I can’t stand mustard or mayo on my sandwiches. Almost every single catered party that I’ve had the misfortune to experience made the assumption that putting them on sandwiches is The Right Way. It might be for somebody, but not for me, so more often than not, I simply don’t eat the sandwiches. It’s not much of a loss to me (unless I paid for lunch as part of a package deal), but it is wasteful, and completely avoidable. The caterer assumes that their way is the right way for everyone else, and winds up with a reality that doesn’t match their vision.
Similarly, I don’t like onions. At all. Almost every single homemade chili recipe uses onions, as do many, many other recipes. Most “serious” cooks wouldn’t be caught dead cooking without onions. I will not eat food with onions in it.
My sister and mother suffer from Celiac, a trouble with the intestines where wheat is damaging to eat. Wheat. “The Staff of Life” that almost every single recipe uses in one way or another. Specifically, it’s gluten that is the problem, and that’s not just from wheat; gluten is nearly everywhere. Celiac almost killed my sister, and it took many months to diagnose because doctors assumed she had “irritable bowel” or some such other handwaved and untreatable problem. Luckily, she’s better now, but she has to be very careful about what she eats.
Many moons ago, a girl in my high school died because she ate a candy bar that had peanut oil in it, despite having no peanuts, and not advertising the oil. The producers assumed it wouldn’t be a problem.
These days, food manufacturers are very careful to point out when peanuts are part of their product, or even part of the facility where their non-peanut products are produced. Chex cereal recently reintroduced their Honey Nut Chex with a prominent label proclaiming that it’s “Gluten-Free”! The assumptions are being challenged, and information is in a very real position to save lives. The consumer is empowered, and can make intelligent decisions about where their money goes.
My utter contempt for onions and lesser disgust with mustard and mayo is far from life threatening. It’s just a personal preference (albeit one with social ramifications, as gagging on a disguised onion can be a bit awkward). Yet, it drives my consumer patterns just as my sister and mother are driven by their particular needs. My concerns are mere quibbles compared to a potentially life threatening purchase.
And yet… consumer preferences do dictate the life and death of companies that cater to those preferences. I do not patronize a restaurant that uses onions in all of their offerings. I do not recommend caterers who assume that mustard and mayo must be used. I go to Subway, Cafe Rio or Costa del Sol, where I can get food the way I want it, or I just forgo eating out entirely and spend my food money at the grocery store and do my own cooking.
Will my relatively paltry bankroll and less-than-highbrow tastes sink a company? Not alone, no… but then, my consumption alone won’t keep a company afloat either. Customer tastes usually need to be accounted for as a bit within a set of aggregated data. Still, as a rule, there are plenty of companies that make a decent living by catering to variable tastes, like Subway or Blimpie. There are also those that make a decent living with a one-size-fits-all, shut-up-and-give-me-your-$15 mentality.
There is room in a mature market for both types of company. There is room for those who just want a vanilla product, whether it’s ice cream, clothing, a game or anything else. There is room for those who want something a bit different. Smart companies find ways to satisfy as many people as possible, to earn as much money as possible, presenting themselves in positive light to both sets of customers. That’s the point of market segmentation, and giving the customer options.
Let the customer choose, and give them as many reasons as possible to choose your products.
This is why I am a big proponent of microtransaction models in the MMO genre. I have no interest in a company-dictated grilled onion sandwich with mustard and mayo. I do have interest in the game that makes no assumptions about what I want, and just gives me choices. I’m a discerning customer. It’s my money to spend, and I will do it how I please.
This is also why I don’t call for abolishing the sub model, since others have the right to their preferences. I do call for a more mature market, though; one with clearer information, better clarity in what my dollar buys, and that offers me more choices than “take it or leave it”. Such a binary choice does a disservice to the industry.
This is why I keep promoting ideas that offer players choices, and why I challenge assumptions about what “true MMOs” really are. It’s why I’m tired of the DIKU model, and why I’m itching for something more than tired old mechanics and treadmills. Yes, Blizzard and others can polish and make cosmetic alterations to tried and true systems, but it’s all just so much paint on a tired old foundation. For those like me who have lost interest in the Way Things Are, more of the same isn’t going to drum up much interest, even if it’s polished to a high gloss.
I’ll eat grilled onions and pickled onions but not raw onions, but if you don’t request No Onions or Animal Style (grilled onions) SoCal’s In ‘n’ Out will slap a slice of raw onion on your burger. Not a couple of pieces, but a full slice of raw onion. Bleah 😛
I prefer Quizno’s over Subway but have to make do at work because Subway is right across the road while Quizno’s is a good 4-5 blocks away. Though the last time I was at a Quizno’s I was a bit miffed with the service because even though they have the extra stuff out, when my sandwich came out of the grill they slapped lettuce & tomato on it, wrapped it & tossed it to the cashier. I knew my sandwich was already with the cashier but I wanted jalapenos on it, so I stood in front of the ‘lettuce & tomato’ guy & ignored the cashier…even when he called out the name of my sandwich…twice. In the end it was the customer behind me who pointed me out as the unresponsive sandwich owner, which is when I acted offended because I’d wanted additional ‘stuff’ on my sandwich and hadn’t been offered it. Why do they have the olives, jalapenos, pickles, etc, if they’re not going to ask the customer if you want them?
Although Subway is often not any better. You tell the first preparer you want a chicken breast on wheat, no cheese. He puts your sandwich together and if it’s a busy franchise like the one across from my work he passes it to the next preparer…who asks what cheese you want. “No cheese,” you reply, again. She passes your sandwich on to the next girl and when you get there she notices your sandwich is missing…something. “Did you want cheese?” you’re asked for the third time.
Then they ask if you want “Lettuce, tomato & onion”.
“Everything but onions,” I say.
They throw on lettuce, tomato…and onions.
Didn’t I just say “Everything but onions”? That means NO onions! And where’s the cucumber, sprouts, olives, & jalapenos? I said ‘everything’, and that means everything! Now load that sandwich UP! This may not be Burger King, but I’m still having my sandwich MY way.
Mmm… Quizno’s. I knew I was forgetting something. Their toasted subs are excellent.
..but yes, you’ve got to catch any of them at the right time. I’ve been lucky more often than not, since I tend to eat at non-peak hours and can get a bit more attention to detail. I’m not brave enough to hope for getting my order right during peak hours.
…but the idea of holding up the line until they get a simple order right does have a certain appeal to it. 🙂
Heh, I hate onions, too. Although I’ve noticed that as I get older I can stand them a bit more: no gagging when I find a stray one in my food, and a small amount of cooked ones can eaten without noticing sometimes. I’m lucky my GF also hates onions, so we don’t have to worry about what the other is cooking. But, yeah, I’ve become adept at picking out onions in food I eat.
The most annoying thing about not liking onions is dealing with people who don’t mind. My parents were terrible about this when I was young, always saying, “I can’t even taste the onions!” (My sassy response was, “Why did you even put them in, then?”) And, as you said, some cooks simply can’t conceive of not using them in cooking.
I think the real reason people lash out at different business models (or different types of games, even) is because developer resources are seen as limited. If SoE decides to embrace microtransactoins, for example, they might produce less subscription-based fare and the subscription fans will be left in the cold. I think there’s some truth to this, but not as much as people fear.
There is some truth to the notion of limited dev resources, but the argument can go both ways. I’m constantly annoyed with those devs who focus on the sub side of things rather than microtransactions or dual currencies, for example. 😉
But yes, canny devs like King’s Isle (Wizard 101) have found ways to make all sorts of monetization schemes work within the same game, all while being on a relatively miniscule budget. It’s doable, and while I hesitate to call it truly solved, it’s far from an intractable problem or even an either/or choice.
I think I’ve used that onion line with my family before, growing up. I can *always* taste the onions. I can even taste it if the cook used onions for flavor and then tossed them out before serving the dish. Bleh.
I’m not a fan of Mayo either and like you, have had to endure multiple social functions where the “chef” decided to add mayo to the ENTIRE 12ft hoagie they were so proud of. The worst is when you refuse to eat and then get that look. You know the look; the one that tries to make you feel like you’re somewhere between an ungrateful hobo and a general food snob.
My wife and I have had guests over for lunch/dinner and we’re always careful to ask ahead of time if they have any allergies because as you know, a simple mistake can prove deadly to some people. I’m glad more food companies have recognized this issue and have taken steps to correct it. Now if only people like you and I can get the same courtesy from sandwhich makers and chili cooks 😉
I’m curious how much market research goes into pricing options – and how much that impacts the ‘limited dev time’. It seems like a team is put together to make a game, they bounce around ideas, do a design doc, make the game and then tack on the proverbial sub fee standard. It seems like they don’t even discuss the pricing in the design itself. Heavy emphasis on the word ‘seems’.
I surf the net checking out upcoming MMO games – read their FAQ’s – they always have the question “Will there be a monthly fee” – and the answer always is “There will be a monthly fee standard to what the current MMO genre is”.
This would make sense in some regards, if there was a rhyme or reason to the ‘standard’. It isn’t based on recurring costs, or profit projections (as there isn’t a game out there that knows what their numbers will be) it is just an arbitrarily assigned number.
I suppose it is designed on what the market will bear. That is definitely a pricing model – charge what people will pay for a good or service.
The other way to price items is to take the cost of materials and production, add in your normal business costs to stay in business (labour/support, etc) and price it so that the revenues exceed expenses – so profit is made.
MMO’s have the wonkiest price models, even the micro transaction ones. It is hard to price a 50%+ XP gain token – because there is no cost per say to make that item to begin with. So what will people pay for that? I suppose whatever the ‘standard’ is.
Not being the part of any dev process in games, I am curious how much effort and investment is put towards discerning pricing in the first place.
Oh, yes, Wolfgang, I’ve seen *that* look many times. 🙂 I’ve not been in charge of cooking for company yet, but we definitely try to ask about food allergies. It seems to be pretty simple courtesy. *shrug*
Chris, there are many ways of doing things, and I can’t speak to anything but what I’ve seen. I’ve been on projects where pricing wasn’t nailed down until the end, and others where the pricing was part of the initial design because it had to be part of the business plan. I’ve even been on a project where pricing had to change as the market shifted under our feet midproject. It really does seem a bit helter-skelter.
Overall, I think that pricing really does seem to be rather secondary to a lot of design, and that such is unfortunate, and evidence of our relative immaturity as an industry. I’d definitely like a peek at the decision making process for MMO design.