Should they add a survey in-game?

[Dzian]

Believe it or not Forums do generally paint a "reasonably" accurate picture of the games wider community. There's been billions invested on research into consumer feedback and satisfaction trends that prove it.

From Another thread

These forums are terrible and do not reflect the FFXIV community.

Actually they do with a decent degree of accuracy. It's been proven time and time again, that's why people dont really throw around the old buzz words of "vocal minority" and such anymore becuase they've been proven to be bs.

People make the mistake of counting forum users as one sub set of the games player base and that's innacurate. The forum users consist of playrs from almost every subset you can imagine. Male, Female, Non Binary, Old, Young, Crafters, Gatherers, Casual players, Hardcore raiders, Speed runners, Role Players, Weekend warriors you name a sub set and there will be users of the forum who represent it.

What this does is it actually makes the forums a reasonably accurate representation of the playerbase as a whole.. Dissmissing the forums as a singular subset would be a big error and a common mistake.

A real world comparisson could be if I went to stand outside a Wallmart store and surveyed 1,000 customers about a chocolate bar... If the comon opionion opinion was it was flavorless you wouldn't dismiss that as just a Wallmart customers opinion. nor would you call it a "vocal minority" because the millions of people who didn't take the survey or dont shop at Wallmart must think the chocolate bar is amazing.

Companies have spent billions on consumer research and the results of all that rresearch often says that for every person that complains there's 25 people that share the same complaint but remain silent about it.

“Only 1 out of 26 unhappy customers complain. The rest churn. A lesson here is that companies should not view absence of feedback as a sign of satisfaction. The true enemy is indifference.”

Source

That last part is important and a mistake many people make. Silence or lack of feedback does not mean satisfaction or happiness. neither does participation..

You could take healers in XIV as an example. Lots of complaints Lots of silent people, Lots of people still playing healers...
You can not assume that all the people playing healer or are silent think the job is great..
the evidence shows that's just not true. Many will play the job simply because its needed by there groups or raid statics, Many just for faster queues on roulettes for tomes, other for completion sake. get every job to 90. many reasons.

So to dismiss the forums as an innacurate representation of the general playerbase is a huge mistake and one that many companies and games developers have learnt the hard way, All the consumer research proves that it's more likely to be accurate than not becuase forum users aren't a single subset.
It's the reason terms like "vocal minority" have died and no one with any sense uses them anymore.

The thing with a survey though is they'd really need to survey everyone if they wanted to get any meaningful data.
Not just currently active players but everyone who has dropped there sub or quit also.

For example: To make the game "less boring" you first need to understand why Players get bored so quickly and leave or quit playing.
Admittedly Players who have quit are less likely to provide answers but even if just 10% of them answered that'd give SE alot more valuable information than just asking the active playerbase at that time.

The first step to solving problems is to identify them. And who better to ask why the game is boring for example than players who have quit playing because its boring.. The same goes for a variety of other game issues.
I know many people who have quit because combat is just "weightless button mashing" and many more who have quit because the game is to braindead easy. you can afk and still win a solo instance.. and others who think the lack of a challenge detracts from the story.. OMG the world is doomed >> effortless roflstomp >> the world is saved... REALLY?!?!?!

Active players alone can't provide anywhere near enough information.