It’s Not Personal, It’s Just Business

Sellouts! Traitors! Blasphemers! These are words you’ve probably used to define developers that have turned your favorite franchises upside down for a few extra bucks. Complain all you want though, they’re not going to listen anytime soon.

The fact is these game developers, the major ones at least, are a business first and a company second, that is, their product is secondary to their profits. To them, loyalty is a one way street, and like mercenaries, they go only where the money goes.

Indeed, from a moral and ethical point of view, these companies do owe something to their fan base. Who knows where they would be if it weren’t for them.

However, from a purely business perspective, and remember we are dealing with businesses here, the developers have done nothing wrong.

Common business sense states that it is desirable to market a product to as many people as possible. Companies should not be inhibited to market to an exclusive group. They know this and deep down inside even you, the betrayed fan, knows it. In all honesty, the idea of loyalty is just one big illusion when it comes to economics.

Take, for example, Nintendo. In the previous generation of console wars, they ended up being the biggest losers, which is surprising when considering Nintendo’s history; however, when taking into fact that the Gamecube was such a narrow product and one that was also technologically inferior to its counterparts, it almost seems deserved.

In the immediate aftermath of these console wars, many came to view Nintendo as a dying and aging breed much like Ford and GM are today, at least in the console business.

What could account for one of Nintendo’s rare failures, and a major one at that? Surely, there had to be some sense of overconfidence. They hoped the name, the brand, the reputation of the company would draw consumers to their product. Nintendo, after all, has had arguably the largest cultural impact on society of any video game oriented company.

Whatever the reasons, one thing is for sure, and that is Nintendo just relied too heavily on their already established fan base. The brand carried the names of Mario, Link, and Samus, and they hoped franchises like these would prevent fans from defecting to Sony or Microsoft, and it worked to an extent.

Chances are that most dedicated or semi-dedicated Nintendo followers did purchase a Gamecube. The only problem was that it didn’t draw anyone else. The console’s flashier competitors on the other hand, managed to draw audiences that they had hoped to expand into as well as those that they, in Sony’s case, had already built.

Nintendo has proved to be a resilient company though, and in their revival process they have not only spawned a record smashing console in the Wii, but they have also developed a business model that has become the gold standard these days.

This new business model promoted making games accessible and easy to everyone. This included casual gamers, woefully bad players, hardcore gamers, and most importantly, those who had no interest in games beforehand.

The results speak for themselves. Upon its release, Nintendo’s “Wii would like to play” advertisements were almost a statement of reality, in the sense that, at the time, almost everyone seemingly did want to play it.

There can be no argument made against the fact that their new product and their new strategy paid off in amazing dividends. As a result, there is also no argument or excuse for any business to not adopt a similar model.

This isn’t to say that developers can make a completely crappy game though. Obviously there has to be some interest and some point in playing the game or else no one would buy it.

Perhaps the feelings of betrayal are just due to the disappointment that accompanies high expectations. Regardless, game developers know what’s best for them, and that is making a game that will be bought and played by the most amount of people, and if that means abandoning supporters then so be it.

In this case, people shouldn’t be angry. Being upset is understandable, but being angry implies that the company has an obligation to fulfill your needs, which they don’t. As a consumer, you hold the power of choice, that is either buy a certain product or don’t, and there are plenty of consoles and games to choose from.

So, while you’re sitting there either furiously, or at the brink of tears asking why your favorite series has been transformed, these companies are themselves asking why not? The proof is there that not only makes this a legitimate question but also a legitimate answer.