I don't get the Publisher/Developer loyalty and later outrage

[TRIPLE A ®™]

I see this more and more, ever since publishers/developers started "going woke" and SBI entered the fray. People disowning publishers/developers they previously adored or whose games they used to like just because they started releasing woke flops.

"oh now I'll have to blacklist this publisher/dev, such a shame since I enjoyed some of their previous games"

ONE game can be just great, but its sequel can really suck. Too many examples to choose from.

Publishers/developers only stay the same in Name only. People come and go, leaderships change and direction is altered.

Look at Bioware ~15 years ago. Back in the day everyone and their granny believed they could do no wrong. Look at them now, generally equated with EA and despised almost as much as Ubiflop, with many others following suit like CDPR.

Brand loyalty is a bad thing and should instead be turned into Individual Title loyalty.

[FafnirChaos]

Brand loyality was only good in the 90's and 2000's.

[bladeddragonknight]

Originally posted by FafnirChaos:

Brand loyality was only good in the 90's and 2000's.

I'd argue it wasn't even BRAND loyalty. We just loved the games themselves and waited for a new on to come out.

Sure some brands were more in your face and obvious like Blizzard Entertainment but it was the games people had loyalty to not the developer or publisher.

Brand loyalty is a thing that really took hold with the zoomer generation.

[TRIPLE A ®™]

Originally posted by FafnirChaos:

Brand loyality was only good in the 90's and 2000's.

the good ol days, when the world hadn't gone straight to hell yet

[King of Games]

There isnt any point in having brand loyalty, its the devs themselves who make the games and they can quit, retire, or move onto other things. Also Throne Of Bhaal from Bioware/Black Isle i found very lacking when it was released

[Princess Luna]

So why do people buy same new Fifa and Madden every year?

[King of Games]

Originally posted by Princess Luna:

So why do people buy same new Fifa and Madden every year?

Fifa 23 is the last FIFA for now, but people like there sports games and will keep shilling out money just for a updated roster, despite being in the modern age where EA could just update the roster with a patch

[D. Flame]

Brand loyalty is a thing left over from a time before the internet. You would have limited information to help you decide what to spend your money on. And a brand name with a long history of reliable products for you and your family was one great way to help you choose a product to purchase.

The problem is that with the way the stock market works now, companies are more subservient to shareholders now, instead of the customers, so brand loyalty doesn't really work anymore.

[nullable]

Originally posted by TRIPLE A ®™:

Look at Bioware ~15 years ago. Back in the day everyone and their granny believed they could do no wrong. Look at them now, generally equated with EA and despised almost as much as Ubiflop, with many others following suit like CDPR.

Brand loyalty is a bad thing and should instead be turned into Individual Title loyalty.

Ok, and riddle me this BioWare has all the same employees they did 15 years ago?

Also one of the reasons they might not be the quite the same as they used to be and "equated with EA" is they've been owned by EA since 2007. No big surprise how the parent company influences the subsidiary.

And I'm not sure what rock you live under, but any developer is only as good as their last game.

Besides there's no accounting for taste, some people might like all of biowares games, each individual title and you might misconstrue that ad brand loyalty. Perhaps instead of lecturing about how people feel about games or developers, you should just worry about your self. You're not going to convince people to not like games they like or the Developer's who made them because you can't understand it

[Complete Domination]

Originally posted by King of Games:

There isnt any point in having brand loyalty, its the devs themselves who make the games and they can quit, retire, or move onto other things. Also Throne Of Bhaal from Bioware/Black Isle i found very lacking when it was released

Disagreed. Brand loyalty was a tried and true method of ensuring good sales. The current problem is not that of brand loyalty's fault, but that the executives think it's better to get more audiences by destroying their old identity.

[ReBoot]

Any sort of one-sided loyalty is bad. One can be loyal to their toxic partner, one can be loyal to some person (who in turn only sees you as a number on their income statistic) or, well, brands.

As for why, psychology certainly has an answer to that. There's all sorts of research material on why peoplpe do the weird stuff they do, including harming themselves. As for me, my answer to question such as this is my birthday gift wish, that is a T-shirt with the text "Humans are weird" and an image to match.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by D. Flame:

The problem is that with the way the stock market works now, companies are more subservient to shareholders now, instead of the customers

See this is the kind of thought process that turns brand loyalty into brand betrayal.

Companies have always put gains over customers. Even when it seemed like they weren't.

Originally posted by Complete Domination:

The current problem is not that of brand loyalty's fault, but that the executives think it's better to get more audiences by destroying their old identity.

The current problem is largely Google and Facebook eating all the Ad revenue business and reducing it to harvesting hate clicks, so now you have lots of content creators baiting viewers into being angry at something they like(d) because that brings the most revenue and algorythm visibility.

All the rest of the discourse is accesory.

[Crazy Tiger]

I don't get it either. I only care about the games and whether they're enjoyable, doesn't matter who makes or distributes them.

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Companies have always put gains over customers. Even when it seemed like they weren't.

You mean the "Valve is gthe good guy" myth people created thanks to good marketing by Valve? ;)

[D. Flame]

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Originally posted by D. Flame:

The problem is that with the way the stock market works now, companies are more subservient to shareholders now, instead of the customers

See this is the kind of thought process that turns brand loyalty into brand betrayal.

Companies have always put gains over customers. Even when it seemed like they weren't.

Originally posted by Complete Domination:

The current problem is not that of brand loyalty's fault, but that the executives think it's better to get more audiences by destroying their old identity.

The current problem is largely Google and Facebook eating all the Ad revenue business and reducing it to harvesting hate clicks, so now you have lots of content creators baiting viewers into being angry at something they like(d) because that brings the most revenue and algorythm visibility.

All the rest of the discourse is accesory.

False. Brand loyalty used to be both good for the company and the customer. Doing right by the customer meant securing not only a lifetime customer, but also their family and friends.

Stock buy backs were also illegal back then, so they had to make their money the traditional and honest way instead of just artificially manipulating prices.

Now buy-backs are legal, so they don't think about firing their own staff or cheating customers for short term profits.

And Yellow Journalism is older than you are.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by D. Flame:

False. Brand loyalty used to be both good for the company and the customer.

Corporations are not your girlfriend. That loyalty was never mutual to begin with.

[D. Flame]

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Originally posted by D. Flame:

False. Brand loyalty used to be both good for the company and the customer.

Corporations are not your girlfriend. That loyalty was never mutual to begin with.

Wrong. The phrase, "the customer is always right," used to be adhered to, because it kept customers happy, and happy customers were repeat customers. Making them happy meant they would keep coming back, they would tell their friends and family, who would also become repeat customers. And in the long run, that loyalty meant that the company would make far more money in the long run.

Crap hasn't worked that way since the early 90s or earlier, but that doesn't mean that it never worked that way.