Fan feedback is important but I also think it's often a good idea to appropriately filter it before it gets to the developer. From my occasional lurking at the Steam forums, the moderators there seem to do quite a bit of that (forwarding information on bugs through to valve etc).
Every now and then, a valve employee with sufficient fortitude will communicate directly with the Steam forumites, which is all well and good but it takes some guts to confront the masses of people whining endlessly about your product.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kingz
I cannot understand how people who are not cynical nor well-fortified against retaliatory cynicism can exist in the internet.
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Maybe, but if - by analogy - I'd spent several years researching and publishing a book, I'd get pretty jacked off if I went to speak to my 'fans' and all they did was complain about the page number font being too small. And as emily suggests, feedback forums are often largely comprised of these extremely negative, hair-splitting types.