Gaming, LOTRO, Podcast — September 12, 2012 at 14:06

Contains Moderate Peril Episode 76: Are Gamers a Unique Type of Customer?

On this weeks Contains Moderate Peril podcast, Brian and I are joined by Diane and Jacob from the tl-dr website. In this special episode we look at how gamers seem to be more than just traditional customers and how they have a rather unique relationship with the game developers. What exactly is it that makes buying a game so different from purchasing a new fridge or couch? Is gaming more than just buying a product from a company? We look at the Guild Wars 2, LOTRO and WoW communities to see what makes gamers different from consumers of other services.

Here are a few bullet points of some of the points discussed regarding this weeks topic:

Gamers are governed on paper by the same legal contract of any other sort of purchase.
Do gaming communities empower gamers?
Does fandom validate the concept of collective or cultural ownership?
Are gamers so different from sports fans?
Voting with your feet and not playing a game, is the ultimate bargaining chip.
Do gamers love a game for what it can be potentially, rather than what it actually is?

The podcasts are intended to be broad in content and casual in their nature. They are fun to record and are intended to inform and amuse. All opinions offered are our own and do not reflect any official view held by the game developers or film studios whose products we discuss. There is some strong language used occasionally. To listen to the show you can use the embedded media player below, directly download the MP3 file or alternatively use the iTunes store.