Great stuff, will give this a proper listen at the gym later.
Before I do, I have just listened to the part about lots of players playing authentic and now they're trying to understand how many stay in the mode etc. Does anyone else think this is the very approach killing games? CoD is the same, everything is based on data and retention and it's killing creativity and direction.
The best games imo are one's made by passionate teams with a vision. It won't cater to everyone but they're not trying to, they're trying to cater to people who think like them and very often, it ends up creating new fans. If from software designed their games based on data, they simply wouldn't have built the souls and elden ring franchises. The cult following of these games and rave reviews lead to new people trying them, myself included. The intrigue and overwhelmingly positive sentiment led me to try a genre I never have.
What made PES what it was back in the day, was exactly that. A studio creating a game they wanted, that they were passionate about. It didn't matter about licenses because they built something brilliant, catered for people like them. Its quirks became part of the franchise, it created that very specific 'PES' feeling. Games like this don't need to be perfect, they just need to be themselves.
Companies are now so driven by the numbers they've become a slave to the data. Loot boxes, reward systems, features which essentially build addictions to retain players rather than an amazing experience. People don't want to return to or play the game because the love playing it. They want to return for the dopamine hit of whatever reward system has been implemented (FUT for example).
The only thing they should be worried about regarding authentic is that the numbers show people ARE interested in it. They then need creative freedom to build an authentic mode which reflects their own ideas. Trying to read into the data past that is worthless imo, there's nothing to compare it to. If the mode is shit, people won't return. If you try and understand why it's shit vs what else is currently available, it's an echo chamber. They key and only metric here is people want an authentic mode, that's your green light. And whilst feedback is important, I also think that in itself is fairly worthless. The amount of feedback which is relevant is tiny in comparison to player base. Those online and in forums are the smallest minority you can imagine, even those filling out surveys in game are a tiny number. On top of that, so many people moan and don't actually have any idea of what they want or why, they just don't like that they have. The number of times I've had conversations with 'casual' mates about football games and CoD and they have absolutely no genuine feedback, they're just bored of the franchises and look back on past games with rose tinted specs. Studios need to have some balls and develop something they're proud of, the rest will follow.
And finally, you can still cater to the dopamine chasers, it just shouldn't be the primary driver.
