Should Developers Listen To All Gamer Feedback? 123
Thanks to GameSpy for their 'Spy/CounterSpy' editorial discussing whether the videogame developer should listen to all fan feedback regarding in-development titles. The writer suggests: "Who in their right mind ignores advice from the people who are going to pay for your product? And in the end, that's what it comes down. Fans pay the bills - and they deserve respect." Bit he also points out the negative angle: "Fan suggestions are usually what would make the game better for that one individual. Developers need to consider the global effects of any suggestion and work to keep the majority happy." Are there some game titles or genres where a vocal minority's agitation for change has resulted in an inferior title?
Developers should NEVER listen to ALL feedback (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Developers should NEVER listen to ALL feedback (Score:2)
Braindead indeed. One of those articles to which you reply, "Uh, no." and scroll on to the next.
Re:Developers should NEVER listen to ALL feedback (Score:1)
If they don't listen, they should at least not lie (like Valve have down with regards to bots in Counterstrike).
Re:Developers should NEVER listen to ALL feedback (Score:2)
Daniel
Re:Developers should NEVER listen to ALL feedback (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Developers should NEVER listen to ALL feedback (Score:2)
Re:Developers should NEVER listen to ALL feedback (Score:1)
With original titles, though, while they should pay attention to what other titles did correctly or incorrectly, no one's going to know better than the developers and designers what their game is supposed to be.
Of course, if you get into development and find that your core target audience isn't goi
Negative Feedback (Score:2)
"Everquest" and "Dark Age of Camelot" stand out as two clear examples. They both catered to a very vocal user base who would obsess over the dumbest things. Essentially, people had their prefered way of playing, and any other classes which were viewed (often incorrectly) as 'better' ended up getting dumbed down (or "nerfed", as the process was refered). This created a game where the mo
Balence (Score:4, Insightful)
As usual, a balence of both is often the best solution - most sensible suggestions should be listened to, and the better ones acted upon.
Hitman : Code 47 (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, what happened when it was released? The whining began. "It's too difficult", "you can't save midlevel", "I can't circle-strafe" etc. etc.
And so they made some changes to the sequel [www2.ioi.dk]. Now you could easily finish a level by just charging in, all guns blazing. Things getting a bit tricky? No problem, just quicksave! Sure, you could hide your guns in a tray of groceries, pose as a postman to pass through the gate, duck into the kitchen, collect your weaponry, sneak up the stairs, bludgeon your target to death with a golfclub and escape without a shot being fired.. but why go to all that bother when the game doesn't penalise you for just shooting everyone in the head?
By listening to the "fans", who never seemed to understand the point of the game, they turned one of the most innovative games of recent times into a sub-par FPS.
Re:Hitman : Code 47 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hitman : Code 47 (Score:2)
Oh, right, yes. The "wicked unlockables". Heaven forfend that I forget about unlocking three extra types of gun
You're missing my point. By effectively making the whole "stealth" aspect optional, a lot of the allure of the game was removed.
Sure, you can go for the challenge of getting a "silent assassin" ranking and I guess you could force yourself to restart the level each t
Re:Hitman : Code 47 (Score:1)
Re:Hitman : Code 47 (Score:2)
Heck, to go out on a limb I'd say that perhaps using the piano wire in the sequel may have been more suspenseful and difficult than in the first.
Re:Hitman : Code 47 (Score:1, Insightful)
Good: Quicksave / Save during Mission
The quicksave was a long time in coming. That was really a good change. Nothing like the mission going to hell instantly because you pulled out your piano wire too soon and having to spend 20 minutes getting to that same place again (and possibly a few additional retries).
Bad: Wild gunplay encouraged
Bad: To be
Re:Hitman : Code 47 (Score:2)
Only if you're a supremely sub-par player, I'd guess. I did one level guns-a-blazin, decided it wasn't for me, and went for super stealth the rest of the game. It was awesome. I haven't played the first, but I can tell you that the sequel involved tons of "getting into position for 15 minutes for the perfect snipe" followed by getting caught
Re:Hitman : Code 47 (Score:2)
Only if you're a supremely sub-par player, I'd guess. I did one level guns-a-blazin, decided it wasn't for me, and went for super stealth the rest of the game.
Just so I understand you, you're saying that you bought the game, played one level as an FPS, decided it wasn't for you and went super stealth for the rest of the game. This apparently i
Re:Hitman : Code 47 (Score:2)
Er, sorry, slight misunderstanding here. I agree with your assertion that it doesn't work as an FPS. I perhaps misunderstood you as saying "they changed it from a stealth game into a sub-par FPS, such that it was no longer a stealth game". The way I see it, it
90% rule (Score:2)
"90% of Science fiction is crap. Come to think of it, 90% of everything is crap." This applies to user suggestions.
Or to plagerize Abraham Lincon: "You can please some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time; but you can't please all the people all the time"
Anyone remember Robocop 2?
In other words, developers should not give up their vision, but should be open to that rare suggestion that m
Re:90% rule (Score:1, Informative)
Re:90% rule (Score:2)
Games get diluted enough trying to keep management, marketing, brand, licence holders and gawd-only-knows-who happy. Trying to cater to hundreds or thousands of requests from gamers is just not possible. Mind you, it doesn't hurt to listen. Someone may have a gem of an idea, or if a significant group are asking for a particu
Re:90% rule (Score:1)
Sod Robocop, remember the Matrix sequels?
"Hmm, so people liked the fight scenes, huh? They're going to love this..."
Homermobile (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Homermobile (Score:1)
Jim Hope:
Very good. Now I want you all to imagine the perfect toy. What would it be like?
Terri:
[holding stuffed animal] It should be soft and cuddly.
Bart:
Yeah, with lots of firepower.
Milhouse:
Its eyes should be telescopes! No, periscopes! No, microscopes! Can you come back to me?
Nelson:
It should be full of surprises.
Milhouse:
It should never stop dancing.
Martin:
It should need accessories.
NO NO NO (Score:5, Insightful)
The Tribes 2 devs made the mistake of doing everything the players wanted. The game turned to crap. After everybody stopped playing they finally restored the game to a decent classic version, and now you can play online with the small community in what was one of the best games ever.
Now look at Counter-Strike. It's the most popular multiplayer online game ever probably. They hardly ever do what players want. They only make changes in the interest of game design. The AWM is still there. The game is still hard. Heck, they make changes to piss players off. Like when they changed the p90 way back in the beta 7 days.
So, why does this happen? Because players are dumb. They don't know anything about game design. They only want you to change the game in such a way so that their current style of playing will immediately become the best style and they will win every time. Think about it. All those guys who say take the AWM out are guys who don't have the skill to deal with someone else sniping at them. That's part of the game and to be good you need those skills. The vast majority of the time players don't ask for game improvements. They just want the game to change to suit themselves rather than become better players. This usually turns the game into crap and all the real players leave. If you don't do what the players want and you just stick to good design all the good players stay, and the idiots stay too. They will always complain, but they will keep playing your game until the end of days. There are guys who have been complaining about things in CS since the very beginning and now they are playing on steam and complaining it is crap and the shield is cheap.
Tribes 2, Counter-Strike. Real world examples and evidence. Don't give in to the whims of players. The vast majority of players like things the way they are. Only the few idiot fanboy types are asking for changes. Don't listen to them. They may seem like the majority on the forums, because they are the majority on the forums. But they aren't the majority of your players.
Also Jedi Knight II (Score:4, Informative)
Re:NO NO NO (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:NO NO NO (Score:1)
But they weren't happy with a new graphics engine, they wanted to make all the old MODs (Shifter!) incompatible, make new maps which all kind-of sucked, tweak the physics model *just enough* that all your Tribes 1 skills were obso
Re:NO NO NO (Score:1)
In any case, they didn't listen to user feedback at all in the first place. For instance, I put in a suggestion that aircraft have an artificial horizon added. One of the developers replied and literally promised it would be in the next patch, and it wasn't. I had the same reaction through 3 patches before I completely gave up on Tribes 2.
Re:NO NO NO (Score:2)
I played T1 when it came out and didn't care for it. Tribes 2 I absolutely loved. I completely disagree with the T1 fanatics, and I don't think they would have been satisifed even if it had been T1 with better graphics. There was always something else to complain about.
Really, Sierra screwed up when they kept screwing with the game. They changed it so many times, and a pissed-off community changed it so many times, that being a "Tribes 2 player" was
Customize (Score:1)
So, this would be a case of "the customers don't know what's good for them?"
Well, possibly this is the case for many of the players that loudly express themselves. This doesn't have to mean that user suggestions, even when they wouldn't result in a game that most people would actually like better, should be ignored. Possibly there is a market for games that each user can adapt to their own opinion of what is good.
Of course, customized games woudln't wo
Re:NO NO NO (Score:2)
"
They did listen in other areas, though. For example everyone has been whining about how useless autosnipers are, then in the latest update they made them godly(pretty much no
Re:NO NO NO (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:MMORPGs (Score:1)
In 99 or 2000 (can't remember exactly), most of the PvP issues had been resolved so that people who were annoying could be dealt with (Kill Stealers, people who deliberately try and get powerful monsters like Balrons to kill you, and then loot you [Lewters]), while still punishing those who recklessly and willfully hunted helpless people like newbies. Ne
Re:NO NO NO (Score:1)
Re:NO NO NO (Score:2)
Which is the important bit really.
Shame I didn't traipse across your game awhile ago... I think both my wife and myself would enjoy it (especially her -- she likes puzzle games, pirates, and the social aspects of MMOG's). But we have a kid due in Feb and don't want to get sucked down into a game right now. We kicked the EQ habit a couple years ago (both of us were in a top 10 guild), so are rather wary of getting addicted again.
Best of luck
Master of Orion 3 (Score:2)
Part of a good game design process will involve frustrating your users. If a user is upset that the railgun is too powerful, 99 times out of 100 they need to learn to play better. It should be a motivating factor. If you keep getting jacked, CYA. Live in fear. That's the point.
Likewise, the kind of
Re:Master of Orion 3 (Score:2)
Quite the opposite I'm afraid. About the time MOO2 came out, I told the developers that I wanted to see a ship design editor in case I wanted to build my own badass looking ships (my own artistic lack-of-skills notwithstanding). Did they take that into consideration in MOO3? No. Instead, they took all ship model customization away, giving only one design per ship class. Not tha
Re:NO NO NO (Score:2)
For example, I often see suggestions which will add money to an economy without a way to remove it, to add a power to one class without balancing the others, make it easier to travel long distances without something to discourage using it incessantly (and hence taking an element out of the game).
I wonder if most of these unbalanced suggestions come from the younger audience. It could just be
More real world evidence (Score:2)
When Westwood was working on Red Alert 2, they experimented with lots of different strengths for the superweapons, and finally settled fo
People don't know what they want. (Score:1)
you shouldnt listen to the forums (Score:1)
you should be hiring talented individuals who can make a market niche, or at least predict what we want to see in a game in 3 years.
you should make the game and then patch as necessary.
you should amke a game and then instead of figuring out whhat went wrong all by your lonesome and making change
Re:you shouldnt listen to the forums (Score:1)
Sure, listen to them - why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
50% say "more", 50% say "less" -> leave it like it is. Simple as that.
[The game's creators] are not required to submit to gamers for approval if they decide to move the storyline forward or change the gameplay mechanics [...]
Ummm, yes they are - gamers voice their approval in the shops. Sure, game creators don't have to make a game that sells many copies. I think it would be smarter, though.
Yes, as a developer you should listen to every opinion. And no, you should not implement every wish without thinking. But you should listen nevertheless - and remember that angry customers are more likely to voice their discontent than satisfied customers. The game mechanics are - usually - made the way they are for a reason. Find out if your reasoning is flawed (or not).
And, lastly, if developers or producers don't care, why do you still want me to register your games?
Re:Sure, listen to them - why not? (Score:1)
> 50% say "more", 50% say "less" -> leave it like it is. Simple as that.
There's one problem with this. If 50% say more and 50% say less and you leave it like it is, you're still making 0% of your players happy. If you moved it in either direction, at least you'd make 50% happy.
Re:Sure, listen to them - why not? (Score:2)
Re:Sure, listen to them - why not? (Score:2)
Because they want to advertise to you - duh.
Developers can find out whether their game design is flawed through focus groups and testing throughout the development process. Once the game is out, it's over and the only true barometer for how good the game plays is how many copies get sold. Beyond bug fixes, user opinions should generally be considered irrelevant. This is especially true on developer mes
Listening and Acting are two different things (Score:2)
How much of that feedback they should Act on is an entirely different matter. It's probably more important to get some sort of demographic feel for their customer base, to know if it's some sort of lunatic fringe making the most noise, or if complaints are broad-based.
Perhaps the hardest challenge would be developing a game that can appeal both to a broad base, and to hard-core lunatic fans.
Dark age of Camelot anyone? (Score:1)
How many Nerfs can you name happened to classes just because some people got killed in RVR by said class.
Its always the people who got smoked in a PVP situation that will cry the loudest.. doesn't matter what the circumstances of the kill were they will scream and yell and cause a fuss until Mythic nerfs the offending class.
Neccesarily adhere? no. Listen? yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Have a look at 3DO and Might and Magic 9. The same hack&slash pushed this game into a 9th (!!) title, having a very solid clientelle and fan base.
Then, right after #8, someone up in management decided he wants to go do what the mass-selling games do. Let's transform it into a simple-to-use "RPG" game that the masses can understand, he said. And so they did.
It may have been wiser to do such a stupid experiment on a new title (like they did when they decided on a genre-change - with Heroes of Might and Magic - which went quite well, and ended them with two hot-selling brands) rather than dumb down a game that was bought for being technical hack&slash and alienate your own paying crown, in search of some dream of the masses chasing you with money.
The mistake managers make here is thinking that many new people will buy your game in addition to those who bought the last 8 titles. They're wrong of course. Take away what people liked for 8 titles, and they won't buy the 9th. You end up relying solely on your hypothetical newly-added clientelle. In M&M9, they stayed hypothetical.
Same goes for Unreal 2, or better yet, Deus-Ex 2, being released now. DE1 was one of the best games of all time. Then Mr. Spector sold out to a big paycheck to make a console shooter and slap the DE2 title on it, dumbed down the RPG elements of the game (which is what made it stand out from the rest of dozens of shooters on the shelves 2 years ago), removed reloading, replaced ammo with universal ammo (a way of saying either all your weapons work, or none of them do). Between the lines this reads: you never run out of ammo. Whoopee. This was done at the expense of what I suspect will be alienating the entire DE1 PC crowd.
Furthermore, where DE1 broke ice, DE2 will mingle with the crowd, be like all other console shooters, and disappear from the shelves 4 months later. I can understand why his producer takes the "exploit, trash and throw away" attitude at Spector's titles. After all, corporations are in it for a quick buck. But for someone who may have an interest in preserving the title/brand (not to mention releasing yet another one) this seems a clear no-no way to go. Looked what happened to Unreal 2. If, that is, you remember it ever came out. In less than a year, the game utterly disappeared.
So should game devs listen to their own crowd? If that crowd paid them for making a previous title, listening to them and understanding what they paid for is the sole ticket to making them pay again.
Cheers.
Re:Neccesarily adhere? no. Listen? yes. (Score:2)
Though I can't vouch for M&M, or Tribes 2, HoMM was a favorite series of mine, as was Deus Ex. When I found a spiritual successor to System Shock 2, I was so happy I might have cried. With DX:IW, I cry for a different reason.
If more development houses would consider your words, we would have a larger yield of quality games at our fingertips. Instead, they churn out whatever they can that caters to the lowest common denominator - with precious few
Re:Neccesarily adhere? no. Listen? yes. (Score:2)
I can't believe you can say anything about DX2 until you play the full game (which is why I haven't played the demo, yet).
Re:Neccesarily adhere? no. Listen? yes. (Score:2)
Perhaps we get the games we deserve.
Re:Neccesarily adhere? no. Listen? yes. (Score:2)
And this is why devs should not listen to most gameplayer 'input'.
Even ignoring the genera
Re:Neccesarily adhere? no. Listen? yes. (Score:1)
There were elements to the original Deus Ex that made it *Deus Ex*. Some of these elements, like the skill system, could have been removed and yet kept the familiarity of the game intact. However, if you t
Re:Neccesarily adhere? no. Listen? yes. (Score:2)
players aren't game designers (Score:3, Insightful)
Players can tell you if they're having fun. Their feedback is useful, you should consider their feedback in making design choices about the game, this doesn't mean you let the players design your game!
I don't know how anyone could conceive that a useful game development process includes doing everything the players ask. There seems to be a consensus it's a stupid idea amongst the slashdot posters this is the case. Waste of space on slashdot.
Re:players aren't game designers (Score:2)
Developers should listen to what the players want, then make the big decision based on all the facts (most of which the player isn't aware of).
For example, would the time to add in feature X be worth the 'fun factor' it would produce? Sometimes adding in a feature is cake, but the 'fun factor' is very rich (something simple like adding 'last names' to players, or code names... stuff like that). But the exact opposite is true.
That is just one example of what a developer in
Customers Shoot for the Moon (Score:2)
There's a reason for this. It's economic bias. They want as much as they can get for their $30-70. They forget development costs are fixed to a certain limit. As long as the company is willing to listen, they're gonna ask.
Let's face it. You need a reasonably small selection of users of the end product t
Good criticism and bad criticism (Score:2, Informative)
As for the creative element, though, it's the same as workshopping any artwork. You really just want to listen to the BEST criticism, and that's the kind where the audience senses where the producer intended to go with the game, and can offer intelligent advice on how close the product is to getting there. Stuff like "Well, I don't think this is a good RTS because it's not more like Total Annihilation" is bad criticism.
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance for GameCube (Score:1, Flamebait)
However they misunderstood the feedback -- they assumed that the reason nobody was buying the GameCube version was because nobody was interested,
Re:Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance for GameCube (Score:2)
For instance, a developer or publisher may say, "GameX on GameCube didn't sell very well. People don't want GameX2 on the Cube, we're ceasing development."
You can take that at face value, or you can read it in a number of other ways:
"We don't have the staff or the publisher support to do a decent job on all platforms, bye-bye cube."
"Our pu
Re:Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance for GameCube (Score:2)
Certainly true in general, but not in this case I think. Let's not forget that the GBA is a game system in its own right, and a very succesf
Re:Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance for GameCube (Score:2)
Console games vs. PC games (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a huge advantage if your development team is good at game design, and a huge disadvantage if your developers suck at it. For better or worse, the rules of a console game are essentially static. On the other hand, players of PC games know that they can influence the developers (via posting on official message boards and the like) in an attempt to get the rules of the game to work in their favor. Therefore PC gamers are more likely to be voice any gripes they have about the game.
It'd be interesting to see a PC game-development group come out and say "for the first N months that our game is out, there will be no gameplay-affecting patches, only bugfixes and the like"... this would discourage people from going straight to the messageboards with "OMGOMGOMG I got pwn3d by strategy X, and I'm too much of an idiot to figure out how to beat strategy X, so clearly strategy X is overpowered, please nerf". Having a moratorium on balance patches would actually force people to think, "well, I think strategy X is overpowered... but they're not going to fix it for at least 2 months... so in the meantime I better shut up and figure out some way of countering it."
Part of the reason I don't play Warcraft III anymore is that I don't have a ton of time to dedicate to nothing but games, and the balance-update cycle for WC3 seemed to be so short that every time I played it was a different game -- each of the units I was used to playing suddenly became stronger or weaker, or cost more, or less, or took a longer time to build... it got to the point where it was impossible to actually play a good game without revisiting the messageboards every day to see what the current complaints were about (and therefore what would be nerfed in the next patch.)
They already filter out at least *some* feedback (Score:4, Funny)
[Sigh]. Someday. Someday.
Yes they should listen (Score:1)
Now with that said if they don't listen and react enough they will not please the customers and loose those who are not happy.
Feedback (Score:4, Insightful)
Second, while they should listen to feedback, listening and actually implementing those suggestions are two different things. Some suggestions are just stupid. Some a great. Most are in between. It's up to the developer to figure out which suggestions are the right ones to make. The most popular suggestion might not be the right one, and can ruin a game.
Third, sometimes it comes down to company politics. The team might have a great vision, but if the big boss REALLY wants a talking dog in your FPS, it'll go in there...even if it is stupid. This happens ALL the time on projects, and not just on games. Think of all the stupid products you've ever seen. I'd bet that a lot of those had people at the company who tried to prevent the release (or at least fix it), and it was some dork in a position of "power" that decided to be a dick and do it their way, even though it was stupid.
When you're in the middle of beta, it's usually too later to make massive changes, even if the product does suck... the team might want to do it, but the bean counters won't let them. In the end, releasing a crappy product foreits not only the money you could have made with a better product, but it ends up ruining the house's reputation.
Game dev houses' reputations (Score:2)
Sid Meier writes great games as Microprose. Microprose gets bought by Hasbro, Infogrames, Atari, and they won't let him play. So Sid splits and starts Firaxis. Sid wants to make historical games, so he gives the big money maker to Brian Reynolds. Alpha Centauri is great, and Brian gets a rep, so he splits and starts BigHugeGames. Civ3 is a collaborative effort between
This is confusing... (Score:4, Funny)
Actions speak louder than words. (Score:2)
People lie.
Not even intentionally or knowingly, but when its a judgement call folks are giving their _Opinion_, which is just that, and opinion. People frequently hold an opinion, voice an opinion, but then don't always act on it, or in accordance with it. Your opinion also reflects how _you_ view yourself rather than the actual facts of your existance.
This is why companies would rather spy on you and gat
Re:This is confusing... (Score:2)
From Paco Underhill's "Why We Buy", Sony did a marketing study to see which color walkman students preferred. Invited students in, talked to them, gave them a survey, etc, "yellow or black?", and the potential customers said 'yellow, definitely'. Sony said, 'on the way out, as a reward for being in this study, you get a free walkman!'.
All Sony had to do was count which ones the students actually took-- yellow or black. And indeed, they overwhel
Ultima Online (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes and no (Score:1)
Can you say Everquest (Score:2, Insightful)
I think it was partly due to it's being the first really big MMO, and the devs didn't know how to filter the suggestions.
So now they've swung the other way, and the SWG dev team ignores the players too much. I was in Beta for SWG and there were a lot of very important issues that the devs completely ignored the players on. It ended up causing ma
The tricky part... (Score:2, Insightful)
pseudopsychology a la jung (Score:1)
My other friend likes GTA, because he can try out different cars and roam around looking for stuff to do.
I like games that involve character development, and acquiring big, bad swords and spells. Games like Halo give me motion sickness.
In summary:
There are different archetypes [appstate.edu] of gamers, who each enjoy different things. They expect to get some so
Kelly Flock had it Right (Score:1)
You want proof? Go watch a few episodes of a TV show. Say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Then go read some Buffy fanfiction.
Do the same with Star Trek. Try it with some comic books.
Look at what happened to a TV show like Doctor Who when it explicitly became "for the fans" (Clue: There's a reason the news is that Doctor Who is back on the air)
Listening to the fans is not a smart idea. Even if they have computers and post on m
Re:Kelly Flock had it Right (Score:1)
No. (Score:2)
Does anyone else find the fact that this editorial was posted on GameSpy to be the least bit ironic? While their historical articles have some merit, I am frequently left speechless by the inanity of their editorial content. I mean, how can you take seriously someone who finds it even worthwhile to argue whether game developers should take to heart every remark that their customers make?
Of course you don't want to listen to all feedback. People want different, conflicting things. Often, gamers don't ev
There's a saying ... (Score:2)
If you have a fifty customers and your product costs a million bucks a pop, you might want to jump when they say jump. if you have a million customers and your product costs fifty bucks, you better bank on your creative vision, not fickle demands contrary to the design of the product.
There's bugs, there's misfeatures, and there's design. Sometimes they just need to bu
Unreal Tournament 2003 - The crime of the century (Score:2)
I'm not talking about the graphics, which hardcore Unreal and UT fans looked at and said, "Hey, it's Quake!"
No, I'm talking about the weapons. Granted, every one complained in UT about the flak cannon being overpowered, the shock combo being too powerful, the sniper rifle being to easy to camp with, and more. I don't see a problem with listening to that when considering how to tweak them for a new game.
The problem is
Re:Unreal Tournament 2003 - The crime of the centu (Score:1)
Re:Unreal Tournament 2003 - The crime of the centu (Score:1)
Just a thought... (Score:1)
Listen, Judge, Implement (Score:2)
One step beyond listening is providing gamer-initiated opportunities to change games--mods. Simcity 4 is ten times the stock relea
deus ex vs half-life (Score:1)
those are two good examples. deus ex was a complex game and the devs took out that complexity (in mostly superficial ways, but still significant) for the sequel. the fans were enraged but ion storm at least responded [slashdot.org]. so they're walking a fine line (actually more like dancing back and forth on it). being a fan myself i want them to patch the pc version but if those changes were included in the initial release it might have cost them sales in the console market and ultimately displeased eidos, their publ
Sounds like the same problem we have here.. (Score:2)
Daikatana! (Score:2)
Vocal Minority: We want to wait forever for a subpar videogame while you drive your video game company into oblivion!
Romero: You got it!
Re:Daikatana! (Score:2)
The important thing (Score:2)
Should Developers Listen To All Gamer Feedback? (Score:2)
Good points on both sides (Score:2)
Something I think worth adding to this mix is an option fans actually have now days. Go make their own (damn) game. This is a mod friendly world we live in now. Don't like how a game works, and think you got better ideas how it should be done right? Then make it yourself. Or go find one of the hundreds of active mod projects and join it. Give your idea
Signal to noise ratio (Score:2)
hardcore gamers have different demands (Score:2)
Amazingly, Everquest, a successful online game, was really hard to begin. If you didn't
Directors listen to all Viewer Feedback? (Score:1)
My experience with the subject (Score:1)
-Usually, forums are filled with hard core gamers that do not always represent the large audience of your game.
-It is very time consuming to read forums. As a developper, it is also very frustrating as alot of posts only contain negative, non constructive feedback.
-When making a game, you cannot always take the perfect decision. It is very easy to propose solutions and ideas from the comfort of your home, but in the real world, there are deadlines to respect, technical limitations to live
Re:Should Developers Listen To All Gamer Feedback? (Score:3)
Re:Should Developers Listen To All Gamer Feedback? (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong. You can please everyone some of the time. You just can't please everyone all of the time.
Re:Ubi Soft with Dragon's Lair 3D (Score:1)