He believes that, although players can identify bugs, they are unable to provide solutions.

The former BioWare producer suggests that we should not listen to the community, at least not in the way that many people think. Mark Darrah, who worked at the studio behind Dragon Age and Mass Effect for over 20 years, recently posted a video in which he claims that players are good at recognizing problems but cannot offer solutions. Although his latest video may seem like an attack on the community, it actually focuses on community feedback and how useful it can be to developers.

According to Darrah, listening to player feedback can be both beneficial and detrimental to developers, and he encourages them not to simply take on board what players tell them directly. He backed this up with an example. He also noted that most online complaints come from a small minority, while the majority of players simply play the game and leave without saying anything.

“Players are really good at identifying problems. What they’re much less good at is finding solutions. They’re not developers. They’re gamers. If they say a class is boring, it might be because the progression choices aren’t very interesting. It could be that the class is too powerful or too weak. It could interact with the game in an unusual way. Or it might just be confusing, and players aren’t figuring out how to use it to their greatest advantage. There are multiple groups of people playing your game. There are hardcore players, casual players, people who play for the maths and people who play for the story. Some people are going to consume every single piece of content, while others are going to blow through the game as fast as they can and then move on to the next thing. Each of these groups wants different things. The problem is that you don’t have an equal conversation with all these groups,” Darrah said.

In short, the former BioWare producer emphasizes that players don’t always know what they want because they aren’t developers. They can’t see the creative process behind the game and can’t accurately imagine what the finished product will be like.

Source: MP1st