The biggest conundrum of the gaming world isn’t whether video games inspire real life violence or the ongoing console wars. It’s not controversy about Fat Princess being, well, fat either. Honestly, gaming has always been about the relationship between fans and developers—the semantics of when a company should listen and when they shouldn’t.

It’s about the acknowledgment that a company can be right and wrong; the realization that change isn’t always a bad thing, but isn’t always good either. And the simple fact that the angry lynch mobs of gaming should not always be heard.

Let’s face it, if developers always listened to angry gamers on the soap box nothing would get done. Games would be delayed indefinitely and some of the best ideas would never see the light of day. At the same time, if companies totally ignored gamers as a whole, they wouldn’t get any money. They wouldn’t be able to pay their rent, or feed their kids.

It’s a fine line to walk. Do it right and you may have the Orange Box; do it wrong and you’re looking at Hellgate London complete with a shipwrecked studio.

(Look I’m sorry, but the puns for Flagship Studios going under are way too hard to resist.)

Fans are a particularly rabid bunch. There are different categories and different reactions of fans; the possibilities and reactions are endless. This isn’t to say gamers are an indelibly ruthless lot out to get developers. It’s just that they’re picky and hard to predict. That old saying your grandmother used to drill into your head about one man’s trash being another’s treasure is particularly apt to describe gaming preferences of gamers. Someone might hate Real Time Strategy and another person would love to set fire to all Japanese inspired Role-playing Games. They’re biased by personal preference and always looking to be heard. Frequently, the most critical gamer is the most vocal. While some of us see our likes and dislikes for what they are, others amongst us aren’t very self-aware. Others demand instant gratification for all titles, regardless of genre and style. Even if they didn’t like any FPS prior, they expect to like Half-life 2 and are angry when they don’t.

My boss always tells me the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I’m pretty sure my whole company operates by that. We’re a small video gaming company and, while we won’t be making Final Fantasy XIII or anything big, I’m inclined to think that mentality translates into bigger companies as well. It seems like it’s the Western way; a way where the customer is always right and customer satisfaction matters. And if you don’t believe me? Just try it. I dare you to start complaining today. Send anyone enough hate mail and you’ll get some sort of nod–just don’t send it to us here at Girls Don’t Game, please.

Now of course, the nod won’t always be pleasant. That’s the struggle and the point of this article. Game companies don’t always have to bend over backwards for the gamers and they’re beginning to realize it—for better or for worse. Sometimes their nod will actually be a thinly veiled, exasperated shake of the head and shrug of the shoulders. Over fifty thousand people signed the online petition for Diablo 3’s art style euphemistically titled “Renewed Artistic Direction for Diablo 3 Petition,” but Blizzard today announced that it had no intentions of listening to any such suggestions. People will undoubtedly be upset their voice went hoarse for naught, but can anyone actually blame Blizzard?

In reading the petition over a few times, it becomes clear that its writers had too much agenda for their few valid points to be digested properly. The majority of it was fluff—angry fluff—being thrown in the light of the spotlight announcing the new Diablo development for the first time. Fifteen minutes of fame and all that. The petition authors were angry that the first few glimpses of their Diablo Universe were bright and contained “colorful vegetation shinny [sic] and beautiful waterfalls where even rainbows take place.” Never mind that the trailer was dark and brooding, or that many levels of the game were obviously not shown or even done. They also completely forget the fact that many areas of Diablo 2 were actually light and included traipsing through grassy fields slaughtering hordes of mobs–trust me, lately I’ve been replaying the game, I’d know.

Seriously–the game was dark, but it wasn’t that dark. Further grievances from the petition included that Diablo 3 featured “cartoonish and unrealistic weaponry,” “oversized weapons…that look pasted directly from World of Warcraft.” Apparently we were shown a lot of weaponry and armory, but I must have missed it or something in all of the pretty and light-hearted graphics. I also suspect that they didn’t just paste in renders, because if Blizzard can afford over nine thousand specialized artists and pay Game Masters for World of Warcraft, they can probably afford one or two people to render new armor and weapons for a new title. Disregarding that idiocy, the petition went on to nicely finish proclaiming that “Diablo is not Warcraft” in case the developers didn’t know.

Because, I mean, it’s not like Blizzard is designing and making the game now is it? They didn’t invent Warcraft and Diablo or anything either, right? I mean, if Arthas isn’t killed in Wrath of the Lich King, and if Cain somehow survives Diablo 3, maybe Blizzard can make Warcraft 4 feature those two boys chilling in a new world that isn’t Sanctuary or Azeroth. Santeroth sounds pretty good, but we’ll see.

How’s that for terrifying? Shaking in your poorly pasted rendered boots yet? Well, don’t worry, Blizzard won’t do this solely because of a petition. A petition with fifty thousand signatures. A petition that will change the face of gaming.

Oh, come on! Get real. I’m sick of fans dictating poor choices as if they are the see all and know all’s of every video game. The Playstation slogan was and still is, “Play in our world, live in yours,” and truer words have never been said. Ultimately it’s the developer’s world and we just choose to play in it. We may have some say, but we’re not the kings and queens. Just because the princess is obese in Fat Princess doesn’t mean that you get to overthrow her for the day and rearrange the game to your standards in a self-important, arrogant way.

Yes, I’m talking to the woman who put a picture of herself flipping Sony the bird on the internet, proclaimed the whole company was a bunch of misogynists, and was then surprised at the backlash and flames.

Still, sometimes gamers have some good ideas. Parasite Eve 3 was announced as an upcoming title for cellphones months and months ago. Naturally, the outrage was pretty prolific and no fan took no for an answer. But why should they have? Square-Enix was basically spitting on a series that helped them build to their Final Fantasy fame, milking a tired cash cow. A unique blend of survival horror and RPG, PE and PE2 really brought a lot to the table than a cheap mobile phone game. It’s a series deserving of a real installment, not an imitation. Today it was finally announced they were removing the cellphone aspect and making it a fully dedicated title for the Playstation Portable. So it’s not the Playstation 3, or the Xbox 360–who cares! They listened to their fans and now [mostly] everyone is happy.

This week past, Valve listened to its fans as well. They stepped in and made some quick adjustments to the Pyro from Team Fortress 2. As someone who plays that game way too much, I have to commend them. They listened to the imbalance outcry on forums, they saw it for what it was, they evaluated its severity, and then they fixed it. By removing the extra health gained from the Pyro’s unlockable weapon, they brought back Soldiers as a viable class and made the Medics a little less terrified of the behemoth that was the fully achievement clad Pyro chasing you down the corridor. It was a classy move from a classy company.

Ultimately, it’s a balancing act. You win some, you lose some. Gaming companies have to stand their ground, but at the same time know when to cave. It’s hard. While fan based petitions aren’t always a terrible thing—look at Resident Evil’s petition for returning Albert Wesker’s voice actor as a proactive, well-thought out declaration—sometimes they can be avoided. Change isn’t always better, even though every game that’s released could always be improved. The point is they’re coming out, they’re usually good, and gaming is getting more and more perfected upon release.

In the end, just don’t let your personal biases control you if you’re a gamer. If you don’t like Role-playing Games, stay away from Final Fantasy XIII or the new Star Ocean. Save all of us a few hours of angry rants; you won’t change a single game by yourself, let alone a genre. If you’re a developer, realize that you can’t make everyone happy, but that doesn’t mean you get to ignore everyone’s complaints. Sometimes, once in a blue moon, something will be said that will completely change everything—in a good way.

Now, Bethesda, I want to talk to you. Yeah, you see, it’s about that Fallout 3 time freezing gig we saw in E3 (this one). Let me just say it sucked and I’d like you to remove it.Will you remove it? Please? This girl wouldn’t mind if sniping were actually, you know, real-time. Like a real FPS. Like a real challenge. Like a good game. Like one I’ll buy.

Oh, who are we kidding? I’ve already preordered the collector’s edition. Just be a nice company and don’t make me regret spending some of my paycheck on you.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 at 3:22 pm and is filed under Game Design, Editorial, The Bitch is Back. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.