Tymon Smektała is proud to say he helped developer Techland establish a reputation for truly listening to its players. After operating as Dying Light's franchise director for 13 years – the gaming vet recently stepped away from the zombie-slayer horror series – Smektała knows the customer is… not necessarily always right, but they need to be heard.
There's no other option in the video game business, which relies on hordes of other people to take your art seriously enough to make it part of their routine – after work, before dinner, as the basis of their Twitter arguments, and so on. Smektała tells other developers during a Digital Dragons Conference talk attended by GamesRadar+, "I believe very strongly that this makes it your obligation to focus and listen to the players."
