Linden Labs And The Silent Majority

Let's start today with a quote from an article I wrote on the downfall of the MMORPG "Star Wars Galaxies":

"Sony Online Entertainment had lost touch with what was fun by listening to the complainers. They had fooled themselves into thinking a great overhaul needed to happen to save the game, but nothing was further from the truth. The game did not need "saving". They had a great game. The game needed a few bug fixes, specifically for the Smugglers, but in other areas too. Nothing more. Instead we got a completely different botch of a game that was not fun to play."

I believe that SOE heard a certain amount of whining on their forums and thought that their game was not any fun. It turns out that the opposite was true. A large number of folks did enjoy their game. This was discovered when they changed the game so much that most everyone quit. It was a hard lesson to learn.

The fact is that complainers speak up most often. Those who are happy rarely feel the need to jump up and proclaim their happiness. This leads to an easy assumption that the world is full of bickering and complaining when in fact actually only a small percentage is doing this. They are, however, the most vocal.

Think about it. Let's say you buy a dress at the mall. When you get it home, you find out it has a black stain on it. You take it back and complain. What would have happened if you got it home, wore it, and absolutely loved it? Nothing. You wouldn't have gone back to the store to tell them how great their products are, or how nice the salesperson was. Why is this? Why do we only speak up when we are unhappy?

This being said, I am really hoping that Linden Labs does not take the whining on their forums to heart. It comes from a very small minority who probably don't speak for the masses. If Linden Labs catered to this small group of people, you'd find that in the end Linden Labs would have ended up creating a game that the same minority likes. And the majority will move on to seek a game that they actually like.

Forums are a great way to build community, because of its inherent property of allowing easy self expression. The problem is that it leads to the impression that everyone is unhappy because only the complainers are inclined to speak up. I am really hoping the smart people at Linden Labs realize that this is the case before it is too late. They've got a game that a large number of people enjoy. Let's hope they don't alienate this large group of people by catering to the minority.

I will leave you with a reworking of the quote I used above. I hope it is a quote that I end up writing in a couple of years from now.

"Linden Labs has not lost touch with what is fun by listening to the complainers. They did not fool themselves into thinking a great overhaul was needed to save the game, because nothing was further from the truth. The game did not need "saving". They already had a great game. The game needed a few bug fixes, specifically for the interface, but in other areas too. They fixed them and nothing more. In the end we got a game that was extremely fun to play."