Re: evangelist players vs. engaged players vs. those who fall off — does that not ever fall into the problem of trying to appeal to players who have no interest in sticking around and then alienating the evangelist/engaged players who loved the game for what it was? Too often I see studios try to broaden who their games appeal to, or try to capture the people who were never going to stick around in the first place, and utterly sacrifice their actual evangelists/engaged players and are left with no one who is happy with the end result. I understand studios/the money behind the studios want to make the most possible money but we are now left with a market of video games where too many of them are all aiming to appeal to as many people as possible and thus appeal to no one. We’re left with homogenous slop and for what? So many of these drop and flop, and when so many IPs and studios are forced to cater to this, the dedicated playerbase is left unhappy and alienated and they go elsewhere. Then the investors act shocked and scandalized that the studio didn’t meet their “target goals” that were set to completely unrealistic standards.

boynextdoornews

You're conflating several issues.

First - evangelists are not known for good game design sense or business sense. They're known for their deep faith and love for the object of their beliefs, so much so that it drives them to preach. They tend to speculate based on their own feelings and projecting those values onto the player base at large, rather than gathering data and drawing conclusions from that. Trusting their judgement on decisions in fields they are not skilled in based on their feelings rather than collected data is unwise.

Second - all games are sinking ships. The rate at which they sink depends on a few key elements: the marketing spend to attract new and lapsed players, and a steady stream of new content to keep the new, returning, and current players. But every game is sinking because their players grow and change over time. Some finish school and get jobs, some start families, some quit to play other games, some drift apart from their friend groups and stop playing. Every game's days are numbered. This is why publishers keep pushing new ones - they need to stay afloat, and all of their current breadwinners are all sinking at various rates of decay. This means that publishers are always on the lookout for a new big winner to keep things going.

Third - We know that not all games will be successful. This has always been the case. Some of us are old enough to remember the term "shovelware" as a good example of this. The current lifestyle game status quo is a lot more sustainable than the old days, where a bad launch meant immediate layoffs and studio closures were much more commonplace.

The big takeaway here is that big failures are terrible for everybody involved, but a single big success can sustain a company for a long, long time - much longer than in the old days. Small successes don't earn as much or last as long as big ones, which is why publishers are betting big. As Charlie Munger said, "Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome". The current situation incentivizes long-term lifestyle games, which is why we keep building them.

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