Leading up to the new expansion launch in FFXIV we had some trial systems like the ability to travel between data centers in different regions and got some preliminary information on changes and planned new content. As always these changes are not welcomed by everyone as we all play the game differently, have different skill levels or favour different content.
The FFXIV developers are very good at listening to player feedback, and try to please as many people as possible, but who are the voices they are going to hear? In one of the Live Letter from the Producer Yoshi-P admitted that previously they jumped on the first feedback they saw, and then had to realise it was only the opinion of the minority.
For a long time I just played the game in silence and didn't pay much attention to social media activity, but since I'm a creator, if I want to stay in the loop I kind of have to. And what I noticed is, that the loudest voices on social media are 2 very marginal groups:
The very casual players, who mostly use the game for role playing activities, and very rarely engage with actual battle content. A lot of them are not able to work due and beside being at home all day, have their own troubles to deal with.
The professional gamers who mostly engage with the hard-core endgame content, do world first raid clears, are full-time content creators, and once again a lot of them play the game full-time.
But there is a huge part of the playerbase somewhere between these groups. Those people who have a job, family, and play maybe a couple of hours a day or not even every day, and definitely don't have time to post their opinions on social media. Their voices barely ever get heard.
An MMO like FFXIV is very different if you have the time to play all day and do all the content and if you just play it beside your job. I know this from experience, I was engaging with the game differently during lockdown and now that work full-time and try to make content on the side too.
So it got me thinking, who are the loudest voices in other gaming communities?
Is there a trend here in how much time someone has for the game?
How can we creators help to make the voices of the silent ones heard?
Where is the balance between providing enough content for the full-time gamers and not making the "casual" players feel like they can never catch up, or a content is not worth touching with the amount of time they can play?
Probably I should do a podcast on this, would anyone be interested to talk about their experience? (I have another podcast in mind as well 👀)
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