publishers were more concerned with making great games instead of making money, might be a different world.
Hint: Great games sell really well. Take notes from Valve and Blizzard: less deadlines, more finishing a product and polishing it.
That Gabe Newell, hes good people.
Hmm. I agree that there are a number of creators and publishers that often lose touch with reality or have absolutely no idea what makes a good game. I'll also agree that there are quite a few gamers that have a very strong grasp of what is fun and what makes a good or bad game.
However, just because many gamers know what makes a game good or bad doesn't mean they can do any better. I'll bet everyone here has a good idea of what makes a good movie, but I doubt 99% could actually make one. (These people are usually called "critics.") Sure, I bet most could point at a game and tell what's good about it and where it failed but it's easy to do that when you're looking at a completed work. Coming up with new characters, dialogue, scenarios, game mechanics, pacing, and a whole host of other creative and technical aspects and making it all work is a hell of a lot harder to do from scratch.
But yes, I do get the feeling that a number of creators and publishers need regularly-scheduled appointments with reality.
I agree with ajaxender. In Gabe's world, the consumers are those who build their own PC's And know when they're being ripped off on lack of content and quality. Also, in his world, publishers are EA. ...so yeah.
The average gamer is very intelligent about video games. However, that's because were the connoisseurs of video games. In the same way that a wine lover knows good wine or a couture knows great fashion, gamers know what makes a great game because we've devoted a significant amount of time and attention to games and most of us have played the really great ones.
However, just like with wine and fashion, you'll have the vast majority of people who buy mediocre crap. The difference is the crap costs just as much as the good stuff. However, because the masses buy a lot of the mediocre stuff, publishers will continue to make it.
So I'd argue its not that publishers aren't intelligent enough to know what is a good game; they just don't care. Knowing what makes a great game isn't necessarily vital to one's bottom line as gaming becomes more mainstream.
Publishers don't really care if a game is good or not. They care if the game is marketable, if it will have an audience (at least when it first comes out), and why people would buy it (are these types of game selling well, is it similar to other titles in the genre but have one unique thing for it?).
They are in the business to make money, not to publish great games.
@ElRhino
Bingo. It's the developers who should know what makes a good game because ideally they are as much consumers of it as we are. Problem is, I think most developers want a paycheck.
More like Gabe Newell thinks gamers are more delicious than publishers.
fuck gabe, i hate games and i think he should make more crossword puzzles before i care what he says. (also, thanks gabe, waiting for teh next half-life like an addicted hooker, i need my fix before i throw my computer away please, thanks.)
We want mother 3 Nintendo of america, publisher is too lazy to sell it in north america.
We gamers are gullible and weak minded, but in that but in our magic brains, we have an idea of what makes a good game.
Gamers buy based on whim, profile, popular characters, cover art, and all kinds of other stupid reasons, but if you look less at our purchase records and more at how we talk about games, we do know what's going to sell and what would be a decent sleeper hit, etc. We can smell bad ideas from a distance, but tend to buy before we really take a good whiff.
Cover your nose, incoming movie tie-in!
Wow, people know what they like? I'm honestly surprised.
Well, duh?
@Kyousuke Nanbu
Hey, get the fuck back under your bridge asshole or I will rip out your eyeballs and shove them up your ass so you can see what your face looks like.
@Jack8274
Please....go away.
The average person at a publisher works in PR or marketing. These people are retards. When you play games that had a spark of brilliance submerged in a pile of generic focus-tested muck, these are the people to blame. When you play a game where the only redeeming feature is the show or movie license, these are the people to blame. When you play a game that is filled with product placement to the point where it detracts from the atmosphere, these are the people to blame.
To them, a game is not a work of art or a means of expression. It is simply a product to be placed on shelves and then sold to consumers who have been conditioned by advertisements to purchase it. To them, it is no different than a music CD, a tube of toothpaste, or a towel rack.
I think what Newell means is that the average gamer is smarter than those marketers. They see games properly - based on the merits (or lack thereof) of gameplay, creativity, and expression. They don't simply see it as a consumer product, but as an experience.
This is just good PR for Newell and you would be foolish to see it as anything else. Newell knows that core gamers feel underfire with the Wii and DRM etc, and he also knows that Valve represent a true hardcore company. So he is just making huge generalisations about the industry to win the affection of the hardcore. It is clever, but it is PR in the same way that a publisher has PR. Don't believe it just because it makes you feel fuzzy inside!
@mice elf
But it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside...
I think Gabe Newell is fat.
He's totally right.
I always had this skewed picture of publishers and developers in my mind for some reason.
It starts with a stuffy suit sitting in his/her office void of any decoration or signs of life, reading over stats and sales charts trying to find out which game to push in order to make more money. Meanwhile developers are instead actually playing games while talking to other designers and coders to find out what works and what doesn't. All the while it won't matter what they think because in the end its the publishers dollar bills that win the argument in anything.
Yes, these are vast generalizations and my views are not founded in anything. I could be completely wrong, but thats just how I view the whole dynamic when shitty games get pushed out the door instead of first asking a team of testers (knowledgeable gamers) to comb over their work with a nit picking comb of nerdyness, forcing the devs to go back and fix things before they decide to release it.
To me, companies like Blizzard and Valve are ahead of everyone else in their field, because they are able to mesh those parts of the equation together. They work for the best results for the GAME, not just the GREEN.
Plus they listen to the people that play their games. Going so far as to actually study how people play their games. Thats what really matters. Are your players enjoying and loving your game? Or have you tricked them out of their money?
@falinter
agreed.
now wait a minute, what about things like wii fit? We're still gobbling that crap up.
Or an even better example, remember how we turned our back on Beyond Good and Evil? And Psychonauts?
game informer is a sack of steaming crap.
that is all.
Gabe. If you're reading this, we need to talk. Hire me.
Hes fat, his opinion doesn't matter. Seriously though, that is too big of a generalization. People buy shit games just as much as pubs make them. And it was happening before the Wii was around so it can't be pinned on "teh casualz".
Publishers don't know what the fuck they're doing. Look at EA. Some* article's feature asked developers for their best ideas that publishers said no to. One guy** said he'd thought of a dog-care game. At the board meeting some CEO or otherwise disconnected money-lender said gamers didn't want to play w/dogs. Then Nintendo released Nintendogs. I reckon whatever you're into there're people somewhere else who'll dig it so make a game well on any subject and promotion will find the audience
*Coulda been in Wired, gamespot, or somewhere else. I don't remember.
**Ken Levine maybe or the guy who did Grim Fandango...maybe the guy who headed Oddworld.
@ TehBuLL
If you don't Like gaming then pls get the fuck out of here!!!
&@ Kyousuke Nanbu
I understand your a noob and don't know shit about games & suck @ gaming but that's NO EXCUSE for saying HL is shit I guess you DON'T know TF2 THE MMO OF THE YEAR? that's an hl based game you fucktard!!
Now back to my own thougts:
This guy is the savior of pc gaming and a hero for all gamers.
PC GAMING 4 LIFE
Returning Dtoiders: login now to post a comment
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just Create an avatar now - it's fast and free: PLUS you also get your own gaming blog and begin posting stories and uploading videos in our open community area that may also appear on our home page. Sign up and we'll guide you through it, it's easy and 100% anonymous.