What is really making me sick is the lack of feedback from the company so far as we’re approaching 1 month mark since the release.
As a product manager I’m used to Agile Methodology (Scrum) which places the customer on the loop of every interaction during the product development. That align the client expectations and avoid misunderstandings between client/provider when the product is finally released.
Of course, the pool and the diversity of BG3 customers are ridiculously huge and this kind of interaction is impossible. That’s where the market research comes in hand as a VERY cheap solution. Objective surveys always come in hand to decide and remove that damn bias generated through navigating in communities.
I’ve paid upfront for the game early access in the sense that I’m investing in a game that sooner or later will be launched. I’ve played, analyzed, reached my own conclusions and I want to share my feelings in a objective way. It’s ridiculous to think that Larian is READING raw feedback captured on the internet in a qualitative way. That would make the worst market research in the world and I know what I’m talking about as I’m in this market for more than 10 years. I’m being very professional about it.
Hire a Market Research company, run the survey right away by building your questionnaire based on the subjects highlighted by the community and measure it. Enforce that the respondents can answer the survey only once by linking the email that is registered in the channel you’ve used to buy the game ( only early adopters ) . Now, analyze de data and present to the board.
Now you’re ready to make decisions whether to change or not the game directions.
They do both, they've shared some metrics they have built into their system, we don't know how deep or how much they have, but if they do a good job here they could have a treasure trove. They also at least in the past had a person gather all the feedback at all forums and they would analyze, sum it up and then present that to the team for consideration. As far as them getting back to us, they have at least once already, a little under a week in. Historically they have been pretty good at this, no they aren't one to act like they are working with you hand and hand with amazeball updates, but I felt they've been pretty good overall. We'll see, perhaps they won't update us, take the money and run and build a place next to Gave in New Zealand.
