Quote Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi View Post
Square-Enix never listens to player feedback, even during beta tests, otherwise they would have not released V1.0 at all. While they do seem to listen to PR embarrassments, eventually, just go look at anything else they release for the PC. Buggy, ugly, and broken, and not even a "Sorry we will do better and fix it." Even the Mac Version of FFXIV, completely fumbled.

Either Square-Enix employs no beta testers, or their beta testers are afraid of actually reporting anything that might be seen as "this is a bad design", and can only report things like localization errors (which is in fact how most english-language versions of Japanese and Korean games are during beta tests.)




This is a kind of millennial type of "I'm a snowflake, I'm important, I'm entitled to be heard" type of opinion that many people think their opinion matters to a large company. Reality check, unless you are helping their bottom line (eg MrHappy, MTQcapture on youtube) you will never have the ear of the developer.
I don't think us "special snowflakes" really believe that SE cares about our individual opinions. No large origination does unless you're a high net-worth/seriously influential customer. The point is though, when your customers don't feel like you care about them, they get dissatisfied and upset. Unhappy customers spread negative PR, stop using your services, and will not recommend you to their associations. That's bad for business.

All kinds of companies across diverse industries are interacting with customers on a more personal level than ever due to social media- it's in their best interests to keep up a rapport and accept customer feedback in all kinds of ways. The company I work for scans social media posts made to them every day to look into problems customers encounter. Not all of them can be solved and some take longer than customers like to be fixed. In the end, though, it builds good-will and gives customers a place to feel like they'll be heard. Since game companies live and die based on the user experience, it's probably in SE's best interest to at least let us know they're listening. Having a formalized feedback process like Vhailor suggested is a great way for customers to provide input without requiring SE to read each and every report; you can scan for key words and phrases based on categories customers select to get a sense of where you can improve things. And customers have a way to directly interact with the company, even though they won't get individualized attention.

Talking with senior management and developers is also good. The UI developer's post on technical limitations was fantastic! Even though I don't like what they did to the expanded inventory view, now at least I understand why they did it and have some sympathy. They don't want to be constrained like that, but they did the best with what they had. Controversial changes large and small need to be addressed. A lot of people on the forums have expressed concern about what Eureka means for the future of the game. A few (yours truly included) have expressed worry that the game will not try to break out of the ARR formula going into 5.0. Our concerns could be allayed a bit if we felt like our opinions were being heard and considered.

A related example I have is from Riot, the company behind League of Legends. I haven't played the game in years since I burned myself out. But I have a ton of goodwill for the company and pass on the positive experience when I can because of their level of customer interaction. Pendragon (one of the very senior people at the company) directly asked me for my input on their new (now current) forum design and colour scheme because I had championed for a dark theme due to medical reasons. I critiqued, they listened. They rebuilt their new forums from the ground up based on what the community wanted to see too. In general they respond to player concerns and explain rationale for changes in a way that I deeply appreciate. They don't balance based on collective player feedback, but they account for the user experience at all levels and the game is that much better for it. SE can take a page from their book when it comes to interacting with us - they don't have to bend over to every demand or directly thank every player for submitting feedback. But having a two-way conversation instead of leaving players to rant and rave on various discussion platforms does a lot for customer good-will that can't be accounted for in the game itself.