Valve’s co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell has a gem of knowledge to bestow upon the populace. In the latest issue of Game Informer, Newell said that videogame enthusiasts were better at judging a game’s quality than publishers.
An excerpt from the conversation provided by Ripten:
It seems by and large that gamers are incredibly smart; the average gamer seems to know more about what makes a good game than the average person at a publisher.
The fact that we’re smarter than the average person at a publisher practically speaks for itself. Simply go to the videogame retailer of your choice and browse the Wii aisle if you don't believe me. I probably shouldn't say that because even though the majority of us here make good choices, I’m sure publishers stockpile statistics like my car insurance company. I wonder if at age 25 you get a magical box of gaming knowledge delivered to your doorstep instead of driving talent.
I have a feeling that while publishers may not be the most adept at actually knowing what quantifies a great game, they’re aware of what most gamers are willing to buy – which is probably the reason there is a Carnival Games 2 on the way. What do you guys think? Is Newell right?
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Contest:
10:36 PM on 10.16.2008
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k, thanks Gabe.
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.
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.
Hint: Great games sell really well. Take notes from Valve and Blizzard: less deadlines, more finishing a product and polishing it.
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.
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.
They are in the business to make money, not to publish great games.
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.
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!
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.
Please....go away.
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.
But it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside...
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?
agreed.
Or an even better example, remember how we turned our back on Beyond Good and Evil? And Psychonauts?
that is all.
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