Do Communities Have Too Much Input?

Where's that happy middle ground?

It used to be that video games were made in isolation. You'd know that a company was making a particular game, but wouldn't know more than that until they had a finished or near-finished product and were ready to release. Not only were the developers not expecting any feedback (aside from sales numbers) but there really wasn't any time to give them feed back either.

Nowadays, the community if privy to all of the game development cycle, sometimes even from initial conception of a game. And while everyone will agree that some feedback is a good and needed thing, it might have crossed the line from feedback to assumed ownership.

I was recently reminded of this phenomenon by the failure of a 50,000-something signature petition, demanding that the forthcoming Diablo III should use a darker palette of colours. Despite the developers having solid gameplay reasons for their colour choices in the new game, the Diablo III community has chosen to see the colours as WoW-esque, therefore the game will suck. Apparantly.

For more introspection onto the line between feedback and ownership, check out this article.