Consumer Feedback is Hurting Developers’ Creative Vision
There’s been a major trend in the game industry happening lately that I am outright disgusted with. Although it’s truly nothing new, as of late, it seems far too commonplace. And while it’s innocent at heart at the moment, it’s quietly opening doors for censorship of the media we love so dearly.
Feedback. It’s essential to the evolution of a product. Smartphones are here because we want information at our fingertips, and there isn’t a better way to deliver that than through our most-beloved companions, our cell-phones.
Feedback works exactly same for the videogame industry. How many times have you yourself thought, “hey, it sure would be cool if my favorite videogame character had this ability”, only to find that in the sequel, that exact ability has been added? Developers constantly tweak online multiplayer modes in response to fan feedback.
That’s great. But what happens when feedback hurts a product more than it helps it? What about leaving the creative decision-making to the creative minds that have been providing us entertainment for the better parts of our lives? Since when did we reserve the right to bitch and moan about aspects of a game or a character, and do so until changes are made?
Despite my stance on the whole inFamous 2/new Cole fiasco, and more recently, the outcry against the new Dante in Ninja Theory’s Devil May Cry reboot, that isn’t what I’m so upset with here – though, that did light my fuse.
I’ll start with a tiny bit of back story. A few years ago, after many years of generic World War II-based shooters, a little game that you may or may not have heard of called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, hit the scene. Sales were astronomical, and it spawned a sequel which also smashed sales records. Wanting a piece of the pie, EA brought back their Medal of Honor franchise, but this time featuring that same successful modern take on war.
EA with their revived franchise, wasn’t planning on messing around. Not only did they want the setting to feel like modern war, they tapped into real-life scenarios and situations akin to today’s military combat abroad. Again, to really bring that level of realism the gaming community so craves, EA put the soldiers up against what now-a-days is the most evil of forces: The Taliban.
For decades we’ve played games, as the good guys, facing off against the bad guys. We’ve encountered everything from Nazis to brain-eating zombies to aliens hell-bent on taking over our planet. Even as children, we played Cops and Robbers or Cowboys and Indians. As a juvenile, it’s obvious, someone just has to be the bad guy (though in the latter example, it’s a little bit more difficult to say who’s the real bad guy). It wouldn’t be much fun if you and your schoolyard buddies were just being cops. Who would you chase, arrest, interrogate, or take bribes from? Boooooo!
So what is so different about Medal of Honor’s playing as the Taliban in the multiplayer modes? Again, someone has to be the bad guy. The mere notion of playing as such an impure evil in a videogame has caused an outcry among the community. Top-level politicians made sure to denounce the game in public. GameStop’s refused to sell the game at their military base stores.
I’m not trying to be insensitive to families of soldiers who are actually fighting the Taliban abroad. To them, I am eternally grateful to the sacrifices that the soldiers and their families make on a daily basis to make this world a better place. They have every right to feel uneasy about letting people “play” as this evil entity.
But is it really so different, now that EA removed the “Taliban” from the game’s multiplayer modes and instead is calling them the “opposing forces”? They’re still bad guys trying to kill soldiers. And as a piece of media meant for entertainment, is this really so different from a blockbuster flick depicting the Taliban? Or a bestselling novel telling the tales of war-torn Afghanistan and the battle between US forces against the Taliban? Wouldn’t either of those two varieties of media paint a much more vivid, graphic picture? Let’s not forget that the media in question here is a “game”.
Now that EA has given in, it’s a mixed bag. I commend them for having respect for the families devastated by the ongoing wars abroad, but I also despise the fact that they changed their creative vision in response to public outcry. Let’s just hope that this isn’t a sign of things to come. Let’s hope that forum trolls aren’t allowed to change the looks of characters (oh wait). Let’s hope that politicians don’t see this as a weakness in our favorite form of media, and exploit it until we’re left with developers that aren’t allowed any creative vision. Let’s hope that videogames continue to push boundaries and bring us deep emotional experiences, and aren’t dumbed down in response to “feedback”.
There is a fine line when it comes to consumer feedback. Just enough, and you’ll ensure a better product. Cross that line, and you could hurt the experience.
21 Responses to “Consumer Feedback is Hurting Developers’ Creative Vision”
i mean what’s next? Are we going to bitch at Guerrilla Games to rename the Helgast, instead calling them the Mean Guys??
People need to realize that it’s just a game.
I hadn’t heard that EA actually made the change. I agree with everything you are saying here Sev. I must admit I didn’t really like the new Cole, I felt it was like replacing the main character in a movie for a sequel, but I was very surprised when they actually changed him back. Truth is, I know I would have loved the game either way. The new Dante in DMC doesn’t bother me, maybe because I’m not as interested in that series, but it just doesn’t bother me at all.
I did think it was absolutely ridiculous when I heard about how upset some people were with EA actually using the Taliban. We can watch movies based on true stories, using real characters about war where those real characters are killed, etc. and it doesn’t seem to upset anyone, in fact we look at it as honoring their memory. But a video game can’t have you play as a real enemy we are currently fighting killing American soldiers? Are we trying to deny that it’s happening? Are we worried that if people start playing video games as our enemies they are going to want to become them?
How is playing as the Taliban any different from playing as the Germans in a WWII game? Playing as the Russians in any number of games? Those are real groups and you can kill American soldiers in video games with them. The Germans took many more American lives in WWII than the Taliban probably every will and yet no one bats an eye for a WWII game anymore. Is it just because it happened in the past? In Modern Warfare 2 we were given the ability to walk into an airport and open fire on civilians! Which to me is much more disturbing than firing upon American soldiers and that game was released unchanged.
Amazing how Modern Warfare had us fighting in the Middle East, against an unnamed enemy who looked a lot like the terrorists we are currently fighting, and no one has a problem with it. How does using the actual terrorist groups name make it any worse when we all know we were thinking about them when we were playing Modern Warfare? This whole situation makes no sense to me and that’s why I still believe it is very likely that Activision was worried about their stake in the market and therefore started this whole mess for EA.
@giese095
In regards to Modern Warfare 2, it wasn’t completely unchanged: due to public outcry, they made that mission optional. I think it’s kinda sad they caved, but I think that was the best way to handle it, do something that appeases those whining about it (and likely will never actually play the game), while not really messing with the actual game. It’s probably impossible to track, but I think it would be interesting to know how many of the millions of people who bought the game DID skip that mission… (I didn’t)
This is similar in some ways; they changed to the name to shut up the blowhards, but they are still the Taliban in every way but name. I guess all EA (and Activision for MW2) really cares about it selling the game, and that’s alot harder with controversy surrounding it, but it would be nice to see a publisher stick up for the developer’s vision.
Oh, ok…So, let me get this straight – We can kill Japanese,Koreans,Nazi’s and of course “Other Americans” (keep in mind we had controversy with some of the previous named groups too), but we can’t kill Taliban because…
Oh right, someone ( in the media) wants to “pretend to care” about something this week and they’ve decided to target games ; yet again, because games cause people to do bad things. They don’t re-leave stress or anything like that, nope – not at all.
It seems to me the only reason there’s public out cry is because its a current issue. Not only are people still fighting and dying over this, but even any movies or books are up for speculation – as it hold the potential to effect the situation in unforeseen ways (like a potential terrorist sees it, and gets all fired up again). Nonetheless, I agree with Sev whole heartedly. I enjoy voicing my opinion about games and their make up – but I never really expect a developer to take it so seriously that they’d change the game against their will. If I present a cool idea and they like it, well that’s a sweet deal then. I first noticed this issue with Uncharted 2 – at first I enjoyed that they were tweaking the game to the community’s liking – but eventually it got out of hand. No matter how they changed it, people still complained it, and now they’ve changed it so much that I no longer enjoy it as much, and people still complain. You can never make anyone happy, so instead, do your projects the way you want, and make yourself happy with what you’ve done – even if it requires taking some risks with a controversial issue. We can’t just pretend that it doesn’t exist, and that they’ll go away.
Why is it that people cant seem to grasp the concept that war is war and its a beautiful and ugly thing, we can kill germans and russians and asians in a video game but not middle easterns???? why is that??? is it because we dont wanna hurt anyone’s feelings??? tell that to tha victims of terrorist attacks and ask them about there feelings. ok if you wanna make people happy then here’s an idea make tha game co-op so we can fight tha taliban A.I together, and for multiplayer take out the terrorists completely and replace them with americans in camo give the players choices to either be red team or blue team and call it war games. there everybodys happy, i have nuthin against middle easterns but i love to kill terrorists of any race nationality or creed.
I won’t lie, I do not feel the same way about this situation as most people. Sure, I personally hate the idea that EA caved on this and the various other instances from developers even occurred, but consumer feedback is NOT to blame.
Consumer feedback exists for companies to alter their products and receive better sales. Gaming, just like movies and any other media, is NOT ultimately about the product or the gamers. Instead, the bottom line is how much money they can make with the least amount of resistance. Trying to blame consumers for stifling a developers creativity is actually pretty asinine. Yes, the consumers cried and whined. The consumers are not the ones who caved in to the vocal minority. Blame EA for having no backbone, not the consumers for voicing their opinion. For all the people saying “this is a form of censorship,” all you’re saying is that consumers should be censored. Developers sacrifice creativity for the sake of a paycheck at every turn, this is no different and trying to put it solely on consumer opinions makes no sense.
That being said, EA probably had bigger concerns regarding the use of the Taliban. If you guys remember correctly, we’ve had quite a few news stories and movies pulled in the past because of outrage. In fact, within the past 4-5 years we’ve seen two instances of creators (mostly in movies/tv) censoring themselves due to threats of physical harm by the offending groups. I’m not saying this happen and, frankly, I don’t care…
there will ALWAYS be someone who NEEDS to complain, because THAT is what our country has become. The problem isn’t those people, they would go away eventually if the people they complained to, or about would just say “shut the fuck up, you are not our target demo anyway”
If we neglected to pay attention to the people griping about nonsense, they would give up… companies are just to afraid to actually prove my point by doing it. Their lawyers get in the way of logic.
IN THE FAMOUS WORDS OF HULK HOGAN “AMEN BROTHER”
Wait a minute… “outright disgusted”? I think you meant grossly confused.
Now i’m sure you know more about the industry than I do, and I usually respect your opinion but this is just flat out wrong. We live in countries with freedom of speech, and especially on the internet we excercise that right. Who are you to say that It’s my fault for somebody making a huge decision based on something I typed out stoned at 2 in the morning? If I told you to jump off of a bridge because I would give you my money if you did, it is still 100% your decision to jump from that bridge and it’s your fault if something bad happens because of your greed.
“That’s great. But what happens when feedback hurts a product more than it helps it?”
What happens is the responsibility falls entirely on whoever read that feedback and decided it was something they would put in their game.
Take a look around guys its not just video games………the governments closing in on us….we are losing more and more freedom everyday and they are snatching it right in front of our eyes.
ITS TIME FOR THE 2ND AMERICAN REVOLUTION!!!
P.S. I think sev knows what im talking about.
@JohnnyTruant5, it’s never just one person that enacts change in games. There is often widespread reaction and developers see this on forums, news sites, etc.. Get enough people to express their concerns and the developer takes notice. So your example does not really apply here.
@paulmicheal
That is a lazy attempt at discounting what I said. Fact is, they wouldn’t be changing it because it’s what they wanted to do, they would be changing it because that’s what they think would bring in the most money, and thats called comprimising your idea. Just like jumping off a bridge would be compromising your idea of what’s safe and not completely retarded in order to get some money.
Great read dude. I am forwarding this to all my friends that plays video games. I had no interest in Medal of Honor and didn’t care about the controversy. My problem is how EA just gave into the demand to people that don’t even play video games. Looking back, it just seem that EA was using the backlash to promote the game and was going to eventually change the names before the game was release.
It isn’t just Medal of Honor that was influence by the “community,” but also Resistance 2 and the up and coming Killzone 3. The “community” wanted Resistance 2 to be more like Modern Warfare 2 in which case Resistance isn’t. Killzone 3 controls are being tweak to all for run and gun. Killzone isn’t about run and gun.
@JohnnyTruant5, but what we’re talking about here won’t fundamentally alter the game. So far, the only things that have been changed in games have been character design (inFamous 2) and now a label for the enemies (“Opposing Forces” vs. “Taliban”). I do see the danger in developers bending to appeal to the widest possible audience, but they are likely more influenced by their publishers to change something. Publishers tend to think mostly, if not completely, about the bottom line, and considering they ensure the game ends up on store shelves, I imagine they have a lot of say in what gets in a game…Which is a shame when considering a developer’s idea of elements of their title.
I say game developers should just ingore people an do what they want for what they believe is better for the game.
^^^^^^^ That would require EA to have a backbone….. money hungry fools will never stand up for their creativity or ideals. Honor and dignity have all been pushed out the door
Someone’s hitting his monthly…
All they did was change the name so as not to offend people. Get over it folks, such a non-issue.
Personally removing the ability to play as the enemy and fuzzing up the enemies identity by name while retaining the very stereotypical looks is more likely to lead to a hate crime then simply being direct and blunt.
The reason is because instead of saying ‘The Taliban’ might be bad guys but those people who work for them aren’t necessarily so we’d be saying ‘Towelheads’ are all evil. Which isn’t a good thing when the guy who teaches you math in high school happens to walk around with a towel on his head. (Which would be really funny because muslims don’t walk around with towels on their heads, only fans of Arthur Dent do.)
Frankly, if we really want to put a point on this entire issue we should have a game that covers the history of Somalia. From the Tutu’s being massively repressed to them gaining power and deciding that everyone not them should die. We should be allowed to play as Tutu’s, those other Somalians (can’t remember their name), Belgians and French, and UN officers. And the game storyline should be massively realistic … advertise the game as being the most bloodlustful game ever created and downplay the storyline until release day and you’ll get yourself some good sales and those people upset about the use of the name “Taliban” in the current MoH will end up eating the dirt they’re spewing.
Anyone remember that game “Six Days in Fallujah”?