Capcom's recipe for success is simple: stay the course, ignore the bandwagons | Opinion

gamesindustry.biz:

Fear of missing out, or FOMO, is a key part of consumer psychology that just about any businessperson has learned about at some point.

It's the reason why sales and special offers "must end soon"; it's the concept that underlies limited edition products, pre-order bonuses, and every wily form of artificial scarcity this industry has ever cooked up.

Yet, for all that, any businessperson worth their salt knows how to manipulate FOMO in consumers, very few of them are immune to its effects in turn. On the contrary, many managers and executives – especially those in technology or tech-adjacent industries like gaming – are riddled with the fear that they might miss out on the next trend, the next advancement, or the next platform that rockets to the moon.

Everyone wants to be seen to be ahead of the crowd, even at the expense of really doing their due diligence on the fad they're chasing; from NFTs and the metaverse to every manner of new business model, much of the industry's early engagement is all froth and FOMO.

That's fine, of course. Games are meant to be at the cutting edge of things, and sometimes that means losing a few fingers and looking a bit silly in the process. The problems only arise if in the process of jumping aboard every passing bandwagon, a company loses sight of the core of what it's meant to be doing.

That can mean redirecting crucial resources and focus from more traditional game development, or forcing teams to spend their precious time implementing features based on the latest buzzword, or even making lofty decisions to alienate existing fans and consumers based on some fantasy of a different, better group of consumers that are just out of sight around the next corner.

It's easy to pour scorn