Why developers don't ask to the players fanbase before releasing a remake?

kremiso

Member
about what features they would like to see in a determinate remake, in general to grab useful infos;
i mean, at least to have an opinion from who really deep played the original title in first

majority wins no? why it doesn't happen?
 
That would be even worse. That's how you get stuff like wasting your best studio on a decade long slow motion triple FF7 remake. Fans are even more clueless than developers.

People making games should have their own vision.
 
The day creators (movies, music, games, etc) of any art form start asking me what I want them to make me is the day I no longer want anything from them.

That would be taking spineless and lack of balls to a whole new level. Let creators make what they want. If you like it, great. If not then that's fine too. Play/watch/listen to something else.
 
That would be even worse. That's how you get stuff like wasting your best studio on a decade long slow motion triple FF7 remake. Fans are even more clueless than developers.

People making games should have their own vision.

I think there is a healthy balance to strike. Fans don't always know what they want, but they often know what they don't want.
 
I think there is a healthy balance to strike. Fans don't always know what they want, but they often know what they don't want.
I'm honestly fine ignoring them entirely. They can buy or not buy. Only take the most minimal feedback possible from a conglomeration of all fans added together and filtered through a popularity / mob contest.

At most, read comments every once in a long while and maybe take a tip from a smart one here or there. At most. There are smarter people that can figure out game design.
 
The day creators (movies, music, games, etc) of any art form start asking me what I want them to make me is the day I no longer want anything from them.

That would be taking spineless and lack of balls to a whole new level. Let creators make what they want. If you like it, great. If not then that's fine too. Play/watch/listen to something else.

yea, but these creators of a lot of shitty remakes or remaster/ports whatever aren't making their vision or anything, just what the company tells them to do that's so detached from the fanbase or what made the original game good.
 
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How do you address the fanbase when its literally millions of people? What's to stop a noisy minority from dictating stuff just because they have an activist mindset?

Creatives need to follow their own vision, and trust that it lands with the audience.

I mean, everyone knows that "design by commitee" doesn't really work out well, so why would opening it out to people who mostly don't have a clue about the consequential nature of game design not result in worse?
 
The last thing I want is developers to ask the fucking dorks that have 1000's of hours in a game what they want. They're going to complain no matter what, and what they would want in a game likely isn't the same thing I would want.
 
Why MS didn't asked if gamers wanted xbox series?
The Grinch Smiling GIF by The Good Films
 
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Directly asking the playerbase about specific features/mechanics is usually the worst thing you can do as a developer. Many a game's balance and economies have been ruined by closely listening to the community. What gamers want and think they want can be very different.
 
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Asking doesn't mean 'just listen and do whatever the fanbase wants' Take it under consideration and see if its a viable implementation that fits the diagram of fans want, and can be put into the game without breaking.

But people asking this think its asking gamers. We saw that happened when companies tried to chase what they thought the 'fans' want and thought the vocal twitter population represented us and thought we wanted woke shit.
 
I have been on one project, and have seen another, where the design team hasn't played the original (or only the first level) and builds the remake from Prima Games strategy guides to save time, because the limited budget demands that in-engine development must start from Day 1.
 
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And don't blame them, the so called "fans" have no fucking idea what they want and most of the time just want to complain for sake of complain.

To be honest, I don't remember fans asking their games to be a fucking GAAS. I mean, they canceled a God of War live service, a Spider-Man live service...

So, I guess before someone here start to point fingers, we should agree that in modern days neither fans or devs know what they want.

Devs should have their libertity to be creative, not the liberty to do what that fuck they want and behave like a total 2 years old blaming consumers for their failures.

BTW, I'm not talking about japanese devs.
 
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That would be even worse. That's how you get stuff like wasting your best studio on a decade long slow motion triple FF7 remake. Fans are even more clueless than developers.

People making games should have their own vision.

Thats not true. Nobody asked for 3 parts.

7Remake sold good despite FF15 disaster.

Even if i choose to enjoy FF7R trilogy for what it is. If it where 1:1 with 1:1 ost it would've been a streak of 3 blockbusters, but they wanted to sell the 1:1 remake as a mobile game. And the remake as a sequel.

Thats not fans. Thats corporate.
(Tetsuya Nomura also did not want this)
 
if dev ask people before decision is made, it would be disastrous for them. because there are lot of fans, which means lot of ideas. and it will be hard to choose which one is good. and based on that, decision will be harder
 
Making a poll, or something in the vain, to gauge a community about opinions will often result in conflicting ideas and perspectives about what the final game should include/be like. That said, its worth harvesting samples or looking for constructive feedback "in the wild" on things during development. Developers are more likely to at least lend their ear if you lay out constructive feedback and suggestions. Life threats and similar is definitely not going to persuade anyone. They got enough BS to deal with already within their orgs.

I have been on one project, and have seen another, where the design team hasn't played the original (or only the first level) and builds the remake from Prima Games strategy guides to save time, because the limited budget demands that in-engine development must start from Day 1.
That's kinda f'ed up, man. I'm not down with remake culture, but someone should inform/persuade the higher ups that at least nailing the feel is important. Otherwise the respective fans will never let it go in a way or another. Nerds can be insanely pedantic and nitpicky.
 
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Let me help you.


'Creativity between the games core (God of War: Ragnarok sequel = Now roll and dashes will cost stamina. Now Kratos have a stamina bar)'.

'Changing God of War into fucking a racing game (Just because I took some liberties to make changes)'.
 
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1) Inconsistent feedback
2) People get mad if you ask and then don't do what they want
3) Gamers frequently don't actually know what they want
4) There are potential copyright issues when you solicit ideas for a game
5) The ideas gamers will give you are typically overly generic and likely something that already occurred to the dev team
6) Ideas from established fans is not always useful in reaching a new or broader audience with the IP
 
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People making games should have their own vision.
Hell yeah you are right.

A single individual can have the vision, the ideal of the game he wants to make. You start adding more people on top of that and the visions gets diluted into a generic game that we all have played a hundred times.

One of the reasons why eastern devs do better than wester devs. Over there they have their Kamiyas, their Hideos, their Miyazakis and so on. Over here we have games designed by a commitee of suits that know a lot about marketing and trends but not so much about videogames.
 
If games are art, they shouldn't care about what the audience wants. Also, most people in any company right now probably was a nerd of the company back in the day, played their games and could name a few improvements needed. New textures, new gallery, extra hard mode, fix some bugs and release.
 
Some games have fan bases that become gatekeepers and act like its their life's work. Some fan bases have loud and very stupid fans. Some fan bases demand X and Y even when it has little to nothing to do with the game or its world.

Sometimes listening to the "fans" can be a fatal decision for the game. Doesn't have to be a remake either, just look at all the "represent me" crowd that then get diagnosed with closed wallet syndrome come release.

Silent Hill 2 Remake was the last one that had some fans worried, but Bloober Team did an unbelievable job. I do think, if they listened to some of the so called "fans", it wouldve been so empty, soulless, and just a game made from bullet points.

Of course, I am not implying it's always best to ignore fans, but the source material is the more important.
 
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