Something I’ve noticed from working in a big company is that people consistently fail to predict the backlash that their policy changes will cause.
They often don’t even care all that much about the change, and if you point out that people will be upset, they agree that it’s not worth it. They just can’t relate to the people they are impacting.
The problem with this in the games industry is that usually those decisionmakers are the ones with the power, but aren’t (or are barely into) games themselves.
The ones warning of backlash are often QA, and often don’t get listened to. Then when the backlash inevitably happens it’s all “we are sorry, we couldn’t have known, all the feedback was positive”.
The ones warning of backlash are often QA, and often don’t get listened to. Then when the backlash inevitably happens it’s all “we are sorry, we couldn’t have known, all the feedback was positive”.
I wouldn’t say that it is a problem with the games industry but managers, sales & marketing people everywhere when they make bad decisions. Those kinds of jobs just attract very egocentric and self-serving people who don’t know how to listen and try to shed blame whenever possible.
I didn’t say it is a problem with the games industry itself (actually there are probably more people in game dev invested in a game being good than say, those working in app development), but was just pointing out how it often manifests in the industry and makes it such a common occurrence.
To be fair, you only hear about a company failing to predict the backlash if there actually is big backlash. Who knows how many times have correctly predicted a lack of backlash when doing something shitty.
Something I’ve noticed from working in a big company is that people consistently fail to predict the backlash that their policy changes will cause.
They often don’t even care all that much about the change, and if you point out that people will be upset, they agree that it’s not worth it. They just can’t relate to the people they are impacting.
The problem with this in the games industry is that usually those decisionmakers are the ones with the power, but aren’t (or are barely into) games themselves.
The ones warning of backlash are often QA, and often don’t get listened to. Then when the backlash inevitably happens it’s all “we are sorry, we couldn’t have known, all the feedback was positive”.
I wouldn’t say that it is a problem with the games industry but managers, sales & marketing people everywhere when they make bad decisions. Those kinds of jobs just attract very egocentric and self-serving people who don’t know how to listen and try to shed blame whenever possible.
Oh for sure, I agree entirely.
I didn’t say it is a problem with the games industry itself (actually there are probably more people in game dev invested in a game being good than say, those working in app development), but was just pointing out how it often manifests in the industry and makes it such a common occurrence.
To be fair, you only hear about a company failing to predict the backlash if there actually is big backlash. Who knows how many times have correctly predicted a lack of backlash when doing something shitty.