You know, I’m just as guilty of doing this as anyone else (so please don’t think I’m throwing stones and being holier-than-thou), but the last decade, or thereabouts, has seen an increasing rise in gaming communities acting like they “own” a game before it comes out and the developers of that game are somehow obligated to put every last thought from the community into the game, otherwise it will be “teh suxxors”.
I was recently reminded of this phenomenon by the failure of a 50,000-something signature petition, demanding that the forthcoming Diablo III should use a darker palette of colours. Despite the developers having solid gameplay reasons for their colour choices in the new game, the Diablo III community has chosen to see the colours as WoW-esque, therefore the game will suck. Apparantly.
When did this start to happen? I can remember a time when, believe it or not, games were pretty much made in isolation. You might have some idea that ‘x’ company was making ‘x’ kind of game, via news snippets in gaming magazines… but that was pretty much it, until the game was reviewed in the same publication. At which point, people could make a purchase decision based on the finished game.
Now, I don’t neccessarily think that’s the best way to make a game – I think that community feedback is a very useful thing. But when does it become too much? And why do communities suddenly start thinking they’re entitled to more say than they actually are? You see this happening a hell of a lot in MMORPG communities in particular, which is why I’ve decided to throw the topic up here for discussion.
Naturally, the rise of the Internet, and instantaneous communication with just about anyone, has a large hand in why today’s 10 year old feels completely at ease telling a games developer that his new combat system sucks, whereas when I was 10 years old, back in 1985, I wouldn’t have even known the developer’s name, let alone dreamed I could contact him and give him my opinions.
Neither are ideal situations, to my mind. And I get the very distinct feeling that, in the future, smarter developers will find new ways to engage communities, prior to games being released, lest they suffer the “slings and arrows” of a gaming community scorned when they make some mundane, yet vital, change to a game – and spend the next six months being told they suck by a group of people; half of whom probably won’t end up playing the game, anyway.
I never thought about it, but (as it appears im in the same ralative age group) I really do enjoy a devolper telling us whats going on, how things are progressing, etc. I do think its a little much for things like the D3 color petition. Also people criying about Warhammer online and the choice to drop a few classes and cities.
Blizzard is right with the ignoring of the retarded petition. I mean really 50k is not very much compared to how many are going to play that game. Its going to sell millions opening week. even if all 50k of those people never bought the game purely for that reason, no big deal honestly.
As far as Warhammer Online goes, who cares if they dropped the cities, Honestly I prefer to have a single capital city (like Ironforge/Orgrimmar) and not have the ghost towns like the NElf capital. Less classes, well yeah, its less content, but i think the still remaining 20 classes will be more than enough. It also means that the first expansion will likely have then, giving the expansion some real new content rather than ONLY a pair of new races.
I do believe it happened around the SWG NGE. That’s when developers learned that ignoring “the community” has a price and it can sometimes be very expensive.
Think about it the other way: Back then the only feedback you had as a developer was the selling numbers. If you made a good game, it sold, when you made a bad game, it didn’t. You were no more and no less a “god”. If people didn’t like the color plate, they just didn’t buy the game.
Now you have the big advantage, that you CAN make decisions and changes while development, based on real time customer feedback.
The question is of course: do you make a game to make money or just to make YOUR game. If you want to make money with it, it may be very arrogant not to listen to your fanbase. In the other case it doesn’t matter.
Of course you must also know, to whom do you listen, but developers should be thankful for the internet and for the possibility in general to be able to communicate with your fanbase. Other “artists”, like a writer doesn’t have this plus.
And to be honest, I don’t think that people, who don’t care for the game, take any actions, like signing a petition. So yes: it’s their game, because they will pay you, therefore they have the right to say: I don’t like this and that also if they can’t do anything about it. They will say it anyways, at latest when it’s released.
George Lucas for example pissed off all SW fans. Such things are common goods and not a private IP anymore and you must handle it with such respect. If a dev can’t understand it, will end up like SWG after the NGE.
You can say, what you want, the user always has the last word. Period.
Yes, but if you’ve spent any time on a developer’s forum for a game, you’ll know that opinions are like bellybuttons… everyone’s got one. As such, it is basically impossible for a developer to even start making sense of what everyone’s saying, even if they wanted to. And that’s not even taking into account the masses of people who come up with concepts that just make no sense/are too niche/etc, which is another trademark of such forums. In my piece I was very careful to say that feedback is a good thing… it’s just when there’s too much unfocused feedback that it starts to become a hindrance, rather than a help.
Of course there is too much blahblah on the forums. I don’t say, you must listen to every single idiot, but if you as a developer are close to your community and know what is going on, you know the people there and you know, who is good and who is a n idiot.
The good ones will tell you things, which are probably good for you, because they love your game and they want it to be good. SWG devs were listening too (at least they said) but to the wrong people, because they didn’t know jack about their fanbase. At the end “the vocal minority” who they ignored wasn’t as minor as they thought.
I barely see developers on forums to interact. They are busy to play gods, so they don’t know what’s going on and which people to listen, so they rather don’t listen at all. CMs are no good for that, because mostly they don’t care for the game itself, they just do their moderator job.
I have a forum too and i know the peole there and many people say many things, but I know, who is good and who just shoots the sh***t
With MMOs in particular, the devs are asking for a huge investment in the subscription model, both in time and money. Players will naturally feel like they have a stake in the game, especially if it’s a leveling treadmill, designed for addiction to living your ‘toon. Does that mean that such a sense of entitlement is warranted? Not necessarily… but it’s understandable.
Well game developers gets more input from the users. Cant see the problem in that..