Why is Valve Not Listening to its Players?

Valve, one of the biggest game publisher in this century, is known for having a reputation of being very closed off and even seems “indifferent” to criticism and input from its fans. As we know, if we open a page or site that discusses Dota 2 or Counter-Strike:Global Offensive (CSGO) gameplay, there are indeed a lot of demands made by fans to Valve to make Dota 2 and CSGO’s gameplay suitable.

Responding to this, Valve often prefers to move in silence to solve these problems through updates they design and develop in such a way. Maybe if Valve responds directly to its demanding fans, Valve will just reply, “let updates do the talking”.

Well, this is not without reason done by Valve. Not because he is lazy and tired of responding to criticism and input from his fans, Gutam Barbar, one of Valve’s top development teams, explains why Valve often doesn’t respond or communicate directly with his fans so he is considered a cold publisher.

First, even though they don’t respond or communicate directly, Valve has its own team that regularly and periodically reads and monitors feedback submitted by fans on websites and online communities.

Second, the reason why Valve doesn’t want to reply directly is because Valve doesn’t want to seem like it’s always promising what its fans ask for. Often there is a focus on bigger problems that fans don’t see, forcing Valve to fix these problems from a different point of view. If it is already promising and Valve changes direction a little in its improvement so that it gives the impression that Valve has “broken promises”, that is precisely what will “erode the trust” of its own fans.

Third, input and criticism among the fans themselves often contradicts one another. In addition, their views are often inconsistent and change rapidly from time to time.

“So we tend to think about the communication strategies we will use during those difficult times. At that time, we didn’t think we could make customers happy just by “talking” to them. We have to develop and do an update to fix the problem. By keeping customer input fulfilled, and avoiding the promise trap, we are in a better position to be more flexible and make the best decisions for long-term products ”, said Gutam Barbar.

In the end, maybe we really have to turn over the improvements to the publisher itself and follow the progress of the developments. After all, if it doesn’t live up to our expectations, trust in Valve will continue to decline and Valve itself will suffer.

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