The key difference between your example and our work here is that we are also customers, and we use the "product" in the context of "consumption" as well as development.
My personal approach to building missions, given the things that have to happen within a mission from a narrative, technical, and gameplay standpoint, what would be a cool thing to play, see, do in a mission? I play a ton of games. I see a ton of what other games do, and in playing with friends who don't do this for a living I get a pretty good sense of what people enjoy.
That aside, our peer review process exists for others to tell us where something is not good or fun or compelling, and where it happens people really aren't afraid to speak up about it.
And even that aside, we have people who play the game who aren't working on it in a level design capacity, and we all play games here. We're not developing a system that we don't see the end user experience of ourselves.
You and, I think alot of us here, would understand of course, that we don't expect to hear anything different from you because, as a developer and like many other developers, this is what you will say, under any circumstance.
"as much as I'm a developer of the game, I'm a gamer also and I want it to be great." This is not the first time we've heard this and it won't be the last. I don't have any premise to insinuate that you aren't telling the truth; I doubt you'd be in a video game career if you didn't like to play the darn things.
But only a developer know his/her priorities. and only they know how their priorities have changed over the years.
a person can pursue a pharmacology career because she/he initially has such a passion to develop cures and medicine that can treat diseases and/or save lives. 20-30 years down the road and that passion is gone. Or maybe it hasnt. and in an indefinite situation such as the example i just stated you'd only really know if the passion is lost based on facts; real things that happen that can be quantified and qualified based on what was done and what was said.
When something has to be debated, you can only rely on facts. And in the case of company reputations in the videogame industry, its historical facts that the fanbase relies on. So when that forum member questions whether or not the developers are getting substantial, meaningful external feedback, you should consider what exactly is he drawing on from Bioware's history that would make him question that.
We all know the answer to that. and this basis is unforgettable. I can speculate that, had more "external feedback" been sought, we'd have less angry fans, less suspicious fans, less speculative fans, and generally, less fans questioning the company. prior to 2012 that would have been only speculation. based on what actually happened in 2012 though, it becomes much more than just speculation. with facts from 2012, it is one of a variety of viable and plausible explanations, for many things.
As stakeholders, as clients, we are more than qualified to exact such questioning. You are the business. We are the clients. Our feedback matters since we are the end users. It would be totally fine if the company developed the game only for the company employees to play.
That however, is not the case. Happy days.
Retour en haut
