To quote:

"One thing that is common in just about every business you'll see is that businesses want to succeed. These businesses do so by providing products and services that consumers want"

The reality is:

One thing that is common in just about every business you'll see is that businesses want to succeed. These businesses do so by providing products and services that consumers respond to"

Major difference

The Fact of the matter is people want a good quality product for the value of their money. So if people get laid off due low budget quality games, and then eventually moving to a "gimmick" which has become prevalent with F2P garbage, then so be it. I personally think the business model is going in the wrong direction.

New technology is made to be more productive and to be able to do more with what you have, but It seems to me that the business will continue to make the same product from 2004ish, (ie Clones/Copies) then Reduce/Cut manpower,  rubber stamp mass produce the same product over and over with slight variations.

The big thing in the end for the consumer is a loss of serendipity, innovation, and originality.

Currently being replaced with mediocrity, low quality, repetiton, and gimmicky products

So yes, when I see the same old thing, I say FAIL

Originally posted by Tridian

Originally posted by Lethality

For me, wanting a game to fail is attached to simlply disagreeing with design decisions or executiong, and not wanting success to be a roadmap for future games (which it would stand to reason I would also not like!)

 

Thats it exactly for me. I'd hate to see a game with minimal features and huge rails lead the way to future games doing exactly the same.

 

So trying to actively cause a game to fail just beause you do not agree with its design is some how alright?  I mean I guess if everything YOU like is agreed upojn to be what EVERYONE else likes then I guess that statement is true.  But my guess is that YOU have your idea on what a game should be and EVERYONE else probably has a asomewhat different idea.  But I guess those people actively trying to cause a game YOU like to fail is completely wrong.

Originally posted by SuprGamerX

 Ok , I'll speak for myself here. 

First of all I never wished for a MMO to fail , it's just that it is easy to predict how a game will fail inside of a years of release. With all information we have regarding publishers and developers only a naive person cannot predict such failures.

 Example 1 ; The Secret World  (TsW) : How many times have I said this MMO won't be going far? Just watching how AoC failed miserably at launch and still does to this day , it isn't hard to predict how TsW will end up. If Funcom were serious about TsW they should of shut down AoC a few years ago to really put 100% of their efforts on TsW to make it alot more playable and enjoyable.

 Example 2 ; Lord of the rings online (LoTRO) :  This is what happens when you copy exactly what Blizzard did with WoW , and correct me if I'm wrong but LoTRO jump started the term "WoW clone"  , right down to the HP/MP bars.  Now F2P  , it's another MMO that isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Again, when I first watched the game play trailers of LoTRO I asked myself "Is that WoW?"  So yes , another easy failure prediction.

 Example 3 ; Star Wars the old republic (SWtor) : A great example on why not to buy anything labeled EA , seriously disregard anything with a EA label on it , you'll end up disapointed and I have predicted this for a long time , and today the game is F2P.

 Example 4 ; Guild Wars 2 (GW2) : Granted the game isn't released yet , but with NCSoft in charge in one way or another , you just know (it's a natural gut feeling) that the game will take a turn for the worst.

 Example 5 ; Age of Conan (AoC) : You know , I had big hopes for this game and was really hyped , but the launch raped me. I had level 5 gear that was better then level 25 gear , and that was after 2 months! Barely no updates were released! So yeah , AoC was probably one of the rare MMO titles in which I hadn't predicted a failure , but once I've been had , it changed my whole perspective on how to perceive any new releases.

 

Oh great wizard, shower us with more of your great predictions.  Most of those MMO's you listed and the others you are talking about but did not list have been no failures.  Sure did they do as good as they hoped?  NO, but I wouldnt call most of those games "failures" in my opinion.

But even with higher standards then just turining a profit, maybe people like you just dont realize that MMO's no longer are a good market to be in.  In my eyes, MMO's will have to go back to being a niche product, before we see any good ones again.

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by k-damage
Great post Icewhite.

Naw, Pontificating.

But damn it, we used to encourage constructive criticism once upon a time, not just cheer the guy who vents his rage the most colorfully.

Would any of us cheer, if we weren't protected by anonymity?  If we had to watch junior employees walking out of corporate offices with boxes of personal effects?

Constructive criticism requires critical thought and that's something that just isn't taught or encouraged these days. Without critical thought all people are left with is knee-jerk lashing out which comes from an almost idiotic (in the original sense of the word) lack of understanding of all the factors and possibilities involved.

George Carlin would know what I mean. For those who don't, critical thought doesn't mean criticising everything with whatever thoughts you can muster. It's about seeing the bigger picture and how things can be improved without burning everything down.

Originally posted by Thane

imo that's due to kid's attitude nowadays. they are like "nach mir die sinflut!", eg, they think they are the centre of the world, and what they like has to be the good thing. if they dont like it - they want no one else to have fun with it either!

 

don't ask me how that happened, when gaming started, it was all about fun, you didnt like a game? fine, play another game, but we surely did not start 20 page post's about "why not to play castles of dr creep", you had a friend which didnt like all of your favorite games? fine, there are enough tho he liked that you could play if you wanted to play with him.

Ah, yes the me, me, me, it's all about me!; people. This isn't a particularly new trend, it's just that the 'net allows more selfishness because you don't have to look someone in the eye when you say nasty things. Rumors and gossips have been around as long as there have been humans, someone is always hoping for someone else to fail, hard.

I'm 46 years old, and I can say from first hand experience that: for as long as there have been games, someone will tell you "that game sucks". I've done it myself, usually because I suck at it. :P But I will also usually tell the person who asked my opinion, to try it themselves.

Like most of the respondants here I want a game to fail; not because I want to see a company crash and burn, or to have coders lose their jobs. I want a game to fail because it's a poor copy of game x, which was a carbon copy of game y, which was a copy of game z, which wasn't that good a game to begin with. Or because the hype didn't come close to matching reality. Or because the great game that was there, but needed minor tweaks in CBT, was junk in OBT because the devs didn't choose to listen to the playing/paying community and changed what player loved and didn't fix what they didn't like. I'm sorry but bad games need to die a quick and painful death, period.

Coders can stand up for a great game all they like, but the developer is the one making the final decision, not the coders. Guess who loses every time a coder makes a stand for an "innovative game" vs an "it'll sell game". I guarantee it isn't the developer, it's the guy who actually writes the code. It only takes a few times of seeing the best guy on the team getting fired for that lesson to get through the thickest of skulls.

You want better games? Stop pre-ordering based on hype!! Buy and support games that are actual innovaters, don't continue to buy the same 'ole carbon copies of hit game of 1999. Understand that innovation and big time companies are near polar opposites and rarely do they meet, and then usually by accident.

Originally posted by Lethality

For me, wanting a game to fail is attached to simlply disagreeing with design decisions or execution, and not wanting success to be a roadmap for future games (which it would stand to reason I would also not like!)

 

Why not just concentrate on what you like, why spending hours and hours to share your hate with so many strangers?

I completeley agree with op, mostly about dark side of human nature.

I do care for some bad restaurant with bad food that i will share this with friends. But I would never ever bother with some bad restaurant on the other side of the planet that have not impact on my current live in my town. Ok, I may fall in this trap from time to time as is easy to sit behind chair and comment on restaurant on Mars :-), but I try not to. When I mention my negative view and experience of Aion, TR, ... I will never go on their dedicated forum but will comment mainly as example in random article. But haters love to chase some game in all forums all over the world.

People like you and many others howerver want that overseas restaurant fail, because did not like the menu.

Originally posted by Thane

imo that's due to kid's attitude nowadays. they are like "nach mir die sinflut!", eg, they think they are the centre of the world, and what they like has to be the good thing. if they dont like it - they want no one else to have fun with it either!

 

don't ask me how that happened, when gaming started, it was all about fun, you didnt like a game? fine, play another game, but we surely did not start 20 page post's about "why not to play castles of dr creep", you had a friend which didnt like all of your favorite games? fine, there are enough tho he liked that you could play if you wanted to play with him.

Ah, yes the me, me, me, it's all about me!; people. This isn't a particularly new trend, it's just that the 'net allows more selfishness because you don't have to look someone in the eye when you say nasty things. Rumors and gossips have been around as long as there have been humans, someone is always hoping for someone else to fail, hard.

I'm 46 years old, and I can say from first hand experience that: for as long as there have been games, someone will tell you "that game sucks". I've done it myself, usually because I suck at it. :P But I will also usually tell the person who asked my opinion, to try it themselves.

Like most of the respondants here I want a game to fail; not because I want to see a company crash and burn, or to have coders lose their jobs. I want a game to fail because it's a poor copy of game x, which was a carbon copy of game y, which was a copy of game z, which wasn't that good a game to begin with. Or because the hype didn't come close to matching reality. Or because the great game that was there, but needed minor tweaks in CBT, was junk in OBT because the devs didn't choose to listen to the playing/paying community and changed what player loved and didn't fix what they didn't like. I'm sorry but bad games need to die a quick and painful death, period.

Coders can stand up for a great game all they like, but the developer is the one making the final decision, not the coders. Guess who loses every time a coder makes a stand for an "innovative game" vs an "it'll sell game". I guarantee it isn't the developer, it's the guy who actually writes the code. It only takes a few times of seeing the best guy on the team getting fired for that lesson to get through the thickest of skulls.

You want better games? Stop pre-ordering based on hype!! Buy and support games that are actual innovaters, don't continue to buy the same 'ole carbon copies of hit game of 1999. Understand that innovation and big time companies are near polar opposites and rarely do they meet, and then usually by accident.

I also feel that the gaming companies in general have distanced themselves from the gamers and the community. How often do you see a representative from EA post here?

But representatives from The Repopulation frequently post in these forums, answer gamers questions, stand up to criticism and generally have a dialogue with the gamers.

I think thats the way to go,

Well the author makes a whole lot of assumptions in his article and passes his opinons as fact.

Especially odd is the assumption that all companies want to put out great product because that creates good PR and thus sales. You do realize that there are companies in China who add cardboard to food to increase their profit margins; analogies could be drawn with the gaming industry.

Why bring up 38 Studios? We should have created a petition? Really? So we should have petitioned for 38 Studios who overspent their Rhode Island loaned money...I can't even finish my sentence. Petetion who for what exactly? Even if there was an answer for this, how is this my responsibility?

Criticizing just to be hateful is counter productive, but objective criticism is not. Objective criticism is usually warranted, the question is what does the developer do with that criticism. Final Fantasy agreed with its critics and went back to the drawing board. D3 is rebalancing their classes and tweaking minions. Other companies just cry foul of the rotten interwebs.

As to criticism hurting the grunt developer work force, well not so much. The criticism is aimed at the head developers and their design descions, not the people working under them. It is these same game generals who tend to bounce around despite failure after failure whereas their underlings are the ones with the pink slips.  Without criticism, when are the bad developers ever going to be held accountable?

As to the power of the internet hate machine; it's overrated. Games that garner criticism are genrally bad. Bad games generally have their customers vote with their wallets. Bad games cause bad sales, not the criticism of bad games.

I guess at the end of the day, in a world stil reeling from a global recession, I don't think MMOs should be a No Criticism zone of unicorns and rainbows.

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Tardcore

The consumers only "responsibilty" is to be exactly that, a consumer.

We've got to respect every right you can dream up to demand, but not the guy who works for EvilCorp?

How far down the ladder does your right-to-discourtesy extened?  If you have a problem with Walmart, it's ok to hurl epithets at Walmart cashiers?  Does the guy who empties wastecans for tne EA offices deserve your derision too?

"The only actual responsibility at all is on the side of the business who is responisible for the creation, promotion, and continued maintainece of their goods or services."

Basic civics class.  How societies get along.  How you are responsible for behaving towards other people. Simple coutesies, and what happens to cultures that forget them. 

A great many people in American yackyack about their rights constantly, while refusing to acknowledge the commensurate responsibilities.  It's there in the oaths your military still swears...West Point grads "get it", or they don't graduate.

Anyway, there's another much simpler reason -- "Every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration. Constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought."--MC Smith

Or "two wrongs don't make a right".

 

And again with the "Leave Britney alone!" argument. It sucks when people lose their jobs but this isn't happening because someone posted a mean spirtited tirade on a web forum, just because you wish for something doesn't make it so. The reality here is that the company they worked for produced a product not enough people wanted. You might as well call the people that decided not to buy the game and support these poor workers, mean spirited assholes as well.

This entire article feels like a hamfisted and disingenuous strawman argument that claims that anyone with a negative opinion of a game is just a dirty hater who only complain about a games faults because they want to watch it fail for their own malicious pleasure. Which is a bullshit and unfair argument. They might as well just state that whenever someone is mean on the inernet, God kills a kitten.

For example, I was very hyped about SWTOR before release (probably annoyingly so) but when open beta came and I got to get a first hand look at it, I realized to my dissapointment that the game had some serious issues. Issues which I voiced on these forums, which got me labeled as a troll by the more rabbid of SWTOR fans who could not stand the idea that anyone could see anything wrong about their chosen messiah. Fast forward to seven months later, and the game has hemmoraged subscribers and Bioware has had to lay off quite a few employees and are taking the game free to play.

Am I delighted by this? Am I running around screaming "HA HA HA!! You FAIL!! Suck it Ex-Bioware employees!!"? No I'm not. I'm still deeply dissapointed that a game I had great hopes for didn't live up to my expectations, and apperently the expectations of many others.

I will admit however to a bit of mischeavous glee at the annoyance of some of the more obnoxious fans that told me my opinion a few months back was full of shit. Which is NOT the same thing as saying "LOL! Fuck you Bioware guys who are out of a job! Nya nya, nya nya nya." Though it seems like the article writers and people like Mike Bitton want to paint us so. (Really Mr Bitton, calling people schadenfreudes is just a better educated way of calling people haters.)

I feel the biggest failing of this article (and your counter arguments ) is that it ignores the reasons the current MMO industry is in the shape it is, and that overly hyping a game (usually by its fan base) thereby giving people unrealisitc expectations of said game can have as much of a negative impact. And instead just tries to shame those they feel don't follow the advice from Bill & Ted which is "Be excellent to each other, and party on dudes."

Originally posted by jerlot65

Originally posted by SuprGamerX

 

But even with higher standards then just turining a profit, maybe people like you just dont realize that MMO's no longer are a good market to be in.  In my eyes, MMO's will have to go back to being a niche product, before we see any good ones again.

While I don't bear personal malice to the employees of any MMO that isn't successful, and as victim of multiple layoffs during my life (nature of software development unfortunately) I know how much it sucks to lose your job even when the product/companies failure was through no fault of your own.

I currently work for a major finanical institution, the kind of place where people wish your CEO was dead and would cheer if the company came crashing to the ground. Heck, I don't even tell people where I work, and when I do almost see a flash of anger in their eyes sometimes.

Yet despite all that, I root against almost all MMO releases these days, because as others have said in this forum, there's no chance for me to see new games with the kinds of design choices that I favor (because I'm niche) unless the entire industry comes crashing to the ground.

As I see it, we need to drive the mass market consumer out of the industry, returning MMORPG's to smaller funded by better crafted games that do in fact cater to the niche market.

Forget trying to make F2P games, lets make it so people have to pay 30.00 a month to support them and keep them going.

Again, none of this can happen as long as the market continues to thrive under the current design/payment model, so unfortunately I'll have to continue to crusade against them.

No apologies however.... I want what I want......

Originally posted by Tardcore

"Be excellent to each other, and party on dudes."

Almost.

"Just be civil to each other.  And that includes the guys at UnrelentingEvilVillainGameCorpCo too."

It's like fingering the dike; the internet is on the verge of losing whatever's left of civil conversation, to the lifetime achievement award trolls and the flaming complaints of uncontrolled rage.  To "forum PvP har, this be fun mateys."

And gamers (at least judging by this window into gamers) are the worst-behaved they have ever been.  We used to blame that on "b.net kids", but clearly, as the entire first generation of MMO fans is also a major part of the growing adversarial relationship between producers and consumers.

Saddest thing is, old farts are the ones that should be "old enough to know better".

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Tardcore

"Be excellent to each other, and party on dudes."

Almost.

"Just be civil to each other.  And that includes the guys at UnrelentingEvilVillainGameCorpCo too."

It's like fingering the dike; the internet is on the verge of losing whatever's left of civil conversation, to the lifetime achievement award trolls and the flaming complaints of uncontrolled rage.  To "forum PvP har, this be fun mateys."

And gamers (at least judging by this window into gamers) are the worst-behaved they have ever been.  We used to blame that on "b.net kids", but clearly, as the entire first generation of MMO fans is also a major part of the growing adversarial relationship between producers and consumers.

Saddest thing is, old farts are the ones that should be "old enough to know better".

I'm all for civility, I just disagree that disliking a company one feels has poor products and sharing that opionion is being unfairly uncivil the the people that work there. Now I agree that a post such as "Ha ha ha!! I'm glad you fuckers got fired, serves you right!" certainly is being uncivil and I personally feel people who make posts of that sort are dickheads. (But agian I stress that these people have not lost their jobs due to any ill will from forum dwellers, but becuse their company made an inferior product, and/or bad business decisions.)

However unless they actually violate the forums terms of service, they have the right to present themselves in whatever manner they so choose. We can make the choice to argue with, or ignore them, but we don't have the right to demand they behave in the manner we see fit.

As to the current state of the incivility of internet culture, I've been seeing this kind of behavior since the days of usenet. I don't really think people have changed just that there are quite a bit more of us connected these days.

As to the rise of the level of general angst on these forums, it sems to have grown lock step with the rise of the state of shrill hysteria from fans of games that tout every new game as the "Chosen One" that will finally free them from the stagnant void of MMOdom and anyone who disagrees is dicredited as a moron. It seems the state of incvility we find ourselves in here is very much a two way street. Something I notice this article fails to address.

Originally posted by Tardcore

However unless they actually violate the forums terms of service, they have the right to present themselves in whatever manner they so choose.

Rights again?

Ok, this conversation's on recycle; back to you, rest of forum, awaaaaaay.

I would never want a game to fail if i dislike it. Why would i wish for people to lose jobs only because i dislike it? i have to be a very selfish and self centered and frankly a huge douche bag to even want somethign like that to happen.

I simply move on to something i enjoy.

I say Hate and willing failure is an important part of consumerism. This is not like a democracy, where everyone (theoritically) gets one vote every 4 years or so, this is a situation where you get to vote every time you buy and even worse, every time you "try".

by being part of a trial you participate in an illusion of popularity that can be sean as a selling argument: look, people are enjoying our game/movie/music, number of downloads, number of subscripiton, number of sales... those are the numbers that decide what will be done and probably done again, in a slightly better or much worse way.

Think of the movie industry, they make you curious about a movie so you go to the theater. If the movie is horrible, they still have your money don't they? so why bother make it good, just make a good trailer.

When hateful critics voice their opinions people think a little more before going to the theater. why do you think movie theaters open the same movie in 6 rooms at a time? so that as many people can see it fast before the critics and the word of mouth change the people's mind!

In gaming, when you see something that has been done 10 times before and you know it can never be done well, warning people before they pay anything is the only way, becaus they can't vote against it in 4 years, the devs and EA have their money now and they won't give it back. what about the next game? nobody warns anyone its a recipe for disaster and everybody tries it again.

So no matter the reason, if you think it will suck, say it. If you hate a game because your gradeschool bully plays it and you ahte him, then hate it and say it. bad communities are as bad as bad games. Maybe the studios will put more thoughts in doing something new instead of just repeating the lucrative errors and the popular failures of the past.