One of the best parts of the rise of both crowd-funding and the Indie movement would have to be the layer of transparency we are now seeing in the game industry. The interactions between designer and consumer are amazing and something that I’ve made use of to full effect here with the podcast interviews.
However, getting to know people this intimately also means that PR can come back to haunt them and today’s post talks about the debate of boycotting games due to the people who are involved with the studio.
Consumer Rights:
As we’ve talked about before, consumers have several rights when it comes to not buying a product and boycotting is a big one. If someone doesn’t like you or what your company stands for, they are within their right to refuse to give you money and are in effect voting with their dollars. And by relation a group of people can unite and attempt to convince others not to give you revenue.
We’ve seen this happen multiple times over the years in other markets such as the Chik -Fil-A boycott due to their thoughts on LGBTs. With the Game Industry, we’ve seen many gamers refusing to buy games or deal with certain publishers due to a variety of reasons. On the podcast numerous times we’ve joked about not wanting to install Origin and thereby boycotting any EA published games on the platform and there are plenty of people who hate UPlay.
But when it comes to the Indie market, typically you’re not dealing with a faceless corporation but individuals and this is where things get tricky. The most famous example in recent years would have to be Phil Fish and due to his comments and attitude online, turned away a lot of people from buying Fez. My co-host Ken has said multiple times on the podcast that he will continue to refuse to buy the game due to Phil’s attitude no matter how highly the game gets rated.
Fez is an example of where one developer’s opinion hurt the perception of the studio and game.
While the level of transparency has been great for talking to developers, it also means that we are able to see their dirty laundry a lot easier and this can create a very grey area of wanting to support the game/company and not supporting the person.
Punishing the Many:
Video games are by and large a group project and while there are games that are completely built by one or two people, most often you need a small to big team to create a quality product. And this means that the success or failure of a game doesn’t just impact one person but multiple.
When someone refuses to buy a game for whatever reason, they’re not just hurting the company or the one person they are up in arms about, but the entire development team who may or may not have had anything to do with the offense. And here in lies the quandary — Can you support a company or developer while fighting against the other?
With large companies, many people tend to associate everyone working there as cut from the same cloth as the higher ups and this can cause anger directed at the wrong people. Working at Comcast for two years doing customer support, I was the one who took the bulk of the “Comcast is horrible and therefore so are you” calls from angry customers. I can tell you with 100% certainty that I did not receive any of the billions of dollars or special perks that the higher ups at Comcast get but that didn’t stop people from associating me with the people who were.
Most often boycotts are due to the company behind the game for any number of reasons.
And this is why debating boycotts is such a tricky issue for me as I had to deal with being punished for something someone else did.
But again, there are lines for everyone and I have not supported certain developers and kickstarters due to the affiliations or stances of certain people on those development teams. Was I in the wrong or the right with this opinion? I don’t have the answer.
Voting with your Dollars:
Distinguishing developers from their company and vice versa is a new issue with the Game Industry. For years now we’ve been talking about the fact that most consumers don’t know the men and women behind their favorite game companies and now that we are starting to find out, will this make things better or worse?
To choose to buy or not buy a product is the ultimate control that the consumer has on the market and how a company or person is perceived. At the end of the day people are going to vote with their wallets based not just on the quality of the product but also on the qualities of the person or company and nothing will change that.
For developers reading this, it’s more important than ever to view your game, your company and yourself as a unified brand and having one part fail in the eyes of the consumer can doom the whole thing.
