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Voting With Your Wallet [roundtable]
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Voting with your wallet is effective, but it also needs to be followed up with some form of feedback in order to say exactly why you are not buying it. If you don't buy Evolve, but give no reasons, what is the developer to think? That the game just didn't interest you so you didn't buy it. But if you told them, through some feedback form, that "Evolve did interest me greatly, but since you've decided to announce so much DLC prior to release and fracture a multiplayer only title's fanbase prior to launch, I will not be purchasing it" then it sends a clearer message.
If we aren't going to give detailed feedback, then we likely end up in a terrible loop. No-one buys BF4 because it didn't work at launch, EA thinks the BF series is dead and drops it entirely, Activision runs the world with Call of Duty every 6 months because it sells millions of copies every time. Fantasy land example, of course. |
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I think that until we have a system in place in which money is no longer such a powerful force, voting with your wallet is the greatest power an individual consumer has. There are other methods, but, monetary is the strongest at the moment. I do look forward to the day when someone can figure out a system that does not rely so heavily on something like money. I just wish someone would figure that out sooner rather than later! Unfortunately, most of the gaming topics that people might vote with their wallets about should have been nipped in the bud from the start. Now, too much precedent has been set that I think things are going to have to get much worse before people realize the problem and start making better decisions. I suppose the good(?) news is I think that will happen. On an individual basis, it sure can be hard to vote with your wallet in such a way that *perfectly* mirrors what you value. For instance, I do not like the DLC in Hyrule Warriors, yet the core game was so appealing I had to support that anyway. I do not like how Amiibo is a kinda/sorta DLC that also exists in tangible form ... yet I caved for Amy cuz she thought Kirby was cute, she's gonna think the same thing about Toad, and I am going to end up with a Dedede Amiibo as result of a kind of long story. That will be THREE more Amiibos than I ever planned to own, and it will only have been a few months!! =P Lord help us when Nintendo decides to release all 719 Pokemon Amiibo! But, I am capable of sticking to my higher priority values. I was obsessed with Monster Hunter Tri, but, amidst rumors that MH4 might have a subscription fee in the West, I was prepared to not support that. I suppose the nicest thing about voting with your wallet is that often times you don't have to think about it -- it happens naturally. You either feel good enough about a product to buy it or you don't. ....most of the time. |
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@deathly_hallowsI love that people like you are completely negating people like Stephen Makes me chuckle . I'm with Pogue. A company doesn't really know who isn't buying something (without doing serious market research anyway). All they know is who is. And as long as enough people are, the views of those who aren't don't really factor unless the company wants to compromise what they're offering. Sure mobile games might sell to a bajillion casual gamers. I don't think any of us would seriously want Nintendo to do the 'smart' thing and target that wider market though. Not if it compromises the experiences we get on the mainline consoles. Personally, 'voting with my wallet' isn't about a futile attempt to 'hurt' a company. I do it for me. Two examples: I used to regularly stop by the 7-Eleven around the corner from work to pick up a chocolate milk. A few months back I went to purchase one and handed over the usual purchase price only to be told that the price had gone up. Wouldn't be an issue, except the marked price on the shelf was still the old price. The cashier insisted on sticking by the price his computer was telling him, claiming that his 'boss' hadn't changed the price tags. Leaving aside the absurdity of blaming the boss for not changing the pricing, consumer law is pretty clear on this point- When two prices are quoted, the lower price has to be honoured. Didn't happen. So I left the milk on the counter for him to put back himself and walked out of the shop. Haven't been back since. Petty to quibble over a matter of 25 cents? Perhaps. But IMO if you don't respect your customers, you don't get my business. I run down to the Coles Express near the station now. Similar thing happened at Hungry Jacks (our version of Burger King) a few years back. They used to sell nuggets in 7-packs. At some point they eliminated that and replaced it with a 6-pack. Not knowing that, when I asked for 7 nuggets, they dutifully rang up the order as a 6-pack, and one extra- Which they charged some ridicuous price for- $2 from memory. When I realised what was going on I asked to change the order to a 6-pack. I was told, they couldn't do that. The cashier, the two other employees in the background and the freaking store manager just looked blankly at me like I'd walked in and asked for a Big Mac. Again, I haven't been back to that store. I get my fast food nuggets from KFC now. Much better. Now I don't for a second think that my actions are in any way going to topple the coporate empires of convenience stores and fast food. But they make me feel happy. They don't get my business and I end up finding a better deal elsewhere anyway. |
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Yep, I was going to buy Rayman Legends when it was supposed to release in Feb 2013. So, when UbiSoft did their little make us wait bullshit, I decided never to buy the game. Same thing with Watch Dogs, I was definitely going to buy that, but again, make Nintendo console owners wait. Well, F'ck Ubisoft, I will never buy any game they develop or publish ever. Unfortunately, I bought Child of Light, which is a great game, but I had forgot that Ubi published that game, until it was too late. Well, at least I helped support the developers of that game. Sure, some could argue that I'm really only hurting myself, by maybe missing out on a great game, the way I see it, first my backlog is so huge, I could go years without ever buying a new game and still have more than enough games to satiate my appetite. Secondly, there is always more great games being released all the time. I'll never have enough time to really play all the games that truly grabs my interest. Now, I never actually used the phrase, "I'm voting with my wallet", when it came to these two games and my overall distaste for Ubisoft but I think it fits.
As far as me contacting Ubisoft and informing them on why I'm no longer buying anynof their games, I'm sure they really wouldn't give a shit and I doubt that they would suddenly start releasing tons of new games for Nintendo's consoles. Oh well, such is life. |
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@gojiraI'm kinda with you. What's the big deal? Buy the games you want, don't buy the games you don't want. Capitalism 101. If there's some weird practice by the publisher or something that pisses you off and you don't want to support it, don't buy into it. Hate DLC? Don't buy it. Ubisoft doesn't deserve your Rayman money if you're significantly angry about them pushing the date back. Don't buy it, if you feel that strongly about it. If that's all "vote with your wallet" means, then what's the big deal? Unless we're talking about the old "Buy Madworld to send a message to make games like Madworld that are better than Madworld" campaigns that IGN used to do. I don't think you should buy things you don't want just to send a message. But I'm not sure that's what we're really talking about. In general, I don't like political philosophies that equate market forces with democracy. But we're not talking about voting in a literal way, we're talking about using your buying power to buy the things you want (or not buying the things you don't want) in a hope that producers will make more of the things you want (and, slightly more quixotically, not make the things you don't want). To me, that's just basic capitalism, love it or hate it. --- Trying to think of examples of what Stephen talks about in the OP. I guess I gave up on MMOs, even though I think they're fun, because I found my time playing City of Heroes kind of exploitative. I'm not even sure if that's a "vote with your wallet" thing so much as me just souring on a genre because I felt it was exploiting me. |
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