Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Discussing the "Trickledown Theory" (a counterposition to the Vocal Minority Theory) Ryan Schwayder at The Nerfbat says:

Keeping the vocal minority happy should always be a concern if you want your game’s general populous to remain so. Should you bend to their will and implement exactly what they demand? Probably not, but you should take their opinions into consideration and act accordingly.

Thoughtful article. Dismissing the outspoken few as a 'vocal minority' and then deliberately ignoring their views, concerns, suggestions can lead to mistakingly assuming that the Silent Majority hold the opposite position.

Logically it's a potentially fallacious argument of the form "IF a THEN b. b THEREFORE a" known as Affirming the Consequent.

In this Vocal Minority instance that's often trotted out on games forums the argument runs thus:

"There are a number of posts from players expressing dissatisfaction with $foo feature. They do not represent a majority, therefore we can assume that the majority of players are happy as they are not complaining".

However, it is also possible that the vocal minority is just that. A small cluster of agrieved players who are venting their opinion and that the majority of players ARE happy. It then falls to the games developers to look at the arguments being presented to them and assess which case is the correct one.

In fact, it becomes an absolute necessity.

No comments: