2nd May 2005, 3:57 PM
Quote:Oh, certainly. They're relying on human stupidity, which is a very strong force, so of course it's going to work... that doesn't make it any less stupid, but I'm sure that a lot of the time it works.
Eh, you're thinking about advertising again. People aren't dumb if they don't spend all of their time thinking about videogames.
Quote:Why can't you accept that it's possible for people to understand what you're saying without completely agreeing with every word of your conclusions as well?
If any of you showed that you actually do understand what I'm saying (which isn't my opinion, it's facts about marketing and business), then I wouldn't care. But the responses I've been getting so far show that no one has yet to fully understand what I'm saying. I thought that you did for a little while there, but then you reverted back to your usual ABFisms.
Quote:Games like Myst and The Sims have huge non-gamer popularity. So do many other sim-style games -- look at how often things like Zoo Tycoon are on the top 10 selling PC games lists! It's not hardcore gamers buying those titles...
Yes, The Sims and games like that are definitely being bought by people other than the hardcore gaming crowd. And I can see how this would make you think that this proves your "point", because I do admit that this is confusing, but think about the facts here for a minute instead of your never-ending desire to try and prove me wrong, and I think you'll see that this fits perfectly with the model that I've explained. I was going to mention games like The Sims before, but decided to wait until someone brought it up because things were already confusing enough as it is. So allow me to explain.
There are basically four types of gamers that publishers try to target (right now):
Hardcore PC gamers
Casual PC gamers
Hardcore console gamers
Casual console gamers
The hardcore PC gamer is the main target of PC game publishers, all except for a few companies like EA. This is why there are usually much better games on PC top ten lists than console ones. Even smaller games do well on the PC, by PC standards. However, there are also a few types of games (or rather, franchises) that sell well pretty much entirely because of casual PC gamers. The Sims and Zoo Tycoon are some such games. They don't require great PCs and attract a different type of casual gamer, the type who wouldn't normally play games, and certainly wouldn't play something like Halo. There is of course a bit of cross-contamination between the two main audiences, but they are separate enough for the publishers and so they act accordingly.
The situation is similar with consoles, except with consoles the casuals are a far greater majority then either type is on the PC. This is why the console market is thriving so much, because there are far, far more casual gamers out there than hardcore ones. And of course, there is cross-contamination between all four types of gamers, but they are separate enough for publishers, as I said.
Quote:I very much doubt that they'll change their current approach much...
What do you mean?
Quote:Then why is there so much overlap between PC games and gamers and console games and gamers that virtually everybody can seee it?
Yeah, because the line is nowhere near as sharp as you make it out to be.
The overlapping is only between hardcore gamers. And hardcore gamers make up a small percentage of the marketplace.
Quote:You continue to confuse understanding with opinion. Well, mostly... I do think that for the most part companies don't take very different approaches to PC and console game marketing. Of course, there are differences. I expect that you're mostly talking about your own experiences of PC gamers not liking console-style platformers, not having gamepads, etc, etc... and that's true to a good extent, and there are some differences in the markets, but there is indisputably a lot of overlap.
After all, numerous console games get ported to PC. They obviously sell, because console games keep getting ported to PC. If the markets really had no connection, they wouldn't port them or if they did no one would buy... but they do, because while PC gamers have some different tastes from console gamers, at heart they're all gamers so they like the same things in general.
Anyway... on the 'facts of how things are done' side, we agree more than you'd like to admit (since you wouldn't be able to call me stupid quite as many times, something that you obviously love to do)... anyway, this is about pc-versus-console, and I'll talk more about that later.
No, this is not about "pc vs consoles", but now I understand why you refuse to budge even a tiny bit here. I'm talking about markets and business, not whether or not consoles are better than PCs, or vice versa!
And I'm not talking about tastes, not directly! I'm talking about how the market is divided up, who buys what and how publishers target different people, how they separate things and how they go about marketing from there. This is not about my opinion! My opinion has nothing to do with this! Perhaps this is why you're so eager to prove me wrong, because you feel the need to disprove my opinions all of the time. I have been talking strictly business this entire time. I am trying to explain to you how the marketing and business side works, and you are confusing this with all sorts of other seemingly related topics like which platforms are better, why bother paying attention to ads, and etc. I've had to study this very tedious subject for a pretty long time, and I do know what I am talking about here. I am trying to talk to you on a formal business level but you keep on trying to drag me down into an immature PC vs. console war. This is not your typical internet message board debate. This shouldn't even be a debate at all. I am providing you with information and facts, the kind of which you would learn for yourself from years of boring business and marketing classes.
Quote:Of course you have to advertise if you want to sell your games... not everyone is a hardcore gamer, unfortunately, and you won't get enough sales by just targetting them if you're trying to be a very successful company. Targetting just a small market only works for very small, targetted groups like Matrix Games (who make PC wargames and sell most of their games online only)...
Yes, this is one of my points... don't isolate this, think about this along with everything else that I have said.
Quote:The target market might well care, but MS is funding those ads so they don't want any mention of the PC made. MS cares a lot more about X-Box game sales than they do PC games (for evidence of THAT, just look at MechWarrior -- since MS bought the franchise, we've seen no PC MechWarrior games in like five years... but two on consoles.)
Quote:Correct... except for where you say that the stickers are there to educate the masses. They're not. They're there to increase sales by convincing people that this title cannot be gotten anywhere else, even if it really can (as often is true).
If you ignore the facts then I can understand why you'd see it that way.
If you're selling peach baskets in some town in Colorado that's not available in other stores in that town, you're going to advertise that fact. Yes, you can also buy peach baskets in California, but the audience this peach basket seller is trying to target doesn't care if they can buy peach baskets in California, because they don't want to go to California. They just want to get their peach baskets in town, they just want to know if they can get peach baskets from other stores in town.
Basically: the people who Microsoft made the stickers for are more than likely not going to care if Doom 3 is available on the PC, because they don't want it for the PC nor do they have a powerful enough PC to play it. They play their games on their consoles, and they want to know if they can get it for the other systems or not. So Microsoft really isn't misleading these people because they're not advertising the fact that it's also on the PC (not only because it would make for a bigger sticker, haha). They're just telling them what they want to know.
Quote:I know plenty, as I've shown over and over. You just won't recognize it... like in this thread. On some of these issues we actually are pretty close to agreeing, but you don't seem to notice that... you'd rather rant at my stupidity.
Really, what I'm disagreeing about is how different the PC and console markets are. You think they are more different than I do. You can cite evidence for your side (or so you say, you don't show much of it other than "I am far smarter than you and know far more than you about marketing" -- okay, so how does this apply to the PC-versus-console situation? You've talked about various things that somewhat relate to the key question, but have you directly addressed this, the main question at hand?), I can cite evidence for mine...
The evidence is found in sales data from PC and console hardware and software, but it is meaningless to you unless you have the knowledge to make sense out of it. For this topic, that is marketing and business knowledge, which you do not have. There's nothing wrong with that, it's a very boring topic. I'm just saying.
I wish you knew more about this but you really don't. You don't want to listen to my main points.