Originally posted by Fearum I think people are more like sheep than we like to think. Though if you let others decide if a game is fun or not for you from forums without trying it for yourself than thats pretty stupid.
You'd be surprised. The vocal minority snowball into the majority,
Talk about an issue long enough, and word gets around .. fast.
The bad part is it doesn't matter if it's true or not.
Welcome to American politics!
I swear the majority of both fanboys and trolls on this site and the entire internet are Americans... we learn so well from our leaders...
The vocal minority doesnt have any effect on the game....
What they do affect is marketting, as they represent a very strong word of mouth. Fanboys/Haters are both more than willing to tell everyone they know., and some that they do not, all about the game. This represents a strong word of mouth to either check out the game, or to pass on it. This does have an effect on how many people will try the game.
This is particulaly effective with P2P, as they get your money up front. If you can be convinced to pay up front, then it doesnt matter if the game isnt any good, you have already paid. It is less effective with F2P, as there is a lower barrier to entry, and you dont give them any money until they have proven themselves.
Expect to see less effect of the vocal minority (either way) with the trend towards F2P games.
I dont know if that is true. It may be true for kids, which have a lot of time at their disposal. For someone working, the money investment isnt that much compared to the time investment a usual mmo comes with. I just check out games, when i am interested before hand. At least nowadays. So the simple word of mouth effect me with F2P as much as with B2P or P2P.
I dont care much of the money i may lose, but i care a lot of the time wasted. And hell.. we waste a lot of time in mmos.
It's less true for kids, more true for adults. At the rate these games come out, $60 a pop is a lot of money. Now, before the "if you're poor maybe you need a better job" and "$60 is nothing to me" posts come out, the reason it is a lot of money is because of the current gamble. There's no guarantee the game will be good or that a person will get more than their personal bar of enjoyment. It's not about people lacking the money or being frugal with their money, it's about people being prudent with how they spend it.
Removing both the monetary barrier to entry and the brick & mortar from the equation makes it a lot easier for people to check something out for themselves and thus see what the game or issues really are.
One thing to remember is that the impact created by the vocal minority is that less informed people are given the illusion that the issue they are rallying about is a greater issue than it may be. That illusion can be that the game is better or worse than it really is. The average gamer doesn't haunt forums, IRC and other MMO enthusiast channels for the latest gaming news on a daily basis. Most of them probably even avoid them. So the news that reaches them is whatever news is loud enough to extend outside of the core circles.
You know what though, in my case, unless I have some skin in the game (i.e. I've invested 60 bucks) I just can't seem to take the game seriously. In almost every F2P I've tried, I just don't really give them a good try since I didn't pay anything.
A tale of two games.
STO - Just recently downloaded the game, started the tutorial, and before I even got to the end of it stopped playing. (did the same for Battlestar Galactica). Don't know if it was the annoyance of having to learn new interfaces, or game mechanics, but I just didn't bother.
TSW - Bought the boxed version, logged in, was all sorts of bewildered by the game start, the skill wheel, ect, yet because I spent the money I forced myself through it and now enjoy the game.
I'm probably just the odd duck this way, but I've got to be pushed past the learning curve in most titles to ever really enjoy them, and spending money on them up front has been the most effective for me.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
On the surface I'd agree with SupermanOX but then I wonder, many people actually let themselves be convinced by others that they aren't having fun, just because the others say they shouldn't be.
It's not that people are being convinced they aren't having fun, it's that they are drawing the conclusion that they will or won't have fun based on the information they are receiving that they perceive to be valid or correct.
Vocal minority can work both ways, good or bad. When it works in a temporarily positive way for the game is when it creates hype, thus driving up interest and, in turn, subs. Unfortunately, this often has an adverse effect later on when inflated expectations come face to face with reality. A great example is ArcheAge and its cult following. I use ArcheAge as an example because most of its evangelists are hyped and enthusiastic in their posts but, more importantly, position the game as the Next Big Thing (positive) and not necessary the [InsertMMO] Killer (negative). Since the average gamer doesn't know ArcheAge from a hole in the wall, the news that reaches out of the spheres of enthusiasts is that it's great, filled with options, and is fun to play. Without hearing news to the contrary the assumption is that Arche Age is a great game. The reality is that we really have no flippin' clue how it will work when altered for the NA/EU aaudience, how NA/EU players will take to it, or even IF it will work and IF it will get here. Vocal minority could possibly make it a hit in public perception in certain circles even before it shows up on this side of the globe. This creates awareness which fuels hype and the snowball continues.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by jusomdude I think they already made a hefty profit off D3 at 600 million raked in so far not counting whatever they've made off RMAH. Can't imagine the development cost was that much.
That doesn't prove that the game is good or bad. That just proves that people bought the game. That doesn't show anything about their experiences with the game or if they feel they got what they wanted, what they expected, etc. You could go by sales increases or decreases over the time period that it's been for sale, but then you'd also have to know other figures like total number of people who will ever consider buying it. Otherwise you don't know what percent of interested parties acted upon that interest and if those sales are growing or slowing because of opinion/reaction to the game or just being closer to the ending eventual number of sales.
I've always hated the term "Vocal Minority" because of how Blizzard used it. Basically, they used it as a way to dismiss opinions they didn't like. Instead of answering the question asked, proving a person's statement wrong, or clearing up wrong information on a subject, they would just say "but those people are the vocal minority" and move on. It was just a way to dodge telling customers the answer/truth and to discredit people with a problem with their game/support. I feel like Blizzard, as well as most MMO makers, have zero customer support/relationship training. They handle things so poorly.
I also think the term itself is incorrect in the context they use it. They call the people complaining on the forums the vocal minority because of how it compares to the entire amount of people with accounts. Even if the majority of people who actually post agree, they call them the vocal minority. I say that's incorrect because they assume the people who don't post are happy/have no problems with the game. You can't say they are happy or unhappy if they don't tell you. So again, they skew the referrence to how they'd like it whether it's right or wrong.
[edit] Also, was 600 million a typo or correct? Link? [/edit]
Blizzard claims to have sold 10 million copies in 2 weeks at $60 a pop. I don't know if this includes the WoW free copies. If 10,000 people are complaining, but 5,000,000 are playing regularly, I can't blame Blizzard for dismissing the 10,000, even if they all leave. Devs has other sources for complaints besides their forum...their ingame and phone support systems, crash reports, play styles, content used and monitoring ingame channels. While dissing 10,000 people might not seem like a good strategy, you can't please 100% of the people and they are still going strong. Of all the MMOs out there, I think Blizzard CS is the best and most open reguarding upcoming changes (not saying much as most MMOs CS is horrible).
As for the vocal minority effecting games, I do believe it had a serious impact on SW:Tor but few other games. Tor could of been a great game if people accepted it for what it was instead of trying to make it out to be SW:G v2 or the next WoW killer.
Vocal minority, especially on this site, has hated WoW for years and years and years.
Yet WoW is still 9+ million strong.
Is it the work of the vocal minority that WoW is in some what of a decline?
Nope.
Age, time, alienation of original core playerbase, increase in quality and quantity of competing products, etc.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that all MMO decline is due to vocal minority. The OP is also talking about new games and the impact at release, not 8 years in.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Game Devs, like most of the entertainment industry, are in general Liberals. Liberals are the ones that made it so that the vocal minority has more rights that the masses. So i would say, the vocal minority has a lot more pull than people would believe.
I'm wondering how much of an impact the vocal minority has on the success of new games.
Seems like when the hate ball starts rolling there's no stopping it. I think it had less of an effect on earlier games because not as many people visited social sites and forums.
If the vocal minority starts the hate train, does that mean a game is doomed to fail?
I think the fanboys are more hazardous to any game than the haters. No matter how flawed the game is, and no matter how big shortcomings it has, the fans trumpet around how the game is perfect in every way.
If you make the mistake in believing them, you are guaranteed to get dissapointed when the game launches since then the talk is done and the game has to back it up with deeds when it's blind hype pulled out of arse, which obviously fails at the moment of launch. No game is perfect, ever.
Tbh I think TOR suffered more from fans than it did from haters. There was so many people believing imaginary things about the game, and they got dissapointed in the live game. Many other games have gone the same path, which is why I have had very low expectations towards mmorpgs for some years now, at least I dont get hyped up and dissapointed, more often slighty surprised. I like it that way.
Most annoying are the hardcore fans (GW2 suffering a lot from this), those are the ones that actually stalls bug hunting, performance fixes, camera fixes and all that stuff that is not opinion based at all. I mean how can you fix something when there's NOTHING WRONG in the game? Those same fools ofcourse also attacks fine suggestions about the gameplay, world, mechanics and so on. Heck, we wont need official expansion packs from Anet in the future since the game is PERFECT, when something is perfect it needs nothing added, everything is already there! Whee! Gotta love hc-fans.
Originally posted by Aramath Game Devs, like most of the entertainment industry, are in general Liberals. Liberals are the ones that made it so that the vocal minority has more rights that the masses. So i would say, the vocal minority has a lot more pull than people would believe.
I do agree that after launch, the vocal minority is responsible for ruining many games and getting classes abilities neutered and "standardized". This has led some Devs to make bland games, not risking making special unique classes with unusual abilities as they will either be demonized or FOTM.
When looking at a new game, I try look at the ratio of Fanbois to haters not usually what specifically they say.
Every game I have seen suffer from low player numbers has done so because of flaws in the game, not from any amount of noise from MMO sites. While it may seem like the vocal minority has a receptive audience here, I can assure you there are many more players that don't listen to them than there are who do. While it's annoying trollers and haters have little impact on a game's fortune. It is truely an MMO developers battle to lose.
Auto Assault died because it was a buggy mess where major features were unplayable or not functioning. The hate had little to do with it.
Tabula Rasa died because they changed endgame developement goals every 3 months.
Tor pop crashed because playing it was too boring.
Vanguard has a low pop because... Well, let's just say that SOE has the reverse of the Midas Touch.
The vocal minority is the sort of chatter that pools around any game. Occasionally they may actually hit on a feature that is actually broken or at fault but for the most part they are safely ignored in favour of better thought out criticism.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy. ______________________________ "This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
I'm wondering how much of an impact the vocal minority has on the success of new games.
*Warning: The following is purely opinion, unedited, and not intended to pick a fight with anyone.
It seems to depend on WoW General being successfully unleashed on the rest of the internet, or not.
On this particular site, sandbox fans have always been a powerful rhetorical force. However, not all doom criers are equally adept at stirring them up.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Originally posted by zymurgeist Most people who play games don't read the forums at all. So no the vocal minority is not much of a factor. A big factor is what your friends, if you have any, play.
I agree. This is a tempest in a teapot.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
I'm wondering how much of an impact the vocal minority has on the success of new games.
Seems like when the hate ball starts rolling there's no stopping it. I think it had less of an effect on earlier games because not as many people visited social sites and forums.
If the vocal minority starts the hate train, does that mean a game is doomed to fail?
Counter example .. Diabo 3.
Sold 10M copies, fastest selling PC games ... lots of hate .. impact on sales .. very little. Fun game i may add.
Originally posted by zymurgeist Most people who play games don't read the forums at all. So no the vocal minority is not much of a factor. A big factor is what your friends, if you have any, play.
But word trickles around - memes get rolling, reviewers that people (or their friends) do listen to take sides on issues. The vocal minority are like the first pebbles of an avalanche - they just aren't really all that impressive on their own, but they get things going.
The only question is how much can those first pebbles be managed and made to slide the way a publisher wants them to slide. There have certainly been a lot of stories of attempted manipulation of social networks, but it's less clear how many of those attempts are actually successful at manipulating opinion in the desired direction vs how they were going to slide anyway.
Originally posted by jusomdude I think they already made a hefty profit off D3 at 600 million raked in so far not counting whatever they've made off RMAH. Can't imagine the development cost was that much.
That doesn't prove that the game is good or bad. That just proves that people bought the game. That doesn't show anything about their experiences with the game or if they feel they got what they wanted, what they expected, etc. You could go by sales increases or decreases over the time period that it's been for sale, but then you'd also have to know other figures like total number of people who will ever consider buying it. Otherwise you don't know what percent of interested parties acted upon that interest and if those sales are growing or slowing because of opinion/reaction to the game or just being closer to the ending eventual number of sales.
I've always hated the term "Vocal Minority" because of how Blizzard used it. Basically, they used it as a way to dismiss opinions they didn't like. Instead of answering the question asked, proving a person's statement wrong, or clearing up wrong information on a subject, they would just say "but those people are the vocal minority" and move on. It was just a way to dodge telling customers the answer/truth and to discredit people with a problem with their game/support. I feel like Blizzard, as well as most MMO makers, have zero customer support/relationship training. They handle things so poorly.
I also think the term itself is incorrect in the context they use it. They call the people complaining on the forums the vocal minority because of how it compares to the entire amount of people with accounts. Even if the majority of people who actually post agree, they call them the vocal minority. I say that's incorrect because they assume the people who don't post are happy/have no problems with the game. You can't say they are happy or unhappy if they don't tell you. So again, they skew the referrence to how they'd like it whether it's right or wrong.
[edit] Also, was 600 million a typo or correct? Link? [/edit]
Blizzard claims to have sold 10 million copies in 2 weeks at $60 a pop. I don't know if this includes the WoW free copies. If 10,000 people are complaining, but 5,000,000 are playing regularly, I can't blame Blizzard for dismissing the 10,000, even if they all leave. Devs has other sources for complaints besides their forum...their ingame and phone support systems, crash reports, play styles, content used and monitoring ingame channels. While dissing 10,000 people might not seem like a good strategy, you can't please 100% of the people and they are still going strong. Of all the MMOs out there, I think Blizzard CS is the best and most open reguarding upcoming changes (not saying much as most MMOs CS is horrible).
As for the vocal minority effecting games, I do believe it had a serious impact on SW:Tor but few other games. Tor could of been a great game if people accepted it for what it was instead of trying to make it out to be SW:G v2 or the next WoW killer.
Interesting on the money thing, but as I said, two weeks does not tell the story. Good or bad.
If they don't post on the forums, why would they be more inclined to email or call? Also, you should never "dismiss" any customer. Even if you don't change the game for them/to suit them, you should still just explain why so they understand. In a good MMO, that 10,000 people also can translate into a lot of money or future customers. Piss them off and they may end up costing you more than you imagine. I'm not saying to keep everyone happy. That's impossible. But, you should never ignore or dismiss anyone or their perceived problem even if it's not real and only a misunderstanding by the customer. Blizzard has put itself on a pedastal that keeps rising. Eventually, the air will get too thin and they will fall.
Blizzard claims to have sold 10 million copies in 2 weeks at $60 a pop. I don't know if this includes the WoW free copies. If 10,000 people are complaining, but 5,000,000 are playing regularly, I can't blame Blizzard for dismissing the 10,000, even if they all leave. Devs has other sources for complaints besides their forum...their ingame and phone support systems, crash reports, play styles, content used and monitoring ingame channels. While dissing 10,000 people might not seem like a good strategy, you can't please 100% of the people and they are still going strong. Of all the MMOs out there, I think Blizzard CS is the best and most open reguarding upcoming changes (not saying much as most MMOs CS is horrible).
As for the vocal minority effecting games, I do believe it had a serious impact on SW:Tor but few other games. Tor could of been a great game if people accepted it for what it was instead of trying to make it out to be SW:G v2 or the next WoW killer.
The numbers are in their financial reports, so must be accurate. To clarify ...
total number sold INCLUDING wow annual pass: 10M
wow annual pass:1.2M
Thus, they sold, EXCLUDING annual pass: 8.8M. This include bother standard & CE. So at least $60 a pop. That is a minimum, excluding however they do the WOW accounting, $528M, more than half a BILLION dollars. They achieve this in LESS THAN 3 months.
If this is not a huge business success, i do not know what is. They beat every single movies this summer except Avenger and Dark Knight Rises.
The vocal mionority are a plague. They seep into the conciousness of everyone, nit-picking little things that most people wouldn't give a damn about. But they are relentless, and soon, the negativity has steamrolled to the point that the majority are now unhappy. Then the mionory has become the majority and the game dies from there.
The best way to enjoy your game is to stay away from the forums. Or at least avoid the negative hate if you can.
You can't avoid forums when you play a game. I use to avoid them like the plague many years ago. but someone is always in general chat spewing some information about how "they're going to nerf class x! get to the forums!!!111
You become morbidly curious and start to visit to watch the forums each day before you play. it's like a drug watching people slug it out debating. your an idiot if you jump to try and be the voice of reason. you get mowed down for bad grammar and various reasons they use to discredit you and flame you.
It's fancinating to watch though if you have the stomach.
The vocal mionority are a plague. They seep into the conciousness of everyone, nit-picking little things that most people wouldn't give a damn about. But they are relentless, and soon, the negativity has steamrolled to the point that the majority are now unhappy. Then the mionory has become the majority and the game dies from there.
The best way to enjoy your game is to stay away from the forums. Or at least avoid the negative hate if you can.
Nah ...
you enjoy the forums debates, and do not get affected by the poision of the negative hate. Any good game has haters. I was never unhappy just because some hate the games i enjoy.
The vocal mionority are a plague. They seep into the conciousness of everyone, nit-picking little things that most people wouldn't give a damn about. But they are relentless, and soon, the negativity has steamrolled to the point that the majority are now unhappy. Then the mionory has become the majority and the game dies from there.
The best way to enjoy your game is to stay away from the forums. Or at least avoid the negative hate if you can.
Nah ...
you enjoy the forums debates, and do not get affected by the poision of the negative hate. Any good game has haters. I was never unhappy just because some hate the games i enjoy.
There are a lot of lemmings out there that think there is something wrong with them if they like something that other's seems to hate. So they give up on the thing they WERE enjoying, so they can be like the rest of the gang...
The vocal mionority are a plague. They seep into the conciousness of everyone, nit-picking little things that most people wouldn't give a damn about. But they are relentless, and soon, the negativity has steamrolled to the point that the majority are now unhappy. Then the mionory has become the majority and the game dies from there.
The best way to enjoy your game is to stay away from the forums. Or at least avoid the negative hate if you can.
Nah ...
you enjoy the forums debates, and do not get affected by the poision of the negative hate. Any good game has haters. I was never unhappy just because some hate the games i enjoy.
There are a lot of lemmings out there that think there is something wrong with them if they like something that other's seems to hate. So they give up on the thing they WERE enjoying, so they can be like the rest of the gang...
That's an interesting application of the idea of social pressure and the self-serving bias. It's a pretty big influence that you are attributing to forum haters though don't you think? I mean, what is the visibility of the forums and articles as consumed by average players?
I could see it working on a cursory level, basically as an anti-advertising first glance sort of thing, but even then how many people are we talking about?
The reverse means that forums must be censored and opinion stifled, and in that case who decides what is acceptable?
I'll take forums full of the vocal minority, who usually have a point and are willing to discuss it, over a forum of trolls, meme repeaters, posters that think insults win discussions, and posters who start arguements just to get threads locked.
In short, most official game forums are not moderated well or evenly.
There is no way to measure the term "vocal minority" not everyone has the same personality. some people don't visit forums ever. some people don't feel its worth it to complain about things they don't like.
Heres food for thought. More people have quit WoW than are currently playing it. So does that mean that anyone still playing WoW is the minority and should not be listened to by Blizzard? And that any posts on their forum by subscribers are the vocal minority?
The vocal mionority are a plague. They seep into the conciousness of everyone, nit-picking little things that most people wouldn't give a damn about. But they are relentless, and soon, the negativity has steamrolled to the point that the majority are now unhappy. Then the mionory has become the majority and the game dies from there.
The best way to enjoy your game is to stay away from the forums. Or at least avoid the negative hate if you can.
Nah ...
you enjoy the forums debates, and do not get affected by the poision of the negative hate. Any good game has haters. I was never unhappy just because some hate the games i enjoy.
There are a lot of lemmings out there that think there is something wrong with them if they like something that other's seems to hate. So they give up on the thing they WERE enjoying, so they can be like the rest of the gang...
And there are also those who think they have to be different from everyone else.
I LIKE the Avengers ... i like it not because millions and millions other do ... just because it is a kick-ass super hero movie. And if that does not make me different and "artsy", i really don't care.
Ditto i like WOW (also less so now after so many years). I also like D3. There are haters for everything. If you listen to them, there is nothing to like, and no entertainment.
Comments
Welcome to American politics!
I swear the majority of both fanboys and trolls on this site and the entire internet are Americans... we learn so well from our leaders...
Yay being 'Merican!
You know what though, in my case, unless I have some skin in the game (i.e. I've invested 60 bucks) I just can't seem to take the game seriously. In almost every F2P I've tried, I just don't really give them a good try since I didn't pay anything.
A tale of two games.
STO - Just recently downloaded the game, started the tutorial, and before I even got to the end of it stopped playing. (did the same for Battlestar Galactica). Don't know if it was the annoyance of having to learn new interfaces, or game mechanics, but I just didn't bother.
TSW - Bought the boxed version, logged in, was all sorts of bewildered by the game start, the skill wheel, ect, yet because I spent the money I forced myself through it and now enjoy the game.
I'm probably just the odd duck this way, but I've got to be pushed past the learning curve in most titles to ever really enjoy them, and spending money on them up front has been the most effective for me.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
It's not that people are being convinced they aren't having fun, it's that they are drawing the conclusion that they will or won't have fun based on the information they are receiving that they perceive to be valid or correct.
Vocal minority can work both ways, good or bad. When it works in a temporarily positive way for the game is when it creates hype, thus driving up interest and, in turn, subs. Unfortunately, this often has an adverse effect later on when inflated expectations come face to face with reality. A great example is ArcheAge and its cult following. I use ArcheAge as an example because most of its evangelists are hyped and enthusiastic in their posts but, more importantly, position the game as the Next Big Thing (positive) and not necessary the [InsertMMO] Killer (negative). Since the average gamer doesn't know ArcheAge from a hole in the wall, the news that reaches out of the spheres of enthusiasts is that it's great, filled with options, and is fun to play. Without hearing news to the contrary the assumption is that Arche Age is a great game. The reality is that we really have no flippin' clue how it will work when altered for the NA/EU aaudience, how NA/EU players will take to it, or even IF it will work and IF it will get here. Vocal minority could possibly make it a hit in public perception in certain circles even before it shows up on this side of the globe. This creates awareness which fuels hype and the snowball continues.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Blizzard claims to have sold 10 million copies in 2 weeks at $60 a pop. I don't know if this includes the WoW free copies. If 10,000 people are complaining, but 5,000,000 are playing regularly, I can't blame Blizzard for dismissing the 10,000, even if they all leave. Devs has other sources for complaints besides their forum...their ingame and phone support systems, crash reports, play styles, content used and monitoring ingame channels. While dissing 10,000 people might not seem like a good strategy, you can't please 100% of the people and they are still going strong. Of all the MMOs out there, I think Blizzard CS is the best and most open reguarding upcoming changes (not saying much as most MMOs CS is horrible).
As for the vocal minority effecting games, I do believe it had a serious impact on SW:Tor but few other games. Tor could of been a great game if people accepted it for what it was instead of trying to make it out to be SW:G v2 or the next WoW killer.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that all MMO decline is due to vocal minority.
The OP is also talking about new games and the impact at release, not 8 years in.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I think the fanboys are more hazardous to any game than the haters. No matter how flawed the game is, and no matter how big shortcomings it has, the fans trumpet around how the game is perfect in every way.
If you make the mistake in believing them, you are guaranteed to get dissapointed when the game launches since then the talk is done and the game has to back it up with deeds when it's blind hype pulled out of arse, which obviously fails at the moment of launch. No game is perfect, ever.
Tbh I think TOR suffered more from fans than it did from haters. There was so many people believing imaginary things about the game, and they got dissapointed in the live game. Many other games have gone the same path, which is why I have had very low expectations towards mmorpgs for some years now, at least I dont get hyped up and dissapointed, more often slighty surprised. I like it that way.
Most annoying are the hardcore fans (GW2 suffering a lot from this), those are the ones that actually stalls bug hunting, performance fixes, camera fixes and all that stuff that is not opinion based at all. I mean how can you fix something when there's NOTHING WRONG in the game? Those same fools ofcourse also attacks fine suggestions about the gameplay, world, mechanics and so on. Heck, we wont need official expansion packs from Anet in the future since the game is PERFECT, when something is perfect it needs nothing added, everything is already there! Whee! Gotta love hc-fans.
I do agree that after launch, the vocal minority is responsible for ruining many games and getting classes abilities neutered and "standardized". This has led some Devs to make bland games, not risking making special unique classes with unusual abilities as they will either be demonized or FOTM.
When looking at a new game, I try look at the ratio of Fanbois to haters not usually what specifically they say.
Every game I have seen suffer from low player numbers has done so because of flaws in the game, not from any amount of noise from MMO sites. While it may seem like the vocal minority has a receptive audience here, I can assure you there are many more players that don't listen to them than there are who do. While it's annoying trollers and haters have little impact on a game's fortune. It is truely an MMO developers battle to lose.
Auto Assault died because it was a buggy mess where major features were unplayable or not functioning. The hate had little to do with it.
Tabula Rasa died because they changed endgame developement goals every 3 months.
Tor pop crashed because playing it was too boring.
Vanguard has a low pop because... Well, let's just say that SOE has the reverse of the Midas Touch.
The vocal minority is the sort of chatter that pools around any game. Occasionally they may actually hit on a feature that is actually broken or at fault but for the most part they are safely ignored in favour of better thought out criticism.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy.
______________________________
"This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
*Warning: The following is purely opinion, unedited, and not intended to pick a fight with anyone.
It seems to depend on WoW General being successfully unleashed on the rest of the internet, or not.
On this particular site, sandbox fans have always been a powerful rhetorical force. However, not all doom criers are equally adept at stirring them up.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I agree. This is a tempest in a teapot.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Vocal minority squad leader here.
Yer all sheep.
Except for you guys.
No one has yet offered to pay me for my silence. The masses are under my control.
Pay me.
And my mini.
Once upon a time....
Counter example .. Diabo 3.
Sold 10M copies, fastest selling PC games ... lots of hate .. impact on sales .. very little. Fun game i may add.
But word trickles around - memes get rolling, reviewers that people (or their friends) do listen to take sides on issues. The vocal minority are like the first pebbles of an avalanche - they just aren't really all that impressive on their own, but they get things going.
The only question is how much can those first pebbles be managed and made to slide the way a publisher wants them to slide. There have certainly been a lot of stories of attempted manipulation of social networks, but it's less clear how many of those attempts are actually successful at manipulating opinion in the desired direction vs how they were going to slide anyway.
Interesting on the money thing, but as I said, two weeks does not tell the story. Good or bad.
If they don't post on the forums, why would they be more inclined to email or call? Also, you should never "dismiss" any customer. Even if you don't change the game for them/to suit them, you should still just explain why so they understand. In a good MMO, that 10,000 people also can translate into a lot of money or future customers. Piss them off and they may end up costing you more than you imagine. I'm not saying to keep everyone happy. That's impossible. But, you should never ignore or dismiss anyone or their perceived problem even if it's not real and only a misunderstanding by the customer. Blizzard has put itself on a pedastal that keeps rising. Eventually, the air will get too thin and they will fall.
The numbers are in their financial reports, so must be accurate. To clarify ...
total number sold INCLUDING wow annual pass: 10M
wow annual pass:1.2M
Thus, they sold, EXCLUDING annual pass: 8.8M. This include bother standard & CE. So at least $60 a pop. That is a minimum, excluding however they do the WOW accounting, $528M, more than half a BILLION dollars. They achieve this in LESS THAN 3 months.
If this is not a huge business success, i do not know what is. They beat every single movies this summer except Avenger and Dark Knight Rises.
The vocal mionority are a plague. They seep into the conciousness of everyone, nit-picking little things that most people wouldn't give a damn about. But they are relentless, and soon, the negativity has steamrolled to the point that the majority are now unhappy. Then the mionory has become the majority and the game dies from there.
The best way to enjoy your game is to stay away from the forums. Or at least avoid the negative hate if you can.
You can't avoid forums when you play a game. I use to avoid them like the plague many years ago. but someone is always in general chat spewing some information about how "they're going to nerf class x! get to the forums!!!111
You become morbidly curious and start to visit to watch the forums each day before you play. it's like a drug watching people slug it out debating. your an idiot if you jump to try and be the voice of reason. you get mowed down for bad grammar and various reasons they use to discredit you and flame you.
It's fancinating to watch though if you have the stomach.
Nah ...
you enjoy the forums debates, and do not get affected by the poision of the negative hate. Any good game has haters. I was never unhappy just because some hate the games i enjoy.
There are a lot of lemmings out there that think there is something wrong with them if they like something that other's seems to hate. So they give up on the thing they WERE enjoying, so they can be like the rest of the gang...
That's an interesting application of the idea of social pressure and the self-serving bias. It's a pretty big influence that you are attributing to forum haters though don't you think? I mean, what is the visibility of the forums and articles as consumed by average players?
I could see it working on a cursory level, basically as an anti-advertising first glance sort of thing, but even then how many people are we talking about?
The reverse means that forums must be censored and opinion stifled, and in that case who decides what is acceptable?
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
I'll take forums full of the vocal minority, who usually have a point and are willing to discuss it, over a forum of trolls, meme repeaters, posters that think insults win discussions, and posters who start arguements just to get threads locked.
In short, most official game forums are not moderated well or evenly.
There is no way to measure the term "vocal minority" not everyone has the same personality. some people don't visit forums ever. some people don't feel its worth it to complain about things they don't like.
Heres food for thought. More people have quit WoW than are currently playing it. So does that mean that anyone still playing WoW is the minority and should not be listened to by Blizzard? And that any posts on their forum by subscribers are the vocal minority?
And there are also those who think they have to be different from everyone else.
I LIKE the Avengers ... i like it not because millions and millions other do ... just because it is a kick-ass super hero movie. And if that does not make me different and "artsy", i really don't care.
Ditto i like WOW (also less so now after so many years). I also like D3. There are haters for everything. If you listen to them, there is nothing to like, and no entertainment.