Marketing Vs. Player Populations

strangelvbm

I've noticed this trend in a lot of games over the years and I thought I might throw this out here to start a decent debate.

Marketing is obviously important to any company looking to take a product to market, however in the MMO world there are some unique circumstances I think studios often overlook. There is a huge list of games that have doomed themselves by chasing some idea their marketing team supported, while ignoring a vast majority of their current population feedback (SWG NGE is the most glaringly obvious example of this, but it is not alone).

Lets be honest, any MMO coming to market today (or even already in the market) is trying to emulate WOW's success. There's nothing wrong with that, WOW cornered the market basically, so everyone else is fighting over scraps at this point. What the other companies continue to fail in is that they believe WOW success can be duplicated by development via market strategy. Unfortunately, this isn't what makes a great game. It isn't how WOW got so successful. WOW is popular because the player base made it so. They brought in their friends and family, they spread the word using good old fashion grass roots marketing.

I guess I'm just sick of watching companies ignore the wishes of their current subscribers, while pursuing some imaginary player base their marketing teams seem to think exist. The simple truth of the matter is that without the support of their current subscribers (you know, the schleps paying their current paycheck), that imaginary player base they think is out there DOES NOT EXIST. They should listen to the marketing team that is PAYING THEM for the privilege (aka the players).

Let the marketing teams design the advertisements, let the players design the future of the game.

(Obviously I'm not encouraging listening to every last little complaint made by a player. However most games have at least one thread in their forums that reads something like "The top ten things that need to change". THOSE threads are often important and also often ignored)

jpnz

'Too many cooks in the kitchen' comes to mind.

I suggest you actually go to these 'suggestion' forums and see the ideas coming out.

Some are contradictary, some flat out doesn't work from a technical point of view etc.

Also. what's popular to the playerbase today isn't popular tomorrow. Except developing a feature can take months of 'make -> test -> put out' so how will that work?

Once you are in the industry and know what goes into making games / features, you realize these things.