It’s an inalienable fact that people will rarely tell you when something is good but often tell you when it’s bad. That can be frustrating when you’re in the creative industry or when you’re working on yourself, but in business, it’s actually a good thing.
Why? Customer feedback – when utilized correctly – is a great way of improving service, standards, and products and thus, increasing profits. Naturally, there is a balance to be struck between acting on every piece of feedback and simply ignoring every negative thing said about a service or product.
One such sector that strikes the balance perfectly—in the main—is the gaming industry. By listening to customer feedback and analyzing the trends and patterns of that feedback, the online gaming industry has, by and large, managed to keep its customers happy over the last decade or so.
In this article, we’ll examine a couple of specific examples that perfectly highlight how online gaming’s receptive approach to customer feedback has helped to keep revenues and profits going in the right direction.
Online Casinos Finding an Edge
The online gambling interest is a behemoth, and, as such, thousands of new companies move into the market space every year. For customers, this healthy competition between providers is brilliant. It means that companies always focus on ways to improve to stand out to customers.
This also means that online casinos, in particular, will do almost anything to win their attention and business from a direct rival. To do that, though, they need to know exactly what their customers and potential customers are looking for.
One way they do that is by rewarding players with enticing bonuses and offers when they complete feedback about their site or the industry. On a micro level, this helps to boost the playing numbers at individual sites and thus increase profits.
On a macro level, it helps to drive the industry forward and adds to the attitude of constant improvement that is prevalent in online gambling. To see just how widespread feedback incentives are you can see a huge list of casino promo codes compiled by Casino.org for yourself. As the market expands, companies have to try harder and harder to catch the attention of their customers.
Call of Duty
The beginning of spring 2020 didn’t bring with it a new dawn of optimism and hope, but rather the instruction to stay home. One of the biggest beneficiaries of this was Call of Duty, the gaming which had, through a stroke of luck, just released its large-scale Battle Royale Warzone.
Within a couple of months, Warzone was the biggest game on the planet, played by hundreds of millions of players worldwide. Small-time YouTube creators who had previously catered to audiences of a few hundred were suddenly getting tens of thousands of views.
However, as interest grew in the game, so did criticism. Some of the gaming mechanics were criticized, and soon, with every new update, there was a plethora of feedback about the pros and cons of various weapons.
Instead of doubling down, Call of Duty listened to feedback, gauging the tone on forums and social media to respond quickly to issues and offer updates. This all helped to keep Warzone at the top of the pile for several years.
The most recent piece of feedback the franchise has received is about bringing back the iconic Verdansk map, which, if rumors are to be believed, will happen within the coming months.
EA FC
There will undoubtedly be Call of Duty fans who balked at that previous example. To highlight a point, we have chosen for our final example a franchise that doesn’t often listen to customer feedback and when it does, implements change far too slowly—EA FC or ‘The artist formerly known as FIFA.’
Fans of football’s premier gaming title will point to the introduction of the women’s game as an example of the franchise listening to customer feedback and implementing change. Unfortunately, this is the exception that proves the rule.
Not only was the decision to introduce the women’s game taken too late, it was also done poorly. The depth of female clubs and players within the game is woefully low in comparison to the men’s, and to players, it feels like an add-on rather than a feature.
The pay-to-win style model prevalent in online play hasn’t been reduced; if anything, it has been further cemented. Then, of course, there are issues surrounding gambling and young people, with Ultimate Team still sitting in a grey area between the two.
Both of those issues aren’t new either, they have been cited by players for the better part of the last decade, and still, EA FC refuses to budge. So Call of Duty and online casino fans, if you’re still lamenting ignored feedback on your favorite games, just think – it could be worse, you could be an EA FC fan.
