On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Devon Eriksen encapsulates the experiences of so many companies who found a male-oriented market and then they try to make their offerings more appealing to women:
Most business suicides are induced by not understand[ing] the difference between reported preference and revealed preference.
If you run Testosterone Studios, maker of Angry Muscular Axe Guy Kills Demons in Hell, you might notice after a while that not very many women buy your games.
Since your stockholders have a profound moral objection to other people having money and not giving it to them, they want you to correct this problem, stat.
They want you to make Angry Muscular Axe Guy Kills Demons in Hell 2 sell to men AND women. So you sigh, shrug your shoulders, hire a bunch of female consultants, and ask them “What do women like?”
“Feminism!”
“Girlbosses!”
“Strong Female Characters effortlessly outdoing men at everything!”
“Gay stuff!”
So Testosterone Games dutifully makes Petite Feminist Girlboss Replaces Angry Muscular Axe Guy, hoping that men will buy it because they bought the first one, and girls will buy it because it panders to what they were told girls want.
Of course, nobody buys it. The men don’t buy it because it’s not what they liked in the first one, and women don’t buy it because women couldn’t care less about games where you fight demons in hell.
If, instead of asking a bunch of consultants what women like (reported preference), they had looked at games women actually buy (revealed preference), they would have seen something very different.
“Fruit Matcher 3000 for iPhone.”
“Point and Click Alice in Wonderland Studio Ghibli Adventure”
“Something Something Hogwarts.”
And they would have realized, had they two brain cells to rub together, that you can’t please everyone, because some people hate exactly what other people like.
If you want more money, look at who is already buying your product, and see if you can make them like the next one better. Because I guarantee you aren’t already selling to every single male on the planet.
And don’t hire video game consultants.
They don’t know how to sell games, and they don’t care, because they don’t want to sell games. They just hate men, and want to ruin things men like. If you hire them, they’re going to have their fun, cash your check, and ride off into the sunset, while you lose your business.
And indie studios, who know whether they are making Aliens Must Die or Barbie Horse Adventures, will replace you, which is the free market operating as intended.
