impertinence said: chocoloco said: In all this lengthy debate trying to prove bias is hilarious. As people are acting like companies having a bias is morally wrong, and, or a sin. When in fact companies are mostly autonomous entities that can invest their money where they see fit. Acting like the world owes Nintendo anything is almost like following Nintendo as as being a religious dogma that must be followed. Absolute What a joke! This is a pretty lofty jump to conclusions. I think you are a victim of bias here, assuming that bias when proven is morally wrong. I can'tremember anyone implying tat, seems like that one is on you.

First of all, it is funny you think the post is only about you. And of course it comes from me. I wrote it after all. That is the way I interpret a lot of what Nintendo fans write in these forums and not just what I have read from your writing. Hell, it could apply to any over the top fan of any company actually. 

set up this post preemptively

Hey man, props to you. Way to keep it civil though it was touch and go there for a while. One thing we can agree on is that the reasoning on this site is sub-par. Not sure I hare your desire for rigorous formal reasoning, but solid thinking is always a plus.

As for the subjectivity of bias, some other guy has already mentioned many of the same things I would say, I'll just add one more thing to consider. It is possible to start with the same problem, and come to two opposite conclusions both based on rational decission making (in the sense of rational meaning that "it makes sense").

For example: Should we port game A to the Wii U? Argument 1: Game of this type has sold poorly on the Wii U before, therfor it is too risky. Conclusion: Do not port. Argument 2: There are no real big games of this genre on the Wii U, this is a good opportunity to expand our audience for a relatively low cost. Conclusion: Do port.

Both of these arguments makes sense, the extent to which one makes te most sense is determined in a large part by bias. For example, you have indicated that you wowuld probably think argument 1 makes most sense, Zero999 will probably think argument 2 is the most reasonable. Obviously, this rabbit hole goes very very deep.

I contend that all decissions ever made are ultimately based on bias in some form. In most cases (including business decissions and when you decide what to eat for breakfast) bias plays a much bigger role than we realize. I understand that this is difficulty and even uncomfortable to accept, but there is now a pretty convincing body of evidence to support it. That's all I will say about bias in this thread, I think I've discussed it enough for one thread.