Current Developer Attitudes - Developers vs Gamers?

[jklinders]

When a bunch of gamers start complaining about stuff they don't have the full story or grasp of, then of course we're going to bump heads.

The problem is, developers don't have that luxury.

At the end of the day, gamers are still your customers. It doesn't matter how wrong they are. It doesn't matter how obnoxious they get. It doesn't matter how much crap they send your way.

You. Do. Not. Get. To. Argue. With. Your. Customers.

You don't have to agree with them, and you don't need to take their suggestions/preferences to heart. You do not get to talk back, though.

This is true in ANY industry. If you're working at a restaurant and a customer demands a free desert because his water wasn't cold enough. You give him a free dessert. You don't sit there and argue with him about it. And you certainly don't insult him or demean him. It doesn't matter that it was a stupid complaint. You don't do it.

Spitting matches with customers will NEVER end well for you. EVER. Even if you manage to shout them down (extremely unlikely), you will lose them as a customer. AND you'll lose about half the people they tell the story to. That's a lot of revenue lost just so you can vent your spleen.

The worst part is, dealing with upset gamers should be easy. Just ignore them! You never see them face to face. You never have them complaining to you directly. You just see them on forums. Just ignore it!

I worked for 6 years as a McDonald's Manager in high school and undergrad. I dealt with the absolute worst customers you can imagine. And these weren't distant anonymous avatars, these were red-faced, shouting, angry, in-my-face people. And for six years, I never lost my composure. I never once raised my voice, or argued with a single customer. The result was a 96% customer recovery rate, significantly higher than any other manager in the store. I may not know game development, but I know customer service.

If I can do that in what is one of the worst jobs in the country, game developers should at least be able to ignore complaints.

You will never gain anything by arguing with customers. So don't do it. It's not fair. But it's the truth.

This is an example of an excellent post that cuts right down to the heart of what the OP was about. 3 years of phone work and another 13 of food service work has told me beyond all question that arguing with customers is very bad for business. It doesn't mean you have to turn your entire business model to meet every possible expectation but there is a certain amount of "suck it up buttercup" to any business.

Some people like to throw around the word "entitlement"as an insult to the consumer whose demands are not met. Well guess what folks, businesses are no more entitled to clients than I am to a free dessert so when they spit in the faces of the folks who keep them in business they end up failing.

I see both sides. Games have not significantly gone up in price for over 20 years. They were $50.00 when I was a kid in the 80s and are just starting to hit the $60.00 mark now. Plus they cost a whole helluva lot more to make. So taking anti-piracy measures, online passes and even Day one Dlc makes perfect sense to me. Gamers do not want to pay a price point that a publisher is comfortable with so other means are needed.

On the flip side, the gamer's hunger for ever more elaborate graphics, full voice over and massive game worlds eats money at an astonishing rate.

But the bottom line is always, do not argue with your customers. The axiom is, a satisfied customer might tell one or two of his friends what a great experience they had with a business. An angry one will tell a minimum of 10 and not be limited by who is their friends. The PR damage is enormous and made worse when developers act like a pack of spoiled children who are "entitled" (yes I went there) to our money.

 

[SmegInThePants]

on the one hand: you have to make a product at least some consumers will want, in order to make money. Assuming you want to make money, get a salary, etc...

On the other hand: you don't have to make *everyone* happy, and even trying to do so is probably a bad idea. don't listen to every little criticism. Making a game for a niche market is just fine.

Learning which criticisms need to be listened to and which can be safely ignored is not easy. Ego gets in the way. Someone is criticizing your baby. Knee jerk reaction is to defend your decision. And people will criticize everything! And what one customer wants might turn 10 other customers away. Its a real art to discern the important criticisms from the non-important, or even incorrect. But if you don't engage in dialog w/your customers, or you let someone else do it for you, you'll never even get the chance to make such a determination. So let your ego take a bit of a beating and engage the customers. But don't get embroiled in personal drama, because the argument becomes about *you* instead of the game.

 

[Spoonius]

I've worked on a CoH mod for years, and it's mind-boggling how irritating some fans (not the majority of course, but the select few arseholes that make all the noise) can be sometimes. During development for example, certain members of the community felt entitled to a finished product, and felt that if we decided not to implement their suggestions (most of which failed to take context into account, and were entirely game-changing) we were purposely ignoring them.

It felt so demotivating at times, especially since we were doing everything for free, in our spare time. They had absolutely no respect for the effort we were putting into it. So yeah, we lost it a couple of times, and got somewhat defensive after a while. That didn't mean we weren't listening to people, just that we didn't feel particularly charitable anymore towards those that were actually appreciative.

That said, fans aren't always the problem. Especially when it comes to games like ME3, which under official classifications can be deemed "falsely advertised" IIRC?