Yesterday I found myself in different situations where writing and editing were impossible. Too many distractions and too many things on my mind. Between problems with the HVAC at home, news that my aunt (a very special woman) had passed away and the mundane matters of life, work just wasn’t happening. So I found myself watching the live streams from E3. For those of you who aren’t gamers, E3 is the annual trek to the holiest of holies for gamers. It’s where game developers and console makers reveal new products, show real time game play and basically hawk their wares in an attempt to increase sales for the upcoming year. It is, in short, the video game industry’s version of Book Expo.
But one thing struck me over and over again as I watched the different presentations: certain aspects of the gaming industry are suffering from the same problems as publishing. There were questions about DRM and pricing and on and on. Piracy, while not every specifically mentioned, was clearly an issue, as was the issue of whether a digital game, even if in the form of a DVD, was something that could be owned and then sold or given away.
Representing the Old Guard (or in publishing terms, the legacy publishers) was Microsoft. It took the stage first and should have made a huge bang. Instead, at least in my opinion, it made a mere splash. Sure, their new console, the XBOX One, looked great. The video of in-game play was good, but with very few exceptions nothing awe-inspiring. But, where they let the ball drop big time was in the area of DRM. Just like publishers who load DRM into their e-books, Microsoft is doing the same. But not just with their games, but with the console as well. If you own an XBOX One, you will have to go online at least once a day and “check-in” to authenticate your system. Don’t do it and it doesn’t matter if you have a physical disc for your game. Your system won’t work.
Think about it. You have this expensive gaming console (the announced price is $499) and you move. You won’t have your internet service set up for a week. You have all these games you’ve bought but you can’t play any of them because your console is basically a brick due to the fact you don’t have internet and can’t check in with Big Brother Microsoft.
But that’s not the only time Microsoft punted. Gamers, like readers, are used to being able to buy a game, play it, take it up to the game store and sell it or trade it in for credit. We trade games amongst friends. But Microsoft doesn’t like that. So, with the new console, that’s all going to come to a stop. You will be able to loan your game to someone — once — and only with restrictions. Sell that game? Nope. Trade it? Nope. At least not unless something changes.
Does this sound familiar? Think e-books. Think about how publishers aren’t remembering who their target audience is.
Then, coming later in the day, was Sony with its announcement concerning the new PS4. Sony played it smart. First, it was clear from the beginning they had listened, and listened closely, to the Microsoft announcement. It took time to discuss how it wasn’t completely pulling the plug on consoles already in the hands of consumers. New games for the PS3 and their handheld console were discussed. While Sony reps talked some about entertainment options like movies and music, that wasn’t the push. They remembered who their audience was and where most of their sales would come from and focused on the games and gaming.
And they came through, at least so far. No daily authentication. If you own game discs you won’t ever have to go online if you don’t want to. Sure, there are benefits to going online and joining their network, but it isn’t required. Okay, for those who play MMOs or mutliplayer games, you will have to have the online connection but that’s a given.
You can also sell your games or trade them or loan them to your friends. Microsoft was never called out by name but the reference was clear.
And the audience ate it up.
Sony won, hands down, in the presentation because it remembered who the target audience was and it listened to concerns prior to the reveal.
That’s something publishers still refuse to do, at least the larger houses. It is one of the many reasons why publishing is in the state it’s in now. Why else are self-published e-book sales 12% of the e-book market? It’s probably larger because of the way the reports were compiled. The answer to that is simple: authors who self-published and small presses like NRP are writing and publishing e-books people want to read.
Want to read. That’s the key and it means listening to what readers say, not trying to tell them what they ought to read.
It’s why science fiction, especially military scifi, is selling as well as it in digital formats. Not only is it a good story but it usually doesn’t cast humans as inherently evil, especially the male of the species. The story is key, not the politically correct message.
Look, I don’t care what your philosophy is if you write a good story. There are ways to put your beliefs into a book without beating the reader over the head with them. Read Sarah or Dave for excellent examples about how to do that. But no one is going to read, really read, your work if the story doesn’t keep them interested. Don’t believe me, remember all those books you had to read in school that were boring or so depressing you wanted to toss them against the wall. You read them — or the Cliff Notes for them — because you had to, not because you wanted to.
So, remember you audience. They are the ones who buy your books. Write for them and for yourselves, not for the out of touch editors in their gilded offices.
Mad Genius Club 
20 responses to “Remember your audience”
I gave up on gaming a couple of years ago. I bought the game Skyrim for PC. Took it home and was unable to play due to the lack of an internet connection. With an internet connection you still had to go through Steam. May the gaming assholes burn in hell with the majority of legacy publishers
I don’t know about Skyrim, but a lot of the games on Steam you can now set for off-line play. That’s what I do with most of my games, especially since I don’t do multi-player.
Yes. My kids are big on Steam.
I don’t game because I can game or write. They “pull” from the same part of the brain. So I don’t game. Anymore.
A it doesn’t work well, b I bought the game, paid $60 for the disc at the store, no where on the case does it state yu are required to have steam or internet or anything else. I will not do DRM
I can’t tell you the last time I bought a PC game disc because too many of them do require either online access or they have the game so DRM’d you can’t move between computers. Steam, at least, does give the off-line option for almost everything and does let me play on multiple computers if I want.
You can set games on Steam for off-line play now? That’s the best news I’ve heard all day. Steam is what drove me from mostly PC gaming to mostly console gaming. Now maybe I can move back to the PC, which is especially welcome since my wife has become a Fallout: New Vegas addict on the console and I can barely get on it now.
Not all of them, but check it out. Both my son and I have some games set up that way.
Wow. And MS will wonder why their XBOX One sales tank. Some people just don’t get it.
Yep. The fact that the specs about the online authentication and probable limits on sales, etc., had already been made public and there was an uproar didn’t seem to matter. Frankly, I think the problem is they are trying to be everything to everyone — an entertainment gateway for the non-gamers and a gaming console for the others and losing on both fronts.
Hmm, so here is the conjunction of two of my favorite things (gaming and eprint), and thus the perfect place to ask my question. First a bit of groundwork so it makes sense.
I work in IT, and I know several people that have either worked professionally in game development (AAA and tinysmallgarage publishers) and one of the reoccurring things I’ve heard from them is the animosity of the publishing houses to Gamestop. The reasoning goes, ‘We sunk millions into making this game, and the minute you pass it go Gamestop suddenly we no longer see a dime from it.’ I don’t happen to agree with this point, and being a voracious reader I have pointed out that authors have faced this issue since Gutenberg and haven’t organized any enforcement mobs with torches to go after used book stores. Well, at least not to my admittedly limited knowledge. So Steam seemed to solve this problem really well from the publishers perspective. If I buy a game, the only way I can share it with my son is to purchase the game again for his steam account or give him access to mine and deal with the fact that only on person in one location at a time can be logged on to it. Now I am completely not adverse to a development house or an author being paid for the use of their product, but even I look really really hard at a second $60 purchase for a game. Many the time I have just made the decision to either forgo the purchase altogether or just purchase one which means the publisher lost a potential sale.
Against this backdrop, for the last year or so on the Steam forums there has been rumbling of Steam trying to introduce user resales. The premise that I’ve pieced together runs roughly like this: I can sell a game from my library to Johnny down block, but I can’t charge less than 1/3 the origional list price and Steam will either levy a charge on top of the sale or take a percentage (I’ve seen nebulous discussions in both directions) which goes to the *development house*. Now to me, this seems like a win/win. I can sell a title out of my library and recoup some of the cost, and the dev who slaved over it can make some money from the sweat of their metaphorical brows. It remains to be seen if Steam actually decides to push forward with it, but my question is….has anybody looked at this in the realm of ebooks? Granted, below a certain pricepoint it may seem a bit silly (woohoo, 2% of a .99 sale!) but the ability of me who voraciously digs through eprint authors looking for new blood to resell to my son’s kindle would be a godsend.
Oh, and you can totally blame Sarah for inflicting me on you, I’ve lurked on her blog for a very long time and followed her breadcrumb trail over to here, heh
Welcome to the Mad Genius Club!
I’ve seen some of the same comments in the Steam forums and hope something comes from them. Steam is by no mean the best answer, but it is the best I’ve found in the current environment, especially considering what so many game publishers are doing re: hard disk copies.
Why lurk. We’re not evil over at ATH. Oh, wait. They are. But I’m not! 😉
Riiiight.
On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 11:00 PM, madgeniusclub wrote:
> ** > accordingtohoyt commented: “Why lurk. We’re not evil over at ATH. Oh, > wait. They are. But I’m not! ;)” >
Hah!
Hi Ms. Amanda,
Thank you for your wonderful article. I don’t play online games or watch much (if any) TV, so I had no IDEA that a company could be this stupid! Talk about slitting your own throat!! (My husband used a much cruder analogy featuring a very sensitive part of a man’s anatomy…) He at least is a gamer and resents having to log into Steam to play his games. Then I see your last post regarding Steam “…no mean[s] the best answer, but it is the best I’ve found in the current environment…”. Wow. There are companies doing even sillier things? Wow, just wow. I know that everyone should be granted some compensation for their time and energy. I will leave it to the folks that actually know something about gaming to figure out how to do so because I haven’t a clue!
My hubby had to explain your last comment regarding hard disks. He admits to being ‘old fashioned’ and preferring a disk he can hold (and reinstall if needed) over a downloadable game that can be a hassle to reorder if something goes wrong. I have heard several friends complain of downloading problems severe enough that they had to buy access to the game again. Surprise, surprise; most of them elected not to pay for the same game twice.
I’m not sure what the answer is, but creating an even bigger ‘big brother system’ that will track consumers to such an invasive extent just doesn’t make sense to me. But I don’t want to stare at a game for hours anyway so what do I know.
Thanks for the comment. I don’t watch that much TV but I do game. It started when my son was young and he wanted to play the games all his friends were playing. The rule was that I had to play them to make sure they were appropriate for his age. Then it became a way for us to bond. Now it is a stress reliever.
As a writer, I have a hard time understanding why anyone wants to make it more difficult for the consumer to buy or share their work. DRM hasn’t worked with music or e-books and it won’t work in this latest iteration with games. By adding the requirement that the gamer authenticate their system once a day is just rubbing salt into the wounds. Microsoft has missed the mark here, in my opinion, and Sony is running with the advantage. Whether or not it will last will be seen over the next few years. But, to me, this smacks of the same idiocy that Windows 8 does on a non-touchscreen computer.
Not to mention that the XBone is a spycam that identifies the people in the room and “learns” who you are and listens for your voice… all the time… and Microsoft was one of the first companies to sign up to deliver all its information to the NSA. (Okay – I may have some of the details a little mushy, but the sentiment is by all accounts correct.)
Which is why, if I were to own one, it would be unplugged most of the time — as is whenever I am not playing.
What gets me is that Microsoft is basically telling its customers it doesn’t care what they want. They are assuming the few games that are only on the XBone will carry them. I’m not sure they are right, especially when you consider that not everyone has a reliable internet connection or high speed yet.