Why You Wanted This, Again?

Imagine the following scene. You are at the market and you are a parent, and your child is with you. As you walk down the aisles, you pass through the candy section. Your child pull your clothes and point for the Nutella pots. He asks for it. You think for a while and decided that, hey, one pot to please the child, why not? And you get a small pot for him. But them he start complaining that the pot is small and he wants a bigger one. And he wants cookies too, to dip them in Nutella. And some Fanta too. And he keep asking for more and more.

If you are (or want to be) a good parent, you will say no to all those things. Damn, you may as well put the small pot of Nutella back and say to your child that he will not receive any because he need to learn that he cannot have everything.

Ask for more one thing! I double dare you!

If you cave in, the child will just keep annoying you because them he knows you will give what he wants. And you will never have peace anymore. Spoiling your children will only make things more difficulty in the future.

And with this, we come to the point I want to make. PC gamers asked Namco Bandai and From Software to make a PC version of Dark Souls, a successful game made for the PS3 and 360. After seeing that there was enough demand to justify making such version, the developer and publisher announced that they are in fact making the PC version of the game. So, PC gamers would be happy to finally play a great game right? Well...

The armor is not shinning enough!

The PC crowd was not happy with the game being made. They were unhappy that they choose Games for Windows Live as a component over Steam. The developer said that would be easier and cheaper to make the game with GFWL and use the same on-line structure for this game that the 360 version use. But the PC gamers want Steam and are even saying they will not buy the game if not in Steam.

Then we have people complaining that the game will not have updated textures and the frame rate will be locked at 30fps. Which make me question: do PC gamers really wants to play Dark Souls? Because Dark Souls is a great game in the consoles, and playing it on PC with the same characteristics still will be a great experience.

It is a great game already!

But apparently, PC gamers don't want the game. They want to show off their rigs with it. It is not about the great experience and enjoyment of the game. It is about having a better version than consoles just they can justify their thousand dollars rigs. They are like the child in my example at the first paragraph.

If Namco Bandai was like the parent, they would simple say: 'Look, we cannot give the game as you wish because we will have no profit in it. In fact we probably will lose money if we even try. so we are cancelling the game'. Of course, Namco Bandai is not a parent, it is a company trying to turn profit. They are launching the PC version of the game not of any good will, but because they believe that somewhere down the line they will gain a profit.

But the message the PC gamers (and most gamers in general) are sending to those companies is very clear: we are never satisfied. We will always demand more. In turn, those companies, as any good parent, will start to just turn a deaf ear to those demands and starting ignoring the gamers wishes. Any fair complaining will start to be ignored because is in the middle of all the petty ones.

If we cannot show appreciation and satisfaction with what are given to us (as long as it is a good thing), the companies will just ignore our voices and just listen to our wallets. They will just keep doing what is more profitable. And all the time we fight to make companies work closer with us, the fans, will be lost due our incapacity of being satisfied.

The thing is, we need to stop behaving like spoiled brats, always demanding and start to be happy when a company do a good thing to us, even if is not perfect. Or else, next time we want something nice, there will be nobody listening.