Why Creators Should Never Read Their Forums 221
spidweb writes "One full-time Indie developer writes about why he never goes to online forums discussing his work and why he advises other creators to do the same. It's possible to learn valuable things, but the time and the stress just don't justify the effort. From the article, 'Forums contain a cacophony of people telling you to do diametrically opposite things, very loudly, often for bad reasons. There will be plenty of good ideas, but picking them out from the bad ones is unreliable and a lot of work. If you try to make too many people happy at once, you will drive yourself mad. You have to be very, very careful who you let into your head.'"
Counterpoint: Dwarf fortress (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A prime example of this not working (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that Android apps don't have any copy protection on them, so users can simply copy the app from each other. Rovio gets around the problem by simply displaying adverts and make $1M a month from this strategy.
http://androidcommunity.com/angry-birds-android-ads-make-rovio-1m-per-month-20101208 [androidcommunity.com]
Re:If you're not going to read your forum ... (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is that there are games where there are unified calls - nigh unanimous - and STILL the developers aren't f'ing paying attention.
Your specific example notwithstanding, the wiser developers know full well that "nigh unanimous" complaints on a forum, in general, means "unanimous only among the people complaining", given the people who are happy with (or just don't mind) whatever "unanimously" needs to be changed aren't going to manically gush on and on about every bit of minutia they love about the game.