Thoughts on player feedback in Video games

Feedback is information about reactions to a product, a person’s performance of a task, etc. used as a basis for improvement. It is essential to listen to every feedback, either negative or positive. the responses or feedback will help you grow your product. Today ill give my thoughts on player feedback for video games.

There are two types of feedback: negative (we called it criticism), and the other is positive. in video games, both inputs play an essential role. The Designers of the game need to listen to every feedback from players. But designers can’t make all the changes given in the input because this thing is never-ending; someone will disagree with some part of the game. This thing can swing both ways; it will boost your game like “God will be watching.” in this game, they listen to the feedback and implement some things in new mercy update, and they achieve the 70% positive response.

A similar kind of thing happens with the half-life 2 team. They balanced the survival part for the game in new updates with the help of feedback. player liked it and gain positive feedback.

In doom eternal, they did not Study on the feedback from the players, and they face criticism. Actually, there is one fight between the doom slayer, and Marauder and Marauder are little overpowered in the game. They give the instructions so that instructions will help you kill Marauder, but that is not enough; that’s why they face criticism.

Ryan Schneider brand manager insomniac games

say

“That’s something we learned the hard way over the years. Just because you see it online and see it the forums that don’t necessarily represent the majority viewpoint.”

Responding to feedback is not an easy task because designers and developers have to consider so many things. If the feedback is real or not, how can you know? In this situation, telemetric data will help you. You have all the players’ data with you, like how many players are active how many stages they cleared what buttons are clicking how difficult the game is and many more. These data will help you to do better things in your game. The designer should go deeper into the problems to get a solution to the issues. Sometimes, feedback can destroy the game, so if this thing didn’t want to happen with the game, you can build communication with the players, ask them the problems, and explain why this mechanics is essential to the game why we can’t remove it. I agree with Edmund Mcmillen (Designer Super meat boy, The Binding of ISAAC).

As per me these points game designer and developer has to consider:

• Don’t listen to minority data will help you.

• Identify problems, not solutions.

• Don’t let changes ruin your game.

• Create a conversation with your players.

• Always analyze data of the game.

Some point I agree with this quote by David Bocek.

DAVID BOCEK

GAME DESIGNER, RESPAWN

Say

"As a designer at some point, you just have to be brave. You can't shy away to make any major changes just because a subset of players may dislike it, or you will never ship anything interesting, and your game will become stale."