It has come to my attention that recently some incidents have occured where gamer/fans get to decide and/or influence games in their production.

A recent article about Diablo III comes to mind where a petition with a significant ammount of Diablo fans are trying to change the "artistic direction" of the game.

Something else that comes to mind is the current addition to the Soul Calibur-franchies were the makers of the game are adding Star Wars characters to the game. (Yoda, Darth Vader etc.)
During an interview when Ryan Stevens Editor for Invisible Walls interviewed one of the producers of Soul Calibur 4 during an CES event Ryan asked the producer if the Star Wars characters wouldn't be out of place.
The producer of Soul Calibur IV responded with "Whatever the consumer wants is good for the game."

Should gamers and fans be able to influence games while inproduction and should producers listen to the suggestions of their fans?
Is it of significant concern when fanservice ensues as a result or should artistic integrity be preserved?

Is whatever the consumer wants really good for the game?

Disagree. Most of the time the consumers don't know what the Hell they're talking about.

Imagine if the tournament players got to make important decisions about SSBB. Nobody but them wold have bought it and it would have gotten 1/10 in all the reviews.

Its a business of course they fans should influence they are the ones buying it.

Sure, the fans should influence it, but "whatever the fan wants is good" is as wrong as "whatever the fan hates is good". You can't deal with fans in absolutes.

meh... I hate when fans cry for something. The only time it helped, it was, they added Sonic to SSBB.

J'aen:
Sure, the fans should influence it, but "whatever the fan wants is good" is as wrong as "whatever the fan hates is good". You can't deal with fans in absolutes.

FF has coasted of what fans want and look how SUCCESSFUL they are.

Mind you, that delayed Brawl again.

It depends really, as long as the developers have their mind set on what they want and only change minor details that wouldn't hurt the game. Blizzard's WoW is a good example of how to take suggestions in a good way without changing the main idea. And also, the fans who cry the most are not always in majority, and at times things that people meet with skepticism at first turn out to be successful.

If everyone puts their two cents in and the developer listens, all that they're going to get is broken pockets and change everywhere. The weight of suggestions will spoil the game and give a mediocre experience if the developer tries to please everyone.

That said if there are enough people supporting something then something might be done about it. We probably wouldn't have game patches if people didn't tell the developer about bugs in the game/small tweaks that could be useful.

It's circumstantial.

I think there's a very strong influence in what sells well. Look at games such as World of WarCraft and the entirety of the Madden series. World of WarCraft in particular has made "advances" from the RTS days of storytelling and strategy, often reconning and announcing things for the sake of development, such as Death Knights being playable on the Alliance or Horde; lore-wise, it would make a lot more sense for a neutral or third-party to have Death Knights, but since the game already "works," there's no reason to, because the titanic majority of 10 million subscribers aren't going to harp about how it's "not lore-accurate." Most people who play WoW don't even know what the story is, who Thrall is other than "That orc leader," and killed Illidan just for the loot.

I guess from the "selling" point of view a lot of it has to do with what the consumer wants, because the consumer is going to buy the game and fund the project. This is a natural course to follow when you look at it and realize companies are trying to make money for their goods. In most cases, gaming companies are trying to sell as many copies of their game to as many people as possible, so their game can't just pander to the fans unless their fanbase is already ridiculously huge (see HALO). However, in Blizzard's case, Diablo and StarCraft both have enormous fanbases, but even still I suspect they'll try to broaden their market by including things that will make die-hard fans roll their eyes.

Littaly:
It depends really, as long as the developers have their mind set on what they want and only change minor details that wouldn't hurt the game. Blizzard's WoW is a good example of how to take suggestions in a good way without changing the main idea.

I dunno, my brother who used to be a hardcore WoW player said it eventually stopped being fun after the amount of stuff that got changed for 'balance' purposes in updates and expansions.

I definitely think developers should listen to their community, especially if it's a smaller niche community who all pretty much agree on what they want. Also if it's a sequel, developers should keep in mind not to change/'fix' stuff that's worked fine and loved in previous games in the series. However, "whatever the consumer wants is good for the game" sounds like a pretty stupid thing to me, and when things get changed/added to appeal to as many people as possible you're gonna alienate a lot of fans... but I wonder how many big developers really care about catering to the fans, rather than just trying to sell it to them. Sounds like the same thing I know but there's a subtle difference in my opinion.

i don't think many companies should listen to the fans for the most part, most of them are bloody wankers and have their head wedged somewhere

the fact is the ppl who complain will still buy the game and play it for hours and still complain no matter what. who the developers should listen to are the play testers.

I think that games should be influenced by what the consumer wants, but not to too far of an extent. If a large majority of the consumers wants something to be done to a game, then they should. However game developers should not be too heavily influenced by every little thing, otherwise they would never be able to try anything new. For example, if one ten-year-old boy sent Rockstar a letter asking for dinosaurs, laser guns, and spaceships in the next Grand Theft Auto game, it would be ignored, and for good reason. Developers are always trying to innovate their games and keep things fresh, but many consumers would just demand more of the same, making the new games bland and unoriginal. If something is wanted by a considerably large amount of consumers, and is wanted for sensible and valid reasons, then yes, but in many cases I believe that the consumer should leave the developers to do what they want.

P.S. I am going to feel quite stupid if laser guns, spaceships, and dinosaurs are in Grand Theft Auto V.

Random argument man:
meh... I hate when fans cry for something. The only time it helped, it was, they added Sonic to SSBB.

Sonic's in Brawl? Wouldn't know with how much you must do to f**king unlock him.

The developers of games really only need to consider one factor where fan demands are concerned... Is it a fan game, or are they aiming for a wider audience. It's nice to cater to fans, but never at the expense of saleability to the general public. Fans want a naughty sex scene between Johnson and an Elite, the public wouldn't appreciate that, so no go... Or a compromise with a naughty sex scene between Cortana and an elite...

shatnershaman:

FF has coasted of what fans want and look how SUCCESSFUL they are.

And look how the best games they made were before they started doing this FFVII, FFIV. Although crisis core is pure fan service but pure awesome.

Let me ask you this: Would it be a good idea if Valve complied the storyline of Half-Life 2: Episode 3 with fanboy-esque teenagers asking Gordon to have sex with Alyx?

No question, disagree.

Fans of a series can have some influence, but it should be a very small influence that makes the general gamers happier.

Personally, i don't know why they petitioned to make the art direction "grittier and darker" in Diablo 3, now to me it looks horrible and shitty (but i'm not a fan of Diablo, so there goes my say) the brightness before the change was just fine just make it slightly darker maybe but then they made it so dark that it looks like pretty much everything else out on the market nowadays.

In short, fans/general gamers should have very little influence on the game is any at all. If fans had influence overall on games then their going to start to feel obligated that they are the fans and that the game should be made specifically for them, as in the case of Diablo 3.

Developers should listen to their fans and consumers, but giving them the reigns? Fuck off. How are you going to surprise your audience if they're the ones in control? Could Nintendo have made Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time by getting the fans to design everything for them? Could Square have made FF7?

People don't know what they want. Not really. They know what they like in previous games, but would your Average Joe have been able to create something as visionary as Half-Life, when all they've got to go on is Doom? That's why we have visionaries- to give us a vision. Their vision, in fact.

fans tend to lack an overall perspective of causality and understanding of game design. they don't (and most game designers don't) understand how to balance penalty and reward in order to incentivize and push an idealized method of gameplay.

for example; high level Street Fighter 2, tournament players, play at a level of refinement that exploits the game mechanics playing in a fashion that nobody at Capcom had never imagined before then. if you were to ask a tournament player for suggestions, all of their ideas would be within the context of tournament play and most of the gaming population would probably never notice those changes.

by letting the fans run rampant with the ideas, you'll end up with misbalanced suggestions. just look at every single MMO game ever developed where each Class' forum is riddled with how their class is Nerfed. and each Class doesn't care about the opposing classes just their own.

it is important to listen to fans but only in the context of the idealized game design.

xbox.ca had a cartoon drawn about fan-designed games soon after XNA was announced; the cartoon concluded that the ultimate XNA user-built game would end up being "Call of Grand Theft Halo 4".

Looking at what players are interested in is one thing, but letting players get access to the drawing board will lead only to tears and woe... and a series of epic rehashes that will in the end satisfy no one.

-- Steve

Most of the time consumers don't actually know what they want, and hell, not even Yahtzee is consistent with what he likes and dislikes.

If you think about it though, it's not really "good for the game" and mainly "good for sales" (IN THEORY) - and of course, it would be stupid to ignore constructive criticism but chances are most criticism a game gets from it's wide fanbase isn't constructive and is just something people complain about for the hell of it.

Remember when people were bitching about grenades being taken out of TF2?! WELL TOO BAD, IT WAS THE BEST CHOICE THEY MADE WHEN DESIGNING THE GAME!

-but then TF2 also added "online unlockables and achievements" and while balanced it's still a crappy system when you implement it like CoD4 and TF2 did, and always will be but for some reason it's popular now and it's used to attract people to play the game. I'm glad TF2 centered it around the achievements and didn't just make it "kill people over and over until you get enough XP to get to maximum" unlike CoD4 and BF - and worst of all, only the toughest achievements and challenges just gave you a cosmetic upgrade in CoD4. It should be the opposite. Anyway I'm just trying to prove a point here. Still, I think non-cosmetic unlockables should stay the hell away from Multiplayer games. TF2 does it a little better than others but damnit it is still a bad choice despite it's "balance" - now instead of playing TF2, people are playing to get achievements...

ElArabDeMagnifico:
Remember when people were bitching about grenades being taken out of TF2?! WELL TOO BAD, IT WAS THE BEST CHOICE THEY MADE WHEN DESIGNING THE GAME!

This is a misconception of teh general concensus regarding TF2.

The main criticism that was aimed towards the game was that they stripped out a lot of content including - yes grenades.
The main criticism TF2 had was that it was missing out was a lot of other stuff that was stripped out from the classes. No demopack, no armor, no Medic Virus, no Pyro Napalm Bazooka, no Scout radar and the maps that was released with TF2 were just few and lackluster. (that has been fixed today thanks to the custom map making community though)

The problem and main criticism that's mainly aimed towards TF2 is that all that content that was stripped away was not replaced with anything else.
Now with the new unlockable achievements perhaps the content that was stripped away is slowly getting added back up.
The pyros napalm bazooka that was removed is now being replaced by the new unlockable flaregun for instance.

I'm not saying that TF2 is a bad game (heck I bought the Orange Box myself) but I think that the criticism about content being removed was justified.

if you guys thought that the Diablo fans were harsh, you guys should check out the Bethesda: Fallout 3 forum.

entire threads devoted to "why i can't kill children" and "put groin shots back in the game"

and don't even mention how the game relies heavily on Real Time Combat, apparently that alone has a lot of Fallout fans jumping ship before it has even been set to sea.

BallPtPenTheif:

and don't even mention how the game relies heavily on Real Time Combat, apparently that alone has a lot of Fallout fans jumping ship before it has even been set to sea.

Final Fantasy XII, anyone?

I don't think that consumers should get to make major decisions in a game, but they can offer advice. If they get total control, like some others have stated, they don't know what they're doing, and they'll fuck it up.

I disagree that fans should have the final word, per se. Sure, they might be the ones who want ice cream and pandas and sparkly unicorns that shoot lasers from their horns, but if a game is only what the fans want then they're going to be the only ones who buy it.

Then again, if that fanbase would yield the greatest profit, that's what the developers would aim for.

What the consumer wants is good for sales, not the game. Look at SWG.

Should an author write a book they want to write, or a book the fans want? Should a musician create songs the fans will like or songs they wish to play?

Zukhramm:
Should an author write a book they want to write, or a book the fans want? Should a musician create songs the fans will like or songs they wish to play?

This can be summed up nicely:

If the work is original, it should be quality.
If the work is fan-service, it should STILL be quality.

The problem is, most people take the second to read "if the work is fan-service, do a piss-poor job and forget about it."

Myself, I cannot help but think the fact Raiden went from Faggot to Awesome Ninja Death-machine in the transition from MGS2 to MGS4 is in part because of how much pure HATE Kojima and the Metal Gear Solid series received about Raiden.

J'aen:
Disagree. Most of the time the consumers don't know what the Hell they're talking about.

Imagine if the tournament players got to make important decisions about SSBB. Nobody but them wold have bought it and it would have gotten 1/10 in all the reviews.

Exactly right. For the most part the customer is not always right, the customer is stupid. This is only true to a certain extent of course.

Firstly game developers should make game decisions based on what they want, that way you get individuality and creativity in games. However, when they follow certain trends, they can usually get out a few semi-decent titles at least. Look at Guitar Hero and Rock Band, for example, the creators saw what the consumers wanted and did it again. However if they keep repeating themselves, it will get really boring really quickly.

If Valve had bowed to the whims of a certain segment of their audience during Counter-Strike's development cycle, the AW/M would be dual-wieldable and bunnyhopping would restore health and deflect bullets.

Many gamers are terrible game designers. Don't ignore them, but also don't give them The Big Pen and tell them to just write down how the game should play.

On a side note, I can't be the only one who thinks including Yoda and Vader in a game ostensibly set in Earth's Reinassance era is patently absurd.

No, Wolf, but you might be the only one who doesn't think Soul Calibur is absurd full stop. Besides, we've had Link before now. ;)

On the note of Guitar Hero, that is one game system where just repeating the same thing over and over is actually EXACTLY what we want. What I want out of a new Guitar Hero is not a gimmick, not some spazzy inclusion that will ultimately ruin the game, I just want more songs. Ideally, I want songs by bands like Alestorm and Korpiklaani rather than Blink 182, but that's not going to happen; Aerosmith is a long way off, and it's as close as they'll come.

Wargamer:

Myself, I cannot help but think the fact Raiden went from Faggot to Awesome Ninja Death-machine in the transition from MGS2 to MGS4 is in part because of how much pure HATE Kojima and the Metal Gear Solid series received about Raiden.

Uh...did you have to use that word to describe MGS2 Raiden?