Thread: The 57th Parallel Analyzes: Game Eugenics

There seems to be a problem with the very frantic idea of what gamers like these days and the very reactions towards that have left potentially good games left out because of a publisher’s choice of game marketing. What I mean by that is something called “Game Eugenics” that I just coined. Score one for me. Game Eugenics is basically developers threatening to red light the production of a game because they heard “words of wisdom” that their game should have this kind of feature in it or be this type of theme or genre. Some say that it’s only the publisher trying to get the most profit but if they are so close minded to the point of not even caring for the very idea the game developers are putting their heart and souls into means that the publisher is not the right company to publish games.

The publisher is, in my mind, the producer of game development and they make sure that all of the developers they work with are at their maximum potential in making a game successful. I don’t mean now where they pull of game eugenics and force them to make a game based off of a brand, genre or theme because this other game sold well and they want to match it. I mean making sure they can make what they can efficiently. Publishers should not care for what the product is but whether or not it ships out successfully.

Before anyone looks at me and says, “But such things like that have made good games come out better than thought before” remember all of the games from 2005 to 2007 that had a tacked on and terrible multiplayer to a game that could’ve had a good story single player to it. If you can’t name a few, compare BioShock to BioShock 2. 2K thought that Gearbox should add a multiplayer because that what was popular. They believed that if it didn’t then gamers wouldn’t buy it. Such ideas are the very foundation of game eugenics because if I were to talk to any BioShock fan right now, they would tell me the same thing. “BioShock 1 was better than its sequel.”

Another factor to this is the fans themselves. A lot of so-called gamers who play nothing but Call of Duty and Gears of War have never actually played games out of their comfort zone because they alienated themselves to believe that any game that isn’t like what they play now isn’t good and not only that, they are in a mass group making the publishers believe that all gamers are like that. This mass group is like the Al Qaeda of gaming. They are not the largest group but definitely the loudest so it makes someone like me seem like that egotistical and cynical nonconformist who hates everything…that does sound like me actually.

The very idea of game eugenics should be stopped. It is a bad practice that does not benefit anyone in the long run. The publisher will not get more money; the developer will feel like they have their backs against the wall and at gunpoint to the publisher. The relationship between the publisher and the developer shouldn’t be a war of who seems the most distrustful but one of collaboration and freedom on both sides. If they could stop with the corporate sword fighting and get down to the very foundation that made this industry the way it should be, you would find better games in the market for us to use.

You make a very good point. I do like your coined phrase of Game Eugenics. Cleaver idea you have

I agree with you 100% about publishers. Their job is to ship out the game. It should not matter if they like the game or not. I am not like one of the gamers you described above. Do I have my games of comfort? Yes I do. Am I willing to play a game out of my comfort zone? Sure I am. I am willing to give a game a shot at least once. This is how you find new and exciting games. I would not be happy just playing one type of game the rest of my life. That would be way to boring for me.

I guess I have never given it much thought about the publishers and the developers and the relationship between the two of them. But I do feel that you are right in a way. Working together is the best way to make a great game for the people.