SEGA put out a survey. Our chance to be heard.

[Outrider]

I really doubt sega is even going to listen to anyone. Do they honestly believe switching to mobil phones is going to solve their money woes. What a lame excuse to ditch console market. They are lazy.

Well, for example: Konami profits are up by 159% thanks to mobile games, cancellations

I'm just saying: who knows if Sega will see the same response, but you're being actively ignorant of the realities of the marketplace at this point.

[blace]

They're already flooding the mobile market with games. I can only see that it's not working too well for them on the Google Play store when it comes to reviews, but that being said they have plenty of downloads. Who knows how much they're profiting from that market.

At least with this survey, it's life line of sorts and having that option to voice yourself is better than ranting blindly. This site being as it is, there probably wouldn't be that many opinions flying at Sega when it's not much to do with PSO2 as of late.

[Outrider]

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/seg.../1100-6429349/

According to their last revenue report, they're down but it's largely due to the packaged (read: console retail) business. Sounds like the games that are doing well are their mobile titles and digital titles like PSO2.

(Which certainly makes you wonder why PSO2 hasn't released in the US, but that would be beating a dead horse with another dead horse.)

I think it's good to take the survey and show your support for the parts of Sega's output that you enjoy, but a man can only see the go-to adolescent gamer complaint of "they're stupid for switching to mobile" and "developers are lazy" before he's gotta say something. I'm only human, after all.

[Noblewine]

but a man can only see the go-to adolescent gamer complaint of "they're stupid for switching to mobile" and "developers are lazy" before he's gotta say something. I'm only human, after all.

You rang? =x

Outrider I'm skeptical for a reason so maybe my attitude will change based on how well they do because of this decision. The results will change my opinion.

[Keilyn]

Companies make the choices to satisfy their targeted shareholders. What makes them happy is actually making the value of the shares go up. I can be a customer a buy a product, but since I am not a shareholder, I don't count... Simple as that.

I just hope whatever decision they make improves them.

[Akaimizu]

Companies make the choices to satisfy their targeted shareholders. What makes them happy is actually making the value of the shares go up. I can be a customer a buy a product, but since I am not a shareholder, I don't count... Simple as that.

I just hope whatever decision they make improves them.

I know. And this is something every company has been going through, not just SEGA. It's actually a part of a big problem which really escalated in the last decade or so. Companies driven by Shareholders, not by consumers. And to a big degree, across the market, we've seen examples of a new breakdown in Capitalism. Shareholders vs. Consumers. To a degree, it takes things back to a Scrooge kind of years where the rich few control a company so much that it is willing to throw quality and customer satisfaction under the bus, in order to satisfy the wallets.

Or for those Abe's Odyssey fans. Some have become "Rupture Farms".

Now it works well if Shareholders they have, care about the long-term customer satisfaction and want attempts to avoid long term name brand damage. Companies got big (in the first place) by their reputation for satisfying customers, but a number of young shareholders have crept in only thinking about short-term gains. This, is the brunt of the move to the mobile market people. They feel that their customers are *guaranteed* and don't care about long-term name brand damage. This is kind of true for companies like Cable Companies, in the U.S., where they regulate ridiculous prices for the service, to maximize gain, while (in most parts of the nation) being the *only* choice within an area. In short, they operate localized Monopolies for something that has become a rather necessary utility people need to operate in our current business climate.

We can only hope that certain companies, in the past, who really did tank based on the damage of their brand (doing this very thing of screwing customers for the few extra shareholder bucks) may actually wake up other companies. In the west, it helps that they don't have so much a Pachinko market to jump into. But we do have, in some cases, monopolies or cartels which remove proper competition.

We can only hope that more companies, that care about the long term life of the company, remember what got them there; and that still believe that the constant shares-increase, always satisfy the short-term speedy gains avenue has a short fuse, is non-sustainable, and when things eventually blow up in their face, they could possibly put themselves in a place they can never recover. Very much like a lot of the triple-A market is suffering from.

Why we get so many games now dividing content, or releasing plain unfinished (Full releases, which are actually early access Alphas or Betas). The short-term growth race is cannibalizing itself and those going for it get more hated as a company. So as much as people think (why not just go for the shareholder route and screw the consumer, they'll buy anyway?) people forget that all they'll become is another Zygna. A company which suffered when people got fed up and ends up with crazy losses and a burnt reputation that's nearly impossible to climb up from.

TLDR version: Understood. This is an issue many companies have been going through for the past decade or so. Shareholders vs. Customers. We hope failures of the past (including Zygna), who chased the unsustainable quick yearly Shareholder increase at cost of consumer reputation, wakes the industry up that long term goals are still important.

[Noblewine]

I know. And this is something every company has been going through, not just SEGA. It's actually a part of a big problem which really escalated in the last decade or so. Companies driven by Shareholders, not by consumers. And to a big degree, across the market, we've seen examples of a new breakdown in Capitalism. Shareholders vs. Consumers. To a degree, it takes things back to a Scrooge kind of years where the rich few control a company so much that it is willing to throw quality and customer satisfaction under the bus, in order to satisfy the wallets.

Or for those Abe's Odyssey fans. Some have become "Rupture Farms".

Now it works well if Shareholders they have, care about the long-term customer satisfaction and want attempts to avoid long term name brand damage. Companies got big (in the first place) by their reputation for satisfying customers, but a number of young shareholders have crept in only thinking about short-term gains. This, is the brunt of the move to the mobile market people. They feel that their customers are *guaranteed* and don't care about long-term name brand damage. This is kind of true for companies like Cable Companies, in the U.S., where they regulate ridiculous prices for the service, to maximize gain, while (in most parts of the nation) being the *only* choice within an area. In short, they operate localized Monopolies for something that has become a rather necessary utility people need to operate in our current business climate.

We can only hope that certain companies, in the past, who really did tank based on the damage of their brand (doing this very thing of screwing customers for the few extra shareholder bucks) may actually wake up other companies. In the west, it helps that they don't have so much a Pachinko market to jump into. But we do have, in some cases, monopolies or cartels which remove proper competition.

We can only hope that more companies, that care about the long term life of the company, remember what got them there; and that still believe that the constant shares-increase, always satisfy the short-term speedy gains avenue has a short fuse, is non-sustainable, and when things eventually blow up in their face, they could possibly put themselves in a place they can never recover. Very much like a lot of the triple-A market is suffering from.

Why we get so many games now dividing content, or releasing plain unfinished (Full releases, which are actually early access Alphas or Betas). The short-term growth race is cannibalizing itself and those going for it get more hated as a company. So as much as people think (why not just go for the shareholder route and screw the consumer, they'll buy anyway?) people forget that all they'll become is another Zygna. A company which suffered when people got fed up and ends up with crazy losses and a burnt reputation that's nearly impossible to climb up from.

TLDR version: Understood. This is an issue many companies have been going through for the past decade or so. Shareholders vs. Customers. We hope failures of the past (including Zygna), who chased the unsustainable quick yearly Shareholder increase at cost of consumer reputation, wakes the industry up that long term goals are still important.

I never knew it as that bad thought I started to notice a change in games around 2000. Very insightful.

Companies make the choices to satisfy their targeted shareholders. What makes them happy is actually making the value of the shares go up. I can be a customer a buy a product, but since I am not a shareholder, I don't count... Simple as that.

I just hope whatever decision they make improves them.

I think the customer (aka the gamer is more important) than their shareholder. The quality of the game seems to suffer sometimes because of how a game was rushed and that's okay?

[SilkaN]

I think the customer (aka the gamer is more important) than their shareholder. The quality of the game seems to suffer sometimes because of how a game was rushed and that's okay?

It's not okay but unfortunately as it is, people are still going to buy their products.
To be honest, it seems like most gamers have unwillingly accepted the existence of unfinished games, season passes and day 1 DLC. It's only the vocal minority that speaks up and demands change, but if their practises resulted in massive losses, they would've reconsidered their business strategies long ago.

[blace]

Shareholders have more power than you think, they do make some decisions regarding the direction of the company and what will line their pockets while the company tries to keep their sharholders and making enough of a profit to appease them.

[Akaimizu]

It does. Right now, the issue is that the Triple A market can't really sustain itself well, and it knows it. The hardware, as companies like Nintendo warned, is advancing faster than companies can afford to utilize expensive engines, and the hollywood-level presentation workforce, to drive them. Technically, consoles like the Wii U have hardware which is more in line with what those companies can really afford to make while appeasing shareholder stock, as opposed to what they could make by spending more dollars than they can afford to manage shareholder stock.

It's this level of complication which is actually above the heads of the average gamer. And those trying to balance a clear profitability of the industry without stretching themselves too far, are actually getting gamers ANGRY at them for not falling in line. (We want our ultra realistic-looking games, and if we aren't seeing a major step up we're not interested. Even if the gameplay is stale or horrible, we want them spending all that extra money.) And when their *better* industry tanks, because of their *infinite knowledge*, I'm going to be around for the ultra "Told ya so", after all that time of them telling folks like me, I don't know what I'm talking about. Even though the obvious evidence is mounting.

Basically, the gimmicks sold by the likes of EA, or Ubisoft, have controlled the market kind of hook, line, and sinker. Thus the growth of the controlling casual market seduced by graphics and very little importance on gameplay depth to reward them with more graphics. Thus a more-involved game could be treated the same, to them, as a simplistic arcade game. They want less up-front costs, but like the short-sighted shareholders, don't really care if the title actually costs them way more in the long run. They figure if less is coming out of me, at once, I'm saving money. This works as long as they really don't play games. Those who are core gamers tricked into this method are actually spending money out the butt. More than they have before, for less content, or (as many have committed to) content that is consumable and gone forever once you used it. Thus, they can pay hundreds of dollars on a game they will never ever be able to come back to. Sometimes with a total life of less than 2 years.

This is what many of us, who actually observed this practice, have been saying for years. Though, often to deaf ears. It does some, in recent days, more and more people are starting to figure out what is happening and why it sucks. However, some still don't see why certain companies, selling games more towards the old methods, are still giving them good value. They are turning their nose up at it, and avoiding it, to even find out that it is better than the *new way* they've been suckered into.

And all of this, is why certain parts of the Indie market has kind of grown. They're clearly working within better cost limitations while being able to afford to put in some real worthy and eye-opening gameplay in there. (Of course, they're being attacked a bit by some open markets like Steam, being saturated by terrible cash grab "developers" flooding their market which more and more tarnishes the Indie space). The same stuff which killed the old video game market, which prompted the idea of why you needed curation (which spawned it for the original NES) in order to redeem it.

Even worse, the one thing I keep saying about the Mobile Market. You can't take it with you. Unlike consoles, the mobile OS upgrades and pretty much nearly every piece of current software running on them, eventually can't run anymore. Mobile Upgrades don't give a hoot about the software it is running on. They expect every developer, for every upgrade, to retool their software so that it still runs. Developers aren't going to support their finished software like that, and many don't feel they can afford to or feel it is worth the effort. It's much harder to hold onto a title you already bought on mobile. There's a lack of legacy potential. It does justify the cheaper costs on mobile, to a degree, but many gamers compare that cost to the cost on a non-mobile hardware, thinking it is the same. It isn't. On a console or dedicated game machine, that same piece of software, as long as you have it to install, or stored on a memory card, or transferred to a drive or PC, unless Online-only, will be playable 20 years from now. On mobile, if you're doing the typical upgrade path, you pray that you'd be able to come back to it 2, 3, or 4 years from now. All of this, I experienced myself, and you wonder why people can be wary about buying anything on mobile. For me, it's kind of killed my interest not only on buying much on mobile, but especially paying any IAP.

I don't know. Maybe it takes an old gamer, who witnessed this industry first hand, from the beginning, to see this. But alas. Young whippersnappers always know MORE than you do. That's always their mantra.