Does blizzard listen to the customer base in regards to wow?

[Hraklea]

Despite what people like to believe, "listening" doesn't mean "doing everythings the fans tell you to do".

[Osmeric]

Yes, they listen. That doesn't mean they slavishly obey.

[Deleted]

They listen.
They deleted dailies.
They gave player housing
They made dungeons give better rewards for replayability
They gave us a new world PvP zone we missed in MoP

They do listen. Listening to players and players liking the solution however.. not so much.

[Sam the Wiser]

They are forced to listen, otherwise no.

[Deleted]

I actually think they listen too much, and that's the problem.

[Gamestar]

Yes, but it takes them a very long time to react.

[Fang7986]

Do they listen? Yes. Do they do what the oft-well-meaning-but-completely-ignorant-of-the-realities-of-game-design players want? No.

no they listen to the players, but then the players who wanted something different then the players Blizz listened to throw tantrums and fits because they didn't get what they wanted. For every player Blizz pleases there's another who just got pissed off.

- - - Updated - - -

They listen too much for my taste... could use listening less.

I totally agree. I think the best thing that could happen to the game is for Blizz to make the game they want, and not listen to the players at all. Some players would leave but the ones who stayed would have a much much better game to enjoy.

[malgin]

Yes, it does...but in the way described in Wishmaster movie.LOL.

[MoanaLisa]

Yeah they listen but you have to factor in their lead time for an expansion for the bigger things. They're already working on the expansion after Legion so much of what they've learned from the last few months of Warlords won't likely show up until then.

I suppose that's why people don't think they ever listen but they do. It's a long, long process for a lot of things.

Personally I wish they would listen a little less. It's arguable that very much of anything truly lasting and good has come from pandering to players.

They can say they listen all they want. I want action. I have yet to see it.

Case in point. They may act but it's highly probable that you won't see much until after Legion. If Legion is good it's probably more of what they got from Mists than Warlords. There are really easy things that can be picked up right away, the distaste for dailies in Mists being the best example I can think of. It's easy to cut things out as we've seen very well. Much harder to react to feedback that requires a substantial design change to the game that quickly. It's their process so it's on them and everyone here knows that Blizzard is famously slow (or people should know that). So they could be faster but they would still guess wrong and it wouldn't be as polished. I don't know that that helps them.

[Deleted]

I think they listen but they only act whenever it is concerning things that they can achieve easily. I'm sure they know people want more dungeons, but since that actually involves putting in a lot more work, they won't do that.

[Osmeric]

Yeah they listen but you have to factor in their lead time for an expansion for the bigger things. They're already working on the expansion after Legion so much of what they've learned from the last few months of Warlords won't likely show up until then.

If the delay in a feedback loop in a control system is long enough, then actions to stabilize the system can instead destabilize it.

Blizzard REALLY needs to reduce the delay in their decision/action loop. I wonder if their consensus-oriented design approach is slowing them down.

[hrugner]

They do listen, but they live in the design world where the customer never asks for what they want but asks for what they think they want. Generally, this means reverse engineering their desire, finding where you haven't satisfied that desire, then developing a solution that works well with your intended design. In practice, this can mean ignoring customers that do know what they want and cramming shit into your already broken product. I feel like Blizzard has fallen into that trap a bit.

[MoanaLisa]

Blizzard REALLY needs to reduce the delay in their decision/action loop. I wonder if their consensus-oriented design approach is slowing them down.

Without question. They couldn't make a decision about flying without months and months of internal debate. It's slowing them down and there seems to be some kind of leadership problem. Consensus teams are fine but when a consensus is lacking, someone needs to be able to act. Gordion knots and all that. That should be pretty easy to fix. The game has a game director. One would presume that responsibility ultimately lies with him in situations like that. It's a responsibility that apparently wasn't exercised although that's just an opinion from someone outside looking in. We are all Kremlinologists in a way. We can see effects but not the machinery of how actual decisions get decided (or not).

Responding to player sentiment one-to-two years later is a losing bet in any event. Better to go with their gut and take the consequences. Their gut has served them well over the last couple of decades. Much better than pandering to players.

[Lime]

Yes, it would be silly not to. Although, they do seem to listen to bad apples every now and then.

[Phillytwo]

Yes they do they listen to their casual mass in most and thats exactly what gived us WoD.

Gave* 10chars

[Seezer]

They listen too much.

[Tristan Khan]

Yes they do. They listen way too much imo. I wish they would stop listening so much, and just make the game that they themselves would love to play.

[belleflop]

Of course they "listen" to their customers, any successful business does. Outside that very basic question, which is "yes", you will have individuals try to quantify (all,some, never) what "listen" is and what it means to them which is purely subjective.

They are subjected to capitalism like most other companies and are a publicly traded company with shareholders/customers. Outside the WoW bubble universe you can see their diversification of IP's is a clear indication that they are listening very well.
Perfect example: Hearthstone was clearing red month one after launch, it's just a cash cow now and I see it over taking WoW revenue within two years, easily! Overhead is super low, margins are through the roof.

[Osmeric]

Perfect example: Hearthstone was clearing red month one after launch, it's just a cash cow now and I see it over taking WoW revenue within two years, easily! Overhead is super low, margins are through the roof.

Do we really know what Hearthstone's revenue is? Didn't Blizzard lump its revenue with Destiny in their statement(s)?

[thilicen]

Is this another one of those "Blizz didn't take my suggestion so they are clearly ignoring every customer" threads?