Sean,
You wrote “Why we do not hear more talk about the customer-base… has always astonished me. Customers are the reasons why businesses exist, businesses do not exist because of “business models”…”
As I read these lines I saw a vision of the future. In a Wall-E-eque world where there are no humans. Only automated computers and factories running the world. The business mainframes formulate new business models, factory mainframes configure the factories to output the products from that business model. Maybe other mainframes are able to write software or produce movies if the business model relies on software or movies.
Every month these new business plans are executed. The stores automatically fill up, or websites put them for ‘sale’.
And they always fail. Why? No humans left. But the machines, like many business managers, don’t seem to care about the customer. The customer which does not even exist. Different mainframes congratulate each other on elegant ‘business models‘ and ignore the fact that they are business failures. That no product has been sold since the human race went extinct millions of year ago is simply not important. They even give out awards for the most innovative strategy.
And they keep on doing what they are doing.
The human race probably went extinct because some bunch of mainframes decided that selling food was an inelegant business model for some reason or another.
You’ve pinned down these types who chant ‘business model’ all day. People do not exist, only numbers do. Now, you do need metrics for performance. However, using profit as the main indicator has ensured that “industries” accelerate right before they enter the shadow of decline. Why do they accelerate?
Like everywhere else, people try to increase the “metric of performance” by increasing the profit. This is done in the simplest way: by increasing prices and squeezing as much revenue as possible. This often gets the business stuck in the “high end” customers which ensures a disruptor to come along and blow them up.
It is fascinating how the number of consumers is never mentioned as an indicator for the “Game Industry”. Only ‘revenue’.
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