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[etgfrog]

I've figured out for a while when you put people who desire only money in charge, they will figure out how to get money...which honestly is what the stock market is, having to answer "how is this going to make us money?" question at every decision...which means they have to point at what has proven to work and say "we are going to do the same they did because if it worked for them, then it will work for us"...

this brings me to something that happened i think 10 years ago...dell got a change in leadership and the new person in charge was a marketing major...what did they do? fired everyone who didn't have a college degree(which was half of their RnD department), and so dell went from being a well renown prebuilt computer seller to...well selling just a dell installed with a dozen ad-ware pre-installed.

[umiman]

*sips on his drink*

Hrm... Normally I jump at every thread that starts discussing finance since that is my entire livelihood and all... but I don't think I'm the only one who hasn't cared about EA or Activision or any other "soulless" game company in years. As I glance through my games list, I don't see a single thing that has their logo on it.

Dota 2
Mount & Blade
Shogun 2
Medieval 2
Batman
Crusader Kings 2
Endless Space
etc.

Yeah, I can safely say I haven't touched anything of theirs in freaking forever. And not because of any boycott or anything. They're just kinda dead to me since they haven't made anything that appeals to my wants. Go figure.

[Matz05]

I actually HOPE these kinds of companies collapse, sooner rather than later. Yes, jobs will be lost, projects will remain unfinished, franchises will be clung to and dragged into the mire of owner non-existence, but at least nothing NEW will be touched and corrupted by their tendrils...

If the burning question of the day is always "Who can we screw over today to increase profits?", it's time for the company to die.
Nothing new can grow until you drag away and burn the rotting, diseased, half-dead weeds.

[Cthulhu]

I'm still waiting for this new Call of Duty game.  Like I mentioned once before, Call of Duty fans are 100% convinced they're military experts and speculative near-future tech is not something their brains can process.

If they can get over their addiction to I Shoot You Face Modern Shoot Face long enough to be indignant and not buy it, the biggest franchise ever is going to implode, maybe taking Activision with it if we're lucky, and we're going to be here to watch the fireworks.

[Ultimuh]

So when do we rename this thread to "Big gaming companies suck!"?

[Leafsnail]

I'm still waiting for this new Call of Duty game.  Like I mentioned once before, Call of Duty fans are 100% convinced they're military experts and speculative near-future tech is not something their brains can process.

If they can get over their addiction to I Shoot You Face Modern Shoot Face long enough to be indignant and not buy it, the biggest franchise ever is going to implode, maybe taking Activision with it if we're lucky, and we're going to be here to watch the fireworks.

Hasn't every recent Call of Duty been met with outrage by the fans, but still received huge sales anyway?  Not sure I see this one being any different.

[Astral]

SWTOR going free to play made me a bit sad, to be perfectly honest. Some friends and I were pretty heavy into it, but a lack of design direction other than "let's change a few things to the outrage of most of the playerbase, break a few more things, then patch it later," and "let's make this World of Warcraft with lightsabers, full voice acting, and a story that barely changes due to your choices, other than giving a few token evil/good points" made me play less and less as time went on.

At least Guild Wars 2 won't require a subscription.

Making it free to play for people below level 50 is pretty stupid, as free to play models go. Let people play most of the game for free as the subscriptions slowly dry up, since the only people that will end up playing will be the newcomers, who find themselves a dead MMO.

[Denzi]

As far as it being stupid to give players the entire game for free, possibly because it'll lead to a dead game. I'd suggest you check out Fallen Earth sometime Astral. It might not be the most bug-free MMO, and it certainly sits in a different genre than SWTOR (MMOFPSRPG thing with only player made equips versus a wowlike) but it is a cold day in hell that you log in and don't find players crawling all over the cities. Maybe not as many as you would in a wowlike's cities, but plenty to make the world feel alive. There are certainly viable ways of making a F2P/cashshop(What is the difference again?) MMO make a profit without charging anything for the game.

[Astral]

I've played it before, got bored after a fairly long while, but I loved it while I played it... Kind Fallout-ey feel to it, and the crafting system was pretty damn good. MMOs tend not to hold my attention for long these days though.

Maybe I'm outgrowing them, but I still look forward to Guild Wars 2 in the next 26 days.

[fenrif]

I've played it before, got bored after a fairly long while, but I loved it while I played it... Kind Fallout-ey feel to it, and the crafting system was pretty damn good. MMOs tend not to hold my attention for long these days though.

Maybe I'm outgrowing them, but I still look forward to Guild Wars 2 in the next 26 days.

This is a sentiment I see all over the place nowadays. I think it's probobly got something to do with every MMO since WoW either being really derivative, or trying something new (or retrying something from the before WoW times) and failing miserably. TOR is an excellent example of why you can't just throw money and a well-known IP at the genre and have it stick. Which unfortunatly is how most of the games industry approached MMO design.

[Matz05]

throw money and a well-known IP at the genre and have it stick

This isn't just a MMO thing, this is the modern game industry, isn't it?
There are a handful of patterns that make up at least 2/3 of game franchises:
Call of Brown: Modern Shooting
World of Grinding
SpamVille
Third-Person-Shooter-that-kinda-looks-like-an-RPG-but-isn't
...

[BuriBuriZaemon]

I believe in creative destruction, this means companies not meeting the needs of customers will eventually be replaced by companies that do. Competition is always good for the market as it drives innovations.

Unfortunately, a lot of gamers still get swayed by the lowest common denominator, a form of entertainment that gives instant gratification (twitch based FPS for instance), and flashy marketing campaigns. With the advent of graphic processing technology, strong visuals seem to be the greatest attraction factor, overriding the actual game mechanics themselves. They get attracted to games that look "cool" and seem to be played by all their friends, but are fundamentally oversimplified.

[fenrif]

throw money and a well-known IP at the genre and have it stick

This isn't just a MMO thing, this is the modern game industry, isn't it?
There are a handful of patterns that make up at least 2/3 of game franchises:
Call of Brown: Modern Shooting
World of Grinding
SpamVille
Third-Person-Shooter-that-kinda-looks-like-an-RPG-but-isn't
...

It's pretty much a problem in any industry to be fair. But it's much more pronounced in the MMO genre because of the dearth of innovation and experimentation. I mean as an example, in the brown modern shooter genre the two main franchises are COD and Battlefield, which are both do their own thing within the confines of modern brown shooting. Most MMO's seem to just be "wow with lightsabers" "wow with more PVP" "wow with boobies" etc.

[Kanil]

Most MMO's seem to just be "wow with lightsabers" "wow with more PVP" "wow with boobies" etc.

I just asked my friend if he would play a game that was about boobies fighting one another with lightsabers. His response? "Fuck yeah."

I think you may be on to something here.