Known this for awhile, chatted with some nice devs and some not so nice devs (Retro hates hates hates us speedrunners/game breaking types)

*looks around*

Are they watching me right now....?

Might as well try my luck:

HEY, PR PPL! I HATE PAID DLC! MAKE IT FREE!

... did it work!?

This just in - developers do too.

Since when did people think pr people didn't have internet?

Hire me! Right now! I'm an artistic genius! 100% Platinum!!

As long as you pay me a lot, lot, lot of money. =D

Come on Devs. You know you want to.

Question is, are they watching the people who've said they downloaded GTAIV? And will Kotaku give out the IP addresses if Rockstar asks?

You mean anyone will be able to read my comments that I posted on here?

Nooooooooooooooo!!!

I wonder what it felt like to be a Sony rep when people where slamming the PS3 after the launch.
Or the MS rep that was reading all those RROD stories.

Big Brother? Is that you? o.O

@SkutSkut:

Just out of interest, why would a dev dislike those who speedrun through their games? Surely speedruns open another avenue of gameplay keeping the same title fresh for longer?

I don't believe that! My comments aren't important to PR people!

Really bad news.
I think we have to encode our comments, to avoid these unsuspected readers. We can codified the consoles, we can call "Ham" to Wii, "Fanta" to XBox360 and "Watermelon" to PS3.

I have read somewhere that a Ham is 2 Spoons ductaped togueter with only gimmicky games, that Fanta overheat and that theres not enough games to run on Watermelons.

What I hate about Ham is that you have to pay to play multiplayer (is free everywhere else), and that is soo closed you can't use mods on Oblivium and If you change your HD, you break the warranty (it don't break the warranty of the Watermelon).

@mrrobsa: ... and reveal broken bugs that should have been discovered and killed during production, not after the games has been released on the shelfs... only takes 1 person to make a video and show how its doen for eveyoen to abuse and ruin the entire game as it was meant to be played. ITs nto something you woudl like, in case you had been working on something for days/months/years ruined in minutes.

Here's one for you PR people: I never buy a game with less that 10 hours single player. It's just not acceptable. Why are all top 360 games shorter and easier than top Wii or DS games? It doesn't make sense to me.

@Tei: grr.. *error* the latest Ham reference was a reference to Fanta.

@Lov3: Its because Wii games lack in the online multiplayer department.

@Tei: I think you gave away the secret code names to devs and PR people. ;)

Do they watch me all of the time :D?

I'm giving you the finger if you can't see it Hideo - you ruined MGS!

That's cool and I never did know that really, hopefully they'll actually go the next step and start asking for peoples opinions on subjects. Good idea's for games, characters, how to improve a series of theres etc.

I hope they don't just listen to a bunch of mindless posts too.

Shhhhhh - but some game publisher PR people post in forums too...

You never know who's on the other end of that keyboard.

Please be to making more Final Fantasy Games that go along the lines of FFII(FFIVJ), FFIII(FFVIJ). Please erase from my memory every other FF game after VII, kthxbye.

@Cchrist: They didn't like the fact that we caught stuff they didn't, that's why there's 3 different versions of Metroid Prime, average joe won't notice a thing but so many sequence breaks were removed from greatest hits it's basically a different game.

Some were cool about it and enjoyed it, and like the SDA staff says most of thier mail from devs is positive.

@Shiryu:
To be honest I don't think any software is entirely bug free so I wouldn't hold it against a dev if some speedrun guy found an exploit. The only people who will find out about this via internet videos will be the ones that go looking for it and fair play to them I say.
I've made games in the past and if people went back through them in a speedrun utilising exploits or whatever I wouldn't mind, I'd just be happy people were playing my game. I don't see why a professional dev team would think otherwise.

i bet they even hire people to talk good about their games too, and talking about games isnt that new gta 4 game going to be awesome?

Yea, but.. do gamers know about forums?

Maybe only a really small minority is posting and replying. The "most verbal guys". Maybe most gamers don't use forums. So you don't know what Average Joe think, but what Mr Internet Random Guy think. Different guy!.

@badasscat: Oh i KNOW they are.EA are amongst us here with their comments now and then,trying to keep a low profile.
Evil walks amongst us i tell you, RUN for your lives!

They are taking detailed notes of your every "LOL", "meh", and especially your "*fap fap fap*"s.

+ Watch video

We're not people to them, just voices... idiot fanboy voices...

Maybe they should give us a forum designed for the community to talk in. It'd be a lot easier than checking every fanboy infested forum.

Yes,it's true..Most companies have people/comm mgrs checking blogs/forums and there are here in Kotaku too.It's the top blog to check.4-5 million uniques in a day? Yeah that's a easy call.I have some in my friends too.;)

Good, I'm glad they are reading it. Maybe they will pull their heads out of their asses on a few things.

@badasscat: Known some folks who made good money doing that as a job. Then again, when your 9-5 is "maintain message board presence in case we need to use you to shill product," any money is good money.

Funny bit, though, is when they'd call me to tell them what ______ was actually like, as opposed to whatever talking point they'd been arguing.

LOVE making a difference.

Please make Legend of Dragoon sequel, for it would make me buy a PS3 the second it's announced.

Go! Go! Go!

Programmers!.. stop reading forums!, go back to the code!. *get whip* Back!, Back!...

@Shiryu: They apparently filter out words, like free and "I hate ads".

If they are listening then hopefully better games will be made. Unless they are listening only to see which ads to put in games.

@badasscat: Ah! Gad! You KNOW! Now i will never be able to release Daikatana 2!

I will get you for this badasscat if it's the last thing i do!

Awesome. Encourage posters that being whiny assholes on the internet gets results. Win-win.

I said something on Kotaku once about Boarderlands and got a personal response from the President of Gearbox. So yes, keep in mind people read these comments.

@Tei: ouch, stop it, that hurts.

On to the topic: this has actually been a long time fact, a couple of game companies that I have worked at have hired people in the Sales department to sign up for every possible message board and spread good publicity about the game in the weeks leading up to it shipping. Hell, we even have everybodys most hated lawyer who has posted here.

The evil empire is just that evil, they really can't be stopped, the only thing to be thankful for is the fact that, at least they aren't sending ads into our dreams.

...yet...

Well, we have the power to change things. It IS our money theyre after, innit? If they don't listen (like SONY in Europe) they may end up with a warehouse full of unsold goods. Truly, I fell misstread by the industry as a whole. IF they would REALLY listen to gamers, there a lot of stuff going on out there that would be considered a mistake on the drawing board, not months after it was done.

Here's one. Hey PR people!!! Remember when EA was called Electronic Arts and not just EA? Their games werent terrible. I remember. Make others remember to by making a freaking new Mutant League and Road Rash. Seriously. Stop making more maddens and ever year just put out a big DLC content that the Madden-tards can buy so we dont have to look at huge banners in stores. You can put out a new game every 5 years when you change engines but for serious, Just changing players names and teams doesnt warrent another disc to be printed.

More Mutant League and Road Rash please.

After research looks like EA released it on PSP as part of EA replay. Um. Gunna have to go acquire that.

I have found that users lack imagination, and all ask the same (boring) things.

Users can't think revolutionary, only think evolutionary.

If you follow user suggestions, your system will evolve and evolve, but never break the BFW

Also, seems users want things to improve very limited aspect of the games. Not only users lack imagination, but the scope of what could be improved is limited. Users may never ask about enhancement of usability on a horrible menu, but will always ask for more skin options.

You can also have different types of users. You could have users that want more eyecandy, and other less eyecandy. You can't follow all directions, but your own direction.

Is nice and all to read what user think. But ultimatelly, you sould follow your design decisions. Even If everybody else think your are wrong. Design by commite is doomed.. a forum is another commite.

To Whom It May Concern,

Please PLEASE put Gunstar Heroes on XBLA. That is all.

Signed,

Me

Nah we're safe. I'm sure all the developers and PR analysts just spend their time browsing the Maximum Risky tag.

Suggestions? No one cares about suggestions, just opinions. Well, not even opinions. Reactions would be more apropos description of what PR people are interested in. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to my ivory tower and wait for some more carrier pigeons.

@badasscat: Astroturf-- it's not just for stadiums anymore.

@beeporama (brian.j.parker): Ahahahaa, win.

There's also the important fact that a lot of people seem to gloss over - people don't develop or do PR for games because they hate them. ;)
A lot of developers and PR folk visit these forums because it's genuinely something they're interested in. They'd be visiting even if they didn't work in the industry. I don't think it's necessarily a big shocker. :)

oh really?
Then here's my message to them:

GET OFF YOUR ASSES.

By that logic I would have to get off my ass, so shush!

If I can then so can they!

@Kayeliminal Antithesis:
Insightful!!

Yes, we're definitely watching. :)

Where I am at now if a post comes up on here or NeoGaf about one of the games we created, 90% of the time it gets sent to the rest of the staff on our "Hey, look at this" newsgroup.

This is especially true if it just shipped and we're in some needed "downtime".

I think this has been going on for almost all of the companies I worked for over the years. It's good to know what the general buzz is out there.

@JohnnyLA: Yeah but the question is, is this a good thing, or a bad thing?

I mean, there is one thing to look at and take constructive views of another. See suggestions and make corrections (Read: Lair's controls).

It's another thing to datamine and big brother forum posters who just want to talk about games.

A great balance might be the best. Watch for trends, but not try to dissect the mind of the gamer to the point it distracts from the whole process.

just my 2 cents

You claim there is a difference between datamining and taking suggestions.

There really isn't and the use of "big brother" is a negative connation for the gathering of information.

Many game developers are also gamers, therefore they already WOULD be browsing game forums. What is wrong if the big guys up top also decide to take note and make sure all employees see the critiques and comments from their consumers?

I don't see how there is a need for balance, when already there isn't any balance in danger.

@huginn:
My previous message was pointed towards you.

@Shiryu:
When everyone is going to stop paying for it, it'll work. :P

Mikazukinoyaiba pretty much nails it.

Since I'm with a dev who doesn't have any publisher types in-house (no PR, marketing, etc) there's no real datamining. That would be some serious work with charts, and formulas, etc. and why would I want to do that. Bleh! :)

I say for me personally I just like to see the comments in forums to see what a general impact our games have.

One of the interesting things about the internet is that PR can hear more of the "word-of-mouth" from consumers easily, even though they still can't control it.

There's nothing wrong with reading forums to get a sense of reaction to your stuff. And I think (no, I *know*) that most publishers are smart enough to know that forums don't really represent "average" gamers. They know that every reaction on a forum is pumped up to the most extreme degree possible. Everything is exaggerated. They're not stupid, and they know that, and they will just plain discount a lot of things because of that. But if they see definite trends, a lot of people saying the same sorts of things independently of each other, then they can take something from that.

Shilling in forums, though, is always a bad thing. And I joked about it before, but yes, it is done, probably by every company in the industry. There are marketing companies that do nothing but this. Some publishers even do it in-house, with people they hire and pay $1 per post or whatever. (I'll tell you from experience that the smart ones pay not just for posts about that company's games, but also for posts about other company's games and even other subjects entirely. It makes a poster seem less suspicious, and less of an obvious shill. They're just really enthusiastic about GTA!)

There's no problem if a company's up front about being in a forum and posting about their game. Most companies would never do that, though, for a variety of reasons (it can confuse a carefully-planned marketing or PR message, it can lead to accidental divulging of proprietary info, etc.). Smaller companies sometimes do, and even larger ones *occasionally* do if it's part of a larger strategy that's planned in advance.

But the shilling thing is pretty pervasive. It's not just this industry, either. Every once in a while I'll see obvious shilling somewhere on the net... I remember a year or two ago on Engadget, they ran a story on the new Zune and all of a sudden within the span of about 2 hours there were about 200 positive posts in support of it, most of them supposedly from current Zune owners. Stories the previous day about the Zune only attracted about 30 posts total, most of them negative. Sometimes it's really obvious like that, but most of the time it's a lot more subtle. Companies are really sneaky these days.

Clearly, that lolipop women on GTA IV is the dev's reading tooo much 4Chan.

Good! I'd always hoped and suspected they cruise forums, but rarely see evidence (*cough* sup, Criterion? Oh right, you don't care what we think, you're perfect already without fan input, lol.)