Post by Morreion on Jun 4, 2010 7:13:44 GMT -5
Jon Wood: Us vs. Them
MMORPG.com's Jon Wood explores the "us vs. them" attitudes that seem to have arisen between developers and players.
Game devs need to lighten up on the game hype- fans have been burned too many times by lack of follow-through. And fans need to not be so hyper-critical. I've never figured out the 'I hated that game with a passion, I had 5 level 50s there' mentality
MMORPG.com's Jon Wood explores the "us vs. them" attitudes that seem to have arisen between developers and players.
In my opinion, this has all primarily come about because of a lack of understanding and transparency. For our part, players on the whole have never really understood the development process and how a game actually goes from the super-awesome put-it-all-in ideas that are floated about in the pre-development stages to the comparatively pared down versions of the game that make it to launch. We have no real idea why features are cut, we just know that they aren’t there in the final release. With that in mind, is it really any wonder that we get upset when the final product isn’t what we were expecting? It isn’t a far leap from there to blame the faceless people behind the scenes.
Conversely, I think that developers, who often get lost in metrics and other statistics when making their games, forget that while looking at and paying attention to the larger numbers may be good business, it isn’t necessarily good customer communication. In fact, it’s terrible customer communication and results in the individual players feeling alienated and angry. Players are individuals with unique tastes and should be respected on that level, not treated as simple statistics.
In both cases, the ultimate solution is to remember that both sides of the equation have human beings behind them who will react in ways that we’re sometimes not going to like.
Conversely, I think that developers, who often get lost in metrics and other statistics when making their games, forget that while looking at and paying attention to the larger numbers may be good business, it isn’t necessarily good customer communication. In fact, it’s terrible customer communication and results in the individual players feeling alienated and angry. Players are individuals with unique tastes and should be respected on that level, not treated as simple statistics.
In both cases, the ultimate solution is to remember that both sides of the equation have human beings behind them who will react in ways that we’re sometimes not going to like.
Game devs need to lighten up on the game hype- fans have been burned too many times by lack of follow-through. And fans need to not be so hyper-critical. I've never figured out the 'I hated that game with a passion, I had 5 level 50s there' mentality
