Publisher Employees Don't Need to be Gamers

"It doesn’t matter whether XBOX or Microsoft employees are familiar with the games they publish—what matters is that they know how to put those games on the shelves and make money off of them." | Explosion.com

[Peekayboo]

someone report this shit and get it removed from pc

[Irishguy95]

Hmmm

"marketing at XBOX are completely unfamiliar with gaming"

Marketing? Was the other article lying?

[PirateThom]

Ugh. It is important, to some degree, publishers understand gaming and the lack of understanding is why this gen has been so poor.

Publishers have decided that everyone is too stupid to play games and have opted to get developers make games an extended tutorial and focusing on multiplayer because it sells. This is what publishers have done to gaming because they don't get the medium, just the cash they can make from it.

[Godmars290]

Well said. Sadly the focus of gamers shifting, or rather allowing a shift to, graphics while gameplay and content took hits didn't help matters.

[vortis]

I'd really, really like to see what the opposing argument is to your statement because several morons disagreed with you like silent-Sams.

They were probably publisher shills who grumbled at the truth of your post, disagreed and ran back under the Sithlord robe of Bobby Kotick.

[MariaHelFutura]

Anyone who thinks having a limited amount of knowledge about your profession is a good thing......is an idiot. The more you understand your fan base and can apply whatever you do to it, your chance to succeed in the long term is increased.

[WiiUalpha]

Not playing games is not the same thing as not knowing programming. You can know how to make a game and not be interested in playing them.

BTW the understanding your userbase part is funny. How did that work out for say Capcom and Devil may cry? How many times have games been changed to please the user base only to have the user base get pissed off. Ever hear of Resident Evil 6? They did what users asked for, for the most part and still got plenty of hate for it.

Understanding your user base will only work if everyone in your user base has the same opinion on everything. That is not the case at all.

In a way I can see what the article is saying. A guy working on a game for one publisher is less likely to want to copy another game he just played and thought was cool if they are not a gamer.

[killerhog]

The general consensus, is that the core fans of both those series you meantion did not ask for how those two particular games are/was (R6 was released) handled. In fact, since r5 i heard people complaining against the more action oriented take in the resident evil games. People don't want four iterations of one game (sf4, MvC), that's why each iteration sells less; and at times the first game (SfxT) sell less than expectation. Like someone meantion in another article, not enough people are voicing their opinion, like my friend who doesn't like resident evil 6 action take but he's not gonna complain to Capcom, he's just not going to buy it.

[MariaHelFutura]

I meant your ACTUAL fanbase, you must be confused. Please don't treat me like an idiot, I fully understand you can't please everyone.

[LiquidSword93]

Jesus. What a soulless, money grubbing quote. All I can do is laugh at that statement. Plus it's really retarded ;)

[FighterJoe]

It's always a good idea to have a deep knowledge of the industry you're trying to make a good living out of...

[josephayal]

Definitely scares me that next generation games will be priced at $80 $100 'basic'. ...coz The Xbox 720 will also supposedly be “six times as powerful” as Xbox 360

[Captain Qwark 9]

ha ive been playing games all my life and plan to purchase all three new systems too. buuuuuut if games actualyl do end up costing that much, then i wont be. ill stick with my 360/ps3 and play them until ive played every game in each of their libraries and then id call it quits on my gaming career.

they still have yet to justify the 60 price tag of games now for 360/ps3 since they release the same game with more features on pc 10 bones cheaper. that clearly means one thing and one thing only, they are screwing console gamers.

[ShaunCameron]

Umm. No more than they screwed console gamers with the $50 minimum price tag for games back in the "golden" era. I hate to break it to you but video games back then weren't that much cheaper, and most had no extra features at all.

<they still have yet to justify the 60 price tag of games now for 360/ps3 since they release the same game with more features on pc 10 bones cheaper. that clearly means one thing and one thing only, they are screwing console gamers.>

[Ares84HU]

How can you sell something you don't know anything about?? How would you even know who to advertise it too??

You MUST be a gamer to work in these fields.

Just my opinion.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Advertising is such a different beast that making/developing a game. I fully believe you can easily and successfully advertise to gamers with out being a gamer. Anyone who thinks differently is kidding themselves. I don't need to like chocolate to sell chocolate. You can know a product inside and out with out being an actual consumer of the product.

[AmayaAi]

Double that. I know a few developers and they are terrible gamers.

[KimoNoir]

when you criticize someone, they just try to justify themselves. for example- this article

[Thepcz]

especially as a gamer who dreamed of being in the industry, went the creative path and hasn't got anywhere near the industry. so to be 'outdone' by somebody who has absolutely no interest in games... that sucks

[RickHiggity]

I think they do. Do I NEED to explain why?

[LAWSON72]

They don't need to be gamers they just need to respect the industry they work in. Also, do any of you know what a publisher is like seriously all they do is control devs or have some kind of terms, fund a devs project/product, sell it and make money. They do not make the games at all.

[Veneno]

This is compl3tely true. I worked at a major publish3r and it seemed like no one there liked games other than causal wii and DS crap and Guitar Hero.