"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has stopped working"

The most recent Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 3, has gotten some criticism, despite selling so well, over re-releasing the same game over and over again with a few changed features. This wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't actually sold at the same $60 price. When the game crashes, which it does often, it still contains error logs and messages that were Modern Warfare 2 specific. The code being used was obviously never changed and neither were over 70% of the sound effects. Instead, Activision has been keeping all the profits from previous games and not investing enough into the creation of the series. I could go on about models, textures and designs being done in the most amateur and quickest way possible, recognizable by any professional artist in the industry, but you get the point.

This is not a new thing in the industry, whether it's games, software or gadgets. Companies making big profits come to the conclusion that they're able to reduce costs without anyone noticing. When Microsoft released Windows Millennium, they had high hopes that making quick releases of their operating system means more profits. The entire operating system ended up lacking thorough testing and gave the famous blue screen its common reference to windows, needlessly harming its reputation. Apple's iOS 5 has had many crashes running downloaded apps and it does show that very little features were added into the release simply to give the new 4s phone a higher reputation. The list of examples goes on, but it is an apparent problem in the industry. It is forgivable when a company makes a mistake in the product itself, but when little work is put into it intentionally, they do not deserve sales for that product. People that work on such products know very well how the level of competition with other companies is very high.

Creating engines that make the work flow faster is one thing, but tricking people into paying full price for something that had minimal work put into it is entirely unethical. It's no different from scamming people. To me, it is a programmer's job to put his/her full effort and attention into a project until it is perfect enough to sell or distribute. Greed and professionalism do not mix.

Any thoughts on these companies or others being greedy in avoiding doing work on new products?

Survival Is Not Free. It's Open Source

Recent news about endless series of bills, laws and ideas to end piracy and protect information rights have been the center of the people’s attention worldwide. ACTA, PIPA and SOPA led to protests worldwide and endless angry letters being sent to governments. The questions on how piracy has harmed people remain unanswered. Laws that protect the copyright holders remain solid and they have been protecting those who fight for their rights for many years. These questions are not about the law nor are they about human rights; these questions are about the higher benefit of the people. Most media companies have complained about piracy at least once, whether it is about music, movies, software, or video games. The “losses” that have been endlessly pouring in on these poor beings have contradicted the very basics of human rights. However, this complaining only puts them in more heat.
 

Humans are adaptive creatures. When something does not naturally work in our favor, we do not change it; we adapt for survival. This is where the idea of open source and free distribution came into fruition. People that are smart enough to make money from a product distributed for free are the survivors of current and future times. Media companies have gotten comfortable with the idea that putting minimal thought into work pays if there is no competition. That’s how the world of business set the standards for monopolistic distribution. Whether the business has to do with music labels, book or game publishers, or film distributors, they have the final word on what gets funded and what gets released to the people. The foundation of corporate greed is not money; it’s power, the power to keep that money. The world’s top companies survive on casting out the competition rather than making a better product. The new age’s thoughts on free distribution and open source are the main threat to their strategies. Why should the people expect them to adapt to the new ideologies when a perfect system has been created for them to stay in power? Major labels are more threatened by artists that distribute their music for free. Even small video game development companies have turned to free-to-play games for alternative ways of earning money instead of using the usual payment and disc distribution systems. Ijji, a major influence on the free-to-play games market, reached over 10 million members in 2009 and have since gained millions more. Since then, thousands of free-to-play PC games have come into play. Media companies have always been trying to limit piracy one way or another with failed attempts, such as limiting internet bandwidth, DRM and limited installations of software or games, but their end may finally come with laws that deny people piracy. As mentioned in the last post, 20% of the people cause 80% of the influence. If these pirates can’t use the internet by their own rules then by all means, free and open source media will take over the internet. Making content impossible to pirate will only make it inaccessible. When the only content accessible is free, that is what people will download. Even major companies such as Mozilla and Red Hat make large profits from the distribution of open source software. Red Hat reported a total of $909.3 million in revenue for the fiscal year 2011 results. These companies don't use the standard marketing and business strategies but still continue to earn enough profits. There’s no doubt that making money from something that is being distributed for free is harder, and that is most likely the main reason for why big media companies hate it. It requires adapting for survival.
 

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References:

“Heading into New Decade and 10 Million Members, ijji.com Unveils New Logo,” IGN, January 9, 2012; http://pc.ign.com/articles/104/1043348p1.html

“Red Hat Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2011 Results,” Red Hat, March 23, 2011; http://investors.redhat.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=559647

We are the 80%

Economists and business men often see marketing as an opportunity to promote products and distribute information of their superiority over competitors. It really is seen as a form of intelligence to be able to professionally market things, which is ironic since the reality is that marketing can simply be referred to as “making a product appeal to the most ignorant percentage of a population.” With recent technology, marketing has become the most important part of selling a technological product. Marketing can lead people to not only buy the product, but also let it define them. Is this false? A simple search about a product on a discussion website would show how much consumers are willing to defend people that simply want their money. This type of strong brand loyalty has become the sole marketing strategy that is put to use on tech products. No one has yet come up with a specific technique to generate more brand loyalty, but it is very clear who is winning in that race.

Who can deny the Apple or Nintendo empires’ loyal fan bases? Their products can be priced at any range and have competitors offering all sorts of qualities and prices and still sell more than these competitors. However, according to the Pareto 80-20 rule, 20% of the buyers are causing 80% of the influence on the company, meaning that the company only has to appeal to 20% of the population and satisfy those individuals to create a monopoly over the entire country. When Microsoft attempted to sell Zune, they created something with very similar features to IPods and assumed that they had enough brand loyalty for people to switch from an IPod to a Zune. However, that did not work, since Microsoft ignored the 80-20 rule. They did not choose a 20% as a target audience. Microsoft’s customers range from gamers to bargain hunters to professionals building power machines. If they had targeted any of these 3 with the product’s advertisements and features, they may have had a better chance of collecting the 20% needed to cause the brand loyalty influence. Same can be said about Google’s Google+ recently rivaling Facebook. If Google had targeted a certain category of consumers that use Google products, they may have had enough to gain the 20% needed. That being ignored, people saw no need to switch from Facebook. Features alone aren’t enough to have a solid fan base with today’s consumers. That is why marketing techniques must appeal to those with the least knowledge. 

Androids have been the only successful rivals of Apple products. When Android OS was first released, it wasn’t much of a rival, but as it formed the 20% needed to cause the influence, Android sales grew at a rarely-seen exponential rate. That 20% consisted of customization lovers. A special category of tech junkies that Apple failed to satisfy many times. It did not matter who the 80% were. If that 20% of brand-loyal customers was able to define the product to the 80%, the marketing strategy was successful.

As fascinating as it is to be a brand loyal consumer, people need to wake up and realize that they’re not users; they’re the ones being used. They are defining a simple entity while letting it define them. Being a consumer means to help people sustain their jobs and help improve the economy, not be the toy of the market. Influence may come from the 20%, but ambitions of life only exist within the 80%. Which percentage is the ignorant one?

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References:

F. John Reh, "Pareto's Principle - The 80-20 Rule," about.com; http://management.about.com/cs/generalmanagement/a/Pareto081202.htm

Sarah Mackley Gonnella, "All Those Looking for Loyal Clients, Raise Your Hand!" Acumen Advisors Blog, 2012; http://www.acumenadvisors.com/blog/?Author=Sarah+Mackley+Gonnella