People are stupid?

Great series!

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

Im gonna re read that whole series now. lol

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.

Count me in on this one!

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?

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

These studios include Valve, Blizzard, and Square Enix.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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