So you're saying you want a company who's game doesn't have a high population to come out and say "Hey we don't have a high population so don't try us, try that other game over there". Yes that seems like an intelligent move. There's tons of reasons to not tell people how good or bad their game is doing, and unless you are the huge game on the block there's no reasons to tell them the actual numbers.
Giving out that data will only hurt the game because just like this article writer, people go "Oh there aren't many people in that game world so I won't even try it." With that kind of ridiculously false logic applied to how fun a game might be, releasing numbers just drives those types of players away.
And one other point, contrary to your "they never tell us which items are being bought" I believe some item mall games, and some working on being item mall games, are doing a favorites section where the most bought items go. This allows players to click one tab and see the items everyone uses and allows them to buy the same without thinking about it. This actually helps the item mall in my mind since it helps funnel players into the thought of: Everyone else is using this item, clearly I must need it too.
In this most recent column, Richard Aioshi tackles the questions of developers insist on providing players with virtually meaningless player number statistics rather than giving them something useful. We've all seen at least some of the huge registered account numbers that various free to play games have racked up. In my case, I know I've seen 50 million and more. Maybe even 100 million and more. I don't really remember. The primary reason such figures don't stick in my mind is that they really aren't very meaningful. The total number of accounts created - ever - isn't much help when the piece of information that most interests me is a game's current level of popularity. In that regard, what does it matter whether 100 kajillion accounts have been opened since a title launched if I jump on a server and find the world only sparsely populated? Or if I simply look and see that there are only two servers available for the entire North American market?
The whole issue of population is great but I'd push for more honesty in advertising no more advertised features not appearing in game, now finding out something doesn't work and taking it out I can understand for those who mention how "it says on the box advertised features may not be present" but to never have these features working for someone to see is just plain false advertising, there are countless games on the market that have never done what they advertised and then when the backlash starts that's when theybecome shy about numbers. Like a recent company with a recent launch who waited little more than a week to brag about having sold upwards of a million boxes and once the community saw they couldn't deliver and left in droves they refused to speak any more on the subject. I think it put's the player at a horrible disadvantage for these companies to be able to do things like this as the only reason to make a statement like this is to hope that some will say "well if that many people played it I'll give it a try to" but then we can't expect the same honesty if it will ultimately help us make an informed decision on wether we want to try a game or not when it is not doing so well. In a way I think these are things that we should expect to be able to know before we buy a game, I for one have never been influenced by a games low population what has influenced me is learning that a large part of the population to try the game didn't like it and felt ripped off.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
As I read this article, I really thought this point of view is only able to be written by an outsider of game agencies/ publishers. Why do they have to post meaningless data of registered member numbers? It is because people would only like to consume something that is popular. Why they need to give you a real data about how many people are actually inside the server, only because that you want to make a survey? Of course it is impossible. If a person really wants to know if a server is really covered with a great deal of people, he or she can personally login the game and then he will get the clear view. When I see the difference between the registered member numbers and the real gamers in the server, I don’t feel it’s only a deceitful data due to marketing manipulation, on the contrary, I will reckon that maybe there is a failure during the whole process of promotion, so the game agencies cannot seize the chance to persuade their registered members to login the game.
Comments
So you're saying you want a company who's game doesn't have a high population to come out and say "Hey we don't have a high population so don't try us, try that other game over there". Yes that seems like an intelligent move. There's tons of reasons to not tell people how good or bad their game is doing, and unless you are the huge game on the block there's no reasons to tell them the actual numbers.
Giving out that data will only hurt the game because just like this article writer, people go "Oh there aren't many people in that game world so I won't even try it." With that kind of ridiculously false logic applied to how fun a game might be, releasing numbers just drives those types of players away.
And one other point, contrary to your "they never tell us which items are being bought" I believe some item mall games, and some working on being item mall games, are doing a favorites section where the most bought items go. This allows players to click one tab and see the items everyone uses and allows them to buy the same without thinking about it. This actually helps the item mall in my mind since it helps funnel players into the thought of: Everyone else is using this item, clearly I must need it too.
Read Some Wishful Thoughts on Better Disclosure
The whole issue of population is great but I'd push for more honesty in advertising no more advertised features not appearing in game, now finding out something doesn't work and taking it out I can understand for those who mention how "it says on the box advertised features may not be present" but to never have these features working for someone to see is just plain false advertising, there are countless games on the market that have never done what they advertised and then when the backlash starts that's when theybecome shy about numbers. Like a recent company with a recent launch who waited little more than a week to brag about having sold upwards of a million boxes and once the community saw they couldn't deliver and left in droves they refused to speak any more on the subject. I think it put's the player at a horrible disadvantage for these companies to be able to do things like this as the only reason to make a statement like this is to hope that some will say "well if that many people played it I'll give it a try to" but then we can't expect the same honesty if it will ultimately help us make an informed decision on wether we want to try a game or not when it is not doing so well. In a way I think these are things that we should expect to be able to know before we buy a game, I for one have never been influenced by a games low population what has influenced me is learning that a large part of the population to try the game didn't like it and felt ripped off.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
As I read this article, I really thought this point of view is only able to be written by an outsider of game agencies/ publishers. Why do they have to post meaningless data of registered member numbers? It is because people would only like to consume something that is popular. Why they need to give you a real data about how many people are actually inside the server, only because that you want to make a survey? Of course it is impossible. If a person really wants to know if a server is really covered with a great deal of people, he or she can personally login the game and then he will get the clear view. When I see the difference between the registered member numbers and the real gamers in the server, I don’t feel it’s only a deceitful data due to marketing manipulation, on the contrary, I will reckon that maybe there is a failure during the whole process of promotion, so the game agencies cannot seize the chance to persuade their registered members to login the game.