Similiar Games Coexisting

People are stupid?

wizard's first rule

Great series!

I think the 4th rule, if I remember right can apply also.

Im gonna re read that whole series now. lol

You also see this a ton with MMORPGs.  I don't get it either.

If they couldn't coexist, the games Industry wouldn't have been revived after Atari imploded it back in the day. Believing otherwise is stupidity, pure and simple.

Fanboys love to believe that their game is the "one true game" because, to them, if you're not playing the biggest and best game your wasting your time - games are serious business, and you need to keep your 'net cred' high by having a level 80 of every World of Warcraft character, a 1337 Pro team in Starcraft, and be the first people to buy the next big thing so you can "pwn t3h n00bs" and establish your 'net cred' in that game as well. Anything that doesn't instantly sell 11,000,000 copies is dying and anything less than a patch a week means the Developers are laughing at the broken and usless game.

It's these same so-called gamers that believe "t3h PS3 is t3h 1337357 con5ol3 t3h pow3r m3ans b3tt3r gam3s t3h GAYDICKLOVINGXBOXROFLCOPPTER!!11!!1!ELVEN!!". I've labelled these idiots the "Halo Kids", because that's where I first encountered this kind of behaviour. They make up around 75% of Blizzard Entertainment's customers.

fortunately I am in the 25% range that believes that games should be many and varied like cars and food

Count me in on this one!

Similar games can coexist, but this thread is pointless.

Fantasy World Dizzy will always be the ONE TRUE GAME.

you left me puzzled, which is the car to end all cars?

what would be really cool if ready to play does well and is expanded to the whole net.

though i must admit to a satisfactory feeling of schadenfreude reading peeps broiling in their own rage.

p.s. Demigod FTW, where's my cheque?

Starcraft is brutally overrated, it  is great game indeed, but far from best. And the blind faith of Blizzard fanatic supporters is beyond belief. I noticed it on the Escapist message boards during that Developer competition. After Ironclad failed to advance i voted in the Blizzard vs Relic round and the Blizzard fanboys on the forum were utter tw*ts, saying Relic is no match for Blizzard, cause Blizzard made Diablo and Starcraft, which is even today played by trillion Koreans and blah blah blah.... I voted for Relic myself because i really loved Homeworld, not because i actually thought Relic is better developer than Blizzard, but in the end I was really satisfied when Relic won it, just to see those people shut up.

Some studios have rather zealous fans who are incapable of taking criticism.

These studios include Valve, Blizzard, and Square Enix.

And Stardock, at times. (We need to come clean on that one)

Well, every studio has its share of zealous fans. I just find that some have especially militant fans who attack critics and reject reason.

I don't think it's fair to label everyone who thinks Starcraft is the 'best' and has 'faith' in Blizzard as a 'fanatic'. I do think that Starcraft is the 'best', in the sense that I've had more fun playing it than any other game; and as as for Blizzard, I rate them above Relic since they haven't released a game that hasn't been fantastic during the time I've been following them.

That said, if I don't enjoy Starcraft 2 or Diablo 3, I won't force myself to continue playing them, and I might think twice about buying the next Blizzard game. I also wouldn't miss Supreme Commander 2 if it wasn't made.

Well, Stardock doesn't really need zealot fans because the CEO him self will get on here and tell you to stfu.

the only reason half the people hang out on the IRC chat and forums is because at that time the game is not working for them, they are waiting for a game to start or because they want the game to live up to its full potential.

i know for a fact that any game that has worked for me i have had no need to speak on the forums at all. for example WoW, WC3, Diablo, HoN, CoD4 etc..

Hmmm, perhaps I'm setting myself up to get stoned to death here, but co-existing in the market doesn't always mean co-existing with the same players or sharing the same market.  I know plenty of people who buy 1 game at a time, burn themselves out on it over a couple of months or longer and move on to another (perhaps totally different genre depending on what's come out).  They don't get several similar games, don't want to spread their limited time being mundane at several games when they can hone skills and have a hoot/get the most out of one.  

I'm not quite part of this crowd, as I'm not *quite* as time-poor as my friends, but considering the average gamers age is something like 30 now?  (Don't quote me on that, completely no idea where I read it, can be fud yeah) I believe people like this might be greater in number than the younger gamers realize.   There is a reason a lot of people talk about games killing each other, and for them and their friend groups it may well be the case.  It's not always out of blind fanaticism, but because I personally know many people who only want to really get into one game at a time.

I'm not so sure they should be ridden off.  As I mentioned (I really should find a reference for it) the age of the gaming populous is ageing, and that general demograph is pretty safe to say more timepoor than your average uni student or highschool student, and possible more able to speak with their wallets.  

Using myself and my friends as an example, (tho I hate to use DG v HoN/LoL as said example) we chose to all buy demigod not only because it is an awesome game now, but because of all the excitement it generated when reading the whole "it's a long term thing for us" here on the forums.  If a couple of mates decide they have more fun in same-genre betas and believe their free (or not, whatever it ends up being) content updates provide more longevity and enjoyment than the possible $9 perDG here, we may all end up getting said-game (again, just an example) and leaving DG behind.  Not because we spat the dummy over anything, but for aforementioned reasons, and whilst that means DG still got our cash (and justly earned!) they wouldn't be getting the continual updates from us over the long term.  If we feel other similar games lacking we won't buy their games at all, and will hang around for more updates, and SD/GPG get more fiscal stimulus from a bunch of us who like playing together.  

The casual gamer has much, much sway over the life and longevity of games.  Another example I'm loath to use but find pertinent, the WoW game style direction becoming much much more casual based over the years (the recent heroic raids as the possible exception).  I know some people will play WoW and Aion and whatever else, but I think its a safe assumption a lot (the majority? who can say) will keep subscriptions rolling on one at a time for the majority of their playtime, not both.  Similarly, I and my friends may keep our update-purchases to DG or similar games, but unlikely both.

As you said, the benefit of free to play you can go back to any old game at any time but that isn't necessarily going to entail buying updates as well if there's more benefit to putting time/money elsewhere for more effect.  In a sense,  one game will have killed the other from a out-going payments perspective.  As I said (believe), the casual gamers en-force have much sway.

I've written about this topic before, so I won't write another wall of text on the subject, however the so-called 'casual' crowd are not the aging gamer who has limited time and income to spend on gaming - these aging gamers are known as the 'core' demographic. The aging gamers, roughly 34+, have literally seen the games industry shape itself and the videos games industry makes up their primary source of entertainment. I don't have any reference figures readily available, however, so I won't go into more detail.
The 'casual' crowd are the gamers buying the majority of titles - they fund companies like EA Games with franchises like Madden, The Sims and Spore. They've given Nintendo a commanding lead in the console market, and if recent trends are to be trusted than 'casuals' are anything but, based on the sheer number of sales.

They have a commanding presence because of the sheer number that makes up this 'casual' crowd and as such companies often try to capture this crowd for a large number of one off sales - although this is changing with digital distribution. Now, the casual crowd are being pandered to by every major company in the video games market and as such there are a wealth of titles of them to pick and chose from that are all 'casual friendly' or 'accessible'.
However, fast forward from a multiplayer games release 18 months and view the people still playing the game. The hype has died down, the world is no longer on fire and the dust has settled. You'll find a much less 'casual' environment because they've moved on to the next big thing, while the fans are still playing. Factors suchs as the quality of the title and it's immediate, retail success determines on how long the 'casual crowd' sticks around for.

As I posted earlier, these gamers do not make up the long term survival of the community - the core gamers do. Demigod has a smaller community and as such will retain a much smaller percentage of 'casual' gamers as the dust of it's release settles while the casual crowd move on to the next 'big thing'.

In addition, it's worth remembering that any developer should pretty much ignore forums.  Listening closely to 'fans' (ie, incredibly narrow sample of one type of possible customer) generally leads to crap.  Thus, whatever morons in youtube comments are saying today, it's not really relevant.

The mobility of different kinds of customer in the market is an interesting topic, especially since 'omg whut is teh best gamez' sort of thing you find on forums basically ignores 99% of the potential market.  This is incidentally where I think Stardock picks up some of it's success - being able to make niche games that are polished and generally accesible to more people.  That's why they make money, and why people like Paradox make something else entirely.

(Re: ZehDon) All good, tho I'm scared we're moving sideways despite being related.  Taking all this casual/ageing gaming in stride, I still think the points stand as to why some people believe similar games cannot coexist, and in what sense they believe a game may kill another. That being as simple as the fact that many of us who wouldn't consider ourselves necessarily casual, also don't want to spread our efforts into several similar games.  

Instead of immediately jumping on the defense when someone comes posting "z0mg LoL will KiLl Dg!!" (and I abhor their manners/post style as much as the next person) I can see why they believe/post that opinion nonetheless.  No points for manners, but they may simply just be more of the crowd (that I don't believe is small) who do want to be somewhat good at one thing instead of spreading efforts across many.

Oh I certainly agree, there are a large percentage of gamers who want to find one game to steal away all of their time, something to dedicate themselves to and another percentage of games who simply don't have the time to play and practice at more than one game.

What I'm trying to say is that while there are justifiable reasons why someone like yourself or myself might claim that Demigod's future is uncertain, at least in terms of it's continual player base, the people who actually make those Doom Sayer threads aren't using your logic to justify their reasons. They're using the Blizzard Enterainment Customer mentality I detailed above.

Broken down, these players use this fomula*:
If [Day 1# Game Sales] < [Population of World of Warcraft]
then
[Game] = WIN
else
[Game] = Fail
goto
'Forum'
end

lbl Forum
[Post] = random{[Game] is broken; Devs don't care; no content; servers are empty!!11; Account cancelled}
Display [Post]
stop

*note based on actual coding language.

fixed.

Not to nitpick, but shouldn't that be a >?