SimCity was the subject of much vitriol as a result of what many players perceived as an unneccasary online requirement for its single player mode.
In an interview with NowGamer, The Sims 4 associate producer Graham Nardone says that listening to feedback from fans is important and that Maxis are well aware of the importance of offline single player to their fans.
“As a studio we have a collective knowledge as we release things, collect feedback, see how things are done,” Nardone says.
“So one of the important things we say is, ‘hey! We’ve got a very compelling single player offline experience’, and we know that’s important for our sims fans. We’re going to deliver a fantastic single player title for them,” Nardone continues.
Elsewhere in the interview, Nardone explains the importance of feedback for The Sims 4 team and explains that he think it is important the industry is prepared to sift through fan vitriol in order to understand what they are saying.
“I just like having discussion with them because I think it really informs a lot of the decisions that we can make internally and we should be so lucky to have that kind of feedback that’s just given to us,” Nardone explains.
“We don’t have to go out and run a focus test because we’ve got this huge fanbase across the world that want to connect with us, they want to talk to us and they know what they want. They’ve been with our franchise 15 years, they know what they want to see in the next iteration of The Sims.”
“You do see those conversations in the industry, developers getting abused by people on Twitter and all the nasty comments thrown back and forth and I think as creators we have to understand people are going to throw out vitriol about things that they don’t like,” says Nardone.
“But we need to be able to see what their message is and what they’re really saying and then execute on what it is that they’re really trying to get across,” Nardone continues.
“Somebody might frame it in a nasty message, but what they’re really saying is, ‘I’d like this game to work this way’, and what can we do to come to a middle ground and give them something that they want?”
For more on interacting with fans, The Sims 4′s new features and stories of meteors at weddings, check out our full interview with The Sims 4 associate producer.
Source: NowGamer and BeyondSims