Thread 717362412

Have you ever noticed the pattern where the reason behind most video games poor decisions these days are focus groups? They'll say they did market research or that they had play testers but the main area are the focus groups that is the reason why the games are shit.
Who the fuck are these, "focus groups" and why the fuck are they so intent on the enshittification of our video games now?
Why don't video game companies, I don't know try asking actually video game players what's good and what they want instead of whatever the fuck "focus groups" are?
Anyone else notice this shit?

>>717362412 (OP)
>(((focus groups)))

>>717362412 (OP)
I'm pretty sure they don't do that, we would be making less money if those focus groups weren't legit.

He was right again

>>717363232
Holy based

There's value in focus groups because games need to sell to Joe Blow off the streets to make money. There aren't enough "core" gamers out there shelling out money to keep this massive industry afloat now. The game doesn't even need to be good, it just needs to be marketable.
People are posting examples of creators with complete authority but the products they make are not capable of making BILLIONS of dollars compared to like Frozen 4 or whatever focus group tested shit Disney makes.

>>717363392
>>717363232
Man why can't the current game devs follow this practice.
So fucking sick of consumer groups who don't even play games ruining our games

>>717363745
>There's value in focus groups because games need to sell to Joe Blow off the streets to make money.
MUH MONEY

Fuck off corpogreed faggot. Make games FOR GAMERS. Not for cattle

Shit like you ruined video games

>>717362412 (OP)
Anon, you're the focus group. They're people in your demographic, who represent consumers like you. The games I play are not shit because I'm not in the normalfag casual demographic and do not play games for that demographic.

>>717362412 (OP)

focus groups are cheaper than hiring real gamers

it's always about the bottom line and cutting costs with them which is why games are so soulless now

>>717363392
yknow, miyazaki can be a real grouch sometimes but that may be the most based piece of advice any artist could ever hear. and yes i understand commission work and working as part of a production that has to appeal to people etc.

the point simply is, have good sensibilities and go for them, then people will come to you for that

>>717364073
Why not just ask people who actually play video games instead? I'm tired of the enshittification...

>>717363232
I kneel.

Henry Ford said it best over 100 years ago
"If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses!"

Why oh why are we still making the same mistakes? What is the purpose of a focus group? Stop it.

>>717363232
Post the trilogy next time.

>>717363907
Gamers are alone are not a profitable demographic.

>>717365236
All of these creatividads are based as fuck.

>>717365369
>Gamers are alone are not a profitable demographic.
Of course they are. Just not with retarded 200 million dollar budgets.

>>717365236
This explains why Japanese games are so superior to western trash
Focus groups = trash so
Trash in, trash out

>>717362412 (OP)
>noticing
>patterns
whoa tone down that antisemitism

>>717362412 (OP)
Apparently all the engagement optimized matchmaking is based on one retarded jew study so every company decided that not allowing communities to form servers for their game was the best way to keep people playing.
Just as retarded as believing banning communication in your game improves community.

The first fucking game with an actual uncensored chat where adults are not treated like 5 year olds will destroy all competition.

>>717363392
I think a better way of putting it is the target audience should be 1 person, whether that is the artist or someone else.

My grandmother would recruit for focus groups. This invariably meant calling the same people she knows every time.

>>717362980
FPBP

>>717366548
How do companies allow this shit?

>>717366838
>Entry level employees: idc im just getting paid
>Middle managers: idc im just getting paid
>Upper management: idc im just getting paid
>Ceo: idc im just flipping and dipping
>investors: idc im just getting paid
welcome to capitalism, the most efficient and perfect system ever made, and ever will be made, that needs no adjustments ever.

>>717362412 (OP)
>try asking actually video game players what's good
That question is so impossible to answer that it's actually comical. For some games that's a brilliant idea, for others it's the dumbest thing anyone could do. Games that do well(20% profit+) are always lightning in a bottle. Some lead producer has an idea and fights for it's implementation and it almost breaks the project but in the end it works and elevates the whole game and in a different world that producer gives up on the idea or just can't get it done right and nobody knows if that game could ever have been great.

And since companies are very much aware of that X factor they are trying to minimize the risk by ticking as many mass appeal boxes as they can so the game is at least a solid 7 that breaks even. But nobody in this thread actually gives a fuck about the process. And this thread will die with 0 discussion. Read pic related, you dumb fucking retards if you want a peek behind the curtain. But i know you won't.

>>717367817
text 2 small 4 my iphone sorry that happened or whatever

>>717365236
Hahaha Itagaki always gets me. So based

>>717365369
They were in the past and we had a great time. Fuck you.

>>717367817
I just want focus groups to stop ruining video games you retard
Why must "mass appeal" be a thing? So fucking stupid

>>717368191
BECAUSE DEVS ARE BUMBLING AROUND IN PRE PRODUCTION FOR 5 YEARS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT WORKS AND BY THE END THE GAME WAS IN DEVELOPMENT FOR 8 TO 10 YEARS AND COST SEVERAL HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS START TO FINISH. PIC VERY FUCKING RELATED.

>>717368096
Games of the past weren't made for gamers. They were made for people who became gamers.

It sucks because it inherently makes it so that the game scales with the quality of a society its made in so no transcendental pieces can be made, and as the reality continues to worsen even the means of escape.

>>717368398
Grim reality

>>717363392
If you don't have a specific target audience in mind, you're going to end up making slop. Look at how manga are labeled.

There's shonen (which means "boy"), shojo (girl), seinen (adult man), and josei (adult woman). They don't go for mass appeal, they focus on one specific demographic.

>>717368712
>even the means of escape
Follow suit*

>>717368712
This.
It's enshittification and it's affecting everything.

>>717368791
So far what I've learned in this thread is that Japan does everything better, a fact that /v/ seethes at.

>>717362412 (OP)
The problem mainly with AAA is the disgustingly bloated budgets most have now, can’t have a “vision” guiding the project because that’s a risk, they need to make that 6009 gorillion back and double it to be considered a financial success.
Which in turn means you have to sell as much as possible, which means selling to everyone, which’s mean creating something that appeals to everyone.
This leads to the Ouroboros of this, when you appeal to everyone you appeal to no one.
As such AAA is such in this surreal hell where they focus test and whittle every part of its identity down into something safe, digestible, then charge $80~

Which is not possible anymore.
The shareholders are gutting their golden gooses to see if it’s filled with gold and moving on once the gore unceremoniously plops on the ground, AAA is going to slowly bleed itself out if they keep up this nonsense, it’s not sustainable

>>717366838
The marketing company doesn't care, their customer whatever the product, is different every time so won't notice.

>>717368815
When non-essential products get shitter, people stop buying them. That hasn't happened.

This has been true for all of history.

How come this whole thread nobody has mentioned that maybe it's the modern day people that are shit which have caused games to be shit?

>>717369346
>That hasn't happened
Concord

>>717369080
Zoomerbro here with a question. Up until around 2015 games seem to have catered to teenage/early adult male demographic, and while thats still true for a lot of games the shift in AAA from that to LITERALLY EVERYONE has been quite noticeable.

Why?

>>717367817
All that just to say too many people are involved so of course it is completely fucked up at every stage.

>>717369567
Disregarding ofc the very beginnings of gaming which were for kids

>>717369625
Hoc come retards on v get it but not literal billionaires

>>717369736
They have too much money to care but also still want more

>>717368191
>Why must "mass appeal" be a thing?
Because if the idea is too niche and weird, it will most likely bomb because there's no audience for it.

>>717363232
>>717363392
People will read shit like this and say BASED then the same people will whine and shit their pants when a game does something they dont like and demand they listen to the player base.

Developers should in every case tell the playerbase to fuck off, whether its kojima or 343, fans and consoomers are the stupidest fuckers on the planet.

>>717369080
>AAA is going to slowly bleed itself out if they keep up this nonsense, it’s not sustainable
It's a hit driven business and as long as we have games that sell tens of millions of copies that is what AAA will be chasing. After all, if they can do it, why can't we?

>>717369567
>Up until around 2015 games seem to have catered to teenage/early adult male demographic
Because the devs themselves were mostly part of that demographic and there was no significant counter-wave. Not only that but marketing supported that tone with research but that slowly changed. Now the devs don't want to make those games anymore and marketing is pointing to a much larger audience that isn't mostly 18-34 males.

>>717369736
They know but they don't have a sure fire solution so they are playing it as safe as possible which means focus testing every part of the game.

>>717368398
Devs don't get paid to release a product. Releasing a product actually means a high chance they stop being paid. Really that is all an explanation you need.

One major issue all these companies have is having full time positions for things like writing where it should be a few days work, where the person has to continually fuck things up to justify employment. Same with the people making 'balance patches'. There is no justification for allowing someone to fuck around with the underlying mechanics of a game millions of people are playing.

>>717370021
This is true. It has to be true absolutely. Not selectively like how /v/ always whines about.

>>717367108
It's not perfect but every other attempt just ends with the murder of millions of innocent people and mass starvation, I'll stick to capitalism.

>>717369567
Because they realized teen/males don't give them money
Many of them actually pirate their games so they rejected them for money
It's sickening

>>717363745
>There aren't enough "core" gamers out there shelling out money to keep this massive industry afloat now
Killing AA production is a self-inflicted hardship.

>>717369567
easy, people noticed how profitable games were and it began to be heavily invested in, however, these companies never had such rapid expansion in the last 30 years of games existing, which in turn meant they never had to appeal to everyone before, games were treated as games, not as products, thats what created the natural economic ecosystem they had. now AAA games MUST be products to survive, they need to appease the ever growing sales report, it must always be a higher number, its an impossible task because they're treating games like products, games need time, they need a set goal.
you see the problem here?
investors want number go up
upper management want number go up
economic ecosystem of game industry says; "No, Number will be number."
you can't force a billion sales.
Spiderman 2 had a budget of 315 million, they actually MADE IT BACK but because it didnt earn double they had to fire a quarter of their studio, cancel the DLC, cancel the spin off, Sony told them to kick rocks fucko.
its not feasible but those numbers people dont see that

>>717369736
Because this used to be the hangout for the ostracized and people with extreme intelligence cannot communicate with normal people and have nowhere else to go.
We are still here because there is still nowhere else to go but at least 90% of posts are split between spambots and malicious actors being retarded.

>>717370390
Ironic because /v/ is also obsessed with numbers
I just want games to be games
Man

>>717370442
Storytimes on /a/ gave me the sense of community ive never felt on the internet before, or at all really.

For that i'll always cherish 4chan even though i wasnt here for the golden age.

>>717370240
This post won't age well.

>>717370074
>Devs don't get paid to release a product.
No they don't. They get paid for reaching milestones. But even that is an ongoing arrangement post-launch.

>devs work on one game in full production for 3 years(after 5 years in pre-production)
>game is good enough to ship
>now you have hundreds of designers(excluding asset farms) that know the game by heart
>move them to a different game that they don't know or allow them to keep working on a game they do know
>they keep working on the game which keeps it "alive" and in the news cycle which boosts sales
>they keep improving it with updates, patches and DLC
>3 years later the game is actually where the devs wanted it to be
>release mega ultra edition that gives the game a 2nd launch

Objectively speaking there is no downside to this approach because the game gets better but it completely screws over anyone who bought it on initial launch because they bought and played an inferior version and they have to buy the DLC and play the game again if they want to see the actual good version.

>>717370240
>he thinks this hasn't happened repeatedly under capitalism as well

>>717370597
>Ironic because /v/ is also obsessed with numbers

I actually truly fucking hate this so much. Why did /v/ get so compromised? What happened to the video games and not sales numbers or steam charts or twitch views or other irrelevant bullshit? What made /v/ this way?

"number go up" is truly one of the most destructive obsessions for someone to have, whether they be player or dev or publisher or paper pushing businessman

>>717370826
>he thinks he's suffering under capitalism

>>717370597
gonna have to go the indie or AA route to see games treated as games anymore sadly

>>717371025
I said no such thing. You're strawmanning me to cover moving the goalposts. Enjoy being retarded. I reply no further.

focus groups are part of the problem but there's also the fact that games are now made by hundreds of people, it's not a bunch of people who share a common vision anymore. back then even graphic designers knew what the game is supposed to be and made soulful looking things, now shit like textures, models, ui is outsourced to some jeets or made by diversity hires according to some rules they learned at UX college and it's all soulless slop

>>717362412 (OP)
Sounds like a lot of cope if your game cant pass a braindead focus group then your game is pure slop and not worth playing.

>>717371773
quite the opposite, if it can pass focus group it's slop for zoomies

>>717370935
This.

>>717371773
You're a moron
>>717371841
This guy gets it

>>717370865
Indian_internet_traffic.png

>>717371773
You have 0 reading comprehension don't you? Are you actually a double agent here to muddy the waters because your precious focus groups are under attack? I can't comprehend any other way anyone can be this fucking retarded.

Focus groups usually consist of a product's target audience.

If they want to appeal to everyone why don't they make multiple smaller games that appeal directly to specific demographics rather than large ones that try (and fail) to appeal to everyone

>>717369398
>blaming the customers
Yeah I'm sure THATLL go over well!

>>717372514
lol
lmao even
If that's the case then why are the games still so shit?

Focus groups are a necessary tool that is being used poorly. You collect data and learn things about how players engage with what you've done to inform your decisions but you DON'T treat optimizing focus group performance as the goal, you don't compromise your design goals for it (or lack actual design goals and let yourself be directed by the whim of the focus testing).

>>717362412 (OP)
focus groups are how devs win internal arguments when they make shitty design by committee games. Its too many cooks from the start.

>>717362412 (OP)
Focus groups, like surveys and consultants, are just a way to put a veneer of data-driven legitimacy on whatever the executive's dumb pet idea is before its inevitable implementation.

>>717370865
>What made /v/ this way?
About 15 years' worth of shit video games.

>>717370865
Fall back to objective measures of trying to present evidence of why a game they do not like is bad without revealing things like /v/'s tendency to cherrypick and outright lie or otherwise use subjective measures to declare a game bad.

>>717370865
It's blatant shill posts. Nobody gives a fuck about numbers unless they are directly invested. Same stupid shit on /tv/. Top 10 grossing movies this year and I would not sit through any of them.

I'm going to drop a truth nuke that nobody on /v/ wants to hear but is the truth and will hear regardless.
The problem isn't with focus groups or even game developer companies. It's with the people of today. As a whole mainstream masses and people in general are just dumber and worse than the past and it just gets worse and worse so of course focus groups that should have been working in theory no longer work. It's all your faults. This applies everywhere not just video games.

Look at a mirror. Blame yourselves.

>>717367817
>bluesky
Into the trash it goes along with tw*tter screencap threads

>>717373050
Can't do that anymore because /v/'s main userbase is mentally retarded now

>>717373087
>Top 10 grossing movies this year and I would not sit through any of them.
Holy fuck this is so true
I also look at the "top" 10 video games of the year and I never touched them and some never even heard of them
What the fuck is going on in our world? This strange phenomenon just keeps getting worse each year too

>>717373415
the majority of the human race has always been retarded, the solution is not to worry about the general IQ of every human on earth its to put the few high IQ people in leadership positions. game developers stopped doing that.

>>717373050
This is true. When you have actually played a game and see complaints from /v/, it's not uncommon to see truth mixed with really obvious lies or things experienced secondhand via watching someone else play something, or outright opinions taken from other people.

>>717370865
Only the most braindead indian slop consumers would think like this. Popular games are the best games, it's as simple as that.

>>717373860
This reminds me of the hate Dude Sex Mankind Divided got and how it was supposedly "woke" or pro BLM when it really wasn't, and this is coming from someone who hates both of those things

>>717373764
One word: Enshittification

>>717367817
>But nobody in this thread actually gives a fuck about the process. And this thread will die with 0 discussion. Read pic related, you dumb fucking retards if you want a peek behind the curtain. But i know you won't.

Actually did read it.
Yep - this type of middle-management type of island thinking of departments that don't combine disciplines laterally but remain in their own little silod worlds is how you get shit products. Shit products. Shit hardware. Shit software. Shit games. Period. The key to success is combining competences to the point where they can enhance and strengthen one another. Not to wall them off.

Walling them off only improves one particular aspect: the managerial one. Where you're basically directing cattle and 'compliance is rewarded.'

>>717374204
retard, stop using words you dont understand. enshittification doesnt mean media getting shitty it means corporations boiling the frog on monopolies.

>>717363232
>>717365236
Based
Big egos > rationally driven game development

>>717374428
>enshittification doesnt mean media getting shitty it means corporations boiling the frog on monopolies
Not even monopolies. "Enshittification" as a term was literally coined to give a name to the phenomenon where companies will lure in end-users with good service initially, then once they've got them hooked will apply the thumbscrews to maximize profits.

Enshittification is literally the invariable end-effect of unchecked capitalism where profit rules over anything else and there is no legislation to keep crooked practices in check.

(No wonder then that basically all online services that find themselves being 'enshittified' are US-based. Just sayin'...)

>>717373415
It's sad how real this applies

>>717374718
>Not even monopolies. "Enshittification" as a term was literally coined to give a name to the phenomenon where companies will lure in end-users with good service initially, then once they've got them hooked will apply the thumbscrews to maximize profits.
Like Netflix? I don't see how a strategy like that is even viable considering that people could just switch over to a different streaming platform that offers cheaper services or find some other form of entertainment.

>>717373764
>>717373087
I also feel exactly this way
I hate that my coworkers are the complete opposite and it makes hearing any discussion with them on these topics so painful.
>Yeah man it's so popular and sold so much
>look at all the awards and top 10 accolades it got!
I just want to scream at them that I don't fucking care but instead I just have stopped joining in they conversations about this shit

>>717372667
>Focus groups are a necessary tool that is being used poorly.
It's not that they're being used poorly - in the sense of unintentionally bad or suboptimal.
It's that focus groups are literally being weaponized to drive personal stakes, as >>717372853 mentions, for all modern games that are designed by committee.

It goes hand in hand with the development processes used by many AAA studios, which compartmentalize competencies into separate silos, as per >>717367817. This breeds a particular working culture of us-vs-them eventually devolving into little more than a microcosm of feudal states.

And focus group results being seen as objectively measurable KPIs by the management further up the tree, i.e. the emperor holding power over all the feudal lords, they can and are used to push certain points that benefit individual department heads rather than the product.

>>717362412 (OP)
yeah i noticed that in, hmm, like 2005?

>>717374995
>I don't see how a strategy like that is even viable considering that people could just switch over to a different streaming platform
Because you overestimate the intelligence of your normal normalfag sheeple

>>717375191
>2005
Vidya we're still made for gamers back then, how could you notice that?

>>717374718
I use the term monopoly in a broad sense to mean high market share since you can have monopolies that aren't the only player. This entire worldview is very American but this total morally bankrupt prioritisation of money above absolutely everything has now infected every other country.

>>717375313
Trash like Halo was released and lauded in 2001.

>>717375135
buddy of mine is the same but its a bit more painful
>bro I'm excited for BF6
>we both played 2046 and that game died as we played man, the guns turned invisible, UI turned invisible, teammates turned invisible, tanks turned invisible, enemy turned invisible
>all slowly across 20 mins in the same match
>Anon you gotta stop being so negative
I wouldnt be negative if that wasnt what actually happened

>>717370021
devs are largely retarded and the retardation compounds when they're a massed group of retards

players however always know what they want, but they don't know what they want exactly, so they will say something retarded like "this enemy is overpowered" and what they really mean is "I suck at the game please make it easier for me"

it's your job as a game developer to understand and sift out the important feedback from the rest, and part of that means figuring out what people actually mean when they give feedback, not simply what they're saying directly. In the above case, the correct response is not to tell the player to fuck off, it's to figure out how to resolve their actual problem without compromising too much of what you're making. It might mean that instead of nerfing an enemy, weapon, or behaviour for everyone, you make an easy mode instead. Or you might understand that they are simply complaining for the sake of it and their problems are imagined rather than real. Whatever the case, you need to figure it out.

This is a skill that most devs lack today. They especially go full retard and try to argue with their customers, dictating to their customers what their customers want. This never goes over well because you as a dev, or anyone else providing a product or service, do not decide what customers want. Customers decide that. If you tell them they want to eat shit on a plate, they will say "no, fuck you" and then not give you any money.

And while you may have "artistic vision" (ego) - that does not mean anyone is going to play or buy whatever your vision is just because you were uncompromising about it. They might say, wow good for sticking to your guns and not catering to those people! They still won't buy your game however, and most devs are not making games exclusively for their autistic vision, but because they want to make money. You have to cater to market demands or you don't make money.

>>717374434
Correction
Creative vision > plebian preferences

Since I had to correct you that means you're a pleb, pleb.

The answer is the 2008 recession

>>717376745
The answer is endless cock in your hairy twink ass slut

>>717374718
The thing is, this kind of behaviour only works in a captured market with no competition and will still result in reduced profits in the long run. It's the killing your goose that lays golden eggs fable put in practice, and the simple fact is a lot of people would rather have a cooked goose today than multiple golden eggs they can sell for more cooked geese later.

Because in the heads of many people, tomorrow doesn't exist beyond a theoretical sense, and what happens to them tomorrow is actually happening to someone else they don't care about.

These corporate monopolies are that practice but in an organized way. Huge swathes of former business darlings - like IBM - are now little more than patent trolls surviving exclusively off extractive unfavorable contracts held together by the legal equivalent of guns to their own customers' foreheads.

These are not businesses that will survive long term, but they make a lot of money for a few parasites in the executive and shareholder positions in the short term, and that's all the leadership cares about.

>>717376149
No, your job as a developer is to make the kind of game you think is interesting and want to play because you cant make any other game without fucking it up. The only case in which the players feedback is useful is when the developer is so shit at their job an average player has a better understanding of their own game, in which case that person should not be making games, the game should flop and that studio should be shut down for employing incompetent devs.

Giving a shit about whether X% the audience found Y boss too hard therefore we should nerf it is cart before the horse, inmates running the asylum bullshit. Not every developer is destined to make mass market games but almost all of the most talented ones will find their own audience, what you are calling for is to hammer a square peg in a round hole through millions of idiots shouting at it. If a dev is good he already knows better than his consumer base what he should make, if he has mass market instincts he will make a mass market success, if he needs feedback he should seek it from his peers who should also be smarter and more reliable than the average consumer.

The one and only case where I agree the dev should be a slave to the consumer is when they make cynical GAAS slop which literally only exists to suck money through prolonged engagement, so yeah when the game already has 0 aspirations beyond psychological manipulation to open wallets then go for it. AAA has broadly followed the kind of thinking you are advocating for and they are all going bankrupt, any sustained success that last more than 5 FOMO minutes runs counter.

>>717373415
yep
>Blame yourselves
/thread

>>717362412 (OP)
>Who the fuck are these, "focus groups"
Whales, primarily. Especially in the multiplayer scene. Most games are essentially geared towards capturing a small niche audience of whales that'll essentially pay for the upkeep of the game all by themselves because they're the ones who'll actually put down the money and buy just about anything you shovel their way. We can shit on Valve until the end of time with their playtesters but at least they designed games for people to actually PLAY and FINISH. Stuff these days are just glorified job simulators and wallet vaccuums.

>>717377802
>implying watching capeslop is a sign of intelligence
Lmao

>>717378478
It's a shit example he used but the principle is sound.

>>717376008
>>717375135
Fucking normalfags man.

>>717377997
This is a completely myopic viewpoint. Whales are only there because the other mass of players are. Blade and Soul re-released even more pay2win than the original, removed the stat equalized arena because whales would get dabbed on and made sure to have a bunch of dungeons you are never going to do without paying thousands of dollars. As a result it is already as dead as the old version that had 2 updates in the last 5 years.

>>717373764
I wonder this as well...

>>717381628
Whales don't have brains and exist to find the other players.

>>717362412 (OP)
It's supposed to be on a case-by-case basis (if the game is playable from start to finish, critical dramatic points in the story, etc.), but I guess devs took this focus group's feedback as gospel to the point they were blindsided by it.

>>717362412 (OP)
>>717365236
>>717363232
>>717363831
Yes exactly, it's been years since I've said this. The developers must stay genuine, true to their vision. This pandering of specific groups always results in shit, just do the game you want to do, otherwise the result will always be an artificial, plastic mess.