Legal Niches

Why Game Developers Should Avoid Their Own Forums

By james_fudge

Jeff Vogel, the lone proprietor of Spiderweb Software, offers some sage advice to other developers: never read your own forums. He backs up this rule with three reasons why it's not a good idea. Spider web Software makes the excellent Geneforge, Avernum, and Exile series of indie role-playing games for PC and Mac.

His first rule is "It's Not Productive To Read How Much People Hate You." A self-explanatory rule, but he offers a quote from a hater to back it up.

The second rule is "It's Not Going To Be Helpful." Vogel says that, beyond finding out about bugs in your game, the forum is a maelstrom of bad ideas - even from well intentioned users. "Forums contain a cacophony of people telling you to do diametrically opposite things, very loudly, often for bad reasons," says Vogel. Read More

read more

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on January 06, 2011 (boomark / email).