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

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Of course GGG knows best what can and cant be done and what impacts could be.


But when Chris Wilson - the leader of GGG admits he bases decisions on what a streamer said or what Reddit says - Its very concerning for ordinary players like me. And working in marketing - I'm really shocked that an on-line game who could easily send out surveys by the click of a button - Doesnt bother to do it to engage with ordinary players ie the majority of its customers.

Thats most likely not going to work the way you are hoping for.
Sending out surveys doesnt make sure everyone is replying - in fact just a small fraction will participate. And thats not the casuals players but the die-hard fans.
The interests of the die-hard faction might not align with yours. So be careful what you wish for. Such a survey will be biased as hell for sure and wont show the results you are hoping for - most likely not.

Also you should totally understand why Chris is doing it as you described - he even says it: The vast majority of players will never get so see the super lategame stuff, which is why they are watching streamers. So if there wasnt content, that ordinary players cant get access to or cant handle themselves, then no one would watch the streamers.
And those streamers are generating free PR. 100% free, available 24/7 round the clock.
Since you are working in marketing, you should understand why this is important and why this wont change anytime soon.

So the name of the game is:
Generate content for streamers - keep them hooked and entertained, so they keep playing, which generates free PR and will attract new players, which is potential revenue and growing the market share of the game.
The bigger your market share, the more free press coverage a new league/expansion is going to get and this will obviously attract new players as well.

Its not about keeping players happy, its about growth.
You can disagree with this goal all you want, doesnt change the fact you are not in charge and you are not calling the shots.

Given GGGs overall success you shouldnt expect major changes to their business model anytime soon. They will continue trying to grow the game for as long as they possibly can. As someone else already said: They have all the relevant numbers.
As long as more new players are joining than veterans are quitting GGG does it right from a business point of view.

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I mentioned Betrayal as an example - But I am no liar and posted this after watching the Chris Wilson video and being shocked that he admitted to forming a business strategy based on what a Streamer said and what Reddit users say.

What so you can't listen to a streamers advice, even if its good advice, because its a streamer? Also I'm pretty sure your adding the reddit bias yourself he mentioned reddit getting mad later on but it was unrelated.

The irony in all this is that the video has the answer you are desperately trying to avoid why do it? Because it works, they have the best release model of any F2P model game i've played and despite the fact its an outdated pos that looks like it was modeled out of potato letters it has actually been growing.

No business gives a fuck what its consumers want while its growing cause if it aint broke don't fix it.

don't you play forever exile?

on the topic on matter anyway, because streamers control this game from the economy to builds.. GGG knows streamers will do publicity for them so yeah the game is balanced and mostly made for them, the rest is easy more income for GGG from new players cuz their fanbois are easily baited into throw money easily so they look like their favourite streamer.

3 weeks playing the game btw I kinda figured everything out almost.. yet some game mechanics elude me.. for now.

This thread feels like a bash on Betrayal veiled by a request for GGG to take more input from the player base.

If not, my mistake and here is my commentary on the suggestion which echos what many have said in this thread: players may think they know what they want, but they certainly don't know what they need when it comes to making a successful long lasting game. One simple look in the suggestions section reveals a horde of what I consider to be bad ideas but the person suggesting it likely thinks it is good (and it may very well be good, who am I to say?).

There are times where GGG has appeared to be stubborn beyond comprehension. As an example, their stance on desync years ago and the majority of the game remaining on the server to avoid easy client side exploits. For years, players dealt with desync which for some made the game unplayable. The easy answer would have been to move away from the game residing on the server and the client doing its best to mirror; and toward the game trusting the client more.

I would argue that time has vindicated them on this matter as lockstep being introduced largely removed the issue, and they never compromised to what I feel was the majority of the player base -- which would have opened the door to a ton of exploits/cheats.

We don't know their vision. I would argue they are not even stubborn to their vision completely. As an example, I'm convinced that Bestiary was meant to go into the core game immediately as it was designed, but they heard the community and didn't put it in immediately. Now they still stubbornly stuck to finding a way to get it into the game but in a manner that might be better received. I also think the community was wrong on this matter but to each his own. In this particular situation, they found a way to stick to their vision and listen to the player base. Win/Win.


Now if this is a veiled thread about Betrayal (I think it is), then I would argue that betrayal is just a more complex and rewarding version of Anarchy (rogue exiles) going core. Exiles are largely a non-factor now, but they were. Early on, running into Igna Phoenix, Xandro Blooddrinker, Vickas Giantbone, or Magnus Stonethorn was a turn and run moment. You might argue that they don't jump out right on you, but Magnus' Flameblast started offscreen at the time and god forbid the map had increased cast speed or AOE....that was a death sentence with him. Look at them now. Not even a speed bump in our wake of death. Hell, I would argue Betrayal now is easier than the hard Rogue Exiles were back then.

Deleted.

Wasn't there an official poll for nets in Bestiary?

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Slaanesh69 wrote:

Wasn't there an official poll for nets in Bestiary?

Yes and people freaked out because of this poll...

To be fair market polling or surveys work better on BINARY decision points.

For example if I made a new soft drink, I can easily create a valuable survey for this because the end goal is one of two things: People either drink the soft drink or don't.

You can gain valuable information through simple bubble-in questionaires to determine why people did or did not enjoy your drink.

The problem with POE and a marketing survey is that the issues in this game are multi-faceted and not binary.

You can't simply ask people "why did you quit?" The multitude of fill-in-the-blank responses would be impossible to parse through to forumulate reasonable changes to the game.

You could also create a survey with "common complaints" for a directive question i.e.:

Why did you quit the game?
a) Lack of map drops
b) bored of the league mechanic
c) color scheme of the league gives me headaches.
d) could not six-link chest after 7 billion fusings
e) other

The problem here is that there is a good chance that the reason some people quit, will not be in this series of choices. There must be an "other" option to allow players to fill in their reason which takes you back to the original problem.

Well why can't we just take the statistics of options A,B,C and D and make changes? Well if you are talking about sample size polling for information, you are already taking a fraction of a fraction of a player base to help make a decision that will affect everyone. Often times polling like this becomes unreliable because people will select options that may not pertain to their actual experience in game.

For example lets say 35% of the people polled say "Lack of map drops" made them quit.

First ggg would have to evaluate if many of these players selected the option because it was the first choice (typical for survey styles like this for people who don't understand the question or don't care about it).

GGG then has to evaluate map drops as they relate to EVERY aspect of the game to see if changes can even be made. How does it affect the economy? Does it stagnate trade? Will those players that now make less money from trading quit if we increase the drop rates too much?

At what point are players lacking maps? On average are these players quitting at white, yellow, or red maps? What is the propensity for this player to play into yellow/red maps in previous leagues (comparative analysis)?

Polling data for multifaceted issues with a game almost always has sketchy results and could provide a completely wrong direction for diagnosing a solution for an apparent problem.

The best way for GGG to actually change the game is to make changes, see how the "overall" reaction "feels" and adjust accordingly. Hence, why they seem to employ that method already.

It is impossible to make everyone happy. GGG knows this... all they can do is rely on a general "flow of the river" to make sure they make as many people as happy as possible.

You think the melee changes next league would be happening if everyone was clearly not happy? You think GGG would have buffed maps earlier this league if the reddit/forum dissent wasn't present? Likely not.

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But when Chris Wilson - the leader of GGG admits he bases decisions on what a streamer said or what Reddit says - Its very concerning for ordinary players like me. And working in marketing - I'm really shocked that an on-line game who could easily send out surveys by the click of a button - Doesnt bother to do it to engage with ordinary players ie the majority of its customers.

I see, you are less worried about the results and more interested in the methodology here.

There is a lot of speculation that can be done here including GGG's view of how trustworthy that kind of feedback is, how difficult it is for a small company to transition into a mid-sized company and change it's culture and practices accordingly.

The reason that jumps out at me though is that GGG's business model is different than most companies. The free to play model means just pushing installs does not directly make GGG any money. GGG gets all it's money from supporter packs which means that it's revenue is driven by the hardcore base who buys those packs on a regular basis. Supporting the more casual kind of player who never spends any money isn't in GGG's interest. What is in their interest is talking to the heavier users and finding out what they like/dislike about the game and how to entice more of the same kind of player.

That is why surveys and other standard market analysis tools are not used; it's because GGG is marketing to a non-standard group of customers.

I know casual players don't like hearing this, but it is the way of any business to cater to money, not people.