Topic discussion: Should developers listen to consumers?

[shivadee]

Im doing some research here with respect to using focus groups to determine the release of a successful IP in the industry. Do you think that it is ABSOLUTELY necessary that the games are made with the consumers ideas in mind?

Now, i know this is a biased answer im getting here since everyone here is essentially a consumer. But try to answer as best you can and not "Hell yess i want my Metal Gear, Snake bad" or any of that uneducated crap ppl like to say. I would like a reasoning behind it as well. Its a report im submitting to my friend at EA at the end of the month with some research ive done to attach to my resume. I will only take logical/valid input.

Thanks folks

[W1nTry]

Well naturally the consumer 'wish list' is definitely something to consider when developing, last thing you want to do is release another run of the mill game into an already saturated market. Wish list aside, its good if a developer listens to the consumer especially with respect to sequels in block buster games. E.g. SC2. Sure Blizzard could go ahead forget everyone and everything and just do what it thinks is best and it'll prolly still turn out fine for initial sales.... cause of the whole cattle effect, however if the controls suck or the features don't live up to consumer expectations especially compared to the many RTS alternatives out there, it would probably not do as well as it could. Now I am in no way endorcing fulfilling every request, however if proper statistical information from your existing fan base for a particular title can be obtained, you can weigh the requests and see what feature sets and improvements are more unanimously demanded by your customer base.

I believe that ultimately the brunt of development and development ideas dose fall on the game house itself however the feedback from ur clients can make or break you imho.

[Crixx_Creww]

should developers listen to consumers

in the gaming industry yes

in the general industry, no!! consumers are f*(&(*&*(& noobs and dont know their @$$ from their elbow.



ooo i have a great analogy here

yall remember the episode of simpsons where homer's brother had a car manufacturing business and he let homer design and engineer their new model of car.... yall remember that catastrophe??

yeah... imagine the amount of homers and homeresses out there...

[Beomagi]

HA - nice analogy.

I think they should gather the ideas, but it's up to them if they want to use it.

Recognizing a good idea, seeing an off balance skill/race should be easy to see - and implement IF within the budget.

[TrinireturnofGamez]

    Depends on what the developers want , if you need to push the envelope in a competitive field  such as MMORPG  you need both a solid concept and tons of feedback to have a winner . Especially if you want to unseat the behemoths such as WoW .
     Those dime a dozen sports games or movie adaptations will still make the same amount of money whether customer opinion matters or not . I
     if you do want to make an original IP and have it successful , you need both high quality developer effort and end user involvement , as it is the quality     gameplay, storyline etc. bieng sold , versus a brand name if you were doing a 'Pirates' or 'Spiderman' game .

[TheApprentice]

From a sales point of view...

Listening to the already present consumer to mould the current game in development can lead to something there has always been... A game that appeals to the same crowd....

In some cases the developers should not only target their current audience but make it appeal to the people who do not play games or have never bought from their franchise...

This then resulting in larger sales... rather than trying to please the current crowd...

Bottom line... Developers should be the ones to make their own games...
Consumer input is there, they choose to listen or not...