From Ed Federmeyer, lead programmer on The Conduit, about their obsession with reading game forums and hearing fans, since they were self-funded and didn’t have publisher restrictions:
A great example of this was that we were not going to do online multiplayer at first. The team really wanted to do it, but we just didn’t have the resources to make it work. We made plan after plan, and schedule after schedule to try to make it fit, but it just could not be done in the time we had with the people we had. After PAX though, so many fans talked about how much an online mode would mean to them, our management saw that, and brought in the resources we needed to do it. It really would not have been possible without that level of excitement from the fans!
Semi-related posts:
Woah, software companies listening to their fans and giving them what they want? Madness!
You would think that companies like LucasArts would eventually take a hint that they need to start listening to their client base about what kind of game they want to play.