'The closer developers are to their users, the more the line blurs between both'

Fan feedback and customer interaction is the games industry’s great advantage over other entertainment fields, Valve’s managing director has said.
Gabe Newell stated that developers were in a unique position in being able to engage with users about their projects, with the ability to make changes in a matter of hours.

He explained that other sectors such as the film industry did not have the same opportunity to make customers happy, as once a movie had released, there was little that could be done to change it.
“What I think is best for the industry is that games developers used to be very far away from their customers,” said Newell in a podcast interview with Seven Day Cooldown.
“Nowadays you can have a game developer talking to a customer while they’re playing a game and fix an issue, or improve the experience, and do that in a matter of hours, if not minutes.

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