thetack wrote:so from what you are saying slashman the people on this forum the ones who have stood by Ego since X2 in my case, earlier for others, have helped out noobs, have suggested improvments, and have bought everything that Ego have released veiws are of no importance to the developers, with casual gamers who pick up play and drop beign more important, that to me seems the way to beign just another s**t games developer with a poor scence of its future and past.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
I've been in a similar situation with other games. Where I have disliked changes that were being proposed and there was a massive outcry on the game forum predicting loss of revenue and the death of the game etc.
A developer actually took the time to come to the forum in one case, and explain that, contrary to what we might think as the 'stalwarts' of x or y game, a company cannot afford to make critical decisions based solely on feedback from forum members.
We don't play the game like 'normal' people do. We push the limits of the mechanics. We do things that normal players don't think about. We crunch numbers that the average player doesn't care about. That's why we spend so much time on the forums. We spend more time with the game, and invest more of our time with the game, but we don't represent the majority or the standard demographic for the game in most cases.
The bulk of people who play a game don't post on the game's forums. Most of the people who play X probably never visit these boards, and if they did, don't spend a lot of time here.
Having a dedicated community is important for any game, but a game company cannot afford to let that community dictate critical business decisions based only on 'strong feelings'.
If you had a guy that never contributed on these forums, never asked for help here, never offered any help or feedback and simply bought each X game and played it until he was bored(maybe spent less than 20 hours on each game) and moved on, you'd probably say he wasn't all that important. He's not a true Egosoft fan and he contributed nothing to the community.
Except that guy bought all the X games (same as you) and spent his money with Egosoft(same as you). And there are 20 or 30(just a meaningless estimate for the sake of argument) times more of his kind, than there are of the stalwart and dedicated forum members. Now what happens when Egosoft/Deepsilver have to make a decision about their business? Can they afford to
only consider the small and dedicated community?
Should they?
It's because we are closer to the developers and communicate with them much more than the faceless pick up and play guy, that we assume that we should matter more. If Egosoft was a corner shop in a small, rural community, then we'd have a valid point. Their business would rise or fall based on our support. But they sell their games to a lot of people worldwide and they want to sell to
more people than they have been.
I've been listening to a lot of the interviews that Bernd has been having. And they all say the same thing, they don't want the X games to simply be a niche. They believe(whether you think they are right or wrong), that the space sim genre can be a compelling experience for a much larger audience than it has been over the last 5 or 10 years.
If you want a different perspective, stand on your head.
