106 réponses à ce sujet

[TheRealJayDee]

Cultist wrote...

TheRealJayDee wrote...
How much do I love the "you can't really judge things unless you're a pro in the field yourself". Gamers are fully capable of judging wether a game has properly working mechanics and wether or not the they have fun playing it. And yes, even the narrative can be judged by fans, just like with books, movies, comics etc.

I always forget the tags
[sarcasm]Sure, only professional cook can judge if the food good or not.[/sarcasm]

I know how you meant it. I was of course refering to the... person who brought this line of thinking up.

[bmwcrazy]

scyphozoa wrote...

This is already done at Bioware and throughout the game industry. Customer feedback is considered by the designers. The question was why do designers not base their designs more on customer feedback? And the answer is because what an individual customer, or even a group of customers wants is usually not the best design choice for a product that reaches millions of people. Without the talent, expertise and information required to make successful decisions about multimillion dollar projects, customers aren't going to be able to make sound design choices.  Don't get me wrong, customers can offer a tremendous volume of feedback about which features they like or dislike, but that feedback isn't going to equate to a better design choice. Design choices often are sacrifices, even the devs have to argue the merits of the features they want to see amongst themselves, and often, good features get cut because it is the right design choice. 

Feedback is good. Customers expecting their feedback to directly influence design choices are bad. Provide as much feedback as you can, but recognize that every individual is a voice in a customer base of millions. Do not put too much weight or expectations into your feedback. That is pretty much as clear as I can spell it out.

The answer to your question why no developers base their game designs more on customer feedback is already in my original post. It is all about the balance of pleasing your customers and sticking with your original vision without increasing development cost and time, also jeopardizing the quality of the product.

I see you've changed your tone and your argument. So just let me clearify myself a bit.

First, customers don't need the talent, expertise or information to let the developers know where they have made a mistake, or they are not pleased with the direction that's being taken in the game development. Customers might not get the full picture the development process but they surely know damm enough to know what is wrong with the product or why they like the product.

Second, I was replying to your previous comment about how you believed listening to the customers wouldn't improve the game quality and if anything, it would only degrade it.

Just let me quote you again.

scyphozoa wrote...
Being able to be entertained does not make the customer qualified to make design choices, it just means they know how to consume entertainment, so I don't think listening to customers is going to dramatically improve the quality of games, if anything, it would probably be a detriment, just IMO.

I certainly hope that no one in the game industry believes in your idea. It is possibly the worst way that a business model can be based on.

Modifié par bmwcrazy, 08 octobre 2012 - 07:58 .

[bmwcrazy]

scyphozoa wrote...

Oh well, this is a pretty dead horse. I'm not going to bother explaining the meaning of my earlier posts, it doesn't really matter to me. Devs can and should continue listening to customer feedback, while also continuing to exercise their creative and professional discretion to know when customer feedback is full of ****. I trust Bioware to continue walking this line

That is their job to do so. That is what they are in the business for.

[Sylvius the Mad]

FutharkTomahawk wrote...

Brockololly wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

That's right.  I had to track down where Georg went by myself (UbiSoft Singapore).

Damn, I didn't realize Georg had left BioWare. Well that stinks. He always had great posts back when Origins was in development.

Well, that's darn unfortunate.  When the folks who laid the foundation of a solid company move on, it's generally indicative of negative things rather than positive ones.  Employees vote with their feet.

Remember, Georg was sent down the Austin to work on SWTOR after DAO was released.  He wasn't on the DA2 team at all.

And that SWTOR team has shrunk dramatically over the past year.

[Gatt9]

mousestalker wrote...

Cultist wrote...

After latest customer feedback from BioWare their customer base shrinked by more than 2 millions. And we already know they are keeping this design choices that have part in DA2 fiasco in DA3.

No. If they put out a truly spiffy game next, the realities of the gaming are that sales will increase. You're defining customer base by the number of people who bought the last game. That's not an accurate predictor of future sales.

That's not necessarily true.  Under normal circumstances it is,  but these aren't normal circumstances.

-Bioware/EA misrepresented their last title to a significant degree.

-Bioware/EA flat out lied about their last title,  and refuse to acknowledge it even to this day (Best ending without multiplayer),  and they made it really obvious the reason they did it was to increase profits.

-ME3 and DA2 team members have openly and subtley insulted gamers.

-Increasingly anti-consumer Day 1 DLC policies in EA games in general.

-Syncophantic Gaming "Press" blatantly insulting gamers in defense of EA.

-Selling a mobile app that,  when you opened it for the first time,  greeted you with a message EA was discontinuing it in a couple weeks (They did back off)

-Secretly expiring Online Passes.

-Releasing FIFA 12 with the title FIFA 13 for the Wii,  without telling anyone it's the same game as last year.

There's alot of ill will out there now.  We're approaching Daikatana/Battlecruiser 3000 AD levels of toxicity.  There's a very real chance that Gamers will not come back even if they make a great game.  They need a change at the leadership levels,  otherwise I'm not sure it matters what they do.  If you go read EA articles on other sites,  there's a staggering amount of negative commentary about EA.

[Elhanan]

Agreed; there is a staggering amount of negative commentary. As for the rest of that list; pass.