So, the Democratic Party puts out its representative. This person is usually pretty unacceptable to those who want meaningful, structural change, and they typically have a bunch of status quo policies. They might be good on one or two issues, and neutral on others, but a lot of folks see them (and not incorrectly so) as a lesser evil. So these voters fold their arms, and refuse to participate until they are given a candidate who is more in-line with what they actually want. When this happens, though, the democrats don't push further and further left to court their votes; instead, they track further toward the American center (the global right) or the American right (the global far right).
The reason for this is that folks who are center-to-right vote reliably, they engage with the process, and they are going to make a more reliable base for that candidate to actually get into office. Yet over and over again folks seem confused why their attempts to punish these candidates drive them toward conservatives, rather than making them more leftist.
In general, this is because if you aren't supporting someone (you aren't voting for them, donating money to them, giving them volunteer hours, etc.) then you have nothing you can take away from them. So your opinion on their platform, what they're doing, etc., is irrelevant because they lose nothing by ignoring you, and it's uncertain that your support would be worth the investment it would take to get you on their side.
This post isn't about politics, though. It's about people who make art, and understanding why your criticism may not be getting the reaction you want from the creators whose work you're trying to shape.
 |
| Why aren't they listening to me!? |
But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!
You Have To Have Leverage If You Want To Use It
I've been in this game for a while now, and I've got over 200 titles with my name on them. I've worked for a dozen or more publishers as a freelancer, and I am (knock wood) still managing to survive. However, this week I wanted to address the connection between consumer behavior (that is to say all of you, out in the audience) and creator behavior (folks like me who are making things for all of you to use, enjoy, and consume).
Generally speaking, your feedback is extremely important to us. And while some of that will be comments on social media, or the reviews of the things we've made, feedback also comes in terms of sales numbers and general audience attitude.
For a specific, let's take the whole OGL situation that Wizards of The Coast stepped in a few years back. They were going to tear down the Open Game License agreements that allowed everyone to use the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset, turn the screws on creators by demanding big shares of their sales, put up walls around D&D, add in AI, force it to go digital, and a whole bunch of other stuff I can't even recall now. And they backed off of basically all of that because people started cancelling their subscriptions, and no longer buying DND 5E materials. The company was bleeding profits, and it was that action from the audience that forced their hand and made them change direction.
If Wizards had been bombarded by messages from people who weren't actually buying their books, or who weren't people with accounts on their digital platform who were telling the company, "Well, I'm not going to give you any of my money now!" they would have utterly ignored it. Because you're threatening not to give them phantom sales that they don't have. But people who were paying the companies' bills closing their accounts and leaving en masse? That got the suits attention really fast because they were losing actual, measurable profits and the brand was taking a nosedive.
 |
| Oh... those numbers aren't good... |
And this is a point that I want to drive home to people out there. Creators will absolutely listen to you... but if you're not part of their fan base, if you're not actually buying their books, playing their games, watching their channels, and so on, then they aren't going to change what they're doing just to please you. Creators (and companies) change to keep the support they have, not to roll the dice and take a gamble on support they might maybe possibly get according to unverified accounts online.
Two strong examples of this come to mind for me, personally.
Somewhere between 3 and 5 years ago there was a person on Reddit who raised a big stink about the way I posted in a particular sub. They were very mad about my behavior, accused me of just being in it to make money, and said that he and his entire table who supported me on Patreon were going to delete their pledges immediately. I found that somewhat alarming, worried that I'd pissed off a not-insignificant part of my own fanbase (since I've never had more than 35 paying patrons at a time)... but one day after another went by, and there was no change in my numbers. I even reached back out to the person, wanting to make sure he hadn't deleted a pledge to someone else he'd mistaken for me. At the end of the day, it was just an empty threat made by someone who just wanted me to stop posting in his group.
Another incident came with the recent project I was part of, Night Horrors: Primoridal Peerage. This supplement was met with a lot of flak because one of the major names on the original Beast: The Primordial turned out to be a predator, and it sort of tainted the game in the eyes of a lot of players. To be clear, that person was not involved with this supplement, and the folks I worked with on it appear to be a pretty solid team of people as far as I know. However, there were a lot of comments saying how we shouldn't make anything for Beast, how they didn't play that game and weren't going to buy this. There were event a few folks who said they'd moved on from the Chronicles of Darkness entirely because there were too many problematic designers who'd contributed to the games. At the end of the day, though, the supplement hit Silver status (minimum 101 sales), and there were some folks who liked it despite its pedigree. And the folks who left those comments... well, all they were telling us was that this wasn't a game they were going to play. It apparently never occurred to them they weren't the target audience, so their criticism didn't exactly move the needle all that much.
In Summary... Don't Go All In When You've Got No Hand
It's true that creators and businesses will listen to their fans when they make themselves heard. But you need to have something you can take away from them if you expect them to change their behavior. If you're a member of their crowdfunding audience, people cutting off that support and telling the creator why might get them to change their behavior. If people start unsubscribing from their YouTube, unfollowing them on social media, and telling them why on the way out the door, that might get their attention.
But if you aren't subscribed, you don't buy their books, and you don't support them, then what are you threatening to take away? Because in that situation you're the angry woman loudly proclaiming, "You just lost yourself a customer!" to a store you've never actually bought anything from as you storm out the front doors. If you didn't actually establish a pattern of supporting them, then they lost absolutely nothing when you left.
 |
| All right... have a nice day, or something... |
Please, if you've read this far, understand what I'm saying. You are absolutely free to support or not support any writers, game designers, or companies you want to. No matter what kinds of products they make, it's your money, and you can do whatever you want with it.
With that said, if you want to actually use your buying power to shape the kinds of products that creators put together, then you have to actually have support you can take away from them. Because you can't give people less attention or fewer sales than zero, so you don't really have anything you can threaten them with if you don't have any skin in the game.
Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!
That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!
Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!
To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!
No comments:
Post a Comment