Will User Feedback Ruin Games?

Before games were widely used online like they are today there was a time when all games were a single player experience.  Because consoles were not easily connected to the internet games were shipped and developers would not be able to update the games.  This would mean that games would keep all the bugs that were missed during development.  Furthermore the game would keep all of the design choices that developers made, even if there were many players that ended up not liking the design choices.  Now, consoles are connected to the internet and games can be updated at any time. Players can also voice their opinions on forums that the developers monitor. A player could notify the developers of a bug or suggest possible changes they would like to see the developers make in future updates.  While this seems like a great thing I believe this is giving too much power to the player.

I am a firm believer that people do not know what they really want.  Players may ask for some design changes in a future update, but they don’t realize that the current system is much better.  The developers are experts and their design choices are likely near the best they could be. Think about it as an expertly prepared dish.  The chef created the recipe with his knowledge of flavor and cuisine.  Some Joe Blow may come along and say that the dish would have been better if it had more of some seasoning but he does not understand the intricacies of how the flavors mix. The chef does know these intricacies and carefully crafted the dish the same way a game developer understands the intricacies of game mechanics and carefully crafts a video game.  A game developer simply understands why certain design choices would not work, but some player may still think that they have a better idea.

Now that user feedback is becoming more common, players are becoming entitled to have their suggestions implemented.  Players believe if they come up with an idea that enough other players like then the game developers are stupid for not thinking of it and should switch to the suggested design.  In actuality the game developers likely have thought of this and decided to go with a different choice because they understood how this choice would have affected the rest of the game.

Furthermore I believe the players that have a bad experience with a game are more likely to be the ones posting on forums about the game. This can lead to imbalance of the community of gamers actually feel about games.  The players that had a bad experience with a game are going to much more motived to share their opinions with the developers and the other players.  This leads to forums being dominated by who shouts the loudest and as a result this is what the developers see, lots of players saying how the game is bad and how it could be better.

When the games designers set off on the creation of a game they had a vision of what that game would be. The developers need to stay strong and make a game for the crowd that they intended the game to be made for and not cater to players that want it to be something else. The developers know best.