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DArtagnan
Guest
Appealing to a market is not at all enough to be successful.
It does nothing if the market is not aware of it, and that's the whole issue with capitalism.
It's about marketing, not actual value. Marketing is about perception, not reality.
If you can convince the market that they have a need for your product, then you'll profit - and that has absolutely no direct relation to the quality of the product.
So, marketing controls the market - and not the product. You just need a product that's "good enough" to convince people they need it, and the rest is about shoving your product down the throats of as many people as possible. Once you get enough people to pay for it, it has to be a good product - because otherwise people have been duped - and they don't like that - so naturally they spent their money well. They will also be certain to tell that to everyone - so they can convince themselves even more that their money was well spent.
It's all about perception over reality. That's not to say those two can't co-exist peacefully - but too often they don't seem to, at least from where I'm sitting.
But I suppose what sells can be considered quality. It's mostly about explosions, or gimmicks. Everything has to look great, of course, and you need some kind of edgy or gritty content. Just so that your product can be cool and trendsetting. With Avatar it's 3D and amazing CGI. With Dragon Age - it was oodles of blood and oh-so-daring sexual content. That's the kind of thing that most people apparently find appealing.
But it's almost never, ever, about a strong game design - or challenging evolutionary gameplay, and Dragon Age was almost a miracle in that it wasn't entirely streamlined. In AAA Hollywood movies, it's almost never about deep, meaningful stories - or fantastic characters. Such things don't sell that much.
But that's not really my concern - and if people want something like Avatar so bad, they can have it. If they can tell themselves it was a powerful movie, then so be it.
I'm just not going to support it - and sometimes you need to actually experience something to be certain of what it is - because even in the current AAA mainstream market, there is quality or actual art.
But it's rare.
It does nothing if the market is not aware of it, and that's the whole issue with capitalism.
It's about marketing, not actual value. Marketing is about perception, not reality.
If you can convince the market that they have a need for your product, then you'll profit - and that has absolutely no direct relation to the quality of the product.
So, marketing controls the market - and not the product. You just need a product that's "good enough" to convince people they need it, and the rest is about shoving your product down the throats of as many people as possible. Once you get enough people to pay for it, it has to be a good product - because otherwise people have been duped - and they don't like that - so naturally they spent their money well. They will also be certain to tell that to everyone - so they can convince themselves even more that their money was well spent.
It's all about perception over reality. That's not to say those two can't co-exist peacefully - but too often they don't seem to, at least from where I'm sitting.
But I suppose what sells can be considered quality. It's mostly about explosions, or gimmicks. Everything has to look great, of course, and you need some kind of edgy or gritty content. Just so that your product can be cool and trendsetting. With Avatar it's 3D and amazing CGI. With Dragon Age - it was oodles of blood and oh-so-daring sexual content. That's the kind of thing that most people apparently find appealing.
But it's almost never, ever, about a strong game design - or challenging evolutionary gameplay, and Dragon Age was almost a miracle in that it wasn't entirely streamlined. In AAA Hollywood movies, it's almost never about deep, meaningful stories - or fantastic characters. Such things don't sell that much.
But that's not really my concern - and if people want something like Avatar so bad, they can have it. If they can tell themselves it was a powerful movie, then so be it.
I'm just not going to support it - and sometimes you need to actually experience something to be certain of what it is - because even in the current AAA mainstream market, there is quality or actual art.
But it's rare.
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