Monday, November 5, 2018

My Life As A Gamer: The Diablo Immortal Fallout Continues

Someone got the memo, and to no one's surprise it's a Games Workshop licensee.

Sure, opportunistic PR and marketing at a competitor's expense, I get that.

But there is no debating that this was a good move to make at this moment because that competitor made such a fundamental error. This is basic levels of business savvy that we're talking about here: Know Your Audience. They have expectations. Meet them and thrive. Fail and fuck off. This is such a fundamental thing that even people totally absent from business concerns can comprehend it.

And that's not the only hot take. The usual shit game media responses are out, saying the usual shit stories, and this includes people like Derek Smart (who really ought to know better than to side against the gamers, given his anti-Star Citizen crusade). The fact remains that Blizzard pulled a bait-and-switch on the core Diablo customer base, and then shamed them for not going along with it; this is incompetence and it should be severely punished because it doesn't get discouraged otherwise.

You satisfy your core audience first and foremost. Nothing else matters. Turn your coat against them at your peril.

3 comments:

  1. Bradford,

    I'm clueless so walk me 5hrough the question: what's wrong with mobile games? As long as there are no micro transactions or loot boxes,I see it as another option alongside the traditional forms ( consoles, PC etc)
    So why am I totally wrong with accepting android/Ios options?
    xavier

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are purpose-built for microstransactions.

      The entire business model is to build a shit game _by design_, and then use microtransactions to sell "fixes" and other ways to remove the blocks and flaws deliberately inserted. Then there are outright power-ups sold this way.

      It's not called "pay to win" for nothing.

      The use of psychological tricks pioneered by casinos to deliberately foster gambler-fallacy thinking and exploit addictive behaviors is another long-running trend. This too is _by design_.

      All in the name of "player retention", meaning that they do this to psych out the player into spending money to keep up with the game at every turn. This is now including peer pressure schemes. The user I quoted in yesterday's post saw all of this from the inside; her Tweet thread is still up so click through and read it.

      This is why mobile games are trash; they not games, but digital whaling ships (coined for the business term for the big spenders, "whales").

      Delete
    2. Bradford,

      Thanks. So basically shitty programming designed to provoke addictive behaviour. Wow just wow. That's quite evil
      And the govts don't jail these programmers/execs why?

      Is it even possible to design a clean mobile game?

      xavier

      Delete

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