With Twitch streamers becoming an integral part of a game’s success these days, they’re beginning to have a lot more influence and in certain cases heavily impact how a game is perceived. This begs the question – how much influence do streamers have on game developers and is it a positive or a negative thing when all is said and done?

A Healthy Amount of Influence Is a Good Thing

There have been plenty of games and game developers that simply died out with time since they weren’t listening to player feedback. With Reddit and other big discussion platforms, sometimes there’s too much player feedback and going through it all can be quite a daunting task, but it’s also something that should be done on a regular basis.

Nowadays the average player doesn’t even have to pay to get his hands on an exciting and engaging high-quality video game – in fact, some of the best video games today are entirely free-to-play (F2P). Because of this, their tolerance threshold is a lot lower than before as they can simply “jump ship” and play a different game whenever they feel like it.

Say you’re fed up with how Riot Games balances League of Legends. You really dislike the fact that it became perhaps a bit too much of a team game and you find itemization somewhat shallow. Not a problem! You can simply download DOTA2 free of charge and immediately find yourself on unknown and exciting land. New heroes, new abilities, items, a different way to play the game, etc.

As a consumer, it has never been this easy to get your hands on a polished product – even for free.

Because of this, the developers that listen the least to their player base end up losing not only to their opposition but on revenue as well.

It’s a pretty ungrateful position to be in if you’re a developer as it can feel like you’re being forced to respond and develop your product in a way the community wants it to but it’s not a bad thing overall and sometimes catering to your audience can pay off in more ways than one.

Twitch Streamers Are Also Marketing Tools

Fortnite is currently the most popular and most played game on the globe right now, and it’s developer (Epic Games) surely invested a large sum of money into marketing – as is expected. However, you could argue that there isn’t a better way to market a product than by grabbing the public’s attention. “Famous streamer Ninja breaks Twitch viewer record while streaming with Drake.” That single headline is probably going to amass a bigger number of eyeballs than any web or YouTube advert.

When there’s something hot and interesting going on – everyone wants to be a part of it, everyone wants to check it out for themselves to form an opinion. Because of this streamers hold a very specific role, a role that hasn’t existed earlier. Now you have up to three hundred thousand people watching Ninja streaming Fortnite and what he says or does is worshiped by thousands. How he views the game, the amount of satisfaction that he gains through playing is immediately shared with a ton of people, and this eventually creates something that can be described as public perception.

Fortnite is as popular as a game can be right now, and yet it still shows no signs of stopping even months after people first heard of it and started playing. The whole scene is growing, everyone is satisfied with the end product, and Epic Games is doing everything in their power to keep the train going – they’re adding updates, new weapons, cosmetic changes, balancing, heck they even added Thanos from the latest Avengers movie just because they could (a limited time event that is now no longer active).

When a match began, the Infinity Gauntlet emerged somewhere on the map and the first player to take it became Thanos. With the Gauntlet in your possession, you gained increased speed, defensive and offensive stats, the ability leap across big distances, a whole new set of abilities that can cause absolute chaos, etc.

Now all of a sudden that game you’ve been playing for months gets flipped upside down and in the best possible way. Yet another reason to get your gang back together and queue up for a couple of matches of Fortnite.

Now while sometimes giving a lot of power to a third party (such as streamers) might not pan out that well, it’s a blessing and a powerful tool more often than not. They’re a very specific part of the puzzle, and they add quite a lot to the overall popularity of the game as well as it’s online presence.

It’s in the developer’s best interest to keep as many people (and by that logic streamers as well) interested for as long as possible. Multiple high profile PUBG streamers abandoned ship after Fortnite’s seemingly overnight success, and you can’t blame them. It was a newer game that was more accessible and had a bigger reach – not to mention the fact that it’s completely free and playable on a plethora of systems. A healthy ecosystem keeps people glued to a product even after months or years.

As an example League of Legends was released in 2009, and it keeps reaching new heights with each passing year. Riot Games have been doing a sensational job at keeping in touch with their community and by listening to what exactly players want to be included or changed in the game. They communicate on Reddit, YouTube and the League of Legends message boards as well.

By listening to players, fans, and streamers the developers put themselves in a very favorable position with the community and good word of mouth travels fast.

Frequent Updates Give Streamers More Freedom and Creativity

When developers add something new and unique to the game, they’re essentially supplying their player base with creative tools.

Epic Games recently added a shopping cart to Fortnite. Does it serve any concrete purpose other than the ability to move a bit faster on downward slopes? No. But does it create a ton of creative and humoristic potential? Absolutely! Simple, incremental updates like this one instantly give streamers and players the ability to create new content, memes and in short, just have more fun with the game.

Now while people probably didn’t request the addition of a shopping cart in the game, no one is really complaining. Epic Games consistently adds new options to the game and keeps everything fresh, so even if you’re playing every single day the game never becomes stale.

Developers Have the Final Word

When all is said and done, it’s up to the developers whether or not they listen to streamer/player feedback or not and that’s the way it should be. There’s really no right or wrong way to approach things, it should be an organic process, and the end product should adapt and change either way. There are developers that decide to shut off all feedback and develop their game in tune with their own personal philosophy which is perfectly fine – but we’ve seen this approach backfire on more than one occasion. Developers often have a somewhat skewed perception of their game and how it should be played and updated.

That said, it’s not a coincidence that the games that are played the most right now and have the biggest presence online are products of open-minded developers that know just how important player and streamer feedback really is.

While it can be a complex task of balancing everyone’s wishes, the benefits far outweigh the potential pitfalls.