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[Derek]

http://blog.hanfordlemoore.com/2007/04/16/dont-do-what-your-users-say

Nice article about finding meaning in user feedback!  The general gist is that when users complain about some feature or request some kind of addition to a game, there's typically an underlying problem that's more fundamental.  Which I think is true.

Although I'm curious why he wouldn't just add an undo button on top of that.

[Alex May]

Interesting stuff and it's something I've thought about before, albeit not in such coherent terms.

Still, taking the example given, undo isn't a bitch to add to something - as long as you add it at the start So I can understand his reticence in adding it, but citing it as a reason to look deeper is a little weak.

I think a better moral would be to use testers to test your game, and personally oversee any focus testing.

Focus testing doesn't mean sending your game off and then seeing what people thought, it means watching them play; watching their movements; how they play the game. Sending your game off for focus testing is fine as long as you get replays, otherwise what you're doing is getting fairly nebulous feedback from untrained testers who don't know how to report problems properly.

[Inane]

Something I've learned from reading random peoples suggestions for games, is that most of them are idiots who like to suggest the first thing that pops into their mind.

Like, saying a fantasy game needs chainsaws, as an example.

[Xelius]

I don't think it's that they're idiots so much as they just simply have no clue of what they want.  They'll tell you they want a triangle and by the time you get done changing things to make them happy you end up with a circle

Of course, then they say: "Yeah, that's what I wanted!  Why couldn't you do that first?" 

[AdamAtomic]

I've always thought that my foremost responsibility as a contractor was to translate what my clients say they want into what they really want 

[Xelius]

I agree

[Bezzy]

Yep. I was originally very skeptical about focus testing for lots and lots of reasons: politically minded people can skillfully leverage people's responses to justify any particular changes they want - they can lead people's opinions when they're giving feedback. And let's not even go into the group psychology of it all (in a randomly selected group you often get a dominant personality subtley berating other people's opinions).

Great quote from Henry Ford: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for faster horses."

Ultimately, you're the guys who have to implement and take responsibility for changes, whether they're taken directly from users, or from your appraisal of people's experience (and haowan is totally right there: observation is far more important than feedback - not to discount feedback completely). Don't bow to user requests unthinkingly, is the important thing.

[Xelius]

Great quote- I gotta remember that.

[BMcC]

Something I've learned from reading random peoples suggestions for games, is that most of them are idiots who like to suggest the first thing that pops into their mind.

Like, saying a fantasy game needs chainsaws, as an example.

I STILL THINK IT'S A GOOD IDEA 

[Chris Whitman]

I don't think it's that they're idiots so much as they just simply have no clue of what they want.  They'll tell you they want a triangle and by the time you get done changing things to make them happy you end up with a circle

Of course, then they say: "Yeah, that's what I wanted!  Why couldn't you do that first?" 

You've worked in commercial software development, haven't you?

[Xelius]

Is it that obvious?

[RichCI]

Additionally, he has to deal with me as a designer. 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Actually I disagree. If you get playtesters that are intelligent enough, their feedback and suggested ideas are usually pretty great and always worth considering.

I don't mean that you should make made-to-order games where you take a list of things that people want and add them. What I mean is that you should give more credit to some players: some of them really do know what they're talking about and really do suggest things that would improve the game. It's safe to ignore chainsaw-in-fantasy-world suggestions, but I've gotten a lot of brilliant suggestions from players as well.

[Alex May]

But those are probably hardcore gamers; it's important to gauge who it is who has made the comment so you can judge whether or not it's a well-thought-out response in game design terms or whether it's just a manifestation of being frustrated and has a deeper cause.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Still, I think it gives people less credit than they deserve. In what other field would it be an accepted idea to suggest that what the users say about a product is usually stupid and that they don't really know what's good for them?

[Alex May]

Good point.

[Anthony Flack]

Isn't that basically Sony's PR strategy?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I think what Sony did was listen to the hardcore / loudest voice / gamer types and neglect the vast majority. It's a common mistake though, even in democracies you have the problem of lobbying groups being louder than the large majority.

[Xelius]

I don't think you can take it as a clear-cut stupid vs. not stupid argument.  As was previously stated, players/users can give valuable feedback during playtesting.  The issue, however, is that many of them (most of them) lack the necessary skill or understanding to give you suggestions, advice, or  which are valuable (as opposed to just pure feedback).  The only thing you can do is to try to translate their desires, feedback, and suggestions into something that both fits your goal and also provides the user with what they're looking for.  Sometimes you're successful, and sometimes you're not.

Take music as an example.  Everyone listens to music, and can give their opinion on whether they like the music or not (i.e. feedback).  However, very few of the listeners have the skill and understanding to tell you how you should compose your music.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

They can give suggestions in general terms. For instance, they don't need to say "change that line of code, use the third power rather than the fourth for the time limit algorithm, fix that pathfinding method" and so on, but they can certainly say things like "make that enemy slower, it's way too fast" or "this level is too long and frustrating, I stopped here, so make this one easier".