Poll: Is User-Suggestion-Based Development a Good Idea, Really?

[The Madman]

The vast majority of so called 'fans' are picky fools who'll give idiotic advice in order to satiate their own personal pleasures rather than make a particularly good game. I myself am no exception.

Developers are better off ignoring them for the most part or if they must pay attention, doing as Blizzard for example is known to do and employ folk specifically for the purpose of shifting through the loads of pure idiocy in the hopes of gleaming a few precious jewels of genuinely useful knowledge and advice.

If you created a game that sold well and gathered a following in the first place, you're doing well. Tighten up the design, fix the flaws, do whatever you feel is best but *don't* listen to the fans. Their ill-thought advice, although no doubt well-meaning, is a disaster just waiting to happen.

At least that's my oh so humble opinion, I'm admittedly a bit of a cynic however.

 

[Aegixx]

Fans aren't really designers, but there should be some feedback on the broader aspects of the game.
Most fan feedback is like this: "OMFG ur 1sst gaem suxx0rx maek it moar fun..!@#$!!!!!!!111"
In conclusion, the people who use 1337-sp33k, terrible grammar and eye-gougingly bad spelling have invalid opinions.

 

[Jandau]

In a way, this has been going on for a long time. Forums and message boards were used by developers to pick the brains of their customers for ages. And while we can admit that over 90% of all that's posted on such boards is crap, every once in a while a gem of wisdom appears. There ARE good suggestions and there ARE good ideas that the fans can contribute. Game designers are people like us with brains like ours. They don't have some magical hotline to the higher planes from which they draw their inspiration. So listening to the fanbase for those occasional pearls is a good idea.

However, what I do dread is game design by poll. That's a TERRIBLE idea, simply because of the fact that 90% of suggestions are crap. The good suggestions will be drowned in a sea of crap and the few people who vote sensibly will be outnumbered vastly by the idiots. At most, some game features might be put to a vote, just to see what the players want, but designing entire games in that manner would be just plain awful.

 

[Woem]

It's a good idea if the developer knows what it's doing and knows what it wants. For instance if I like a red cape and someone else likes a black cape, what color will you give the cape? It's good for asking opinions, but I would never let it be the decision maker.

 

[badgersprite]

Well, it depends. Because users know what a game is like to live with, designers would benefit from listening to what was bricked in the original and what needs improving. But as far as user suggestions for future content and material, well...From the perspective of a writer, I know that every time I try to write something just to please other people it turns out horrible and nobody enjoys it, especially not me. I presume game design would follow the same principle - the creative minds behind these games are doing what they do best. If they want user-based content, they're free to include modding kits and level-design packages, right?

 

[Gyrefalcon]

I voted no but not for the reason in the poll. Just look around here. Look at all the different opinions about any game. One person says "well it is great because of this". The next comes along and says "hell no that is the worse idea in history". This is not even factoring in griefers who would probably spam the poor devs with crap ideas just to attempt ruin it for others since they have no intentions of buying it. And dear lord if it is only for 1 console the army of fanboys that would march on them with shit ideas to try and validate thier moronic hate of the console it is for. Devs should turn a deaf ear to us for anything pre production because we as a whole, sitting in front of our keyboards, are a bunch of immature spoiled brats. And only listen to us when we mention glitches or bugs that need to be fixed. Leave the pre production stuff up to a group of trained game testers to get ideas from. And only when they can look them square in the eye.

I think you have it nailed on the head. There is also the fact that if dev's came up with an idea independently, 5 people would be carrying on that they "stole" it. This is why firms like Nintendo say "thanks but no thanks" to people who want to send them ideas but aren't in the big leagues. It would hamstring them.

 

[flare09]

The players of the game usually know more about the game than the actual designers. The only probably is that community suggestions are usually ignored. So it doesn't really matter, in the end the designer is who says what goes.

 

[lostclause]

Depends. The viability of user developed games is shown by the popularity of things like Zombie Panic Source, Neotokyo and even Portal (adapted from digipen's Narbaular drop, although since it was a student affair, it is arguable whether or not this constitutes 'user'). Pretty much anyone with a good idea and can present the basics is in with a chance. However some people are blatant timewasters so I don't expect anyone to take users seriously unless the can present something to start from (the guy with the fake TF2 things shows promise in my opinion, if only for his creativity).

 

[squid5580]

I voted no but not for the reason in the poll. Just look around here. Look at all the different opinions about any game. One person says "well it is great because of this". The next comes along and says "hell no that is the worse idea in history". This is not even factoring in griefers who would probably spam the poor devs with crap ideas just to attempt ruin it for others since they have no intentions of buying it. And dear lord if it is only for 1 console the army of fanboys that would march on them with shit ideas to try and validate thier moronic hate of the console it is for. Devs should turn a deaf ear to us for anything pre production because we as a whole, sitting in front of our keyboards, are a bunch of immature spoiled brats. And only listen to us when we mention glitches or bugs that need to be fixed. Leave the pre production stuff up to a group of trained game testers to get ideas from. And only when they can look them square in the eye.

I think you have it nailed on the head. There is also the fact that if dev's came up with an idea independently, 5 people would be carrying on that they "stole" it. This is why firms like Nintendo say "thanks but no thanks" to people who want to send them ideas but aren't in the big leagues. It would hamstring them.

I didn't even consider the legal implications of it. My god you would need a team of lawyers and make any contributor sign some iron clad contract saying they will never see a penny from it. And even then it wouldn't stop people from sueing costing them a fortune in legal fees.

 

[Souplex]

Crowd wisdom is good. The more people thinking of ideas the more likely the best ideas will arise. If you have someone on top who can tell good ideas from bad everything will be fine.