People News David Gaider Complains about "Increasingly Toxic" Fan Feedback

[mbpopolano24]

This sounds very familiar... uhm, where did I hear that before... blaming the 'fans' for majestic choices... uhm....

 

[Anthony Davis]

BSN is the pits, he's right. You couldn't pay me to read anything there.

He is also right that reading negative things day in and day out can adversely affect you, even if they are based...somewhere down the line, on legitimate criticism.

I feel bad for him because despite what many think here and on BSN, he is a REALLY nice guy, the nicest, and he is very talented. Full disclosure, I am not a fan of his recent work, but I understand not everything is a home run. I think he has got a lot more great work left in him (like he cares what I think anyway).

 

[Gord]

I've recently started to wonder at how much devs actually should listen to fans.
Obviously, there are a lot of conflicting opinions (Quot homines, tot sententiae) - which one is necessarily better (mine, of course)?
Now, I don't say devs shouldn't listen at all - if there's some consensus that a certain feature sucks thats something to keep in mind - but with the sheer amount of different opinions and the way those are often brought forward in the anonymity of the internet I can understand devs becoming somewhat frustrated over it.

Anyway, I sometimes wonder if you shouldn't just let devs do their thing.
If it turns out shit, you avoid it, if not you buy and have fun with it, but the result might likely be better than what we get with too much fanservice for various reasons.

 

[Brayko]

Here comes the apologists!

 

[Gord]

Here comes the apologists!

Fuck you. This is not about coming to poor Gaiders defense, I'm genuinely wondering if reading forums for fan responses/requests is such a good thing for games.
Look at the results for Bioware? Would you call that good?

 

[Brother None]

Obviously, there are a lot of conflicting opinions (Quot homines, tot sententiae) - which one is necessarily better (mine, of course)?
Now, I don't say devs shouldn't listen at all - if there's some consensus that a certain feature sucks thats something to keep in mind - but with the sheer amount of different opinions and the way those are often brought forward in the anonymity of the internet I can understand devs becoming somewhat frustrated over it.

It really depends on how you approach it, and the mindset of core developers. The more sure and competent they are, the more they know What Works, the more they can confidently handle fan feedback. I personally feel the games that actually suffer under fan feedback are ones where inexperienced or unsure developers are looking to directly implement a lot of feedback, which leads to an unfocused, unfun, design-by-committee experience.

What you want to do with fan feedback is almost more important than the kind of feedback you get. Guys like Obsidian and inXile are in touch enough and confident enough to handle the Codex, but that doesn't mean they're looking to constantly adjust their games to Codex demands. It means they know this place is one of the outlets for the most passionate of the crowd of fans they're looking to design games for. That means if something doesn't fly AT ALL, like - say - Fargo mentioning social stuff, then holy shit scrap it and never mention it again (which is what inXile did). But extremes aside, you're mostly just trying to get a vague, early feel for preferences (an inexact science at best), but you can't constantly roll with and react to specific, indivdual opinions. And occasionally they're just outright looking for good ideas, which inXile did a lot on its own forums especially, sometimes directly asking for them.

As a developer you should never feel obliged to implement feedback and adapt to it, but if it's part of your approach you should give it its due and have a good feel for the communities you're targeting, while design decisions continue to ultimately come down to people who are paid to make em. I think this new level of middleware development Fargo is looking to revive will absolutely rely on it, while indies should use it but be more careful about it, and big mainstream companies like BioWare are probably best off ignoring their own fanbase, simply due to their breadth, weirdness and the level of debate they engender.

A cop out doesn't have to be untrue or dishonest. No matter how awful BSN is, Gaider's post is still first and foremost an excuse to put the blame and the responsibility on someone else, and to avoid blaming the kind of games Bioware make, which is the real source of the problem here.

You are correct.

I thought more of you

Right, I forgot to mention how there should be a radio DJ'd by THREEE DAWG. Fighting the good fight against reapers with his voice. On the radio.
10/10 forever

 

[selkin]

BioWare itself is a mistake from the start. In my opinion.
As for fan feedback, it must be really tough to handle it right. That's an ability hard to get ahold of.

 

[CrustyBot]

I probably spend more time on the BSN than anyone else here (except maybe Roguey) and I can't disagree with Gaider's assessment of the place. Still, Crooked Bee articulates the point perfectly. To a large degree, Gaider (and BioWare at large) are reaping what they sow.

It is interesting (and telling) to note that the atmosphere of the BSN started to sour noticeably after Mass Effect 2's release and each successive BioWare game release has come with more controversy, more hostility and more toxicity. It's not like it was all sunshine and rainbows before then, but it was nothing like BSN today. Blind Freddy could see that the level of discourse drops each new game release, in no small part thanks to the actual games themselves. Their "emotional engagement" shtick and wish fulfillment romantic focus only serves to foster the kind of rabid fanaticism that defines the average BioWare fan now. Whether it be one who piles shit on BioWare because their waifu "deserves a better ending", or because they're drones.

I mean, we're talking about a fucking forum where a flame war over Miranda's ass got an entire section permanently locked.

So yeah, Gaider's not wrong. But this is the path they chose.

Now on the issue of feedback, I think Josh Sawyer has a solid handle on how to use the community for feedback:

http://twofoldsilence.diogenes-lamp.info/2011/01/actually-some-developers-should-read.html

Well, maybe not the Codex considering how Project Eternity is chugging along lol.

(@Roguey brofists this.)

 

[Black]

BSN is the pits, he's right. You couldn't pay me to read anything there.

He is also right that reading negative things day in and day out can adversely affect you, even if they are based...somewhere down the line, on legitimate criticism.

I feel bad for him because despite what many think here and on BSN, he is a REALLY nice guy, the nicest, and he is very talented. Full disclosure, I am not a fan of his recent work, but I understand not everything is a home run. I think he has got a lot more great work left in him (like he cares what I think anyway).

Seems like a nice guy and not a total asshat alright.

 

[Grunker]

Bioware should have gotten a deal to make Twilight Saga RPGs. They would have been very good at that I think. Instead, they decided to make a Fantasy RPG which was a cross between Game of Thrones and Twilight and wonder why their target audience wasn't 10 million strong. Their other games include a pedestrian WoW knock off and a disappointing Sci-Fi with Peter Molyneux-like unfulfilled promises. At this point, it goes beyond EA blame. They just weren't very good at their jobs . Gaider and the others need to hang this shit up if they want to avoid further embarrassment.

Some posts are full of cold, unfettered truth. This is one of them.

 

[scrambles]

It's all Fargo's fault anyway for publishing Shattered Steel, feeding the monster:declining:

 

[LeStryfe79]

Yep, what CrustyBot said.

 

[Naked Ninja]

What Anthony Davis said.

 

[FeelTheRads]

What Grunker said.

 

[Brayko]

Look at the results for Bioware? Would you call that good?

Or just try not to make games that attract such retards? I mean look at it like this, the worse the feedback, the shittier the game is. If nobody has anything really positive/intelligent whatever to say you can only blame the developers for trying to achieve CoD sales by snagging the hordes of 12 year olds and making it highly accessible to the point where someones grandma could play it.

 

[evdk]

Look at the results for Bioware? Would you call that good?

Or just try not to make games that attract such retards? I mean look at it like this, the worse the feedback, the shittier the game is. If nobody has anything really positive/intelligent whatever to say you can only blame the developers for trying to achieve CoD sales by snagging the hordes of 12 year olds and making it highly accessible to the point where someones grandma could play it.

Someone's Grandma would probably bring a significantly better level of discourse to the BSN though. Grandmas know what's what.

 

[Anthony Davis]

BSN is the pits, he's right. You couldn't pay me to read anything there.

He is also right that reading negative things day in and day out can adversely affect you, even if they are based...somewhere down the line, on legitimate criticism.

I feel bad for him because despite what many think here and on BSN, he is a REALLY nice guy, the nicest, and he is very talented. Full disclosure, I am not a fan of his recent work, but I understand not everything is a home run. I think he has got a lot more great work left in him (like he cares what I think anyway).

Seems like a nice guy and not a total asshat alright.

Yeah, that's a jerky post and every developer has done it - this is proof that even nice guys can get worked up.

 

[BlitzKitchen]

BSN is the pits, he's right. You couldn't pay me to read anything there.

He is also right that reading negative things day in and day out can adversely affect you, even if they are based...somewhere down the line, on legitimate criticism.

I feel bad for him because despite what many think here and on BSN, he is a REALLY nice guy, the nicest, and he is very talented. Full disclosure, I am not a fan of his recent work, but I understand not everything is a home run. I think he has got a lot more great work left in him (like he cares what I think anyway).

Seems like a nice guy and not a total asshat alright.

He should be glad that people are at least frustrated about their games. Take the viewpoint on the Codex regarding Bioware: we mostly laugh at them. If that was how BSN fans were reacting to their games, they'd be fucked.

 

[curry]

Gaider played a big part in dumbing down Bioware's games... he deserves all the shit he gets.

 

[Haba]

Listening to internet "feedback" is like sticking your dick on a hot stove repeatedly, hoping that this time around it won't burn. Of course it will, that's how the damn thing works.

Consumers are several times more likely to give negative feedback than positive. You know, to go through the trouble of registering on a forum and making a post... Makes sense.

Now take P/N ratio into consideration:

The positivity/negativity ratio (P/N) has been found to be a critical parameter to ascertain what kinds of dynamics are possible for a team (Losada & Heaphy, 2004). P/N is measured by counting the instances of positive feedback (e.g. "that is a good idea") vs. negative feedback (e.g. "this is not what I expected; I am disappointed"). In Marcial Losada's study, high performance teams had a P/N ratio of 5.6; medium performance teams a P/N of 1.9 and low performance teams a P/N of 0.36 (there was more negativity than positivity).

These ratios determine the level of connectivity that a team can reach (Losada & Heaphy, 2004). Connectivity is the control parameter in the meta learning model developed and empirically validated by Losada (1999), who found that high performance teams have dynamics that correspond to a complexor (complex order) which is mathematically equivalent to a chaotic attractor, representing the flexibility and creativity of these teams; medium performance teams have dynamics that correspond to a transient limit cycle that eventually settles into a fixed-point attractor, representing the inability to escape limiting routines; and low performance teams have dynamics that correspond to a fixed-point attractor, representing even less flexibility, and leading to a dead-end situation from which it's very hard to escape.

John Gottman (1994) found that similar ratios occur in marriages who flourish (P/N ratio of 5.1) and those who end up in divorce (P/N ratio of 0.77). Barbara Fredrickson and Marcial Losada found that individuals who flourish have a P/N ratio above the Losada line and those who languish have a P/N ratio below the Losada line (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005). Waugh and Fredrickson found that the Losada line separates people who are able to reach a complex understanding of others from those who do not (Waugh & Fredrickson, 2006). The Losada line establishes the minimum level at which a complexor is reached and is equal to a P/N of 2.9013 (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005; Fredrickson, 2009, chapter 7).

If all you hear is how shit you are, chances are you start being shit in the end.

Gaider is still a douche though.

 

[Brayko]

Look at the results for Bioware? Would you call that good?

Or just try not to make games that attract such retards? I mean look at it like this, the worse the feedback, the shittier the game is. If nobody has anything really positive/intelligent whatever to say you can only blame the developers for trying to achieve CoD sales by snagging the hordes of 12 year olds and making it highly accessible to the point where someones grandma could play it.

Someone's Grandma would probably bring a significantly better level of discourse to the BSN though. Grandmas know what's what.

Yes, they could provide their family cookie recipes to fatten them up.

 

[Spectacle]

Gaider was one of the better posters at the codex when he frequented this place. Then Bioware started their decline for real and of course he became the local target for every codexer who wanted to criticize the new direction. He lost patience and quietly left, never to return.

 

[Infinitron]

Gaider was one of the better posters at the codex when he frequented this place. Then Bioware started their decline for real and of course he became the local target for every codexer who wanted to criticize the new direction. He lost patience and quietly left, never to return.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JSV1ei6OjY&feature=player_detailpage#t=20s

 

[evdk]

Gaider was one of the better posters at the codex when he frequented this place. Then Bioware started their decline for real and of course he became the local target for every codexer who wanted to criticize the new direction. He lost patience and quietly left, never to return.

Quietly? I think he first wrote some bitchy post about not being appreciated and then left, or is my memory deceiving me?

 

[Micmu]

Increasingly is the keyword here.
Because they make increasingly shittier games.
Even fanboys hate your shit now.

He was Ok poster here, though. Also, Roqua vs. DGaider showdown was epic.