This really does not sound healthy. The game is released, for a certain amount of money. If people don’t like what they get for their money, they simply should not buy it.
But by now gamers have been so trained to expect to endless content treadmills and all their ilk like mtx and battle passes that publishers/developers get egged on if they don’t work on their game 24/7 and forever.
Sorry, but I for one am not going to accept these companies blaming everything on gamers. I’m not into bootlicking. Gamers are annoying af for sure, but I’m not blaming systemic industry problems on gamers. That’s complete horseshit.
Who are “these companies”? Game publishers and developers certainly aren’t a monolith. To me, this publisher’s complaint seems like an implicit critique of how big publishers have trained gamers to have expectations that are unrealistic for all but the most high-profile games.
Neither are gamers. They aren’t a monolith either. This article smacks of the "millennials kill billion dollar industry " nonsense. There’s definitely mitigating factors on both sides as far as the expectations during such transactions. When I pay for something that is promised to be complete I have an expectation in my mind that it will be completed. If it’s an early access beta, I spent the money to support that product and developer.
However a lot of developers big and small have engendered this reaction because they fall victim to the hype train. They market the game. People are interested. People’s interest begins to wain because the game is taking too long (cyber punk), or the company doesn’t want to lose the hype wave so they release even though the game isn’t finished (no mans sky, and cyber punk honestly), and this is what we get. On the other hand, we see the backlash that happens when games get canceled by larger studios. And we see smaller studios constantly miss their launch windows or expected release dates with little to no contact with the fan base or the public (Team Cherry/silksong).
It doesn’t matter if you’re an indie developer or a triple A studio, what most gamers want is a complete game at launch, or (in the case of an alpha/beta release) updates.
A vocal minority is being shitty here and the article is acting as if gamers are just getting together to hold developers big and small’s feet to the coals or something.