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The relationship between developers and gamers
adiktus
Member Posts: 128
It is common nowadays to hear players complain about the developers. We usually hear them say that the developers are not listening, they are always following what they want and not what gamers want, etc. We always ask developers to look at our perspective as gamers.
Most of us are hypocrites, though. We ask devs to see our perspective but we always fail to see theirs. We complain about all sorts of things, yet most of us don't know how developing a game really works. Most of us also don't know the business aspect of the industry. All we do is force what we want, disregarding lots of other factors like development costs, time, investment, investors, etc.
I'm sure many would react and feel defensive, but to some of you, admit it. We always demand others to see our perspective but we ourselves don't try to see theirs. This is probably one reason why players will always complain.
Comments
That's because we are the ones doing the paying.
On their part, they have the arrogance to make what they want and tell us it's what we want. They've taken more away from these MMORPGs than they have left in them, all to satisfy their own interpretation of what they can sell and make more money off of us, the payers for the products.
It's little wonder that this industry is dying.
Ever wonder, when companies these days release these games and so many players, paying customers, leave, where they are going? Obviously so many want a new MMORPG, yet so many don't stay with the crap they tell us we want. Ever wonder about that?
Once upon a time....
How is that arrogance lol. I fail to follow your line of thinking there. Developers don't tell us what we want. They create a product you have the option to pay for, or not to pay for
You are not seriously thinking you should have a say in a development of a game are you?... because that would be pure nutcase thinking.
It's good for companies to do some market research aiming at certain demographics and targeted audiences if they want to make money. They are however under any circumstances obligated to listen to you. That's you feeling entitled under the crazy notion that because you are a gamer you should have a sayso.
in terms of personal investment that isn't true:
you spend $15 a month on a game. a game developer (regardless of genre) dedicates his life to the development of the product. $15 = 15 min of a single developer's time at the low end of the wage spectrum, and i bet they donate in unpaid overtime at least that every month. they are more personally invested in the product, though perhaps less passionate/emotional about said product.
also developers know what is feasible/possible for a product based on a single user's feedback.
"...all to satisfy their own interpretation of what they can sell and make more money off of us, the payers for the products."
i'm not sure what else you think capitalist companies do. they want the maximal exposure sales, for maximum price.
...
what makes you think the industry is dying? it is thriving. the companies in the market are getting decent ROI atm. not enough for me to invest but nothing to gawk at. even games like rift are making a fairly sollid 8% increase over cost. the problem is the opposite of wha tyou are suggesting. the market is over saturated, Wow was a fairly heavy hitter back in the day because it had such a massive community but the community has been dying. and with the wow community (not the MMO community) shrinking allot of people are just droping out of the genre all together because their friends are spliting up to the multitude of games. it truely is more about the community rather than the mechanics. you might feel peer pressured into playing wow if a bunch of friends or colleagues play it. but if they are split up amongst age of conan and rift and all this other stuff the potential market stops playing.
granted tied into that is the stranglehold the degree of available diversity has on one game emerging with many of the mechanics and more- but that is another thing.
also allot of people can't form a coherent thought when making a suggestion, and often advocate things which would imballance the game.
my game wont be out until/unless i think i can get large market share, and quickly expand development.
Let's pretend you spent the time and effort to get the education you needed to become a top notch game developer. Would you make games that you wanted to make?
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
i'm not the guy you are objecting to. yet you bring something interesting up.
are you disinclined to polling? i, for some reason, think that having the circle jerk style of community feedback would be generally benifitial. in the early development it could help sort bug/glitch priority, and later it could focus what needs to be added to the game.
it also shows the community you are listening and that you are taking into consideration their viable suggestions. and all it takes if for a public post which amalgamates a bunch of the suggestions, which your programing team think are posible get the team to evaluate the difficulty of the problems. and then post a poll for people to vote on with the things you might be looking to do later on.
some companies are rather poor at letting people know they were heard.
I agree with what you are saying. From what you are saying, it's still a farcry from my comments about the entitlement some gamers have, about the games they follow. Gamers often make suggestions, that has ramifications beyond what they are asking for. As such developers should be skeptical with any suggestion coming in from the community. On the other hand, there are plenty of constructive and good feedback developers should listen to, so yes. From a business standpoint you shouldn't completely ignore your playerbase.
That doesn't mean that a potential user is entitled to have a say or should have a say. Now that's arrogance
My comment was more directed towards arrogance of developers because they follow their own vision of their game. Something every developer should do first and foremost
About 10 years ago no one even really talked to developers. They were usually just content with getting whatever a developer threw out there and everyone was generally happy for the most part. Now you can't so much as make anything without a constant barrage of complaining and critical statements towards any company making a new product. Why have gamers changed?
My answer is greed, from both sides. While I can't blame a software company for having the desire to profit from their work, a lot of times they seem to be under heavy influence from investors. This often creates a conflict of interest between those who are passionate and creative in their profession. Now they have to cut corners and make products that are often times look like a total cluster fuck, because they were attempting to sell a successful product that catored to a wide array of individuals with varying ideas of what an entertaining video game is.
When you have a product that's being funded with millions of dollars from investors you are obligated to do everything that you can to make sure it succeeds even if you have to destroy your original vision of what the game was going to be. Now they are forced to listen to thousands and thousands of crazed forumers that all know what's best for a game, little do these developers realize that they are only listening to a very vocal minority, a typical gamer is more or less, going back to 10+ years ago, will play just about any game as long as it's creative and new.
Now with a storm of people pressuring the developers into implementing their ideas into the game, we end up with games that resemble someone elses favorite game that everyone else, more or less has already gotten burned out on.
As you can see in the last few years, developers were starting to loose a lot of money because of this obvious plague to the MMORPG genre, too many games that looked and felt the same. Now you'll start to see more and more developers ignoring the feed back for the most part as they take more risks to come up with a formula for a product that is unique, even if it means creating a nitch interest. Video gaming is always a risky way to invest regardless; so, anyone who decided to fork over a large sum of money on a new product should already have it in their mind that the success or failure of this item is purely based on luck.
As you can see there is a long list of factors in the relationship between a gamer and a developer. Constructive criticism can be beneficial, especially in the testing phases of a game; but, a lot of time's it's taken too far, either by the devs or the players. We no longer have a generation of gamers who are building software in their garage, everyone is watching what the devs do now like a hawk and everyone has grown more impatient.
Imagine if Michael Angelo listened to everyone complaining about how long he was taking on the Sistine Chapel. You can rush creativity; but, you'll just end up with crap if you do.
developers ask for feedback. they want our honest opinions as consumers. we shouldnt consider the feasibility of our requests, that is the developers job. consumers do not have to engineering knowledge and access to data (user complaints, suggestions, market research, budget, cash flow, resources) that is required to decide whether an idea/change is feasible.
example: (remember this is just an example, it only an example)
80% of potential customers will only sub for 6+ months if it has non targetting combat but they all feel it would be too hard for the developers to implement so they dont ask for it. little do they realise that the revunue they would generate by subbing for 6+ months would easily be enough for the developers to implement non targetting combat.
what could have been a win-win situation is now a lose-lose situation because players were expected to consider the feasibility of their complaints/requests when they do not have the knowledge or data required to make such judgements.
this is why you should never try and silence complaints about a game no matter how much of a fanboi you are.
In all honestly gamers are human and don't really know what they want or what is good for them. Now before you put the cement shoes on me and dump me off a bridge listen to my analogies.
Take a young child and ask them what they want, Some healthy food or junk food. Fairly safe bet that most of (if not all) them will want junk food. They might not regret it now, they might not regret it tomorrow or even a year from now, but eventually they will look back at what could have been and realize that they were probably better off not getting exactly what they wanted. MMO's today are all about instant gratification, quick fix of conditioned "fun" etc.
As people get older they get a bit better, although even throught the teen years alot of people don't know whats good for them, consider the sad state of some kids in college when they lose their self control to their vices (ie their need for gratification), poor grads, missed classes. Sure its fun for them (at that point) but its not really good for them.
Two sayings come to mind when one thinks about the past. One is the rose tinted glasses, the other is hindsight is 20/20. Thinking back to my time in EQ i find that i got more out of those MMO's than the time in invested in them. I have lifelong friends that i met by grouping ingame & actually getting to know because their was downtime and people knew eachother as a community. Sure i didn't really like the slow pace at that point, but after seeing the direction the genre has gone to over the years it saddens me that MMO's have become so impersonal and that everyone seems to be living in their own little bubble with nothing around them mattering (this is mainly because of extensive solo options and instances)
The other problem is that even though developers might want to make a world that others can live in the people that pay them demand complete obedience because developers are replacable and so many worry about job security.
Gamers: Make what i do in game better and more powerful compared to what other do. I want to be the best with no effort put towards it but want others to require real player skill to be good
Developer#1: I have a vision and im going to stick with it regardless of the cries, this is a passion project ------> mmo flops and goes f2p and is changed to copies developer#2's game.
Developer#2: Nerfs and buffs for all, keep as many players confused with direction as possible and just make big money! ----> successful mmorpg
Developer #1 makes the good games, Developer #2 makes the good money, Gamer complains regardless.
This is the relationship.
This is probably more true than i'd like to admit
Developer see's himself as: think he king and work alot
Players see Devs as: lazy
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.