Slashdot Mirror
Wal-Mart Controls Modern Game Design?
An anonymous reader writes "That Wal-Mart smiley face is looking pretty evil now that Allen Varney has explained how much influence they have on virtually every modern game: 'Publisher sales reps inform Wal-Mart buyers of games in development; the games' subjects, titles, artwork and packaging are vetted and sometimes vetoed by Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart tells a top-end publisher it won't carry a certain game, the publisher kills that game. In short, every triple-A game sold at retail in North America is managed start to finish, top to bottom, with the publisher's gaze fixed squarely on Wal-Mart, and no other.'"
Wal-Mart has had this impact on developers and publishers for quite some time. One of the most publicized occurrences was with BMX XXX - Wal-Mart didn't want to sell it because of its nature, so they toned it down to fit within Wal-Mart standards. It is unfortunate that one company with so much buying power runs the market. Gamestop is second though, with their recent merger with EB Games. But that's like comparing Godzilla to Oprah. You don't want to make either of them mad, but only one of them is powerful enough to destroy the planet. unless... http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Image:Oprahsaurus.jpg
Electric Pickle Online - gaming news, etc.
Raise your hand if you've ever bought a PC game from WalMart.
Me neither.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
"I like your game but we have to change the rules."
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
This won't be true forever. Companies that pride themselves on quality have given Wally World the heave-ho, choosing to create lasting quality goods instead of cheap crap.
meh
This is about true for any product that they are going to carry.
Companies have to try very hard to get Walmart to carry and on top of that market their product.
This is for the watered down masses who normally buy games thinking their 4 year old PC's will play without a problem. Tell me how the GTA games were so successful then?! IIRC, there was a big stink about how violent GTA was and how it was corroding our kids' minds.. Give me a break.
Those who sell out to WalMart's demands deserve to be put out of business.
If a major top end retailer won't carry your goods, the customers who buy from those retailers (guess where kids' mommies go to pick up that new game they want?) won't ever have the chance to buy them, so why bother making them?
That's what are entitled to when you are the world's largest retailer. Walmart is known for being extremely hard on vendors. For example, they demanded that all shipments to Walmart must be RFID tagged. Vendors had the choice of tagging all their shipments or stop doing business with Walmart. I don't know of any that stopped doing business.
Currently, my company has a few trial units in Walmart. We bend over backwards to give them anything they want. If we get the account, our revenue will quadruple and make us a national player in a billion dollar industry with about 60 employees. As much of a pain that is, it is worth it to the company.
Still, I'd like to see more game manufacturors tell Wally-World to stick it and make the game to what the consumers want rather than the Walton family dictates.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
If you're biggest destributor isn't going to sell one of your products you're going to care. Welcome to capitalism.
Of course the morals of how Wal-Mart became such a big distributor are debatable. But this outcome is quite obvious. If this article is a surprise your head's in the sand.
Developers: We can use your help.
Walmart is destroying America. They affect everything in our life, but don't you dare complain about them... they are very litigious. Plus, they have most of the American population eating from their hand. Oh well, come on everyone, it's a race to the bottom!
Meh.
New title:
Slashdot shocked to learn Wal-Mart does to gaming industry, what it does to every other industry
Nothing to see here, please move along.
That's the circle of life with Wal-Mart. You'll get a huge boost at first, but Wal-Mart always gets the last laugh. Always.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
That's called the free market. Game design studios could choose other retail outlets if they chose to do so. Wal*Mart doesn't have to carry anything that they don't like.
There are probably lots better reasons to hate Wal*Mart than for having buyers and communicating their intentions to vendors.
I fully expect that games, like movies on DVD, will soon come in two versions:
- PG-13 (the Wal-Mart version)
- unrated (the online version)
Walmart Sells PC Games?
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
I heard the same claims against Blockbuster and movies.
It's just a standard chilling effect.
Sucks, but it's bound to happen in monopoly driven market places.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
1. Walmart says it won't carry game.
2. Production company kills game.
3. ???
4. Walmart is evil!
Seems to me that this article has the crosshair on the wrong people. Besides, we already have plenty of reasons to hate Walmart.
I wish we'd stop linking to sites with such broken designs. It appears that my choice of font is too tall for the almighy web designers at The Escapist, and so the bottom of each column on the page is chopped off.
Also, although artificial pagination is such a common annoyance on the web today that it is not worth mentioning, for some reason whenever I switch into the tab containing the article, it sees fit to move to a different page!
(This seems to be a conflict between the page's choice of pgup/dn for next/previous page and my browser's use of ctrl+pgun/dn for next/previous tab).
What is with myopic Slashdot posters forgetting that the majority of games sold are for consoles and not for PC? On one hand you mention that the PC games WalMart carries are for 4 year old PCs, but then you mention Grand Theft Auto which has sold way more copies for PS2/X-Box than it ever could for PC. Ridiculous.
Every gamer I know buys from Amazon, EB Games, Gamestop, Best Buy, CompUSA, etc ... but NONE of them go to Wal-Mart for their games. Cheap furniture, office supplies, food, automotive products, maybe. But not games. Wal-Mart in this area doesn't even begin to compete on game selection, price, or in any other way with the more specialized stores.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
This is nothing new, at least in the music industry. Look what happened to Spinal Tap's "Smell The Glove" cover.
anything i tell you will cloud your opinion.
Dell's CTO, Kevin Kettler issued a statement:
"Me too!"
They're dictating to us our content!
_ id=3985188
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We won't be able to sell games like Dead or Alive because of the bouncing boobies!
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product
Or Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas because of the violence and cop killing!
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product
Or even that really truly EVIL game, Bully!
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product
This reminds me of how textbook publishers would be beholden to the Texas school board because they were the largest single customer in the USA. If they didn't like something, it was taken out of the textbook. Large corporations prefer to deal with large customers, so even if the largest customer is less than half the market they often end up controlling the entire market. That's why the big retailers all seem to carry the same 'lowest common denominator' goods. Buy from people who different - support the little guys!
Raise your hand if you've ever bought a PC game from WalMart.
Me neither.
Raise your hand if you're NOT a geek minority.
Ah-hah, I supposed.
Wal-Mart has a better idea of what you're buying that you do yourself. The know what gets sold, then know what popular. They could probally tell you how many video games they sold last month, and the result would scare you.
Don't be so quick to call everything a load of shit, because it probally isn't.
It is a bit upsetting that so many companies are at the mercy of Wal-Mart. This doesn't just happen with video games. If Wal-Mart says that this years Easter Bunnies will have 3 ears, your ass better be making some mutant rabbits to scare the kids, or risk getting overthrown by the guy who will.
Wal-Mart holds to much control in the USA (and Canada now) than most people would want. It should be interesting when it all comes crashing down (sooner or later, it will).
Fractured Element
Wal-Mart will have this control for a bit longer but as things like Direct2Drive become more prevalent I imagine we'll see the gaming industry caring less and less about what Wal-Mart has to say. Honestly, if I was a gaming company, I'd much rather sell digital copies than copies on some sort of media. There's no shipping, there's no storage, there's no 3rd party vendor who has to make copies of the game before its released; bandwidth space and data storage arn't cheap but they're far cheaper than the traditional distribution model.
;)
Although, if Wal-Mart were smart, they'd bury Direct2Drive because they do have the market share and corporate power to do so; but what do I know? I work in a cubicle
That this happens shouldn't be surprising to anyone. Given the current system of putting games on discs and putting discs in boxes the retailer must be appeased or there is no place to sell the product.
as if this is news. Walmart does this to everyone.
Can they do something about the bad camera angles that infest so many games? Or the scarcity of fraking save points and vindictive restart points that make you wonder if the developers actively hate their customers? C'mon, Walmart! Flex that muscle!
Will capitalize on the phrase "not sold at Wal-Mart" or "banned from", and turn it into a plus.
Our new game is so sexy and violent it is banned from Wal-Mart.
In short, every triple-A game sold at retail in North America is managed start to finish, top to bottom, with the publisher's gaze fixed squarely on Wal-Mart, and no other.'"
s -me that don't seem vetted by Wal*Mart. The games may have sucked, but they had some serious marketing muscle behind them.
That may be true on consoles, but I call bullshit on PC game influence.
I have no doubt about publishers being influenced by Wal*Mart, but there are a number of 'Grade A' games like GTA, Gun, that-50-cent-piece-of-crap-game-whose-name-escape
The only time I see PC games being sold at Wal*Mart is when it's the bargain bin Deer Hunter crap. Any serious PC game gets bought by gamers going somewhere else. PC game developers may want and like Wal*Mart support, but certainly don't appear to be beholden to them.
And you know what? If you could predict whether a game would be hugely successful or not, you might be right. But firstly, the fact is that it's an art, not a science, and nobody knows FOR SURE which titles are going to be hits and which are going to suck.
"We're not going to carry any game with nudity."
Gee, because before Wal-Mart became big, there was a HUGE market for computer-porn games?
Are some games modified because of the tremendous buying power of Wal Mart? Sure, that's logical. But that's a big step from claiming that "every AAA game is managed start to finish, top to bottom" with WalMart in mind.
Yes, for crapware like Deer Hunter and Barbie Fashion designer, I'm sure WalMart's giant demographic is part of their calculus "Say 0.001% of the WalMart electronics browsers buy our game? That's like....a gajillion dollars!".
But AAA titles? I doubt it. How much did WalMart come into the design of World of Warcraft? Oblivion? GalCiv2? Peripherally, if at all.
As usual, reality is somewhere beneath The Escapist's flashy hyperbolic copy.
-Styopa
"Gamers" may not shop at Wal-Mart, but "gamers" are nothing but a vocal minority amongst game purchasers. The vast majority of game players just buy whatever's popular or on-sale at the most convenient place.
Just like anyone who has an appreciation for good music won't shop at Wal-Mart... but Wal-Mart still sells more music than all the other stores combined it seems.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/102/open_snapp er.html
Whats a Wal-mart? Sounds German.
Website designers pander to Google's algorithm in order to make their sites come up earlier in the results, to attract more traffic to their sites. This is referred to as "SEO".
Companies tailor their products to Wal-Mart's practices (whether you agree with them or not) in order to make more sales. This would be... "Wal-Mart Optimization"?
Per ardua ad astra.
it renewed my sense of horror for Wal-Mart's current management and policies. Just because you have the ability to determine the products that reach consumers shouldn't give you ethical license to do so. I wish Walton Sr. was still around, back when Wal-Mart stood for high wages, good benefits and US made products. Whatever happened to hereditary behavior?
And all you dumb ass white trash morons who think you have a "good job" there, or can afford the "good pricing" there, wake up and realize what these pigopolists are doing to our ecconomy!! Not only that, but any company that tries to force their "morals" on their customers is EVIL!!
THE WALTON FAMILY MUST DIE!!! EVILS PIGS!!!
We aren't far off from video game companies realizing they can maximize profits by raising their own capital and self publishing. In a world with broadband, buying games off the shelves just seems dumb. So everyone, lets gather around and thank companies like Wal-Mart for tightening its grip on the markets. The markets will choke to death and be reborn into something better.
Or if not, look on the bright side. You can still buy guns at Wal-Mart and go for the ultimate grand theft auto experience.
"That game is too violent, so we don't carry it. But feel free to browse our selection of guns.
Key word: masses.
Wal-Mart pushes a shitload of games. Thus, they have a shitload of influence over the game publishers. The game publishers don't go out of business precisely because they bow to Wal-Mart's (and to varying lesser degrees, other retailers') demands. From the publisher's point of view, it's only profitable to snub Wal-Mart and their ilk if the intrinsic quality and appeal of the unadultered game can outmarket the mighty retail machine with a watered-down version.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/40/11 That's all I get, I even checked the html source.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Is your tin foil hat in place?
And now you know why most big-name games are crap nowadays.
But then again, you probably already knew this, and quite a few other reasons.
For example, you want to buy a pair of socks. You happen to like Brand X socks. Since Brand X sells socks at Wal Mart, they have to lower the quality of the product to meet the price point that the buyer demands. These same socks are then sold to Kmart, Target, Sears, etc. In order to get a good pair of socks that last, you have to move up to a brand like Gold Toe that isn't sold at Wal Mart. To get this sock, you now shop at JC Penneys, Dillards, etc. Yes, you gladly pay more, because you want your socks to last more than a few months.
If you want quality, don't buy from Wal Mart. (It wasn't this bad when Sam Walton was in charge.)
www.mikesmind.com - www.daddyworkathome.com - www.freetofarm.org - www.tenfoottable.com
Walmart has a right to decide what it wants to sell. The publishers and developers are the ones making a concsious decision here. Support independent game publishers that don't go through this channel, the ones that understand their customers enough to realize that there is a market that may lie outside of the Walmart shopper demographic and are willing to take the risk to sell to them. Remeber, only YOU can prove there is a market outside of Walmart.
Wal-Mart carries a tiny selection of game titles. How can they possibly exert this much control over the whole gaming market?
...where the player has to dodge falling prices?
Wal-Mart isn't strong because of it's buying power - it is strong because of it's selling power.
Anyway, please feel free to resume your Wal-Mart hating now and label me flamebait/troll/whatever.
I had a meeting with the business development manager of a very large game publisher just a short while ago. He basically told me the very exact thing: unless Walmart reserves a certain amount of shelf space, they game won't even see the light of day [in most cases]. It even goes so far as that the format and packaging of the game is tightly controlled - if you want to do anything fancy, Walmart won't carry it - thus it won't exist. This is really nasty and it also stifles competition. Well, that's the price we pay for those low low prices...
You realize the apostrophe makes "you're" just a short way of saying/spelling you are?
This is hardly surprising. Wal-Mart has had quite a stranglehold on the supply sie of the market for a number of years. Technically, they're not a monopoly, but for all practical purposes, they wield the power of a monopoly from one end of the supply chain to another. You have to admire their innovation (they've revolutionized the modern retail supply chain), but it's also quite scary how much control they have.
Although it's been linked to numerous times here and elsewhere, I'd like to point those interested in learning more about how Wal-Mart deals with supppliers to the now-famous Fast Company article on the subject.
Transistors and Beer!!
Hey, if you haven't noticed, Wal*Mart does this with every product they sell. E-V-E-R-Y. So I guess there are two options:
Stop shopping at Wal*Mart.
OR
Piss and moan about it. (This is obviously the choice of every Wal*Mart customer.)
I guess it takes censorship of a video game's box to get people to realize how bad of a company Wal*Mart is...oh wait, low prices make that acceptable...
Just because you have the ability to determine the products that reach consumers shouldn't give you ethical license to do so.
...". In reality, what many are implying is that Walmart should have NO ethics here and simply let the "market" determine what they should stock.
Err, aren't you completely supporting Walmart's position here? "We have an ethical responsibility to carefully regulate the products that we sell
Walmart has a giant impact upon game design... AND... music production, product (industrial) design, manufacturing, etc etc. I wouldn't be surprised to hear horror stories from software developers outside of the game industry.
If it sits on Walmart's shelf, and Walmart is responsible for selling the hell out of it, you can bet production and content will be how Walmart wants it.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Some game dev studios couldn't care less what Sprawlmart or anyone else thinks. For example, Running With Scissors, creators of the Postal games.
Silence is golden... and duct tape is silver.
-b.
They have all but monopolized the space on a store's shelf. Yes, there will always be other places to do shopping, but WalMart is the cheapest way to spend money and that's pretty important to most of us since we don't have as much money as we used to it seems. But WalMart is rather like rust in the sense that the corruption causes heat which causes corruption which causes heat...until the material is destroyed. In this case, WalMart offers low prices and demands low costs which lowers quality... I'll leave it to the reader to determine where the cycle cycles, but ultimately, it's a downward spiral.
But WalMart is interesting because there hasn't really been one of these companies before. And for the moment, there doesn't seem to be another on their heels either. They are big. They are all but unstoppable. I almost want to watch just to see what happens as a result of WalMart's influence.
Price (in $CDN) for HL2 bronze when I bought it:
Wal-Mart: $60
Electronics Boutique: $50
Staples Buisness Depot: $40
It's true for nearly everything at Wal-Mart, and has been from the beginning, that prices are in fact higher. Walston, or whatever his name was, would sell key items below cost, and everything else far above cost. And don't you love it when they drop prices to get smaller businesses out of town, and raise them right after success? Capitalism at its finest.
I have freaks! I did something right...
Barbie's Horse Adventure?
The local walmarts by me sell next to nothing in terms of video games. I mean They dont even have ps2s for sale. I doubt they control the video game market.
I mean, all of the games out there are homogenized boring piles of cute fuzziness and all. We don't have anything like GTA or wizards and magic and fighting and violent themed games. It's all NASCAR and Big Buck Hunter. [:roll eyes] I mean, you *can* argue about the quality of a lot of games out there, but I just don't see a massive watering down of things because Walmart won't sell them. It seems like there's a lot of variety out there, of both good and bad.
Contrary to popular belief, people who shop at Wal*Mart are sometimes seen shopping at other places, too. Plenty of insanely violent, graphic, and clearly un-Wal*Mart-sanctioned games are out there. This is a stupid straw man.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
[popular in America's Army game]
..
:)
When you get a jam in your gun - You say "I hate this fucking Walmart AK-47!"
When your M16-203 doesn't work - You go " Fucking Walmart 203!! "
Walmart & Games doesn't go 2gether. It's that simple.
~ Ujjal [http://strangeforeignbeauty.com/
This may be true for larger developers, but if we are to look at other retail merchandise as an analogy or model there is clearly room for other venues of sale. Target is doing particularly well, and I'll be damned if those clothing stores in every city's bohemian drags aren't always full.
What I'm suggesting is that Wal-Mart is unquestionably big, but it isn't the universe. If anything, it's a big black hole. Once game developers get into its leisurely spin they will inevitably find themselves crushed by its greatness. But there are plenty of other ways to sell games, not the least of which this thing called Internet, which I dare say in some form or other will long outlive Wal-Mart.
I think this speaks more to the cost of development than anything else, but that's best saved for another post.
If there were 1/2 dozen large retailers competing on an approximate eqaul footing for your product you can pick and choose. How ever, Mall-Wart is so huge it can make or break a game company. They have, in some cases, a de facto monopoly on the shelf space needed for a gaming company to succeed. When there is a monopoly, in this case in terms of shelf space and customers, the rules of free markets do not apply.
HTH
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
HEHE bully is listed as expected on October 2005..
If your revenue quadruples when you get the Wmart contract, that means that 75% of your revenue stream is from them. Once you've invested a lot of money in infrastructure to support those sales, you HAVE to do what they say or risk cutting your earnings by that same 75%.
Isn't that the same thing as them owning you, except you take all the manufacturing/design risk?
So do what I do: Don't shop at WalMart.
We're living in a Marketocraty now. Vote with your dollars, they're buying the votes for the next election anyways.
And I urge you to do it as long as consumers still have some power in the market, because the corporations already realize that their worst enemy isn't the competition but the fickle customer.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
This just opens the door for the small scale studios to produce games that the Big Corporate Game Companies won't dare to produce.
Who the fuck needs fucking Wal-Mart to distribute video games? For fuck's sake, we've had an internet for the better part of 40 years now. You can advertise and distribute games on the internet, and never touch Wal Mart. Games are data. Financial transactions are data. You don't fucking need fucking Warl Mart if you're a fucking video game developer.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
So, before you buy your next widget, think about the kind of future you want *your* kids to have.
-b. - speaking as the owner of a small consulting business here
When I see "Game design" on a slashdot headline, I think oh, they must be talking about enforcing less violence, or push for earlier release dates resulting in sloppier code etc... But package design? Who gives a crap? I think it would be natural for Walmart to give feedback about what marketing techniques work well in their stores...
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. -Confucius
If Wal-Mart is willing to sell GTA (even after the pr0n incident) it doesn't seem that they are setting the bar too high.
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I mean, sure, Walmart is big, but would it be obvious that the combines sales of all retail outlets OUTSIDE of Walmart is greater?
If you want that must have game, and Walmart doesn't carry it, are you saying that people will not buy the game elsewhere?
I think it is pretty ridiculous to assume that Walmart has any control over software titles. I mean, I would easily agree that if you were making a brand of toilet paper, catering to Walmarts every whim makes sense because you want your toilet paper product in every Walmart. When people shop at Walmart, and they see your toilet paper there, they will buy it. More market exposure means more sales. People don't go out of their way to buy toilet paper, they buy it when they are at the store buying other things.
But can the same be said for video games? I am sorry, I don't feel that video games are impulse buy items, not these days. I don't wander into a Walmart (actually, I try to avoid them like the plague), and just happen to say, "Hey, there is a game that looks intersting, lets drop $56.97 on it thats just burning a hole in my pocket!"
How many times have I been screwed over with that mentality, dropping $40 - $80 on a video game only to bring it home and bored to tears 2 hours later. Or the game keeps me entertained for about a week before it gets old. I don't impulse buy video games any more. And I don't go to Walmart on the off chance there might be some new video game I haven't heard about sitting on the shelf.
With the Internet, I keep an eye out for new game titles and when they are released I either demo them or get reviews and user opinions about the game. I.e. I am making an informed choice about the games that I buy. When I decide to buy the game then I go out specifically to buy the video game, and usually Walmart isn't my destination. Sure, Walmart might be the cheapest place, but generally its because they sell something $0.97 cheaper then other retail stores. Hardly worth the nightmare of trying to park in a Walmart parking lot, weave my way through all the slow moving buggy people, and then stand in line for 2 hours to make my purchase.
So, I really can't see how software companies quiver in their boots if Walmart objects to one of their games. If the game is good, people will make a point to buy its regardless of where it is. There are still so many OTHER places then Walmart to buy video games.
Ultimately, if video game developers feel their innovation is being stifled by big box brand stores, then simply go the route of Valve and distribute your software via Steam or some other online service. Bypass the big box stores and their "family values" kind of crap mentality.
While I am sure that for some manufactures of many types of products losing Walmart as a retailer spells disaster, I can't see this being the case in the video game industry. F*ck Walmart if they don't like your game, its all about the customers, and if you actually make a decent game people will come to you to buy it, not Walmart.
The only game developers I can see pandering to Walmart are those crapmongers that come out with 40 lame titles a year and hope that people will look at the cover and impulse buy the game at Walmart. Few of those games ever succeed, so the more places they can fling their crap, the more chances people will get hit with it.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
So it's OK if a company wants to provide what I would define as obscene or offensive entertainment but it it's not OK if a company doesn't?
So to sum it up -- Shotguns and rifles - okay. Violent videogames - bad.
It's not like Wal-mart is playing through every single game carried in their stores. They're just looking at the M-rated ones to see which are unsuitable for their own stores' family friendly image.
This makes it sound like they're playing through E-rated games changing dialogue just for the hell of it.
Because Wal-Mart has such a ridiculous amount of Games. How can they possibly be in such control when they have less games than I do?
I guess they should build more Wal-Marts then.
Actually the sad truth about Wal-Mart is that they only have a problem with nudity and violence in games is because video games are kids toys and nobody can tell them otherwise. Clearly Wal-mart doesn't have a problem selling nudity (Basic Instinct) or rape (The Accused) or murder by lesbian prostitutes (Monster) or gratuitous violence (Kill Bill) or racism (American History X) if it's in A MOVIE. But when Duke Nukem has a poorly pixelated boob viewable it gets pulled from the shelves.
I'd love to know why video games (and CDs too) are held to a different moral standard than DVD movies at Wal-mart, but we'll never really know.
My guess is that they are considerering movies as art, while video games are just toys for kids. Of course it's probably just because the MPAA is lining the pockets of Walmart execs, but oh well.
Ok, so you hate Walmart.
So who should control what games get made? A committee of Slashdot nerds? I don't think we need any FP Bill Gates shooters, DRM-cracking games, or complaining games. I don't think there will be a lot of studios building Free(tm) games with huge art budgets.
Boo-fricken-hoo. Game companies actually want to sell games. The biggest sales outlet has the most influence. Whiners and freeloaders on message boards have relatively little influence. It's not really a surprise.
Money talks. Money can be used to buy goods and services. Game companies want it for that reason.
If you want non-Walmart influenced games, then start a game company and make games. Don't sell them through Walmart. What's stopping you?
Money is stopping you. You let it influence your decisions. But you're surprised when it influences game company management?
The average Joe works at Wal-Mart, getting paid the slave wages that mean he can only afford to buy at Wal-Mart. The average Joes that don't work at Wal-Mart work for compainies that provide services to Wal-Mart, or need the customers that get paid Wal-Mart slave wages, so those companies in turn pay their average Joes slave wages, and in turn those average Joes can only afford to buy at Wal-Mart. Furthermore the quality of the goods from companies that need to sell to the slave wage earnrs suffers as they have to cut quality to provide a price that the slave wage earners can afford.
Thank god Oprah is only a character in old monster movies!
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
We must destroy the heart of the Walmart!!
If online, legal distribution of media (i.e., movies, video games, et cetera) ever catches on in a big way this "Wal-Mart Effect" will be become increasingly less relevant. With millions of people still accustomed to traditional forms of commerce, however, I suppose Wal-Mart doesn't have to worry just yet.
The cries of "Walmart is killing America!" and so on are getting really tiresome. I don't care for their stores either, yet I've bought specific items there (such as baby diapers), because they simply had the best prices for the exact same products I would have paid more for elsewhere.
IMHO, if you don't like the quality of WalMart goods, don't buy any of their "house brand" stuff, or any of the generic stuff. Only buy when they sell the *identical* product you were wanting anyway from another store.
No matter how "evil" people think they are, they won't be able to successfully sell items the public won't buy. And they can only squeeze so hard, for so long, on manufacturers with successful products. (Of course, new ones needing a "jump start" into the marketplace want to kiss WalMart's butt. They have everything to gain when they're starting out at ground zero. But at some point, you simply can't afford to keep offering WalMart the quantities of product they want at the prices they demand you sell for. And hopefully by then, your product is well-known and in enough demand that you can cut WalMart off and keep sales alive through other retailers. Or even do direct marketing if need-be. The Internet is a powerful ally.)
Entirely true.
The only evil done here is done by the publishers, who CHOOSE to listen to Wal-Mart's demands.
While this system has its capitalistic elements, it is not a pure capitalist system, nor do all capitalist systems resemble this one.
Saying "Welcome to capitalism" is like looking at Christianity in America or Buddhism in China and saying "Welcome to Religion"
Whatever happened to the big promise of the net? I thought this kind of brick and mortar dependency was supposed to go away; so much for that. I don't see what is stopping game companies from just going more towards online distribution (like so many small publishers do already)? The article mentions this point at the end.
The other alternative mentioned is to build a full version for those of us who aren't offended by adult images and lock it down for mainstream distribution. Offer an unlock code online that is keyed to each specific release. Does this really create too much extra cost for the developers?
Funny how Wal-Mart considers blood and gore to be "family friendly" but not R rated T&A.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Good thing within the next five years we will never have to go and buy physical media to play a game.
To bad for Walmart.
Wal-Mart may have a large amount of influence over how games are made, marketed, and packaged, but it is still no different than the example of a tomato. Wal-MArt can't make me buy bad tomatoes, and Wal-Mart can't make me buy bad games. And Wal-Mart knows this. So what does Wal-Mart do? Well, for one, it starts selling an anime series called Gantz. Gantz is the "new thing," in violent/gory American released anime, and in its first episode features a dual decapitation, complete with a full minute of flying heads, the reconstruction of a naked girl with slashed wrists, incluing brains and intestines, as well as attempted rape. Gantz volumes one through three are also currently sitting on the shelf of one of my local Wal-Marts, right here in the buckle of that opressivee, socially dominant "Bible Belt," (Tennessee.)
So tomatos, games, and attempted rape anime; how does it all fit together? Simple, Wal-Mart is clever. Wal-Mart tells tomato growers to use chemicals and certain methods to grow the tomatoes that it wants. In this way, Wal-Mart isn't selling a product that offends customers. Wal-Mart sells GTA San Andreas up until the revelation of the stupid, stupid, stupid addition of Back Coffee, stops selling it, and then sells it again once the stupid, stupid addition is removed. And Wal-Mart will keep selling Gantz, as long as the publisher keeps it low-key and quiet, so no Soccer Moms are screaming at a Wal-Mart middle manager about the product that they themselves bought. Simply put, Wal-Mart does send a message to developers and distibutors of all type, but it is not the messge of "Don't do this, don't do that." Wal-Mart HAS sold games and other products with Graphic nudity before. Wal-Mart HAS sold products with sexual content, including games, before. The message isn;t "Don't," the message is: Keep it quiet, and don't make it a big problem for us.
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
Walmart's selection for PC games has traditionally sucked ass. Even if they DO have the ability to control publishing the way the article states (and I admit, it's a very likely possibility, considering how many copies the office supply store I worked at used to sell of Deer Hunter back in the late 90s), they do a piss poor job at stocking that which they do allow.
Five Walmarts in the greater South Jersey area near Philly, and not a single damned one had a copy of Oblivion for PC on release week.*
You can find just about all mainstream, popular titles for consoles, but if you want anything else... Look somewhere else.
*Ironically, I was -sent- to Walmart by three seperate Gamestops and EBGames because they had sold out of the whole six non-preorder copies they'd received.
So many chances to reference that awesome south park episode....
... they DON'T carry Barbie Horse Adventures... Maybe they really don't carry truly evil stuff!
Obligatory Penny Arcade link...
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/01/09
sure walmart might have a decent amount of games. but they really dont have all that many. pc wise. there are tons of games you can buy at ebgames, gamestop, target, amazon, and any other store that sells games that walmart has never sold. walmart woudl be the last place i'd check. i seriously doubt anyone could base titles on walmarts less then sorry amount of titles for sale.
Does anyone see something similar to what happens with the RIAA/MPAA? There are a few key players dictating everything associated with product creation, development, sales, and who gets what slice of the pie. The issues faced by the gaming industry seem much like those faced by those who produce content of other types- namely how to get around the fat man in the middle.
Sacrifice
To quote the link:
This is one of the reasons I'll never understand why so many of my fellow libertarians suck up to Wal-Mart at every opportunity. I guess they think the outfit is run by Hank Rearden or John Galt, or something.All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Now, that's a completely new economic concept.
Sell some things below cost and other things above cost? Wow, that's evil.
Lower your prices below your competition and then raise them when competition is gone? Oh man, get your pitchforks!
Ever heard of a gas station? If WalMart is evil then the gas station is the KKK.
Indeed, capitalism at its finest. Consumer demand drives the price of goods and services. If there was no demand for the goods at Wal-mart's prices, they would be forced to change those prices or find new goods.
Would you rather buy your toilet paper from socialists or communists?
Fine, if you don't want Wal-Mart to exert it's buying power, then vertically integrated so you have your own distribution channels. Perhaps online selling distribution by the developers could sell with razor thin costs with the implementation of just-in-time inventory for low packaging and carrying costs.
------
[insert funny
So, Walmart is to blame for the crap that game producers have been shoveling in our direction?
I thought it was just a lack of creativity.
Boo Walmart! Boo!
You're being picky in a way that includes Wal-Mart and disincludes distributors that don't have the widespread outlets. What you are really saying is that you can't afford to be picky using different criteria.
Just now the commercial with the guy in the game rental store saying they have nada came on.
If you don't agree, try reading the article and then increasing the size of the already tiny text to make it more readable. Oh, look, a tenth of the article just disappeared. No problem, I'll just scroll -- nope. Can't scroll down to see it. It's stuck behind their navigation and page border graphics. Maybe if I select it I can read the highlighted text -- nope again. In fact, the only way to read the entire article is to view the HTML source, pick out the tiny bit of text near the bottom, and look at that.
And don't even think about opening the article in a tab and then _looking at anyone else's web page_ instead of theirs. It picks up the PgUp and PgDn keyatrokes used to navigate between tabs and interprets them as page navigation commands. How much tequila did it take to think that that was a really great idea?
"Oooh, I know! Let's design a page that mimics an awkward, offline format, set it up so that nobody can read it and be as hostile as we can to existing standards and the expectations of the public. It's brilliant! Look at what great artists we are!"
I suppose that the only good thing I can say is that at least it's not Flash.
My idea for a "sim-mart" game, replete with bouncing smiley faces knocking prices down, white trash beating their kids in the aisles, and ra-ra sessions in the back room would probably go over great!! There could even be sub games, like "spot the psycho" in the sporting goods gun section.
... what did you expect, something profound?
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Wal-Mart's policies also bear a large influence on movies and music. Artists that refuse to release a "clean" version of a CD have long been banned in retail chains like Wal-Mart and even Target.
Video game manufacturers will simply have to deal with it. I wouldn't want to sell potentially obscene material at my store either (if I owned one). There are plenty of others that will.
When will the media industries grow some balls and produce what they want? If Wal-Mart stops carrying most titles, people will learn to shop elsewhere. If only American business was daring enough.
" 'Your pony died becuase it wasn't pretty enough?' Ah-- Aagghh!"
In 15 years, the days of buying games from brick-and-mortar stores will be totally over. Steam is only the tip of this looming iceberg. Even now, Steam allows indie games like Darwinia to get their foot in the door.
Couple this with Will Wright's introduction of true player-made content driven games (Spore), and I see a decentralization of the industry from established publishers (EA) and retailers (WalMart).
Games are just like any other form of entertainment (ie music and movies) when it comes to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart sells to the lowest common denomination of tastes. If you buy more than a half dozen CDs a year or buy DVDS for a reason other than keeping the kids quiet for two hours, you're not shopping at Wal-Mart for entertainment. However, when Mom or Grandma need to buy a game for a birthday, Wal-Mart is probably a closer drive. Also, they don't want a hundred titles to choose from.
However, this lowest common denominator goes to Wal-Mart every week for everything from sweat socks to jars of pickles. Having a product in a Wal-Mart means that thousands of pairs of feet pass by it every day.
The real issue is that, as games get bigger, they end up targeting the blandest possible demographics, to keep the audience as large as possible. Wal-mart does all the marketing research for the game-publisher for them, telling them what they should/should-not do to make big sales.
No one is forcing game developers to limit creativity. They can always do what they want, but at the expense of a wide audience.
Last time I checked, retailer x telling vendor y that they won't carry product z unless the vendor includes feature n wasn't illegal or unethical. Heck, it's good business. Give your customers what they want.
Don't like it? Take your business somewhere else.
You are attempting to read sigs. Cancel or Allow?
I get my PC games at Best Buy -- is that a sufficiently respectable place for a gamer to shop? :)
There goes any chance we ever had of seeing Duke Nukem Forever come to market!
This is a rant valid for many mainstream consumer products that Walmart sells.
But does Walmart really sell the majority of Video Games? Where are your numbers? Sources?
Is this "article" any more than a C- short essay with no sources?
Slashdot! Stop posting this armchair journalist blog crap.
Our company makes posters and calendars, and does business with Wal-Mart. We're small (~$60million in revenue, maybe 200 employees in the whole universe) but the tentacles of Wal-Mart snake their way through every decision we make here.
Products live and die based on whether Wal-Mart will "allow" them or not. We had to turn down a license for a moderately popular program on Cartoon Network because of the number of people who don't "get" that the Boondocks is ridiculing both bigots and walking stereotypes simultaneously. We couldn't turn a profit with it if our biggest customer wasn't interested. Based on previous experience, the people that "deal directly" with Wal-Mart said "great idea, it'll never happen." Which is too bad, because I really dig Boondocks.
Frighteningly enough, Huey is becoming my social conscience...
BANNED BY WALMART or BANNED in the Bible Belt both have good rings to them!
I know that this might be an unpopular point of view, but I don't see what is wrong with Wal-Mart imposing standards on what it will and will not sell. Controversial games upset its core customer base and therefore are not worth the risk. e.g. Mom & Dad might not be so willing to shop at Wal-Mart if it sells video games that contain rape scenes.
The real censor is the consumer, not Wal-Mart. If you don't like the products Wal-Mart chooses to sell, shop some place else.
"Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the f-ing Peace Corps." - John 'Bluto' Blutarsky
Oh Come on!
Is this any surprise. WalMart likely makes up the largest percentage of the retail market for major game consoles in the US. Why produce a game if revenues are going to be half of what is expected, when you can put more effort into another game that will receive full revenues? Why spread your marketing and production too thin on too many titles, when some will never see store shelves of major retailers, and hence never make it 'big'. This is a world of revenues, and you have to maximize them.
You think Microsoft didn't go to Dell, IBM, Governments, and other big corporate clients for opinions on what features they want in the next Windows, and scrap the ones nobody was interested in? You think electronics makers don't go to retail outlets and say "is this something you'd buy" and see if they can get a commitment? You think movie production companies don't go to distribution companies with a script and say "would you buy and distribute this film if we made it".
It's all about finding the good product out of the bad (and there are so many bad). If Walmart doesn't think it has appeal to their clients, which represent much of the 'status quo', then maybe they're right! The developer still has the choice to make the game, and of course Walmart could see the result and stand corrected... but seriously- odds are, they know enough about their market to be right.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
I had the "wonderful" opportunity to work in the gaming industry for a number of years, and if this was the only case of stuff like this it would piss me off. The best part is that this is the norm and just about all facets of game creation are governed by some similar bullshit, and then the marketing kicks in and it gets even worse.
I totally lost my faith in the market and the big developers. Which is exactly why I am actually excited for once about a console in the Revolution. Not to say it isn't going to be affected just like the rest, but I will say that Nintendo is much less affected and more "real." Add to this the small/indie developer support and online distribution and Wal-Mart can piss off for all I care.
I think too many business are letting Wal-Mart dictate how they operate and I have to ask myself why?!? They bust their ass and bend over backwards just to sell a product at damn near a loss *just* so Wal-Mart will carry it. If enough companies stood up to this and said NO, Wal-Mart would only be receiving the lowest quality and no name products like a big dollar store and would have to change *their* ways. It is a two way street, and Wal-Mart has much more to lose than the suppliers... now if only more places would wake up to this fact and start resisting we could get somewhere.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Also, game producers are unwilling to take risks. Having a product sold at Wal-Mart is as good as a break-even proposition. Without this guarantee, most producers are unwilling to take the risk.
"Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the f-ing Peace Corps." - John 'Bluto' Blutarsky
a game does have to be AAA to be good (whatever AAA means other than $40million dollars in the first year). saying walmart controls games is like saying EA is the only company allowed to write them. not true.
I didn't read the whole article, but I did skim it, and only saw one mention of a Japanese developed game that was censored for its US release at WalMart's request. But I wonder if WalMart has any impact on Japanese games as a whole, or if this mostly applies to American/Western developers. I'm sure with the exception of big names like SquareEnix, Konami, etc, Japanese developers consider the US market an afterthought. This is probably especially true for niche developers whose games are mostly cult status in the US, such as Nippon Ichi. Any American who buys their games probably doesn't buy them from WalMart. But even the big developers consider Japan their primary market. Are they kowtowing to WalMart too?
You left out the step where Wal Mart takes your product to China, comes back with a knock-off of it produced by slave labor
When has this happened in the case of development of copyrighted computer software, especially console games that need to be approved by the console maker?
family friendly "Bible-belt" image What you describe may not be "family friendly" however no one has made a fuss about it. Wal - MArt wants to make money and their image is key to that. If people start making a fuss about the uncensored videos then they will pull them, at least for a while. The current focus on violent video games and the fact that parents are usually the ones who buy them lead to the scrutiny that they are under. With videos most young children aren't interested in Devils Rejects but they are obsessed with Halo and it's ilk. And if a kid were to buy The girl next door more than likely he would watch it when his parents arent around. But if he buys DOOM he's going to spend hours playing it and probably not care too much if his parents see him.
Your argument is the fallacious one.
Oh, no...my one vote doesn't matter...my one vote can never matter...
_ Work.htm
http://cltr.co.douglas.nv.us/Elections/History_at
The argument isn't that Wal-Mart is the cheapest place, but that it is the driver for cheap goods.
This is not game design...
Tough call.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
but it seems to me that the game producers are free to make whatever kind of game they want, Wal Mart is free to stock whatever kind of games they want, and the customers are free to shop at Wal Mart or not, as they please.
If the game producers are surrendering to Wal Mart's sensibilities, that's the producers' problem.
I don't like Wal Mart very much, which is why I don't shop there. What's the problem?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
In the evil capitalist system, a corporate giant like Walmart uses it's enourmous power and natural monopoly to exploit the people by driving out competition and lowering prices... and it also gives it the power to sqeeze suppliers and control content of media products.
Where as in the socialist utopia, a government owned corporation uses it's enourmous power and monopoly to free the people from oppression, by lowering prices, driving out exploitive capitalist competition... sqeezing suppliers into charging the people low prices, and ensuring that the government corporation censors media for exploitive and counter-revolutionary material.
Oh, that is right, the socialist system is less exploitive because "we have power"... we get to vote... every couple years... from a small list of parties... who are highly regulated by those in power... and subject to strict requirements written by those in power... and campaigns are funded by those in power... and in which we recieve information about the election from those in power. How could there be anything exploitive like that.
for me to continue to despise Wal-Mart.
Scott
©20014 angrykeyboarder & Elmer Fudd. All Wights Wesewved
I am truly no fan of Walmart,particularly with their tactics, but I think the censorship alegations of the article is over-done. Consider that Walmart stocks F.E.A.R. This is a thoroughly violent game with lots of swearing, splattering blood and flying body parts. If Walmart is willing to stock this, what exactly aren't they willing to stock? Surely being unwilling to stock even more violent, more profane games than this is hardly a sign of virulent censorship, but more a case of genuinely looking out for what their customers' interests?
Pretty sad that Wal-Mart is the target company for these games. I've never purchased a game from Wal-Mart and with policies such as this, they've guaranteed that I'll never buy one from them ever.
No, but it's where the plurality of the people buying games shop.
You know, Walmart seems to be such a huge force everywhere, but because I don't shop there, it's hard for me to see it that way. I suppose it's like not watching TV or reading the news - one day you wake up and wonder why there's an armed guard in the subway knocking a soda off a garbage can and telling you in a menacing voice to "Pick it up."
I just learned somthing new. Seriously!
So, are that many games bought in Walmart in the States, or is this article just another guy's opinion disguised as fact? I buy games from computer chains in Canada like Future Shop, Best Buy, or CompuSmart, but never Walmart.
Not to quibble, but Wal-Mart is technically a monopSONY* - a monopolistic buyer - rather than a monoPOLY. It is an economic curiosity since there are fewer monopolies on the purchasing end than at the selling end.
* No relation to the manufacturer of heavy-handed, security-compromising, soul-sucking DRM.
I don't see this as consumers, taken as a whole, demanding that Wal-Mart not carry certain games any more than I see consumers demanding Budweiser be as bland as it is. The whole idea behind a beer like Budweiser or a store like Wal-Mart is to offend the least number of people possible. If most everyone can find the experience of either at least moderately pleasing, and almost no one find it displeasing, then the product is deemed a success.
I'll bet most Wal-Mart customers couldn't care one way or the other if a violent video game is sold in the store, but a vocal few would.
If I'm not really planning to spend too much on beer, and I'm feeling not too particular about my experience drinking the beer, and there is no alternative readily available, I'll drink Bud. That's how many of the people who wind up in Wal-Mart feel about shopping there, I'll bet -- and I'm sure that's fine with the company. As long as everyone comes in with at least that much motivation, and nothing is done to chase any significant number away, all is well.
Sadly, I think the number of people potentially offended by violent video games is more significant than the number who would choose to deprive Wal-Mart of their business because of its policy of refusing to carry any video games that might offend. We can only hope that video games -- and other products -- don't become as bland as watered-down beer.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
I think someone's been snorting too much GV Red Cola (or perhaps GV Blue Cola?)
It has nothing to do with Wal-Mart's buying power. It's the wal-mart customers' buying power. I shop at Wal-Mart. There are pros and cons of that. So, in effect, I have detemined what happens to the video game industry. If you're going to blame someone, blame the people that shop there. Without us, Wal-Mart would've never made it out of Arkansas.
...one might direct his sacred life-justifying will towards brutally fucking railroad-company executives.
Business must make money and they will do what's best for their bottom line. The gaming industry is no different, particularly if your a gaming company working with Walmart.
This is a free market, love it or leave it. Don't get on a soapbox about your libertarian ideals and then complain because Halo was changed at Wal-Mart's behest. You can't have it both ways.
I think most of us who have worked in the game industry have seen a lot of this. Mostly, the effect has been that few games show blood, gore, and nudity in any detail. Bascially, they seem to adhere to the ESRB ratings. If you think about it, there's a lot of violence in games, but it is always depicted in certain cartoonish ways against opponents that are strongly recognizable as human. Frankly, it doesn't seem like the worst thing in the world.
Does anyone know of any particular *abuses* of this power? Like removal of political content?
Interesting. I seemed to have read the same article you are thinking of . However when I checked my latest consumer reports, it surprised me that Snapper was rated near the worst in terms of reliability.
The website requires a subscription, so it's a somewhat worthless link for this topic.
The summary of the brand repair history is that 62,000 readers who bought a mower between 2000 and 2005 reported on their reliability. Of the self-propelled mowers:
Toro had 16% repairs
Honda had 16% repairs
Troy-Bilt had (editing data so it's not direct copying) repairs
Craftsman had 18% repairs
Lawn-Boy had 21
Yard Machines had 22% repairs
Snapper had 24% repairs
John Deere had 24% repairs
So as you say, they may pride themselves on quality, but several reports show it to be the other way for their most recent lines. I'm keeping my eye on them.
Disclaimer: I don't work for any company mentioned or any competitor. Since Consumer Reports doesn't take in ad revenue, their data is not free, so I hope that they understand that this could be interpreted as an advertisement for them.
For example, you want to buy a pair of socks. You happen to like Brand X socks. Since Brand X sells socks at Wal Mart, they have to lower the quality of the product to meet the price point that the buyer demands. These same socks are then sold to Kmart, Target, Sears, etc.
I can see where this is going... we're heading towards the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe_Event_Horizon except with socks...
Every mother, before having her baby, has lab results sent to Wal-Mart, at her expense. If the Wal-Mart lab results determine that the fetus's liver does not have enough beta-9 proteins by the end of the first trimester, 85% of women will abort the baby, because she will be unable to sell a portion of the baby's liver to Wal-Mart at birth, thus covering her birthing costs and starting the nest egg for the child's college education.
How far will Wal-Mart's control over our lives go? When will we draw the line? What about the children??
I also hear that Wal-Mart is responsible for slaughtering dozens of oceanic dolphins with cyanide-laced harpoons -- just for fun -- during executive "team building" sessions. What next???
Big corporations simply have too much power, and your libertarian views are only making things worse. Liberals want real competition so that no one company (Walmart) gets to screw over the consumer.
Duke Nukem Forever
Dikatana
SimChurch
Attack of the Clowns
Virtual Bartender
Pebble Counting
Sane Taxi 2.0
Grand Rent Auto: Enterprise
Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space II
Hello Kitty: The Video Game
Battle Checkers
Elmo's Smelly Adventure
Psycho Ward Pete: The Male Nurse
Pong: The Revenge
Yar's Revenge II
Sonic The Hedghog's Coloscopy
Pac-Man: The Nursing Home Years
Afterlife: Atheist edition
Extreme Jump Roping
Cyber Lava Lamp
Divorce: American Style
Survivor: Chernobyl
Ultimate Hopscotch
Yo-yo Marathon
Just to think, that we'll never see these games thanks to that evil megacorporation known as Wal-Mart. People won't spend $50USD or more on them, just to be dissappointed 15 minutes into gameplay anymore. Just let John and Suzi Sixpack control what gets made by their prior gaming purchases at Wal-Mart.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Corptocracy: When Corporations & Government become integrated. I first read the term in John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hitman, though I'm sure it's been used elsewhere too.
:)
Not supposed to be able to happen, but how better to explain how the same group of people keep getting recycled through government service? Yes, I'm a "conspiracy theorist".
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Incidentally, the whole "Walmart economic death spiral" is a bit oversold. If you operate a retail business, Walmart dropping a store next to you is not so fun. If you work at a retail business, you might well end up working at the Walmart. If you do neither, the only economic impact Walmart has on you is changing what bag your Wonderbread comes in (and, oh, saving you money).
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
The correct term is monopsony, which refers to a situation where there is only a single buyer (or one buyer that is significantly larger than the others) for a good or service giving it dominant market power. The classic example in economics is the company coal town where the coal mine is the only place to work.
Anyways, I still don't see how Walmart can have that much impact on the PC Game market. At any Walmart I've been to they only carry a handful of new releases and they are always weeks behind everyone else. Heck, even Target has a better and fresher selection. As for how this impacts Deerhunter 2008 or Solitare Master 6, who cares?
Walmart only accounts for 8% of retail sales. It hardly seems necessary to worry about too much about what they think. If having unrestricted content would increase sales by more than 8% than you can just forget about Walmart, right?
But game developers could quite easily produce games for release at Wal-Mart -- and in accordance with their standards -- while releasing "director's cut" versions for other retailers. Then it's up to the consumer to decide. My bet is that consumers wouldn't actually give a shit and would by the Wal-Mart version anyway, given a choice. On the other hand, if they want to see pron, there's always the web.
Short term, superficial gains at the low end contrasted with long-term overall detriment to middle and upper sector losses, as well as loss of competitiveness and effectiveness in certain sectors.
What Wal-Mart does is to squeeze their suppliers to within an inch of their lives. After they've made North American industries highly specialized and dependant on them, they squeeze even harder until they go away. All of those industries end up closing. When they close, people who used to work in manufacturing, can now work for Wal-Mart as greeters for a fraction of the cost with no benefits.
Then they move to an out-of-country supplier, and proceed to do the same to them. The Chinese and other developing nations have a lot more slack they can pick up on and can last longer, if not thrive under those situations -- because people can be freely exploited there.
The long term results of a company like Wal-Mart is to actually decrease overall productivity, and in their wake, they leave fewer skilled jobs in favour of places which have much cheaper human capital and lower standards.
The result is to shift a larger propertion of people to lower wage jobs, with no benefits or security, and to correspondingly squeeze out the manufacturing end of the process.
Wal-Mart puts low prices and profits above all other considerations. The long-term detriment to the ecomonies it is involved in, and the complete McJob aspect, with the totally-disposable work-force view has the effect of turning North American labour into low-wage, cheap crap sweatshops. They do everything they can to not pay overtime, not pay benefits, and, in general, treat their employees like borg drones -- completely replaceable and without individual value.
To have a longer-term positive impact, Wal-Mart would need to be supporting more domestic industries, diversity, and allowing the economy to thrive. Instead they suck the best out of it, use it up, and then move on to the next set of industries in a new set of countries. They don't support diversity, they don't support quality or innovation. They support hair-thin margins so they can make up their profits on economies of scale, while the people who are trying desperately to provide the products are slowly driven out of business because they make almost no money per unit of production.
Look at a google search for Wal-Mart+evil
(or Walmart+evil)and really read about the damage they are inflicting on economies in the long-term.
Think of a plague of locusts, and that's a better description of what the socioeconomic impact of Wal-Mart actually is. There is no benevolence there; merely a greedy corporation determined to squeeze every last penny out of their suppliers, on their terms, to the long-term detriment of everybody.
Cheap-crap, at low, uniform prices does nothing to aid in long-term economic growth. It stunts it, stifles it, and then, ultimately, stops it.
That is what Wal-Mart is doing.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"That Wal-Mart smiley face is looking pretty evil now that Allen Varney has explained how much influence they have on virtually every modern game." If it took that for you to think twice about Wal-Mart, we've got a problem.
Do Wal-Marts in China have huge Chinese flags and signs proudly proclaiming "Made in China"? And crowds of people outside demanding the company not outsource to Mongolia?
Don't worry, Wal Mart's reign will be coming to a close as gas prices continue to rise. Currently people think nothing of driving 20-30 miles, often in less than ideal traffic, to get the cheaper prices of a large store. When gas costs $10 or $20 per gallon (not including inflation) this behavior will stop and we will see a return to power of the local grocery store, the local hardware store, the local automotive shop, etc.
"They've dirven their competitors out of business with unfair practices."
Like what? Selling stuff for less. Last I checked that was called competition.
"They've reamed North American manufacuring as they insisted on cheaper products until they had to go off shore"
Because it's really evil to switch to a lower cost provider.
"causing a replacement of manufacturing jobs with low-end retail jobs"
No, walmart has reduced the number of retail jobs, not made more. There is no such "replacment" taking place. And who ever said manufacturing jobs were so great? Arent they the jobs where you're exposed to toxic chemicals, work wierd hours, and are in constant danger of debilitating injury. Yeah, we're really loosing some great jobs.
"Wal-Mart has the gaming industry by the short-hairs"
Yes, how evil of walmart to let game companies know beforehand what titles they will stock. Wal-Mart should wait until the games are released, and suprise the game companies. Wouldn't that be fun!
Where as in the socialist utopia, a government owned corporation uses it's enourmous power and monopoly to free the people from oppression, by lowering prices, driving out exploitive capitalist competition... sqeezing suppliers into charging the people low prices, and ensuring that the government corporation censors media for exploitive and counter-revolutionary material.
You obviously don't understand Marxism at all. Marxism calls for "the proletariat" to own the means of production. The very idea that a government-run corporation would have to "squeeze" suppliers is ridiculous, because there wouldn't be "suppliers."
The idea that they lower prices is equally absurd. Price wouldn't matter much, because profits would go to the people. See, a big difference between Wal-Mart and a Marxist "corporation" is that Wal-Mart executives profit, not the workers.
There would be no capitalist competition. That, ideally, would not exist. Capitalism, for Marx, is about profit, and profit suggests having more than someone. Marxism does away with that, because everybody profits because everybody owns everything in common.
There are plenty of REAL flaws in Marxism that make it unworkable, but before you can criticize it, you have to at least understand the basic concept. You have created a straw man argument.
(To think, when I read your post's title I thought you were going to say something worthwhile, like, "Wal-Mart is exploitative and shows the weakness of capitalism. Therefore it will show the workers they are being mistreated and lead to the downfall of capitalism." But that would require a basic understanding of Marxism, which you obviously lack.)
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Unlike most of the mom and pop establishments that you not doubt cherish, Wal-Mart offers low cost health insurance to it's employees. Of course they don't all have it, for two reasons. 1) It costs extra and they can't afford it because of other expenses 2) If you are low income, the government will pau for you.
Wal Mart has the most employees on medicare for one reason, they have the most employees.
I might shop at Wal-Mart if Target didn't exist. I don't love paying more.
But Target does exist, so the problem is solved for me.
And the thing is, refined tastes or no, I don't like stepping into a Wal-Mart, they're anything from borderline dumps to out-and-out dumps.
I have bought one thing from Wal-Mart in my hometown in the last 4 years. I say in my hometown, because when I am in another city, sometimes Wal-Mart is the first thing I find, so I go there. See, it isn't that I hold anything against Wal-Mart and the people who shop there, I just often prefer to shop elsewhere. And I usually do.
Yes, I am aware Target is no better as a corporate citizen in relation to suppliers than Wal-Mart is.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
When I (ever-so-briefly) worked there during my return to college, they didn't offer it to me. And the vast majority of people who work for Wal Mart are people like I was (stock monkeys, register monkeys, etc). They didn't mention it to me at all.
Then, recently, some documents came out that showed Wal Mart's strategy on health care: finding ways of getting employees to sign up for Medicaid, including making the company health care plans even worse (and less available and less visible) than they currently are. Instructing employees in filing for Medicaid. And firing people who are overweight or otherwise prone to be unhealthy.
They apparently started trying to clean up their act after those things were released, and started playing up a new health care option around October of last year. I say 'apparently' because, lo and behold, there were some more documents leaked talking about how they were fighting all this negative publicity: throwing X amount of money at a publicity campaign that says that 'Wal Mart is actually your friend!'
There's your common misconception.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
What mice!
And what, wonders the world, ever happened to the much-vaunted quality of American individuality?
Easy: it was traded for an extra buck off a 12-roll pack of toilet paper.
But hey, that's the capitalist way, right? And it must be good because it's capitalism!
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Your post is far too logical to be one found on slashdot. Im shocked.
It's not really a satire when you don't accurately represent the target at all. What you did was describe capitalism and claim it was communism, but that's not the case. You may as well offer a satire of shopping where people are drinking water. Drinking water isn't shopping, and what you described isn't communism. You can't just mangle the facts like that and then step back and say "It was a joke!"
(At best you could be "satirizing" Stalinism, not Marxism.)
They are not a macro-monopoly. But they can in many instances be considered a micro-monopoly.
There are many monopolies out there (80% of the market share or greater), but that is not always a bad thing. There is nothing inherently wrong, bad, or evil with monolopies as long as their are alternatives.
However, when monopolies begin to use their market share to put forth anti-competitive business practices, THEN there is a problem. This is called a predatorial monopoly. This is an important distinction.
Libertas in infinitum
I remember watching "The High Cost of Low Price" and my professor kidda leaned toward Walmart's efforts in being #1 in operation effectiveness. I kidda agree with her, also taking into consideration that somebody has to do that job, and that someone is Walmart. I think the various problems Walmart has overseas is very much a mix of them being so big and local authorities not paying too much attention, being that in the short run they get to make some money too.
But here is an article explaining about a phenomenon that is not so new under today's hyper-commercialized society. It is also visible in other media when, for example, big advertisers have a big say on how television programs get produced to suit their demands. I think it's all completely absurd, and really just made me change my whole perspective towards the Walmart discussion. This article is by far the best example of Walmart's lack of social responsibility - it might not be so obvious of a social problem right now because they are gearing their sales to the mass, but it is true nevertheless. On the other hand, it's a catch-22 for them, being that if they were to sell crazy, different, innovative, vulgar or explicit games, it would be completely unorthodox under their policy, and thus they would not be fully effective in their operation - after all, the numbers said so.
So here's the catch: do they harm/offend the rest of the culture (ex: me) who don't consider themselves 'the mass' by controlling what kind of games gets produced (only the ordinary ones), or do they keep doing their calculations for as long as things become more apparent to the general public - because it will, maybe not now however. The outward effect of this is tremendous. Imagine if our society only produced ordinary goods, how boring and deteriorated would progress and innovation and our lives be.
This concept holds true for everything else - in the gaming industry I haven't seen a breakthrough in design in roughly 7 years. The mass market (consumers) should be disapproving this, but it wouldn't make sense for them to do so, after all, all they care about is Hollywood-style productions. The sad reality is that many people, including Walmart, see these effects as being entirely unintentional. They argue Walmart has always tried to maintain a family friendly bible image. In the end, the once captivating and prosperous game industry gets turned upside down into the ordinary. How dull... another accidental move by Walmat and the likes.
So there we have it, a nice tale about why operation effectiveness isn't effective when you're too big - your forces are so influential they extend beyond your company and you halt outside innovation. My point is that ignorance can't go on forever... I hope.
Wal-Mart is no different from GNU. They both represent a race towards commoditization and in the end force a lot of people out of business. If a producer doesn't want to be hurt by commoditization, then he can be more innovative. That's because a consumer who doesn't want to buy commodity will gladly spend a premium on innovation. Ironic then that the same people who bash Wal-Mart will praise GNU for the exact same actions.
I know a lot of people working in the games industry, from every level from little independent companies, all the way up to people working at some of the biggest publishers. I have even worked at one small (read as a 3 people) game company and one huge (read as one of the biggest game publishers in the world) game company. Outside of bargain bin specialty games like Deer Hunter, this is the first time I have ever even heard Wal-Mart's name in conjunction with the creation of a game.
I do not know any employee at any game company who, at any phase of development, says "is this going to be OK with Wal-Mart?" I am sure their are some companies that for one reason or another decide that courting Wal-Mart gives them an advantage, but even working on games that are right up Wal-Mart's alley like a licensed car racing franchise title I won't mention, the developers and publisher never once stopped an said "how is this going to play at Wal-Mart?"
Quite frankly I think this article is incredibly overblown, and paints the picture that Wal-Mart has far more influence on the content that it really does. Sure, everyone wants to sell there. I'm sure they loom very large for the people responsible for getting the game on the shelf, but I have never heard, or personally seen any example of that entering into the creative process on a game designed to sell in the general gaming market.
GET A CLUE about what many Libertarians believe regarding corporate rights before pulling your uninformed opinions out of thin air.
- jonathan.
Nice rant. Phrased as if relying upon statistics and logical conclusions. Missing something though. Oh year, links and actual references to support the well-stated, but personal opinions.
Get a dictionary crack boy. I'm not in the U.S. and have no idea if or what a particular party called "Libertarian Party" in your country might believe.
Regards, Lex
The bottom line is, nearly all consumer products -- whether a video game, a sound recording, a box of cookies, a bottle of window cleaner, or a dustmop -- are engineered, tested, and marketed specifically for sale at Wal-Mart. Most large consumer brands have two product lines: the mass-market version and the 'special' version that is only sold at Wal-Mart (ie, a special colored handle on the dustmop). Wal-Mart controls the American marketplace in a very real way.
P2P distribution for content that can be digitized will be more prevalent in the next few years .P2P can deliver digital content more efficiently and faster than Walmart ever can to your directly to your home Home .
,Music and Games are already being delivered by P2P and the range of content will continue this year.
Movies
Peer Impact a pay p2p network is launching version 3.0 of their client this month and will have video and movies from NBC\Universal for rent and sale. vThey currently sell Music from the 4 major labels and indies (indie music is Mp3) and Games from Try Media .
http://www.peerimpact.com/
I don't understand how Wal-Mart has so much influence over all this stuff- I mean, I never buy anything from them on principle, so how can they be staying in business?! It boggles the mind!
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
I don't want to sound like an idiot, but I think Wal-Mart needs to go bury their head a steaming pile of dog crap. ;x I mean, without Wal-Mart what would we have? Better products? A Better Economy? If someone can tell me one good thing that Wal-Mart does, please enlighten me. I don't wanna hear any crap about jobs either, because I'm sure we all know how Wal-Mart handles jobs. Sure, they hire just about anyone, but they give them just enough hours to keep them from getting benefits. How much long must we live with this crap? I've even heard rumors that the people who make their products are 9 year chinese girls working in sweat shops. It's a shame our almight President can't do something to stop Wal-Mart.
Probably because your boycott doesn't represent a significant percentage of Wal-Mart's sales.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
It's sad that the creative side of gaming is controlled by a "Back Woods Super-power" like Wal-Mart.
About half of the population is below average intelligence, and they get to make most of the decisions because the other half is too smart to get involved in that stuff.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
It's pretty lame to make a statement and then continue to claim the moral high ground while simultaneously admitting that you are in fact full of shit. Somehow you've managed to do this better than anyone I've seen in a long time. Congratulations.
... a company is *bound by law* to maximise it's profit for the benefit of it's shareholders ...
Complete BS. In the U.S. a company is free to consider ethical and moral issues and to give these a higher priority than additional profit. The Board of Directors and stockholder are free to replace management that gives priority over ethics and morals, but of course they are also free to replace management that gived profits priority over ethics and morals.
I can't believe the gaming industry so pussy-whipped that it! If they isolate themselves not to carry 'questionable' titles people will go elsewhere to buy them. I don't believe the porn industry has taken a hit due to Walmart not carrying any of their movies...
I also find it relatively difficult to distinguish a Walmart Vlassic pickle from a Jewel Vlassic pickle...
That's because the difference isn't in the pickle, dumb ass.
There's a saying by a very cool but deceased brazilian artist Chico Science
"O homem coletivo sente a necessidade de lutar"
"The collective man feels the necessity to fight"
You are right about the durability of ignorance, but I refuse to believe it.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
You are being ignorant, I'd assume? :)
In the Revolutionary War, a bunch of poorly armed and untrained American farmers managed to defeat the elite armies of the most powerful empire in history.
The American forces had the same flintlock muskets as the Brits, often purchased from the same sources.. They lacked shoes and gunpowder more than anything, and that was eventually put right. The colonies were rather productive really and weren't poor.
The American forces were not untrained. Many were militia who had served in the Seven Years War (French & Indian if you are from the US) just over a decade before. A lot still drilled occasionally.
The American forces lost most of the encounters they were involved in. Some notable victories were mostly via encirclement (or cutting of supply lines, same net effect) and surrender: Yorktown, Saratoga. Boston was basically a siege victory: Dorchester Heights was occupied and artillery set up there, which basically commanded the position and forced the Brit withdrawal by accepted standards.
Unfortunately for your theory, American forces were defeated over and over and over again in pitched battle against the Brit regulars and their Hessian mercenaries. From Bunker Hill to Brooklyn to Camden, American troops collapsed in the face of Brit regulars. Even at Monmouth in 1777, it was a near thing and the American forces were hard-pressed to hold the field.
Let's not kid ourselves. Yorktown was won with French army stiffeners and through the application of French naval power. Therefore, American independence was won via the same route.
"Lafayette, we are here" was not just a slogan in 1917.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Doh, sorry that you couldn't see through my thinly veiled saracasm sir :)
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
Over time, man will learn who you are and what you like to do. HEHEHEH
While the game manufacturer makes money off of Walmart's client base, branding, marketing and saturation.
If game manufatures really minded the censorship they would distribute through other venues.