The importance of feedback


Feb 13, 2003
Author: Tony Granberg



I am the founder and project leader of this project. When I first started back in May, I had no whatsoever idea of in what direction this project would lead. I couldn’t imagine we were going to get a tremendeous amount of downloads and, what seems to be, a huge interest (can’t really tell w/o feedback). At least, this is what I can assume looking at the numerous downloads the past 9 months! What if I tell you that these numbers do show the interest for this game project, but they give me no clue of how many people who are actually playing the game and whether they like to play it or not? This far, it has been somewhat a hunt for good statistics. But where are the people playing the game? We haven’t heard from you, except somewhere between 3 or 5 people, since May. (We won’t bite you, you know ;). We need feedback about possible bugs, suggestions of changes in the code, silly comments about how awful this game is, nice comments about how much you like to spend your Friday nights playing beta versions of Pizza Business (though, I can hardly imagine someone really doing this for real). What I am trying to say, is: Feedback means interaction with the players, and improvement of game code when bugs are filed&fixed, and long-awaited features are implemented!

"We cannot force people into giving us feedback"

So, how should we (the project team) make sure feedback gets to us? Well, there is no easy way of doing this. We cannot force people into giving us feedback. All we can do, is asking them kindly to do this. I am glad to say that there are some people however (remember those 3 or 5 guys?) that has given us valuable information. I should also state, that: my intension is not to sound provocative, either. Well, okay, in a way it is, and that one thing is: to get feedback on this article. (Just think of it: how ironic wouldn’t it be, if not even this would give us feedback?) It is more that I get a little disappointed when I see 500 downloads in 2 days and no one (not a single one!) sends us a comment in one of the forums or even send me a tiny e-mail saying: “I like this game. Keep up the good work”. That isn’t much, but it actually means much – at least to me. It shows that real people out there have tried out the game, and actually have an opinion whether it is good or bad. Of course, I don’t want to wake up one morning and see that the e-mail service is temp. down because 200 people sent e-mails to me. Therefore, I better add this too: First, use the forums. Then, in second hand, use the mailing-list, available on the sourceforge site
If you still feel you are getting nowhere, try sending either me, ares32585 or bigj_sal an e-mail. Thanks for taking your time to read this article. (May I kindly suggest you try out the new forum to give me feedback on this article? http://pizza-business.sourceforge.net -> “Forums”) I look forward to hear from you! :-)