Feedback via text, forum, webform is a WASTE OF TIME.
When it comes to having a player get their point across the old saying holds true.
Money TALKS! Bull$#!t WALKS!
Don't like an MMO game? Then don't pay the $15 per month to play it. Sooner or later, the development team will get the hint, when their bean counters are filing for chapter 11.
Feedback via text, forum, webform is a WASTE OF TIME. When it comes to having a player get their point across the old saying holds true. Money TALKS! Bull$#!t WALKS! Don't like an MMO game? Then don't pay the $15 per month to play it. Sooner or later, the development team will get the hint, when their bean counters are filing for chapter 11.
Ok...but if you don't tell them why you don't like it how are they suppose to ever figure out what you do like and make a game with those aspects...
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Ok, being a Sociologist by trade and a gamer by hobby, I felt inclined to reply to this article in some detail. I have worked quite some time on feedback control studies, and IMVPO there are a few misconceptions here.
Of course, the most simple player misconceptions is "I said I am not happy with feature X, it did not change therefore Game Companies never listen". It is the very human feature of a) concluding from personal experiences to matters per se and b) generalizing singular events to general rules (Company X did not listen = all game companies never listen). Quite a trivial observation, some may say, but given forums like this are usually full of these basic issues, I think it is valid to point them out at the beginning. In MMos it comes in simple forms. "I like hardcore therefore hardcore is the future guarantee for success."
The problem is, companies get a lot of feedback based in that sort of thinking, and truth be told, NONE of us is entirely free of this thinking. It is practically impossible to avoid this altogether. Our concepts are often based on the expectation what others think. If you look at any game forum, you will find a most problematic issue with feedback: People tend to "follow the general stream". Some people are just unsure of their judgements in the inside, so they read some postings and reviews and tend to get influenced into that way. Thats no matter of being weak willed; it happens to me frequently, and I count myself as not easily persuaded. On critical topics, there is always a tendency that some "ruling opinion" is dominating forums, and people with differenciated opinions shy away from posting and further taint the feedback.
Now sure, you can gather data from mails or surveys, but I must admit in the many betas I have participated I have seen that VERY rarely. Even then, the opinion about stuff is formed a lot in your private friendship circles and forums. The greatest problem with how people like something in Social Science is always, that asking the target audience is a tricky and often misleading thing. For instance, if you want to find out about the situation of the working class in an under-developed country, just going and asking them is not working. Many people who never thought about things in detail, may not have the words for something, and then tend to say "all is ok." When you make surveys with people on any social topic, say "how happy are you with you life in general", the majority will then answer they feel good about it. When you then ask about every detailled aspect, politics, environment, money asf, and ask the same question AFTERWARDS, the result will usually be much more negative, because by then they had time to think about all detailled stuff. It is just one example how difficult "just asking gamers" is. For instance, if you ask people after they had some bad day in the game because a quest was bugged or they had a quarrel with other gamers, they will answer polls much more critical, as if they just had a blast of a day in the game.
This also counts for usage data. Sure, you CAN watch the gamers doing stuff. But it is quite difficult to judge from that how much players really like it. You can watch people do the quests or hunt at some place, but how can you know another way would not be more welcome? Many gamers will do something they actually do not like, because the reward is so good. They will for instance repeat raids over and over, because they are greedy for some rare armor, but that says nada about whether or not they actually like the act of raiding itself. Same goes to soloing. You may discover more and more people solo. But is that because they enjoy soloing more, or is it that grouping just isn't organized well enough? Or maybe the community in the game is just not there. I recall games like SWG had a strong community because of many of the social ingame features, which resulted in people much more willing to group (in the old days). On the other hand, when you play Kunark in EQ2 level 70-80, you will find 90% soloing. Not because they like to solo, but because the system doesn't make grouping profitable. Now just watching those habits can easily lead to the wrong conclusions that (a) everything is fine - people do what expected and (b) people love to solo, lets add more of it. Both are conclusions from observing player habits, and still they are wrong.
The entire question of the "silent majortiy" isn't really to avoid. It would take tremendous work to get their feedback, and there comes another issue. Programmers and designers are "queens". I worked with programmers, even in something as mundane as programming cash desk computers, and even there every programmer was a bit of a Diva in "his" ideas how to implement stuff. I am just quite certain that a substantial amount of decisions is never placed to serious gamer feedback. Game companies may take small trivialities serious. But most programmers and designers are just way too certain that THEIR idea is right and will entertain the people best, that there just is too little will to ask people in the big themes. Take SWTOR's story. Or Warhammers two factions. There are very basic non negotiables, and these are just extreme design decisions. I have seen changes based on feedback come only very slow, if at all. Sure, in small terms, that may be the case. But in every major design questions, devs (in the broadest sense) are Divas. They are very sure what they design is right. They are sort of resistent against council by their very nature. They are experts, the usually love their job and regard their games like a parent their kids. The relationship of creator to product is very high in the entire entertainment industry, and gaming is no exception. You don't go to Spielberg and expect him to make a survey on how to make his films. And most game devs, programmers and designers feel the same way. The DIFFERENCE between film and game is, film had highly developed, changed and diversified in the last 30 years, while games more or less still function in the same way as 25 years ago. Games are a very conservative thing, when it comes to "how to make".
The game industy is IMPOV very conservative and narrow, usually sticking to the known and proven. Just look at how stereotypical, predictable and copy cat-like almost every single character or story is. Mostly it is, know one, know them all. Another point is, game developers are usually bad artists. Sorry, but that is for me at least in Western Companies, a fact. Most of them are programmers and have little to no artistic feeling, and I always have this urge to send them all to the TV show "queer eye for the straight man" or what the name is. Or just hire more women. (Sorry if that sounds prejudiced.) How much you can do with a game company with GOOD artistic feeling, is proven by the world design of LOTRO, which is just superior. Whoever designed that visual world was really good, whereas we have a world design like Vanguard or WAR which is just sterile and dead, which has nothing to do with Polygons or that WAR is based on an IP. LOTRO is too. Or look at races, haircuts, robes, armor types, faces, whatever. So many games just have a very bad sense of art, and only few games really are visually artistic, like GTA IV, to name something entirely different. In such terms, feedback is void, because you can say that an hundred times. Preaching to game developers about artistic matters is mostly in vain, simply because they either HAVE a sense for it, then you don't need to mention, or they DON't have it (mostly so), and then they will not understand you. The Vanguard devs never understood that despite they polygon details Telon is just a cold and sterile world in most places. (Just see the changes of Khal, which SOE made. THEY knew how to make something visually good, if you compare Khal before and after.)
You can apply this example on many parts of a game. Feedback does not result in change mostly, because of these mechanics. The companies will usually think, they know better and give only the smaller things to player feedback. Now if that is wise or not is another topic. WOW surely seems proof that you can basically ignore what the gamers say, and still be a success in money. And thats the crux. A game company today is mostly a company to make money, just as selling a laundry machine or a sort of youghurt would be. But for the GAMERS, the customers, a game still by and large is something very personal. It is "ours", our hobby and something with which gamers identify a lot. That is what differs games from yougurts and laundry machines. But today we have large companies with stock holders and bean counters who rather want to sell Sims 645 and Soccer Manager 2053 to make big cash. They care less and less today for those who feel gaming as a part of their life, and aim more for people who buy their games, play it a week or two and then toss it away. For extreme casual gamers, to say it blunt. WOW is proof for that. The most time consuming parts - crums for the hardcore - like raiding and daily quests and faction grind, are the most mindless and repetitive parts. Blizzard does not invest into such gamer dreams like story, new haircuts or really new meshes, when 10 of 11 million players are satisfied with less. That McDonalds is succesful, doesn't say anthing that McDonalds food is good.
Yes, transparency is lacking. Badly lacking. So often we see almost zero feedback from the companies, or we get some PR blah blah, which essentially says nothing. What game companies lost today is, that games are not like any other product. Much more than a film or a book, a game is something gamers feel as "their own". And that isnt entirely unfounded. You can passively consumate a film or a book, but a game needs work, effort, and espcially a MMO is a huge investment of time into a character. So there IS some moral ground to say, we the gamers should have some say in where the train is headed. The time and work people invest into their chars is often tremendous, so its not like a movie which you watch in the cinema in a 2 hours session and be done with it.
Finally, let me say this. As in TV and once in film, we have game companies who feel that in order to reach masses they have to make cheap, easy stuff. Sims & WOW. I just deny this is true. You can see the same, wrong philosophy in movies. Some movie makers like George Lucas have always argued, a popular movie can only be 90 min. Until Lord of the Rings proved the opposite. They have argued complex, strenous stories will not make popular movies. Such things are cliches. You do not HAVE to make McDonalds entertainment to reach the masses, you CAN attract many people even with elaborate and demanding and innovative stuff. But my guess is the bean counter & stockholder structure in game companies will usually quench all reasonable use of feedback. Insofar we will see the same standard game models recycled over and over for likely a very long time.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
^ Do you really think in most cases they have much say in how things get implemented? Speaking as a lowly programmer myself, virtually all of the time your manager tells you what to implement, and he in turn gets his marching orders from management or the bigwigs at PR or whoever. "Doing things your way" is a programmer's pipe dream, unless you're talking about one-man shows or garage based companies.
Point is, your perception of the "diva" programmer who insists on doing things "his" way is largely incorrect. Decisions are made by higher ups 100% of the time, unless you're talking about a tiny company of 3-4 people where the programmer is also a partner or something like that. Most programmers are simply cogs in the machine, rats on the treadmill. Sure, occasionally you hear from big name studio people in the press like Carmack from id, but the vast majority of us are just peons.
Customer feedback gets filtered through like 10 layers of management crap before actually reaching the programmers, and by that time it's already in the form of "do this, then do that". That's the reality of it, unless you're talking about smaller no-name studios... but those aren't the guys making MMOs now, are they?
Finally, let me say this. As in TV and once in film, we have game companies who feel that in order to reach masses they have to make cheap, easy stuff. Sims & WOW.
I agree with a lot of what you've said, but right here you've gone off the rails. WoW and the Sims are only cheap and easy in retrospect. WoW was the most expensive MMO made for a good few years there and I refuse to be believe a title as complex yet streamlined as the Sims was 'cheap' to develop.
Even their clones have been expensive (not that anyone has really truly tried to clone the Sims in as much detail). But the irony is that even as new MMOs have come out and attempted to do something different - WAR started out very differently to where it ended up - they get shouted down by their players that they don't want the new thing, they want the old thing just better. So player feedback ends up driving things to the middle and away from innovation as surely and publisher who wants a guaranteed hit.
On Sanya's article, I just have to comment on game companies using surveys and focus groups. I've never been part of a game company focus group, but I've seen their surveys and they are awful. Poorly constructed, unbalanced scales (the irony of the graphic for this column using a 3-positive, 1-negative scale didn't escape me), often slated towards certain topics over others (e.g. PvP might get more of a focus from an exit survey, while someone might be exiting for completely PvE reasons) and so on.
As for focus groups, if they really are used as you detail, I can't see them giving back much quality information as well. There are much better research techniques available, but I'm sure it is easy to convince devs that sticking 20 people in a computer lab, letting them play for an hour then getting them to fill out a questionnaire while others watch will somehow give them solid player-based feedback to work from.
They have the two best resources for player feedback at their finger tips ( forums / game itself ) and they don't know how to use them. I guess its probably more of the " burnout " factor, since they probably just spent years on the project, and don't really want see it on their desktop anymore.
Another great article, and Sanya is now clearly my favorite writer here on MMORPG.com!
I worked for a director a few decades ago, who held to the motto "always leave them wanting more". Simply said, if you completely pay off a users expectations, there is no reason to come back for the next event (film in his case). I see this as applying quite a bit to MMORPG design. To use a metaphor, "a truck going up a hill is supposed to make some noise", meaning that any game that defines itself as being 'challenging' is going to give the people on the low end of the capabilities crowd enough struggle that they will whine and complain. As such, I take "feedback" with a grain of salt. It's a matter of consider the source.
In my beta (actually in pre-beta right now) I've got players who whine about [insert item here], while most of them have no real issue with that same item. Conclusion: it works.
On the other hand, when almost everyone from a hand picked focus group (with little to no communication among themselves) comes to me and says ... "Ken, this [blah] isn't going to work", then I have a real problem and its time to fix things.
Overall, its quite a balancing act.
Ken
www.ActionMMORPG.com One man, a small pile of money, and the screwball idea of a DIY Indie MMORPG? Yep, that's him. ~sigh~
I think linking patches in vague terms to player suggestions could work, in fact I have seen this happen a couple of times. If I was a community manager I would stay in touch with the best of the beta players, the ones who actually put in problem reports, they would be a goldmine of information.
here's what I think as the best way to do it : ingame surveys, much like what Aion just did. first, you're limiting the feedback to just the people interested in the game, not the random 13 years olds and all other kinds of forum trolls, basicly people who can only bash the game no matter what. but the important thing is - you HAVE to listen to that feedback. just an example - for several months now the WAR community (whats left of it actually) is screaming how AOE should be changed, while the producers letters are clearly showing Mythic doesnt give a **** about the feedback and decided to go a completely different way (i.e. reducing range instead of reworking the skills)
and yeah, forums (especially fansite ones) are NOT the right way to do it, too many people running those sites are simply moderating EVERY negative feedback and are deluded that they are helping the game by doing so. typical example is WHA, even worse example is aionsource, which founder got replaced by ncsoft demand. too bad people cannot understand that simply not talking about a issue would not make it disappear.
If you had spent over a year making a game, you would know if it was good or bad, wouldn't you? If you actually played it?
A game as a whole is hard to judge - and by the time it's together it's too late anyway. But when it comes to individual features, this is the part that boggles me the most.
Even though there are many parts of WoW I'm not particularly interested in, I can always see how SOMEONE would like pretty much every feature in it. WIth many other games, I look at some aspect of the game (or sometimes, more than a few aspects) and I have no idea why ANYONE would EVER want that. And I don't just mean that the implementation just didn't work well, or that it's buggy -- I mean I literally have no idea what the Hell they were thinking when they first decided to do it this way.
I always get this picture of a coke-head at a board meeting rapid-firing a half-baked pitch about how he wants the game to have thisandthisandthisandthis... (Either he's some rich guy's son who got WAY too much money to play with, or he's some crazy genius who once had a game idea so far outside-the-box that it caught the gaming public's interest and sold like hotcakes -- 15 years ago.)
Then the people he hired to do his thinking for him do their best to turn that mess into design requirements and hand them down to the poor programmers.
I think that's where the real disconnect is. Nobody wants to tell the guy who's paying their salary: "Hey dude, we can make this work, but it just isn't any fun." That's where the feedback loop is missing.
The inability to listen to user feedback has doomed many games. Let's use DAoC as an example. It was a pretty good game until the Atlantis expansion. Had a growing playerbase and it was fun. It also had a plethora of class for the alt-aholics.
Unfortunately Atlantis introduced overwhelming powers for the dedicated player, which is a major no no when it comes to pvp games. The forums were rampant with complaints. Changes forthcoming were minor. If you did not subject yourself to the huge grind, you were superfulous in pvp. The playerbase voted with their feet and left the game in droves. DAoC never recovered.
SWG is another example. Don't have to go into that one.
You had better know where your bread and butter lies when it comes to introducing new things. Too drastic a change will start an exodus that will be hard to stop. You had better have your ear to the ground and be prepared to scale things back when the feedback gets loud.
As to the comment about programmers, their ability to freelance is very limited. You deviate from the design and most often will be required to redo your code. No programmers freelancing has little to do with bad design decisions that management refuses to retract. It is the designers
^ Do you really think in most cases they have much say in how things get implemented? Speaking as a lowly programmer myself, virtually all of the time your manager tells you what to implement, and he in turn gets his marching orders from management or the bigwigs at PR or whoever. "Doing things your way" is a programmer's pipe dream, unless you're talking about one-man shows or garage based companies. Point is, your perception of the "diva" programmer who insists on doing things "his" way is largely incorrect. Decisions are made by higher ups 100% of the time, unless you're talking about a tiny company of 3-4 people where the programmer is also a partner or something like that. Most programmers are simply cogs in the machine, rats on the treadmill. Sure, occasionally you hear from big name studio people in the press like Carmack from id, but the vast majority of us are just peons. Customer feedback gets filtered through like 10 layers of management crap before actually reaching the programmers, and by that time it's already in the form of "do this, then do that". That's the reality of it, unless you're talking about smaller no-name studios... but those aren't the guys making MMOs now, are they?
I underlined what makes great games. I know the guy above said that some programs are like divas but I disagree. I think you guys make the most fun games out there when you are working with your ideas.
^... Most programmers are simply cogs in the machine, rats on the treadmill. Sure, occasionally you hear from big name studio people in the press like Carmack from id, but the vast majority of us are just peons. Customer feedback gets filtered through like 10 layers of management crap before actually reaching the programmers, and by that time it's already in the form of "do this, then do that". That's the reality of it, unless you're talking about smaller no-name studios... but those aren't the guys making MMOs now, are they?
I underlined what makes great games. I know the guy above said that some programs are like divas but I disagree. I think you guys make the most fun games out there when you are working with your ideas.
Programming is like paiting a mural. A genius can get a bunch of normal painters, and make then draw faces, and horses, explosions... following his orders.
If these normal painters are not genius, wen you zoom-in on the details, you will see mediocrity. But If the genius is really a genius, wen you zoom-out you see a great mural.
Wen you work with a guy that is not a genius, and the painters are not a genius... you get something that is boring on all levels.
Wen you work with genius programmers, and a director that is not a genius, you can see genius details, but the whole thing suck.
So.. good games need a good director. The better games need the better programmers.
And the big the team, the smaller the contribution of the individual programmer. Trucidation is telling us than in a big project the contribution of the programmer is soo small, the oportunity to make a difference is small or not existing...
..on the other part, PR is telling us that the fire implementation on Farcry2 was the work of a small dude. True or not... we love and remenber games often by tiny details. A game can be good because a redeming feature. If a programmers is bad, maybe that cog will not work, and a resulting, a big cog will not work and a feature will not work.
Programmaers have already demoed that a programmer can drive the art of videogamme developping, now is time for other people (designers, writters,..) to take the role, and show what other type of people can do.
Methinks the "reign" of programmers as been glorious, with all these early 80's crazy games. No-Programmers people have still to beat that "score".
Ah, zones. Long ago in a virtual world, user initiated feedback told the developers of a particular game that they hated, HATED Zone X. They constantly mocked this zone – “the golf course.” It was, admittedly, not the finest zone in the game. It was large and green without a lot of features. It has been hastily assembled at the last second. The new zone was pretty neat on paper, lots of obstacles and control elements, requiring tons of strategy. And yet removing the golf course was, shall we say, not popular. What? Whyever so? The usage data on the old zone showed that despite the mockery, the much maligned zone was where everyone went to play if they had nothing else to do. It was the default, where a group could always be found, and you didn’t need a minimum number of people to do anything, and you could always find someone to kill.
In business, as in pretty much every aspect of life, something called the "80/20" rule applies: eighty percent of your expense comes from 20% of your customers. The trick to managing a business is identifying and then focusing on the part where you get the most bang for your buck.
I've seen a lot of very energetic and well-meaning owners go out of business because they gave in to their own egos, and focused on making their already-pleased customers even more slavishly devoted. The problem is that fanatic customers always give the worst possible advice. First of all, no matter how much they whine; they are not going to leave. They love your product a lot more than it costs them. What you need to do is figure out new ways to suck more money out of them -- and that is the LAST thing they'll ever suggest to you.
In order to grow your business, the people you need to listen to are your marginal customers. The quiet souls who (God bless them) sit around and pay their fees on time every month with no drama. But a lot of those players have already left the game, and (for all you know) a bunch of other ones may be sitting on the fence right now. The problem is that listening to them is hard to do. You have to be motivated, take a proactive and disciplined approach to get this data.
I suspect that in MMORPG's, for every ADD kid who hates wasting a whole week blowing past those first 50 "transition" levels to get to the "uuber-leet endgame"; and for every compulsive-psychotic who wants an even more fiendishly convoluted raid encounter that will require a second pair of adult diapers to complete in one sitting; there are a bunch of other players who really just want a giant sandbox to quietly hunt and fight in... People who won't say a word if the class they're playing (let alone another class) is "unbalanced" - because they couldn't possibly care less. People who don't scream like stuck pigs about every little change because they LIKE new aspects to explore. People who will deal with a dungeon that doesn't perfectly fit their needs - because they've been doing their best to try and squeeze some enjoyment out of areas specifically designed to exclude them.
I say I "suspect" all that because there's really no way to know for sure. Those folks aren't the type who are likely to jump up and scream their heads off -- they'll just kind of quietly leave once they've finally gotten sick of infinitely re-playing the tiny fraction of the game's content they can reach.
But when I see that a game designer ACCIDENTALLY made a zone these players loved more than any other, it sort of makes me wonder what would happen if somebody actually went out and TRIED to give these people the kind of experience they're looking for.
This was a very good article but it told me a lot about why devs are sometimes clueless with regards to what the majority of the loyal player base of any game is thinking. There is one thing that you need to understand about all of these forms of feedback mentioned in the article. A lot of the people who regularly give feedback though these methods lie though their teeth about content that is not popular with them. Why? because they don't want you to listen to those who don't agree with them. This is true with rule sets, content, and probably most of all in existing games class balance.
I've been playing MMORPG from early 02 with pre Luclin EQ, beta tested a huge list of games [still do] spent years in WoW and EQ2 going back and forth between them. I'm prolly an odd person but I talk to people in game about what they like. I don't work for anyone, I just do it to figure out if my thinking about some of the game content is as way off in left field as forum behavior would seem to indicate. Turns out most of the time it isn't and the forum intell is often skewed way off from what a lot of actual players feel. I think what set me off on this kind of investigating was what I call the great horse nerf of early EQ2. There was a big stink with regards to the cheap crusader horse that had a moderate run speed [less than SoW]. I recall one individual who was very vicious about it and she insisted that ALL the paladins in her guild wanted it nerfed because it would prevent newbies from rolling paladins, then had her friends [and maybe other accounts] back her up, and even reposted the same demand every time the thread died down. She also resorted to threats and a lot of profanity when anyone had another view. Yes it sounds stupid now but she was fairly successful in her efforts. In the end the run speed of the noble steed got nerfed so bad you could get run down and killed while on it but the dev team [I suspect in resentment of the issue] also nerfed every other horse in the game as well. I didnt really have a position on the nerf but it was rather interesting to watch. Beta test forums can sometimes be even worse as some of the people there never pay to play but tend to just camp beta test and play free games. Forums get very political , yes they do.
At any rate that was what set me off wondering and I have been asking in game questions of people and making comparisons ever since. People are sometimes not honest on forums and in study groups. They defend the status quo or what the mentality of their group is. This is how words like "care bear", or "the grind" came about. Its just like real life politics , you take what your trying to undermine and then assign it a name you can call it then use it in negative ways. Never mind that thousands of people logged in daily and dutifully paid monthly fees to participate in "the grind" when in the early days of EQ the company didn't even expect them to. At some point end gamers made their way in later down the line and began to pay others to do "the grind" for them so they could just skip to the end and then of course set about establishing that nobody else wanted it ether. One of the trade marks of this particular type is that they like to speak as though everyone else had the same views as they do.
The main point is when she said silent majority, she hit the nail right on the head. Personally I think the only way to really get a chance at regular player opinion is to have polls in the game it self. Honestly most people I talk to in games don't even read the forums and are often shocked if I ask them about a discussion that is leaning in one direction or another. The great search for player opinion. This could be an epic quest.
I agree with that the official personnel should pay more attention to what the players have said on their official forum, after all that’s the most important source on the basis of which the developers could improve their production. But I do feel that the game developers are also not such cool blooded animals who never care what the players have said. In fact, I did have this kind of experience: when the developers really followed the players suggestion and launch a new version of game, players will very likely find more Bugs in that game. The conclusion is improving games needs time and it takes risk to produce more Bugs and more players complaint. Besides, game developing costs Capital. Take Funcom’s “the Age of Conan” for example, Funcom spends a great deal of money to produce high quality game, but it turns out that it will eat our hard drive severely and people complaint about it; Besides, Funcom also flaunt “the real combat system” as this game’s main feature, but not long ago I have read a review complaining that this system makes the game burdensome. So presently players are very easy to be weary of any new version of game, this is why the game developers don’t want to take the risk to alter the game program any more.
Nice read and a much needed insight to an aspect we hardly hear about, sadly.
There is a twofold issue here as we have one group conplaining about the issue at hand. Then there's the people who want their return on investment squeezing as much as they can from the Devs. So I can imagine how the Devs and teams holding them all at bay.
So how come we end up feeling ripped and fan the flames for us to leave?
I'm sick of getting the soft appologies from the feedback team about an issue and there's only so much they can actually do, even though they themselves see the problem.
Now behind the scenes must be the same, just like a theatre performance, things may look good and as long as the show goes on, us the audience do care.
Which brings me to your article, why if there are way to get the problems, do we all leave these games because nothing is getting done? Maybe things are being done, but on the wrong things if you ask me.
I'm yet to have a dev or feedback person contact me a month later and ask if things are better. Just like the players, maybe the Devs etc. focus too much on the bad too. So maybe it's a matter of changing "how" it's done and the procedure to fix it.
Napolian even understood that you cannot get people to do what you want, but offer them a ribbon and they'll put their life in your hands. So just maybe by asking how the problem could be solved could be another option.
Holy walls of text! j/k Some very insightful posts for a very young science (social science)
I agree that people need to realize that they are not that important (see Twitter heads) and that ultimately it is the decision of the service provider to determine what service they will provide.
However....I think it is important for game companies to open the doors a bit and provide feedback TO THE CUSTOMER.
There is nothing more fustrating than to see a "blue" post from the game company on a forum to some stupid random comment but absolute silence following a well thought out post on a serious game issue. For instance, I'm cruising the forums the other day and found a post relating to a controversial game mechanic. The OP makes a very orderly and logical argument, that at the very least deserves some critical thought, and page after page of responses there was no "official" reply. Some troll makes an asshat comment regarding something unrelated in the SAME thread and the Community Manager decideds to reply to the 2 lined troll bait of a post.
In the absence of good information (from the game company) bad information will fill the void. People left to their own "theory crafting" will come up with every conspiricy and left field reasoning to explain why something was changed when there is no official word from the horses mouth.
BUT, the flip side of being "open and transparent" is that the customers will hold an official post from the company to its word....even years down the line. If a Community Service Manager makes takes a stance on a particular issue that is in development and a year later things turn out different.....the forum warriors will quote that CSM from a year ago and want to know why the game company lied!!!???!!!
The reason so many game companies are secretive with their information? Maybe because they get screwed to the wall everytime there is any kind of inconsistancy in what was said on the forums and what was done in game. I say game companies need to grow some thicker skin and tell it like it is. I'd prefer honest open transparency and get told "We changed our mind" than to be left in the dark and not be told anything. But thats just me.
I have posted many times that the majority of players do not read or join forum. Forum regulars really do not understand how that impacts the wieght of thier opinion to the devs. I am very pleased to see here how feedback is reguarded in that light.
I appreciate your well thought out comments about how development teams use feedback and where that feedback comes from. I will grant that the development companies must listen, but I have doubts about how well they understand.
One of the most enjoyable MMO's that I have played was SWG. I started with the opening day and played until changes made by the development company made the game virtually unplayable. The changes were made over time and despite massive player resistance. Did SOE hear or see the input? They must have, but nonetheless, SOE chose to destroy an outstanding game. Actions like those of SOE make players wonder if their input has any effect. The changes in SWG must have been for some reason in the minds of SOE, but those reasons clearly had little to do with the player base.
I would agree that game developers and companies should be more tansparent in their reasons for changing a game (or not changing), but it will take a long time to creat understanding let alone trust given past experience.
I enjoyed your article this time Sanya. Your experience with these topics lends obvious credibility to your point of view and it's nice to have a bit on an inside look at how all this works. In my opinion the most important point you made was the comment on answered prayers. If we could all be honest I think we'd admit that we most often want, nay demand that we get a "yes" answer. Heh, that tends to frustrate me some. Oh and just for the record, my Foozle is plenty powerful.
Comments
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Feedback via text, forum, webform is a WASTE OF TIME.
When it comes to having a player get their point across the old saying holds true.
Money TALKS! Bull$#!t WALKS!
Don't like an MMO game? Then don't pay the $15 per month to play it. Sooner or later, the development team will get the hint, when their bean counters are filing for chapter 11.
Ok...but if you don't tell them why you don't like it how are they suppose to ever figure out what you do like and make a game with those aspects...
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Ok, being a Sociologist by trade and a gamer by hobby, I felt inclined to reply to this article in some detail. I have worked quite some time on feedback control studies, and IMVPO there are a few misconceptions here.
Of course, the most simple player misconceptions is "I said I am not happy with feature X, it did not change therefore Game Companies never listen". It is the very human feature of a) concluding from personal experiences to matters per se and b) generalizing singular events to general rules (Company X did not listen = all game companies never listen). Quite a trivial observation, some may say, but given forums like this are usually full of these basic issues, I think it is valid to point them out at the beginning. In MMos it comes in simple forms. "I like hardcore therefore hardcore is the future guarantee for success."
The problem is, companies get a lot of feedback based in that sort of thinking, and truth be told, NONE of us is entirely free of this thinking. It is practically impossible to avoid this altogether. Our concepts are often based on the expectation what others think. If you look at any game forum, you will find a most problematic issue with feedback: People tend to "follow the general stream". Some people are just unsure of their judgements in the inside, so they read some postings and reviews and tend to get influenced into that way. Thats no matter of being weak willed; it happens to me frequently, and I count myself as not easily persuaded. On critical topics, there is always a tendency that some "ruling opinion" is dominating forums, and people with differenciated opinions shy away from posting and further taint the feedback.
Now sure, you can gather data from mails or surveys, but I must admit in the many betas I have participated I have seen that VERY rarely. Even then, the opinion about stuff is formed a lot in your private friendship circles and forums. The greatest problem with how people like something in Social Science is always, that asking the target audience is a tricky and often misleading thing. For instance, if you want to find out about the situation of the working class in an under-developed country, just going and asking them is not working. Many people who never thought about things in detail, may not have the words for something, and then tend to say "all is ok." When you make surveys with people on any social topic, say "how happy are you with you life in general", the majority will then answer they feel good about it. When you then ask about every detailled aspect, politics, environment, money asf, and ask the same question AFTERWARDS, the result will usually be much more negative, because by then they had time to think about all detailled stuff. It is just one example how difficult "just asking gamers" is. For instance, if you ask people after they had some bad day in the game because a quest was bugged or they had a quarrel with other gamers, they will answer polls much more critical, as if they just had a blast of a day in the game.
This also counts for usage data. Sure, you CAN watch the gamers doing stuff. But it is quite difficult to judge from that how much players really like it. You can watch people do the quests or hunt at some place, but how can you know another way would not be more welcome? Many gamers will do something they actually do not like, because the reward is so good. They will for instance repeat raids over and over, because they are greedy for some rare armor, but that says nada about whether or not they actually like the act of raiding itself. Same goes to soloing. You may discover more and more people solo. But is that because they enjoy soloing more, or is it that grouping just isn't organized well enough? Or maybe the community in the game is just not there. I recall games like SWG had a strong community because of many of the social ingame features, which resulted in people much more willing to group (in the old days). On the other hand, when you play Kunark in EQ2 level 70-80, you will find 90% soloing. Not because they like to solo, but because the system doesn't make grouping profitable. Now just watching those habits can easily lead to the wrong conclusions that (a) everything is fine - people do what expected and (b) people love to solo, lets add more of it. Both are conclusions from observing player habits, and still they are wrong.
The entire question of the "silent majortiy" isn't really to avoid. It would take tremendous work to get their feedback, and there comes another issue. Programmers and designers are "queens". I worked with programmers, even in something as mundane as programming cash desk computers, and even there every programmer was a bit of a Diva in "his" ideas how to implement stuff. I am just quite certain that a substantial amount of decisions is never placed to serious gamer feedback. Game companies may take small trivialities serious. But most programmers and designers are just way too certain that THEIR idea is right and will entertain the people best, that there just is too little will to ask people in the big themes. Take SWTOR's story. Or Warhammers two factions. There are very basic non negotiables, and these are just extreme design decisions. I have seen changes based on feedback come only very slow, if at all. Sure, in small terms, that may be the case. But in every major design questions, devs (in the broadest sense) are Divas. They are very sure what they design is right. They are sort of resistent against council by their very nature. They are experts, the usually love their job and regard their games like a parent their kids. The relationship of creator to product is very high in the entire entertainment industry, and gaming is no exception. You don't go to Spielberg and expect him to make a survey on how to make his films. And most game devs, programmers and designers feel the same way. The DIFFERENCE between film and game is, film had highly developed, changed and diversified in the last 30 years, while games more or less still function in the same way as 25 years ago. Games are a very conservative thing, when it comes to "how to make".
The game industy is IMPOV very conservative and narrow, usually sticking to the known and proven. Just look at how stereotypical, predictable and copy cat-like almost every single character or story is. Mostly it is, know one, know them all. Another point is, game developers are usually bad artists. Sorry, but that is for me at least in Western Companies, a fact. Most of them are programmers and have little to no artistic feeling, and I always have this urge to send them all to the TV show "queer eye for the straight man" or what the name is. Or just hire more women. (Sorry if that sounds prejudiced.) How much you can do with a game company with GOOD artistic feeling, is proven by the world design of LOTRO, which is just superior. Whoever designed that visual world was really good, whereas we have a world design like Vanguard or WAR which is just sterile and dead, which has nothing to do with Polygons or that WAR is based on an IP. LOTRO is too. Or look at races, haircuts, robes, armor types, faces, whatever. So many games just have a very bad sense of art, and only few games really are visually artistic, like GTA IV, to name something entirely different. In such terms, feedback is void, because you can say that an hundred times. Preaching to game developers about artistic matters is mostly in vain, simply because they either HAVE a sense for it, then you don't need to mention, or they DON't have it (mostly so), and then they will not understand you. The Vanguard devs never understood that despite they polygon details Telon is just a cold and sterile world in most places. (Just see the changes of Khal, which SOE made. THEY knew how to make something visually good, if you compare Khal before and after.)
You can apply this example on many parts of a game. Feedback does not result in change mostly, because of these mechanics. The companies will usually think, they know better and give only the smaller things to player feedback. Now if that is wise or not is another topic. WOW surely seems proof that you can basically ignore what the gamers say, and still be a success in money. And thats the crux. A game company today is mostly a company to make money, just as selling a laundry machine or a sort of youghurt would be. But for the GAMERS, the customers, a game still by and large is something very personal. It is "ours", our hobby and something with which gamers identify a lot. That is what differs games from yougurts and laundry machines. But today we have large companies with stock holders and bean counters who rather want to sell Sims 645 and Soccer Manager 2053 to make big cash. They care less and less today for those who feel gaming as a part of their life, and aim more for people who buy their games, play it a week or two and then toss it away. For extreme casual gamers, to say it blunt. WOW is proof for that. The most time consuming parts - crums for the hardcore - like raiding and daily quests and faction grind, are the most mindless and repetitive parts. Blizzard does not invest into such gamer dreams like story, new haircuts or really new meshes, when 10 of 11 million players are satisfied with less. That McDonalds is succesful, doesn't say anthing that McDonalds food is good.
Yes, transparency is lacking. Badly lacking. So often we see almost zero feedback from the companies, or we get some PR blah blah, which essentially says nothing. What game companies lost today is, that games are not like any other product. Much more than a film or a book, a game is something gamers feel as "their own". And that isnt entirely unfounded. You can passively consumate a film or a book, but a game needs work, effort, and espcially a MMO is a huge investment of time into a character. So there IS some moral ground to say, we the gamers should have some say in where the train is headed. The time and work people invest into their chars is often tremendous, so its not like a movie which you watch in the cinema in a 2 hours session and be done with it.
Finally, let me say this. As in TV and once in film, we have game companies who feel that in order to reach masses they have to make cheap, easy stuff. Sims & WOW. I just deny this is true. You can see the same, wrong philosophy in movies. Some movie makers like George Lucas have always argued, a popular movie can only be 90 min. Until Lord of the Rings proved the opposite. They have argued complex, strenous stories will not make popular movies. Such things are cliches. You do not HAVE to make McDonalds entertainment to reach the masses, you CAN attract many people even with elaborate and demanding and innovative stuff. But my guess is the bean counter & stockholder structure in game companies will usually quench all reasonable use of feedback. Insofar we will see the same standard game models recycled over and over for likely a very long time.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
^ Do you really think in most cases they have much say in how things get implemented? Speaking as a lowly programmer myself, virtually all of the time your manager tells you what to implement, and he in turn gets his marching orders from management or the bigwigs at PR or whoever. "Doing things your way" is a programmer's pipe dream, unless you're talking about one-man shows or garage based companies.
Point is, your perception of the "diva" programmer who insists on doing things "his" way is largely incorrect. Decisions are made by higher ups 100% of the time, unless you're talking about a tiny company of 3-4 people where the programmer is also a partner or something like that. Most programmers are simply cogs in the machine, rats on the treadmill. Sure, occasionally you hear from big name studio people in the press like Carmack from id, but the vast majority of us are just peons.
Customer feedback gets filtered through like 10 layers of management crap before actually reaching the programmers, and by that time it's already in the form of "do this, then do that". That's the reality of it, unless you're talking about smaller no-name studios... but those aren't the guys making MMOs now, are they?
" In Defeat, Malice; In Victory, Revenge! "
I agree with a lot of what you've said, but right here you've gone off the rails. WoW and the Sims are only cheap and easy in retrospect. WoW was the most expensive MMO made for a good few years there and I refuse to be believe a title as complex yet streamlined as the Sims was 'cheap' to develop.
Even their clones have been expensive (not that anyone has really truly tried to clone the Sims in as much detail). But the irony is that even as new MMOs have come out and attempted to do something different - WAR started out very differently to where it ended up - they get shouted down by their players that they don't want the new thing, they want the old thing just better. So player feedback ends up driving things to the middle and away from innovation as surely and publisher who wants a guaranteed hit.
On Sanya's article, I just have to comment on game companies using surveys and focus groups. I've never been part of a game company focus group, but I've seen their surveys and they are awful. Poorly constructed, unbalanced scales (the irony of the graphic for this column using a 3-positive, 1-negative scale didn't escape me), often slated towards certain topics over others (e.g. PvP might get more of a focus from an exit survey, while someone might be exiting for completely PvE reasons) and so on.
As for focus groups, if they really are used as you detail, I can't see them giving back much quality information as well. There are much better research techniques available, but I'm sure it is easy to convince devs that sticking 20 people in a computer lab, letting them play for an hour then getting them to fill out a questionnaire while others watch will somehow give them solid player-based feedback to work from.
They have the two best resources for player feedback at their finger tips ( forums / game itself ) and they don't know how to use them. I guess its probably more of the " burnout " factor, since they probably just spent years on the project, and don't really want see it on their desktop anymore.
Another great article, and Sanya is now clearly my favorite writer here on MMORPG.com!
I worked for a director a few decades ago, who held to the motto "always leave them wanting more". Simply said, if you completely pay off a users expectations, there is no reason to come back for the next event (film in his case). I see this as applying quite a bit to MMORPG design. To use a metaphor, "a truck going up a hill is supposed to make some noise", meaning that any game that defines itself as being 'challenging' is going to give the people on the low end of the capabilities crowd enough struggle that they will whine and complain. As such, I take "feedback" with a grain of salt. It's a matter of consider the source.
In my beta (actually in pre-beta right now) I've got players who whine about [insert item here], while most of them have no real issue with that same item. Conclusion: it works.
On the other hand, when almost everyone from a hand picked focus group (with little to no communication among themselves) comes to me and says ... "Ken, this [blah] isn't going to work", then I have a real problem and its time to fix things.
Overall, its quite a balancing act.
Ken
www.ActionMMORPG.com
One man, a small pile of money, and the screwball idea of a DIY Indie MMORPG? Yep, that's him. ~sigh~
Interesting read on all the complaining we do.
I think linking patches in vague terms to player suggestions could work, in fact I have seen this happen a couple of times. If I was a community manager I would stay in touch with the best of the beta players, the ones who actually put in problem reports, they would be a goldmine of information.
here's what I think as the best way to do it : ingame surveys, much like what Aion just did. first, you're limiting the feedback to just the people interested in the game, not the random 13 years olds and all other kinds of forum trolls, basicly people who can only bash the game no matter what. but the important thing is - you HAVE to listen to that feedback. just an example - for several months now the WAR community (whats left of it actually) is screaming how AOE should be changed, while the producers letters are clearly showing Mythic doesnt give a **** about the feedback and decided to go a completely different way (i.e. reducing range instead of reworking the skills)
and yeah, forums (especially fansite ones) are NOT the right way to do it, too many people running those sites are simply moderating EVERY negative feedback and are deluded that they are helping the game by doing so. typical example is WHA, even worse example is aionsource, which founder got replaced by ncsoft demand. too bad people cannot understand that simply not talking about a issue would not make it disappear.
If you had spent over a year making a game, you would know if it was good or bad, wouldn't you? If you actually played it?
I've always wondered about this.
A game as a whole is hard to judge - and by the time it's together it's too late anyway. But when it comes to individual features, this is the part that boggles me the most.
Even though there are many parts of WoW I'm not particularly interested in, I can always see how SOMEONE would like pretty much every feature in it. WIth many other games, I look at some aspect of the game (or sometimes, more than a few aspects) and I have no idea why ANYONE would EVER want that. And I don't just mean that the implementation just didn't work well, or that it's buggy -- I mean I literally have no idea what the Hell they were thinking when they first decided to do it this way.
I always get this picture of a coke-head at a board meeting rapid-firing a half-baked pitch about how he wants the game to have thisandthisandthisandthis... (Either he's some rich guy's son who got WAY too much money to play with, or he's some crazy genius who once had a game idea so far outside-the-box that it caught the gaming public's interest and sold like hotcakes -- 15 years ago.)
Then the people he hired to do his thinking for him do their best to turn that mess into design requirements and hand them down to the poor programmers.
I think that's where the real disconnect is. Nobody wants to tell the guy who's paying their salary: "Hey dude, we can make this work, but it just isn't any fun." That's where the feedback loop is missing.
The inability to listen to user feedback has doomed many games. Let's use DAoC as an example. It was a pretty good game until the Atlantis expansion. Had a growing playerbase and it was fun. It also had a plethora of class for the alt-aholics.
Unfortunately Atlantis introduced overwhelming powers for the dedicated player, which is a major no no when it comes to pvp games. The forums were rampant with complaints. Changes forthcoming were minor. If you did not subject yourself to the huge grind, you were superfulous in pvp. The playerbase voted with their feet and left the game in droves. DAoC never recovered.
SWG is another example. Don't have to go into that one.
You had better know where your bread and butter lies when it comes to introducing new things. Too drastic a change will start an exodus that will be hard to stop. You had better have your ear to the ground and be prepared to scale things back when the feedback gets loud.
As to the comment about programmers, their ability to freelance is very limited. You deviate from the design and most often will be required to redo your code. No programmers freelancing has little to do with bad design decisions that management refuses to retract. It is the designers
I underlined what makes great games. I know the guy above said that some programs are like divas but I disagree. I think you guys make the most fun games out there when you are working with your ideas.
Programming is like paiting a mural. A genius can get a bunch of normal painters, and make then draw faces, and horses, explosions... following his orders.
If these normal painters are not genius, wen you zoom-in on the details, you will see mediocrity. But If the genius is really a genius, wen you zoom-out you see a great mural.
Wen you work with a guy that is not a genius, and the painters are not a genius... you get something that is boring on all levels.
Wen you work with genius programmers, and a director that is not a genius, you can see genius details, but the whole thing suck.
So.. good games need a good director. The better games need the better programmers.
And the big the team, the smaller the contribution of the individual programmer. Trucidation is telling us than in a big project the contribution of the programmer is soo small, the oportunity to make a difference is small or not existing...
..on the other part, PR is telling us that the fire implementation on Farcry2 was the work of a small dude. True or not... we love and remenber games often by tiny details. A game can be good because a redeming feature. If a programmers is bad, maybe that cog will not work, and a resulting, a big cog will not work and a feature will not work.
Programmaers have already demoed that a programmer can drive the art of videogamme developping, now is time for other people (designers, writters,..) to take the role, and show what other type of people can do.
Methinks the "reign" of programmers as been glorious, with all these early 80's crazy games. No-Programmers people have still to beat that "score".
In business, as in pretty much every aspect of life, something called the "80/20" rule applies: eighty percent of your expense comes from 20% of your customers. The trick to managing a business is identifying and then focusing on the part where you get the most bang for your buck.
I've seen a lot of very energetic and well-meaning owners go out of business because they gave in to their own egos, and focused on making their already-pleased customers even more slavishly devoted. The problem is that fanatic customers always give the worst possible advice. First of all, no matter how much they whine; they are not going to leave. They love your product a lot more than it costs them. What you need to do is figure out new ways to suck more money out of them -- and that is the LAST thing they'll ever suggest to you.
In order to grow your business, the people you need to listen to are your marginal customers. The quiet souls who (God bless them) sit around and pay their fees on time every month with no drama. But a lot of those players have already left the game, and (for all you know) a bunch of other ones may be sitting on the fence right now. The problem is that listening to them is hard to do. You have to be motivated, take a proactive and disciplined approach to get this data.
I suspect that in MMORPG's, for every ADD kid who hates wasting a whole week blowing past those first 50 "transition" levels to get to the "uuber-leet endgame"; and for every compulsive-psychotic who wants an even more fiendishly convoluted raid encounter that will require a second pair of adult diapers to complete in one sitting; there are a bunch of other players who really just want a giant sandbox to quietly hunt and fight in... People who won't say a word if the class they're playing (let alone another class) is "unbalanced" - because they couldn't possibly care less. People who don't scream like stuck pigs about every little change because they LIKE new aspects to explore. People who will deal with a dungeon that doesn't perfectly fit their needs - because they've been doing their best to try and squeeze some enjoyment out of areas specifically designed to exclude them.
I say I "suspect" all that because there's really no way to know for sure. Those folks aren't the type who are likely to jump up and scream their heads off -- they'll just kind of quietly leave once they've finally gotten sick of infinitely re-playing the tiny fraction of the game's content they can reach.
But when I see that a game designer ACCIDENTALLY made a zone these players loved more than any other, it sort of makes me wonder what would happen if somebody actually went out and TRIED to give these people the kind of experience they're looking for.
Interesting article.
Sanya regarding player feedback do you think adding polls at the game login screen would work?
This way devs would have not only the feedback from the forum users but also from all the others that never go on the forums.
Great suggestion! We do something very much like this with one of our business application programs at work; and its been very successful.
This was a very good article but it told me a lot about why devs are sometimes clueless with regards to what the majority of the loyal player base of any game is thinking. There is one thing that you need to understand about all of these forms of feedback mentioned in the article. A lot of the people who regularly give feedback though these methods lie though their teeth about content that is not popular with them. Why? because they don't want you to listen to those who don't agree with them. This is true with rule sets, content, and probably most of all in existing games class balance.
I've been playing MMORPG from early 02 with pre Luclin EQ, beta tested a huge list of games [still do] spent years in WoW and EQ2 going back and forth between them. I'm prolly an odd person but I talk to people in game about what they like. I don't work for anyone, I just do it to figure out if my thinking about some of the game content is as way off in left field as forum behavior would seem to indicate. Turns out most of the time it isn't and the forum intell is often skewed way off from what a lot of actual players feel. I think what set me off on this kind of investigating was what I call the great horse nerf of early EQ2. There was a big stink with regards to the cheap crusader horse that had a moderate run speed [less than SoW]. I recall one individual who was very vicious about it and she insisted that ALL the paladins in her guild wanted it nerfed because it would prevent newbies from rolling paladins, then had her friends [and maybe other accounts] back her up, and even reposted the same demand every time the thread died down. She also resorted to threats and a lot of profanity when anyone had another view. Yes it sounds stupid now but she was fairly successful in her efforts. In the end the run speed of the noble steed got nerfed so bad you could get run down and killed while on it but the dev team [I suspect in resentment of the issue] also nerfed every other horse in the game as well. I didnt really have a position on the nerf but it was rather interesting to watch. Beta test forums can sometimes be even worse as some of the people there never pay to play but tend to just camp beta test and play free games. Forums get very political , yes they do.
At any rate that was what set me off wondering and I have been asking in game questions of people and making comparisons ever since. People are sometimes not honest on forums and in study groups. They defend the status quo or what the mentality of their group is. This is how words like "care bear", or "the grind" came about. Its just like real life politics , you take what your trying to undermine and then assign it a name you can call it then use it in negative ways. Never mind that thousands of people logged in daily and dutifully paid monthly fees to participate in "the grind" when in the early days of EQ the company didn't even expect them to. At some point end gamers made their way in later down the line and began to pay others to do "the grind" for them so they could just skip to the end and then of course set about establishing that nobody else wanted it ether. One of the trade marks of this particular type is that they like to speak as though everyone else had the same views as they do.
The main point is when she said silent majority, she hit the nail right on the head. Personally I think the only way to really get a chance at regular player opinion is to have polls in the game it self. Honestly most people I talk to in games don't even read the forums and are often shocked if I ask them about a discussion that is leaning in one direction or another. The great search for player opinion. This could be an epic quest.
I agree with that the official personnel should pay more attention to what the players have said on their official forum, after all that’s the most important source on the basis of which the developers could improve their production. But I do feel that the game developers are also not such cool blooded animals who never care what the players have said. In fact, I did have this kind of experience: when the developers really followed the players suggestion and launch a new version of game, players will very likely find more Bugs in that game. The conclusion is improving games needs time and it takes risk to produce more Bugs and more players complaint. Besides, game developing costs Capital. Take Funcom’s “the Age of Conan” for example, Funcom spends a great deal of money to produce high quality game, but it turns out that it will eat our hard drive severely and people complaint about it; Besides, Funcom also flaunt “the real combat system” as this game’s main feature, but not long ago I have read a review complaining that this system makes the game burdensome. So presently players are very easy to be weary of any new version of game, this is why the game developers don’t want to take the risk to alter the game program any more.
Nice read and a much needed insight to an aspect we hardly hear about, sadly.
There is a twofold issue here as we have one group conplaining about the issue at hand. Then there's the people who want their return on investment squeezing as much as they can from the Devs. So I can imagine how the Devs and teams holding them all at bay.
So how come we end up feeling ripped and fan the flames for us to leave?
I'm sick of getting the soft appologies from the feedback team about an issue and there's only so much they can actually do, even though they themselves see the problem.
Now behind the scenes must be the same, just like a theatre performance, things may look good and as long as the show goes on, us the audience do care.
Which brings me to your article, why if there are way to get the problems, do we all leave these games because nothing is getting done? Maybe things are being done, but on the wrong things if you ask me.
I'm yet to have a dev or feedback person contact me a month later and ask if things are better. Just like the players, maybe the Devs etc. focus too much on the bad too. So maybe it's a matter of changing "how" it's done and the procedure to fix it.
Napolian even understood that you cannot get people to do what you want, but offer them a ribbon and they'll put their life in your hands. So just maybe by asking how the problem could be solved could be another option.
Holy walls of text! j/k Some very insightful posts for a very young science (social science)
I agree that people need to realize that they are not that important (see Twitter heads) and that ultimately it is the decision of the service provider to determine what service they will provide.
However....I think it is important for game companies to open the doors a bit and provide feedback TO THE CUSTOMER.
There is nothing more fustrating than to see a "blue" post from the game company on a forum to some stupid random comment but absolute silence following a well thought out post on a serious game issue. For instance, I'm cruising the forums the other day and found a post relating to a controversial game mechanic. The OP makes a very orderly and logical argument, that at the very least deserves some critical thought, and page after page of responses there was no "official" reply. Some troll makes an asshat comment regarding something unrelated in the SAME thread and the Community Manager decideds to reply to the 2 lined troll bait of a post.
In the absence of good information (from the game company) bad information will fill the void. People left to their own "theory crafting" will come up with every conspiricy and left field reasoning to explain why something was changed when there is no official word from the horses mouth.
BUT, the flip side of being "open and transparent" is that the customers will hold an official post from the company to its word....even years down the line. If a Community Service Manager makes takes a stance on a particular issue that is in development and a year later things turn out different.....the forum warriors will quote that CSM from a year ago and want to know why the game company lied!!!???!!!
The reason so many game companies are secretive with their information? Maybe because they get screwed to the wall everytime there is any kind of inconsistancy in what was said on the forums and what was done in game. I say game companies need to grow some thicker skin and tell it like it is. I'd prefer honest open transparency and get told "We changed our mind" than to be left in the dark and not be told anything. But thats just me.
Thank you Sanya for a very good read.
I have posted many times that the majority of players do not read or join forum. Forum regulars really do not understand how that impacts the wieght of thier opinion to the devs. I am very pleased to see here how feedback is reguarded in that light.
Sanya,
I appreciate your well thought out comments about how development teams use feedback and where that feedback comes from. I will grant that the development companies must listen, but I have doubts about how well they understand.
One of the most enjoyable MMO's that I have played was SWG. I started with the opening day and played until changes made by the development company made the game virtually unplayable. The changes were made over time and despite massive player resistance. Did SOE hear or see the input? They must have, but nonetheless, SOE chose to destroy an outstanding game. Actions like those of SOE make players wonder if their input has any effect. The changes in SWG must have been for some reason in the minds of SOE, but those reasons clearly had little to do with the player base.
I would agree that game developers and companies should be more tansparent in their reasons for changing a game (or not changing), but it will take a long time to creat understanding let alone trust given past experience.
Robet DeWalt
veteren of EQ, DAoC, EQ2, SWG, CoH/CoV and LOTRO
I enjoyed your article this time Sanya. Your experience with these topics lends obvious credibility to your point of view and it's nice to have a bit on an inside look at how all this works. In my opinion the most important point you made was the comment on answered prayers. If we could all be honest I think we'd admit that we most often want, nay demand that we get a "yes" answer. Heh, that tends to frustrate me some. Oh and just for the record, my Foozle is plenty powerful.