Should Game Devs Listen to Their Community?

Game Devs get a lot of hate for not "listening" ... but should they listen??

[AskTheMasked]

I think it REALLY depends on what type of game it is, for instance:
In a fighting game, most of the pro players will point out things that are way underpowered/ overpowered from a competitive standpoint BUT sometimes that vision will make the game "way too tactical/complicated" for a new player and that's where the game developers POV of what they think the game should be should help them judge what is the best course of action for the game's health/ community.

[stoplookingatthisyougleepy]

I think that it depends on the game. For example, if the game is large, don’t even try to listen. There’s gonna be hundreds, if not thousands of people suggesting things for the game, especially if it is a FPS game. The only exception I can think of at the moment is Terraria, who’s creator is great at adding stuff that the community wants. Just look at the recent 1.4.4 update.

[GN_GAMING]

It's a mix if both depends on the game
Games such as COD could do amazing if they listened to their community and actually seeing if it works or not

[nekaa]

well if the devs only listen to the big content creators, it's not really a "community, " just a small group of people. The devs aren't looking to keep the people who have thousands of hours on the game still playing, they're looking to keep the people with tens of hours still playing

[OwnZar]

You see, let's use two examples of two completely opposite scenarios.

-Blizzard with Overwatch: When Overwatch came out in 2016, that's something the community liked and it was the creators vision for the game, content creators loved it as well as hardcore players. That's well done.
Then, the higher ups at Blizzard want to make more money, but the monetization state of Overwatch 1 doesn't give room to expand without massive backlash. So what do they do? Slowly leave Overwatch 1 in a braindead state while pouring resources into who knows what and eventually Overwatch 2 comes out.

Now, for 6 years the core gameplay of Overwatch didn't change, and absolutely everyone loved it, they just wanted more balance and new content, but the core gameplay was good and both players and the developers were fine with it.

Overwatch 2 on the other hand, changed the core gameplay to appeal to competitive players of 5 vs 5 games and placed a, in contrast with Overwatch 1, very bad monetization system.

The core gameplay that people had been used, loved and knew for 6 years suddenly went out of the window, and yet the new Overwatch development team has not listened to the community say "We want 6 vs 6 back".

That's a really bad way of killing a very long and loyal community.

On the other hand, we have Space Engineers.
Their core gameplay was settled years ago, every new update and DLC just enhancing the already good gameplay, not changing it into an unrecognisable state.

Since the core gameplay is done, the Space Engineers team just add to the experience with free updates and cosmetic DLCs, from what the community asks. May take a week, may take years, but they eventually deliver without fucking up the core gameplay that everyone loves, knows and uses since the beginning.

They listen to the community, and don't change the core gameplay for what's trending now.

The difference between a space Engineers and Overwatch, is that Space Engineers kept their core gameplay and expanded around it, while Overwatch completely changed it to appeal to other people, in the way fucking up a lot of true fans.

For even more than that, if you don't like the new Space Engineers, you can not use the new functions or even roll back versions of the game.

If you don't like Overwatch 2 and want to go back to playing 6 vs 6 in Overwatch 1, a game you may have already payed for, you're out of luck because it doesn't exist anymore.

Is not that the community knows more than the developers, but the developers must listen to ALL the community, not just the hardcore side, to improve the game in a way that doesn't affect the core gameplay (Unless it's a very bad one, like No Man's Sky on release).

There can be a point where the developer hinks the game is finished, but if the community doesn't feel that way, then give them the tool to continue the march if they wish, optionally, so you can move to other projects without putting an end to another one's just because you think your vision is done.

It's very complex, but rather than fighting against each others, community and developers have to work together.

Without a developer there's no game.
But without a community to give life to it and improve it, there's also no game.

I hope I made sense.

[scpkenny]

I think it's both while it's important to listen to what the community thinks about the game it's equally important for the devs to maintain how they envisioned the game

[dogstar]

No. They should make the game that they want to make. Some games might be hits and some might flop.