“[Horse Armor] must have been [sold] in the millions, it had to be millions,” Nesmith said. “I don’t know the actual number, I probably did at one point, I just no longer remember that. And that was kind of a head shaker for us: you’re all making fun of it and yet you buy it.”
And that right there is the reason why the industry is absolutely saturated with this shit now. If people had just chilled the fuck out when this shit was first introduced, made sure it was an absolute flop from a sales perspective (not only for this one, but for others that were released back then, too), we might be in a better place now.
I'd argue that part of the problem is, gamer culture has approached everything in the industry from a vein of negativity. "Don't buy this", "Pirate this", "XPublisher is damn evil". Certainly many of those accusations and rejections are valid, but there is now far, far more attention on what sucks than what's good. A developer puts out an awesome singleplayer game they spent 7 years making, and we'll give them $60 but...not much more than that. We'll probably even complain if, due to high budgets, it comes out at $70. Meanwhile, the rest of the world that's curious about entertainment doesn't care much about 30 "Don't" rules and just buys whatever seems interesting when they're bored - because they got their paycheck and want something.
It's reasonable a developer is always finding new ways they can pay their staff. I'd even say many singleplayer games we love were NOT the money-makers we wish they were. Granted, quite often now those $60 are going into paying into shareholders and executive bonuses, and I think that's another valid thing to be negative towards, but once again: If this was an important point to gamers, we could champion studios that grant paid time off and lower their CEO bonuses.
And I'll even go one further: If a common thread is "Studios ask too much of our money for the full game"...we could even turn our attention to minimum wage laws. We certainly should be.
I think the takeaway here is that these things are not important to gamers. a few of us complain about it online, but clearly we are outnumbered in the market.
If people had just chilled the fuck out... we might be in a better place now.
Gamers aren't a bloc, and each person has their own individual game tastes, opinions, and willingness to spend money on trivial junk.
Most gamers are tween Fortnight players or ones who play exclusively mobile games full of ads. They are not people like us. This was inevitable, and nothing would have or will ever change it. Most people just want a pleasant distraction from the horrors of life and don't have any particular principles when it comes to how they spend their money on games.
The only reason i have it was because it came with the goty edition. I wonder how many that accounts for
I will admit to being one of the people who bought this DLC when it came out. I was very engrossed in the game at that time and felt like $2.50 was trivial enough that I just went for it.
Now, I was uninformed about what the armor did and was disappointed that it was only cosmetic. But I don't remember regretting buying it.
In hindsight, I wish I hadn't bought it. And it's something I wouldn't buy now.
And that right there is the reason why the industry is absolutely saturated with this shit now. If people had just chilled the fuck out when this shit was first introduced, made sure it was an absolute flop from a sales perspective (not only for this one, but for others that were released back then, too), we might be in a better place now.
I'd argue that part of the problem is, gamer culture has approached everything in the industry from a vein of negativity. "Don't buy this", "Pirate this", "XPublisher is damn evil". Certainly many of those accusations and rejections are valid, but there is now far, far more attention on what sucks than what's good. A developer puts out an awesome singleplayer game they spent 7 years making, and we'll give them $60 but...not much more than that. We'll probably even complain if, due to high budgets, it comes out at $70. Meanwhile, the rest of the world that's curious about entertainment doesn't care much about 30 "Don't" rules and just buys whatever seems interesting when they're bored - because they got their paycheck and want something.
It's reasonable a developer is always finding new ways they can pay their staff. I'd even say many singleplayer games we love were NOT the money-makers we wish they were. Granted, quite often now those $60 are going into paying into shareholders and executive bonuses, and I think that's another valid thing to be negative towards, but once again: If this was an important point to gamers, we could champion studios that grant paid time off and lower their CEO bonuses.
And I'll even go one further: If a common thread is "Studios ask too much of our money for the full game"...we could even turn our attention to minimum wage laws. We certainly should be.
I think the takeaway here is that these things are not important to gamers. a few of us complain about it online, but clearly we are outnumbered in the market.
We must live in the world we create.
Gamers aren't a bloc, and each person has their own individual game tastes, opinions, and willingness to spend money on trivial junk.
Most gamers are tween Fortnight players or ones who play exclusively mobile games full of ads. They are not people like us. This was inevitable, and nothing would have or will ever change it. Most people just want a pleasant distraction from the horrors of life and don't have any particular principles when it comes to how they spend their money on games.
The only reason i have it was because it came with the goty edition. I wonder how many that accounts for
I will admit to being one of the people who bought this DLC when it came out. I was very engrossed in the game at that time and felt like $2.50 was trivial enough that I just went for it.
Now, I was uninformed about what the armor did and was disappointed that it was only cosmetic. But I don't remember regretting buying it.
In hindsight, I wish I hadn't bought it. And it's something I wouldn't buy now.