Should developers "listen to the fans"?

[Jordi]

I think there should be less sequels. But if you make a sequel you should make it for the fans of the original(s). If you don't want to do that, make a different game (it can be in the same universe if you want).

Sequels should improve on the originals, for the fans of the originals. They should consider their demographic relatively fixed, and not try to bring in a broader audience to the detriment of those who already like the game. They should listen to what the fans are saying, and carefully weight whether they can incorporate suggestions and criticisms and how that would affect the game. Fans are generally not game designers (although there are so many of them that a couple are bound to have good ideas that the developer wouldn't have thought of), but you can glean information from them. If a large portion of the fanbase makes the same stupid suggestion, you shouldn't necessarily incorporate it verbatim, but you should think about why they're making the suggestion and how you could satisfy their desires in a way that would positively affect the game.

A lot of people here seem to want to trust in the artistic vision of the design team, but I'm not so sure. I think that might be a good idea if they actually were the ones making all the decisions about the game design (and if they were mostly the same as the team that designed the original). But I think what we're seeing in a lot of games that this artistic vision is corrupted by publishers and marketers and the desire to make a lowest common denominator game in order to sell to the largest possible audience. That isn't art. That's just commerce.

 

[Atrocious Joystick]

They should by no means resort to fan wank. But looking at what generally seems to work and what didn't isn't bad.

Generally though, nobody hates a company like its fans. It seems every game by every popular studio these days is regarded as an utter dumbed down failure, (dumbed down for the ignorant masses of course), sure it would have been allright if it wasn't called Fanwank 2. Fantechnician inc totally sold out to the console kiddies man. Problem is, if you listened to all the fans input you would end up with a game that's nothing but inside jokes and sucky gameplay, totally incomprehensible to newcomers.

Because your average fan knows shit about making a game, better to just make your game and if it was good they'll whine about how much it's dumbed down, or sold out, or nothing like the first one, but they'll still buy it. And enjoy it. So why listen to them?

 

[Griffolion]

Yes and no.

Yes:

You want to make sure your franchise sticks to (at least) the basic tenets and attributes that caused the fans to be fans of it in the first place. Listening to what the fans want and where they want to game to go is a great way of doing this.

No:

You don't want to listen to them SO much that the game moves away from the artistic vision you, the creators and developers, had for the game. It's good to include the fans in the work, but don't sell out just to please, be ballsy and make the statement you want to make.

 

[Neonsilver]

It depends on what choices they have to make.

For example: The design of femshep or if Tali's face should be revealed in Mass Effect 3. It's impossible to please all fans in these matters, so they should do what pleases themselves.

 

[Qitz]

Criticism should be listened to and considered.

Opinions and whining though shouldn't. Especially the whining and even more so in MMO's.

 

[Manji187]

Hah...I bet there won't be any tedious probe-mining in ME3. You can thank all the fans for that.

Having said that, it'll prolly have some other stuff that will make fans rage....but hey developer's discretion.

Developers can hold polls can't they? If a substantial amount of people say that something is "shit"...a developer should take a look at it...or at least ask the question what exactly makes it "shit".

Developers should definitely be on the lookout for improvements....and for that they need to know what needs improving.

 

[Konatacalypse]

You know the phrase "The squeaky wheel gets the oil."?

I highly doubt that they were "listening to the fans" when they made the changes to Mass Effect when they dumbed ME2 down to a Gears knock-off. Mostly because the fans of ME1 were content, they weren't shouting "Derp! I no can shoot straight. Ability is confuse! Inventory make brain hurt!"

Urrrg. You just had to, didn't you?

I suppose I should have expected this when I mentioned Mass Effect.

...

You know, fuck it, I think I'm going to try my own hand at your childish snobbery. Let's see now...

What the fans of ME1 were actually saying was, "Help! I'm a terminally boring nerd who wants to bolster my tragically low self-esteem by fiddling with poorly designed interfaces that I falsely believe to be beyond the ken of supposedly lesser people. Also, I demand that games all include a list of numbers that steadily increase in order to make myself feel better about my miserable life. Oh, and um... derp."

Meanwhile, us colourful and interesting people who actually manage to have sex every once in a while were saying, "Uhh... hey I'm a bit sick of having to mash the convert-to-omni-gel button every time I open the inventory. An inventory that, I might add, involves no aspect of choice or character customization but rather consists of constantly swapping out equipment for identical items with bigger numbers on the end. Also, we don't see the point in a skill system that involved such incremental increases that you can put a single point into each skill, then completely ignore it and still finish the game. We wanted a better control scheme, improved AI and combat that required actual input from the player."

You want stats? Go play with a fucking calculator.

...

Wow. That was pretty easy. Turns out I can be an arrogant, patronizing pain in the arse on the internet as well!

Would you like some cheese with all that whine?


OT: Developers should listen to some complaints of fans. If they're lining up to complain about the inventory, chances are the inventory may have needed some work. Have a few employees watch the forums and see what people are talking about.

On the other hand, developers should not take every little bit of bitching and fanwank in to mind. Some fans are annoying little bastards who will want a pancake made of shit to taste like chocolate. If someone won't take the time to carefully address the problems they have with a game and would rather ***** and moan vaguely about it, then don't waste time trying to please them.

Remember, criticism is a good thing when used carefully.

 

[Rooster893]

NO! If more developers listened to fans, then we would have more games like Dragon Age 2 or Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. Do you want more games like that? Nope, didn't think so! So developers should always take their time and never listen to their idiotic fanbase.

 

[eggy32]

I think they should listen to the fans but that doesn't mean they have to put every fan's ideas into their games.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Should they listen to their fans? YES!

Should they do whatever the fans want? HELL NO!

The devs should listen to the fans, and then decide whether or not what they said is a good idea.

 

[Siberian Relic]

The problem the industry faces is that it tends to lean so heavily on popular consensus they lose their own critical perspective. You also run into the problem of expectations. How many of you were blown away by a game that had everything you were expecting, at levels you were expecting, with the sort of polish you were expecting?

 

[SageRuffin]

If bioware listened to it's fans then I'm pretty sure Dragon Age would be a Romance Simulator by now.

And both Mass Effect games. Have you seen the GameFAQs forums?

Observation: I've noticed that most developers have a nasty habit of listening more to whining than they do legitimate criticisms. Let's look at MvC3, since it's still recent. A lot of people who bought MvC3 are newcomers not completely understanding what balance means to a fighting game. Ergo all they notice are immediate flaws, usually about characters they don't like, and they often don't say more than "Character or Feature X is broken" with no reasoning whatsoever. End results, Sentinel takes a massive defense nerf and Captain America is now one of the worse characters in the game.

If more developers paid attention to legitimate criticism, then so many series' won't be run into the ground, or so I predict.

Or something like that.

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

They should but they don't.

After taking a handful of suggestions they think "Wait a minute, I'm a game developer! I went to school for this! These peons didn't go to school to learn this stuff so obviously they have no idea what they're talking about!"

And then they throw out all the suggestions and go program a bunch of QTE's in their new game because that's what they think is best for their fans.

 

[Joel Soh]

Futility I think. There are too many of them to listen to unless they can come to a consensus. Even so, sometimes the majority don't know what they're on about or know what's best for a game.

Take fighting games for instance. So many people yell x move or x character is over powered. If they listened to everything they said... well... I don't want to imagine it.

 

[dancinginfernal]

I believe they should pay attention depending on the reception of past games.

Good reception, just pick up notes of glitches, subtle improvements, graphical updates, etc.

Bad reception, listen intently. Obvious something was up, and you'll have to fix that. Big time.

Otherwise, no. The fans are more-than-often stupid as hell. There's a reason some developers completely ignore the fans' requests.

 

[StBishop]

I think they should pay vague attention and duly take notes. Sure, maybe one of the 3252375679236579 ideas out there are worth listening to. For the most part, fans are stupid and never satisfied. Take a vague approach to fans, because they will never be happy anyway. I'd much rather leave it to the professionals than a bunch of whiney bastards.

This, take note of what they liked, what they hated and then make your own decision anyway.

No one (except me) missed the Mako in ME2. But we'll all be upset if the scanning is in ME3. Those sort of things (ie. Shit that ruins the game/makes it boring) need to be taken out. As for other stuff (Tali's face, FemShep's face, etc.) needs to be left to the dev team.

 

[hammelbamf]

To a certain degree, as to not completely loose the direction (C&C4) and for gameplay improvements.

 

[Hap2]

Fans are never completely satisfied, it's best to take their opinions with a grain of salt. Criticisms should be paid attention to but only when they are of sound reasoning and experience.

 

[random_bars]

Listen to their thoughts, yeah, but don't necessarily take them on board word for word. Look through their complaints and try to read between the lines, work out what the cause of those complaints is, rather than just taking their solution at face value. Because as much as their issues are legitimate, fans aren't game designers, so their solutions aren't likely to be particularly well thought out.

 

[Fishyash]

Yes and no.

Some suggestions could be acctually very good, to geniunely improve the game.

It's just that developers need to simply keep in mind that this is the vocal community, not the majority. And some of the stuff they say are REALLY stupid.

Developers should listen a little bit. If they take TOO much fan advice they will probably lose the vision of their game and it just goes nuts.