Why does GGG listen to top tier players on Reddit & not bother to do proper market research?

It's a bit ridiculous to suggest that the only people on Reddit are top tier players. I sometimes wonder if most of the people here who slag it off have ever actually used it.

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I'm really surprised that GGG never does surveys to see what a cross section of players think.
Considering it would be so easy for GGG to send random players a message with a survey to fill in - GGG is missing a golden opportunity that could be easily done in-house.
Chris Wilson places far too much importance on the opinion of the high tier players who use Reddit.
I work in marketing and one of the first things we learn is most customers are lost due to "perceived indifference" - ie why work hard attracting new customers when a quick "How can we make things better for you?" type contact with a customer can often make them stay and give you valuable information.
Eg I cant imagine many ordinary players who dont want to play the most stressful and difficult content - enjoy being ambushed by Betrayal mobs. I'm one of many who have quit the game I'd loved for many years because of it.

It would be interesting to see the results of such a survey....

But would it really accomplish anything? Think about it, GGG takes all their game improvement suggestions from their 1000 hour tester club who gets all of their information by watching the top 1% of players on Twitch. And those guys have this shit down to a science on how to abuse the system every single league making thing worse for the rest of us.

As a side note, I too have quit POE (finally had enough of the nerf hammer) but come back to the forums once in a while looking for signs of hope that the game is actually getting better.....

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If you wonder why I have posted this? Its because I watched the recent Chris Wilson talk - he talked about data - he talked about Reddit - but he did not mention doing any market research. As I work in marketing I was curious why GGG does not bother to use a system already at their finger tips.

because market research is garbage used to justify the existence of market research, they have stats for every facet of the game all the information they need is right there.

Asking people questions only gives you the answers they can actually answer, most users aren't actually interested or have very little experience in the questions being asked.

This thread and your others is basically grasping at a variety of straws in an attempt to justify betrayal not being included in core, i think you'd find that the lag aside (and the lag is a big problem) most really just don't care. I cared initially but as I have 0 deaths to betrayal encounters this league i'm assuming they are suitably nerfed to be irrelevant.

im pretty sure they just look at the player numbers for feedback.

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You say you teach maths - but you dont understand that making things up does not make them fact.

eg If you say 2 + 2 = 5 By your logic that makes it true.

Bizarre.

Are you sure you're in school studying anything? I think most everyone knows maths isn't a word by at least middle school. You've used it multiple times now, so it's not a simple typo.

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Analysing figures gives figures - People can make educated guesses from figures but they might not be correct or reflect the full story.

Eg maybe the colours and screen effects of a league causes many players to get migraines and quit. All figures will show is that players quit - Not why. If GGG knew players were quitting because of screen effects they would be able to adjust them.

This is only a marginally valid point. I think you underestimate how detailed the information is that they have on exactly what each player does. Anything that changes your character, every passive point you take, every item you find, how much time you spend in an area: these are all stored in the servers database which can be queried and analized.

That being said they do listen to players to get the information you are talking about because you are right it is important.

The real reason for this thread is that while GGG does listen they just don't obey the every whim of the players, and that is the biggest reason they have been so successful.

Players are dumb. That's right I said it, you are dumb, I am dumb, everybody on this forum or Redit is dumb. Players are like children, they ask for what they want, not for what would make the game better. The auction house thing is the perfect example of players asking for what they think they want and not understanding the long term consequences. GGG hears all the "We want an auction house!" yelling, but chooses not to just give people what they want, because yes they know better than you. (I'm not going to argue about the AH specifically, it's just an example.)

You can think that is a good thing or a bad thing, but GGG is betting on their own ability to design a good game. I personally think they've done a pretty great job even if Synthesis is a bit of a dud.