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Comment by bob1029 | Hacker News Reader

I feel even in gaming, the customer is always right at the end of the day. Unless we are talking about making games just for the sake of it & then throwing them away, but I suspect not.

That said, most of the time it is better to not interact with the customer until you are certain it is the right time. Transparency seems like more of a liability than anything here.

I strongly prefer the stealth mode development pattern, assuming you do have a clear & consistent vision relative to your market & customers. A lot of human feedback is bullshit, so avoid it until you actually need it. Most people don't know what they like until they are 20 hours deep into it. Don't give them time to build up ridiculous expectations relative to your product.

Think about the way EA games launched Apex Legends. I would prefer if every game studio went down that path.

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> I feel even in gaming, the customer is always right at the end of the day.

There are customers who are most definitely not right. The kind that cheat in online games, lie about it, dox you when you catch them. The kind of customer that tries to break into your systems or DDOS you. The kind that try to steal from you and your partners, or that harass other players, or that post pornography to your forums. The kind that make bots or thousands of fake accounts. The kind that build phishing sites and steal other customers' credentials, empty out their wallets and sell all of their assets.

It's a small proportion of customers that do this, but that's still a large enough number that it's a big deal. (Kindly don't respond, "Well, all you have to do is put technical measures in place to prevent all of this." You need to have been in the trenches dealing with them before you can have a valid opinion on mitigations).

The customer is not always right.

I can't find it now but I think a game developer wrote a while back what a game would be like if they listened to all customer feedback and it was a nightmare, it's like the homer designing a car episode of the Simpsons. I have to admit even sometimes my gut reaction to or a game or ideas would ultimately make the game too bloated / less fun.

> Then you have not dealt with real customers.

This is a very bold assumption. Do you want to try some nuance here?

Sure. I'll edit that down a bit.

I have a fair amount of experience dealing with the type of customer who is not great, and who would be great to get rid of. A net positive for everyone, if it were possible.

Most customers are great. Some are not. Some are essentially (or demonstrably) criminals. At scale, it's a huge problem and very difficult to solve. The platitude "the customer is always right" is a fine principle until you need to deal with the real world of fraud, criminal activity and harassment.

If you don't own a copy are you a customer?

With free to play being a huge gaming business model, not only do you not own games because they are more of a SaaS product, but most people don't even pay to be a "customer"

I haven't "owned" a game in like 10 years since I stopped buying CDs/physical media. All my games are digital, and I don't think you can really "own" software.

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