Strategery

Video games developers are making me angry lately. They sit atop their ivory towers, aloof and growing fat with their own misconceptions of their creative talent. Their game is going to be revolutionary, millions of people will sell all of their belongings to get their grubby hands on the masterpiece.

Suddenly when no one gives a crap about their stupid game, they speak of the gaming generation as cynical.

They aren't not worthy to enjoy the load of mindless pile of binary code we spent weeks on.

As if the gaming industry is in some otherworldly dimension where all must buy their products not matter the quality.

Hey developers...It's time you listen to me- your target market.

If you want to sell a game, there are things you will have to work at to do this. One tried and true way is to look at your industry and try to study success being had. Not sure why I have to tell you this, but obviously you have no clue about. If you did, you sure as hell would'nt be pumping the type of crap into gamers hands like you are now.

Massive Success is rare. Take a look at the MMORPG world, you need not to look any further than World of Warcraft. Over 7 million subscribers, they generate an ungodly amount of revenue simply off of monthly subscriptions. Take a look at some of the things that make up World of Warcraft:
Content: Detailed, coherent, engaging, robust, and more is constantly being added
Technology: They are able to support hundreds of thousands of concurrent players, most of the time flawlessly. Lag is almost non-existant.
Features: They know you have friends, they know you want to play with them easily. They create functionality that lets you do this in all aspects of the game.

Now look to the console world- you see a ton of games milling about, with Halo 2 posing brilliantly in the middle of them, towering above all. Bungie has figured out the whole friend thing might be a good idea to jump on board of.
Lobby/friend system: They found a way to communicate with your friends, find out where they are online, find ways to quickly and easily get them into a lobby together, get them into games together, and keep them together throughout the entire session of play.
Medals: If you do something extra ordinary in the game you get rewarded with a medal- extremely simple, but amazingly effective. Everyone wants to be rewarded with something after they do a good thing.

The FPS scene of PC gaming has a few standouts as well- to me the Battlefield series really capitilizes on the "reward" schema that Halo started.
Unlocked weapons: To be rewarded with new and better weaponry as you gain points and rank is gratifying and rewards you for good play. Again, very simple- people like to be rewarded in any situation.
Ranks: Gaming culture is about me being better than you. How do I know? I have more kills than you, my rank is higher than you, I have more unlocks than you, I AM BETTER. To be able to give concrete proof of that from your rank or leader boards is gaming nirvana.
Medals/Ribbons: Again, when I blow up 5 enemy bridges in 1 game, I want a reward. When I do cool things, extraordinary things, reward me.
Team concepts: To have 2 Commanders in the game, trying to lead their teams against each other is brilliant. Squad leaders able to take cues from Commanders, visually or audibly is outstanding- then as squad leaders being able to send that information to the grunts in the squad is sheer teamwork bliss. Excellent, innovative, teambuilding features.

Last but not least - ONLINE CO/OP. Appallingly few developers have figured out that we, as gamers, have friends. Real life friends, online friends in different parts of the country. We like to play online games together! Let me play your "first player/campaign mode" together with my friend online. Gamers BEG for this feature. It hardly ever is given to us.

And your extra special bonus feature is.....*drumroll*
MAP EDITORS!!!!
This is just a cool feature. To make my own multiplayer map is just plain cool. Make it simple, easy, and quick to share with others.

If you are making a game and aren't sure that it's the best idea in the world, including these features will ensure at least mediocre success. Give gamers an easy way to see their friends online, an easy way to get and stay in multiple games with them, give us rewards of some kind, give us some way to compare each other, and include online CO/OP in your campaign mode. The rest, grand developers is up to you. Don't complain about finicky gamers when your horrid apperation bombs and you loose millions of dollars if you don't have these features in your game. Yes, I'm sure it's hard to do this, and takes a lot of work. Frankly- I don't care. Make the game with cool features, or I take the attitude with your game that you take with the features that I want.