I've been perusing the forums quite a bit today. I started a thread discussing the decline of interactivity within MMO's. During our discussion one member mentioned a "gamer's union" of sorts to help gamers form their thoughts cohesively and help game developers get in touch with their customers.


A link to that post: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/239469/Sick-and-Tired-not-a-flame.html

Now I would like to know who would be interested in joining such a union. I'm willing to head it up. I've had about 4 years of multi-game clan and guild leadership experience under a lot of different circumstances. I also was already in the process of developing a website with built-in forum boards and such which could be very useful. (I will provide a link to that site once it's further along).


But for now I would like anyone interested in joining, or anyone with ideas to post here. I think this would be interesting to see how it plays out and we could be pretty influential with proper guidance and enough dedicated members. We could help provide information about games, as well as help developers (indie and big name companies) to connect with gamers. That would be our primary purpose. I have yet to see any group try this.

Apparently with MMO's you can divide us gamers into two major factions:

1. the "wow lovers" group (basically generic cookie cutter, exp grinders)

2. then you have the other group that's extremely splintered. With so many sub groups and fractures from within, it's impossible to describe or list them all.

We could bring some of these fractured groups together and possibly even find middle ground and help gamers get heard by developers. What do you all think?

My opinion is that MMORPG.com is a gamer's union.  Along with any other well know forum set (official or not)

The devs are welcome to come here (and some do) to read our feedback and opionions whenever they'd like.

No one group can speak for all people on anything. I don't see this going very far.

A gamer's union is a terrible idea and game companies won't listen to such a group.

ok fair enough, I appreciate the criticism. I'm just hearing peoples' opinions so I'm not saying I'm starting this yet or anything like that. I just heard it and wanted to hear what other people think.


And don't governments speak for all people? With so many voices in a crowded room, it can be very helpful to have one, concise, strong and clear voice rather than a rampant mess of things.


But as I said the criticism is welcome, let's hear what others think.

Originally posted by AllNewMMOSuk

A gamer's union is a terrible idea and game companies won't listen to such a group.

Ok thanks, for that too 8). Maybe you can elaborate a little rather simply saying it "sucks"? Give some more constructive criticism on how it might be acomplished if one were so inclined to go about it?

A gamers union is actualy a great idea and no this site is nowhere near being one. The only problem would be as gamers of the union what position would we have that would make devs even listen to us. And having such a union what would stop random joes coming in and mucking it up. I like the idea of the wowies being in one group and everyone else in another. There are so many more things you have would have to take into account.

Originally posted by SimperFi

Ok thanks, for that too 8). Maybe you can elaborate a little rather simply saying it "sucks"? Give some more constructive criticism on how it might be acomplished if one were so inclined to go about it?

I think "Union" might not be the word you are looking for. I mean, as a customer of the store Target (as an example), I wouldn't look to join a Target Customer's Union. To be more generic, as a fan of music, I wouldn't join a Music Listener's Union. I would join an advocacy group that had clearly defined goals as to what they want to achieve. When I think of a union, I think of worker's rights and not consumer's rights. Aside from that, I think, especially with MMORPGs, that tastes are so varied, it would be very dificult to unify everyone except to the most generic of agreements. For example, everyone can agree (i think) that being double-billed is bad, but not everyone can agree what payment model is best. Hope that made sense and, for the disclaimer, all purely my opinion.

 There would have to be a union and like you pointed out, two subgroups, one that like linear themeparks, and one that likes Sandbox-esque. If anyone liked both, they could join both. The union "leaders" would have to be around 2-4 people, just enough to not have a dictatorship, and enough to not spread the power too thinly, these leaders could be appointed by the current leaders, or voted in by the members of the union. I think it's a great idea tbh, but I still think it's doubtful, unless we get loads of people, that it will work.

ok, an advocacy group sounds a little better agreed. And maybe our goals can simply be related to moving MMO development away from WoW and from the Asian-themed cookie cutter models.

Like I said though, if you guys have ideas on what those goals should be to you, then share them. So far so good.

And thanks sanders, that's an interesting set up. I'll take that into consideration as well, multiple leaders would have some plus's.

And yes, the more people the better.

Smed would join covertly, suck up and make promises to gain leadership under several forum/chat accounts (or use interns), take it over and "prove" SOE listens to it's customers.  :P

The idea of putting everyone into two groups seems to be naive and indicates that you have not spent a lot of time reading these forums.  Opinions and tastes are far too varying to be lumped up like that.

The other problem is that these forums do not represent the market as a whole.  Developers want games that will make them money, not games that will cater to a few losers who insist on calling themselves hardcore in order to make up for insecurities relating to their small penis size.

Originally posted by madeux

The idea of putting everyone into two groups seems to be naive and indicates that you have not spent a lot of time reading these forums.  Opinions and tastes are far too varying to be lumped up like that.

The other problem is that these forums do not represent the market as a whole.  Developers want games that will make them money, not games that will cater to a few losers who insist on calling themselves hardcore in order to make up for insecurities relating to their small penis size.

Two groups makes it easier to sort out what ideas to shoot for, and choose to go after, having too many subgroups makes it harder to pinpoint what the group as a whole wants to do.

Originally posted by SimperFi

Originally posted by AllNewMMOSuk

A gamer's union is a terrible idea and game companies won't listen to such a group.

 

Ok thanks, for that too 8). Maybe you can elaborate a little rather simply saying it "sucks"? Give some more constructive criticism on how it might be acomplished if one were so inclined to go about it?

First of all it's not like there's one type of gamer and one type of gaming style. Secondly you're not part of any gaming company so the term union makes no sense. Third it wouldn't come close to representing actual gamers, since the only people who would read about/participate in such a thing would be the same minority of gamers that post on forums, and those gamers don't even come close to representing actual gamers.

Most of the game companies out there are making a lot of money, because they know what they are doing. So to have some group of mostly kids sitting there and whining to them about how they want a game to work, when that group has no idea what it takes to make some of their ideas happen and how much it would actually hurt the money making process, would just irritate them or make them laugh at you.

If you want to change the gaming industry then get into it and make some games that you think will change everything. But don't get a group together that will whine and make all gamers look like idiots all while accomplishing nothing.

Originally posted by SimperFi

With so many voices in a crowded room, it can be very helpful to have one, concise, strong and clear voice rather than a rampant mess of things.

And whose voice is the right one?

As a whole, gamers can't decide what colour the sky is.  If one group says it is blue, the other lot is screaming that blue is for carebears and that the sky is indeed avocado coloured.  So all you are going to be doing is collecting a bunch of disjointed opinions from a fractured community who couldn't decide or agree as a cohesive group what would make a good game if the world depended on it.

Its not that its a bad idea, its just that no gaming company would care what you had to say.

They do not listen to players as it is, what makes you think they will listen to a group of players?

They have no reason or incentive to listen to a group like your talking about, so it would do nothing.  It would end up being a guild which we have plenty of them around.

Its just not something that can be throw together and be taking seriously.   Look at the Unions we have today in the RL, they earned the right to be heard though blood and sweat.   (most Unions today stem from the Mob and the companies feared the Mob, hense why the Unions worked)   We as gamers can only threat with our wallets and that is not a good enough threat considering you would never be able to get a full boycott on MMOs.

Sorry man, not a bad idea in all honest.   Looks great on paper but would never work in action.  Like communism.

Originally posted by sanders01

Originally posted by madeux

The idea of putting everyone into two groups seems to be naive and indicates that you have not spent a lot of time reading these forums.  Opinions and tastes are far too varying to be lumped up like that.

The other problem is that these forums do not represent the market as a whole.  Developers want games that will make them money, not games that will cater to a few losers who insist on calling themselves hardcore in order to make up for insecurities relating to their small penis size.

Two groups makes it easier to sort out what ideas to shoot for, and choose to go after, having too many subgroups makes it harder to pinpoint what the group as a whole wants to do.

You'll never be able to get them all to agree on anything.  They all define Sandbox  and Thempark differently.  They all define grind differently.  They all define hardcore, casual, and a thousand other generic terms differently.

Developers already do market research.  They look at what is selling, and what is not selling, and then they try to incorporate the good and get rid of the bad.  You could come up with your magical list of everything you want in the game, and the game could come out and you'd still all hate it. 

Absolutely not.  Where would gaming go if there was "one unified voice" for the gamers?  What the hell kind of GAME (read: singular) would that produce, over, and over, and over, and over again.  Such homogeniety would DESTROY creativity of any kind from a development perspective.

This is a ridiculous idea spawned from a power-hungry, frustrated, bored and jaded mind.

What about the people who like the WoW clones and asian themed cookie cutters? The point is everyone one has different tastes. Just because you and I may not like something, doesn't mean other people don't. The market is the driving force, and developers are going to make games based on what they think will sell. Whether we like it or not, WoW has changed MMO's forever, so we are going to get more of them until something else knocks it off it's perch.

Even something simple like not releasing a game too early is subject to different opinions and views. Who determines it's been released too early?

I understand what you want to do, but I just don't see how it's ever going to be effective. You mentioned that government speaks for all people, but they really don't. They only speak for the percentage of people that elected them.

There are already two very large gamer unions: VISA and Mastercard.

Their members vote every month.