3 reasons why the design team shouldn't visit ENWorld

[Kunimatyu]

The Bottom Feeder: Three Reasons Creators Should Never Read Their Forums

Jeff makes some excellent points in this article. Sometimes, direct interaction with your fans isn't a good idea.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I like the idea of hiring someone to pay attention to your forums. They can sift through the complaints to find useful information, and then present it in a less offensive manner.

It can benefit the fans as well. I've known of designers to talk in their forums and get very defensive about their creation (understandable), making it impossible for them to recognize or admit when they've made a mistake.

 

[DaveMage]

Uh oh.

Someone should tell Paizo they're doing it wrong....

 

[Dice4Hire]

Yeah, I agree. However, I wish the gaming company of my choice would at least have a one-sided information flow from them to the forums I frequent.

 

[kitsune9]

This is accurate of all things geeky and a fairly good assessment of other things not-so-geeky. It's just human nature to be filled with nerd rage I guess. As fans we tend to fall in some aspect of this because we've become emotionally vested into this hobby and in many ways we let it define us. So many of us have a "Don't tread on me" attitude and it colors our perceptions of how we think of the game, how it's played, the experiences to be enjoyed, and our opionion on its continued development.

I could see myself in this guy's shoes when it comes to forums.

 

[Shemeska]

I like the idea of hiring someone to pay attention to your forums. They can sift through the complaints to find useful information, and then present it in a less offensive manner.

While paying attention to your own forums yourself to foster community interaction and goodwill is the ideal in my mind, why pay someone when you can get fanboys to do the same for you? Some of WotCs VCLs already do this for their own forums.

 

[The Human Target]

I don't see how getting as much consumer feedback as humanly possible is anything but a good thing.

 

[GreyLord]

I disagree with this guy. Perhaps that's the difference between Indie and not so Indie?

You have to take the good and the bad, the love and the hate...but LEARN NOT TO TAKE IT PERSONALLY. Divorce yourself somehow from taking it personally, because THAT'S when it actually affects you.

Forums are important for various reasons. First, if you are there on your personal forums and they see some sort of presences, it shows that you care. It doesn't matter if you actually care or not, the fact that it APPEARS that you care is what is important (I suppose that puts me as Lawful Evil in this context?).

Second, apart from surveys and market studies, forums are feedback. If the crowd hates what you've done, you get immediate response and feedback.

This is important if you release a product. The immediate response will be from hardcore fans...but many times these fans will relay their feelings of a game or other item to the world at large. Once this is done, this portrayal will stick unless something else has already been done.

I remember a computer game series a few years back called Star Fleet Command. Star Fleet Command 2 was known to be buggy, but still had decent gameplay. People stuck with it. Star Fleet command 3 was created ignoring any of the fans inputs, their responses to changes in the system, and basically telling the forum fans that the new way was better then the old. The game was reviled overall by the hardcore fans (a few liked it, but a majority did not) and word of mouth sent the game to the dumps. It's worth a decent sum these days in the right circles...but the events of that game meant that it may have made money, but not enough for the company to continue the game line or even give it decent support. SFC III kind of was the end of the line you could say.

Word of mouth is a powerful thing, and if you don't pay attention to what your hardcore fans want or at least say, it can end up biting you.

In many ways you don't even have to heed what they say, much like Activision did with SFC3. What you DO need to do is to be aware of it and be able to find ways to counter their bad press they will undoubtably give you (there I go again, showing the colors of a LE character). If you can do this, bonus to you, and even better for being aware of it and countering it before damage was done.

So, unlike the author of the article, I think it's actually VERY important for the creators to pay attention to their forums and heed what the general mood and attitude of those forums are headed and what is occuring in your own community.

 

[amnuxoll]

I think the author of that article has some fair points but I disagree with his conclusions.

I think it's important to have a presence on your forums for the benefit of the people who have bought your material. It shows that you care about them and the game you've written.

I also disagree with the notion that you should ignore forums because there will be people who both agree and disagree with everything. To me, that's the point. When you hear both sides you make a much better, decision. Without feedback, you're designing in a vacuum. Fans, IMO, are the best source of feedback that you have.

 

[humble minion]

I suppose the problem with customer responses on a forum is that they're self-selecting. They tend to attract people who are REALLY passionate one way or another, and the more passionate they are, the more they post.

If you're (for example) reading a hundred-post review thread on your latest product release and 30 of the posts are ragingly negative, it's hard to remind yourself to check if 25 of these are coming from the same two people. I imagine it would get to you after a while. People who get a bee in their bonnet about things tend to go overboard with the negativity at times (admittedly, I can be prone to this when the subject of Star Wars d20 revised comes up, for instance). The 80% of people who buy your product, are reasonably satisfied with it except for a few issues here and ther, use it a moderate amount and don't get around to posting an opinion one way or another tend to get lost in the noise.