Passionate critics of some video games are actually the most loyal fans.
New York City’s gaffe-prone former mayor Eric Adams frequently went viral for his semi-incomprehensible ramblings, but there’s one quote in particular which has stuck with this humble scribe: “all my haters become my waiters when I sit down at the table of success”.
This is how one imagines the CEOs of Activision and Electronic Arts – the companies which make popular first-person shooter video games Call of Duty and Battlefield, respectively – may feel upon reading the latest research out of Flinders University.
According to a new paper published in the Journal of Product & Brand Management, the emergence of passionate online communities of gamers which heap criticism on both Battlefield and Call of Duty is actually a positive sign.
“Complaining is actually a sign of deep brand loyalty,” study co-author Dr Naser Pourazad said.
“Traditional marketing says that customer complaints are bad, but our research has proved the opposite: in highly engaged communities, Brand Appraisal (harsh critique of product flaws) and Brand Defence (protecting the brand from outsiders) go hand-in-hand.
“Gamers don’t critique because they hate the brand; they critique because they are highly invested and want the brand to succeed.
“If an outsider attacks the brand, these same critics instantly pivot to defend it.”
The research itself used large language models to analyse more than 23,000 comments on game-specific subreddits.
What’s more, fans of the more tactical realism-focused Battlefield game were more likely to focus on analysis when defending the game, while fans of the more narrative-focussed Call of Duty were more likely to make more emotional arguments.
“The narrative versus technical advocacy in the Call of Duty and Battlefield online brand communities suggests that advocacy research must move beyond universal models towards context-specific frameworks that account for how different brand attributes create distinct advocacy pathways,” the authors wrote.
“The technical-focused advocacy in the Battlefield brand community, emphasising mechanical complexity and tactical realism, operates through different cognitive and emotional routes than the narrative-focused advocacy in Call of Duty, which centres on storytelling and social experiences.”
In other words, brands should probably tailor their communications to their specific audiences, rather than relying on corporatised talking points.
Send your hate mail to Holly@medicalrepublic.com.au. Do your worst, for you will only become her waiter when she sits down at the table of success.
