Inno can do what they want.
It's inno's game.
This is what inno decided.
Read the announcement.
Inno shouldn't change the game just because I want it that way.
Search the forums.
Hopefully, I covered them all. (Nice Try)
7) “Inno has the numbers” so they know everything is a common point that regulars here make. You're not wrong about having amazing user behavior data*. They have all kinds of data about how to make money from events, settlements, gbg, and a plethora of other features. Watching Anwar’s presentation on how inno monetizes Forge was fascinating, although not really anything new or surprising.
What they are not good at is predicting how the most active/competitive players will interact with or respond to new things that are released. CF/RQs, The Arc, the SAAB/SAV battle RQs, GBG farming, flying noob trap, pvp arena, removing the pvp tower, adding a delay on abort (I'm not completely convinced this was a mistake, but they did walk it back), etc. are all examples where Inno did not do a good job of understanding what the competitive player base would do. Active/competitive players regularly make comments about how inno must not play their own game for a reason.
Just because inno knows what they currently have doesn't mean it can't be better - a point that seems lost in discussion often. I'll give an in-game example - for the longest time, fp/day was the holy grail of all FOE things. People recommend leveling cape early, and hagia, and all these other FP buildings. When I came alone, I saw a different way to approach the early growth/development part of the game. Did it take more effort/time? Yes. Did it allow me to grow faster than even whale diamond spenders? Yes, it did. (I made top 10 in way less than 2 years on a 6yo server, pre gbg/saab RQs)
Now, a lot of the things I (we) was doing before GBG came out and power creep took off have started to become mainstream for competitive players. While the fp/day focus playstyle was effective and faster than most other alternatives - I/we came up with an approach that was even better because we took different meanings from the data and saw an opportunity to do things differently. (btw, that's also what I do for a living - help businesses grow faster and become more profitable and be sustainable - at a lower cost than more traditional "status quo" methods. (This approach got the name growth hacking by others that do the same type of thing.)
A quick example how inno might not be using data well. (this is entirely made up as an example to demonstrate how even good data can give bad conclusions).
Innos looks and finds that 50% of dolphin/whale diamond buyers play GVG, but 98% of diamond buyers play GBG - and they play it A LOT. Inno could conclude that GBG has been a sufficient replacement for GVG, and that players are happy with the new feature.
Meanwhile - some significant percentage of those players hate GBG have this opinion of it: "GBG is sucking the living life of everything in this game and is the destroyer of worlds, worse than galactus." (seems suspiciously real, huh?) - but they play because it has become a requirement for competitive players to remain competitive. And the amount of time spent is only because that's what's required to be competitive/win.
In that case - inno's conclusion that GBG is a great replacement for GVG would be wrong. The usage data clearly looks like GBG is doing awesome, but in reality, players hate it and are resentful of having to spend so much time doing it. (This is a fairly commonly held pov, btw. Not just my own)
Without doing surveys or having a dialog with players, their data would have to lead them to the wrong conclusion. And even if they are making a zillion dollars from GBG right now, is that sustainable? How will it affect their 5-year earnings if a huge portion of players quit?
The point being, Inno isn't surveying players (none that I'm aware of at least) about their experience in-game with GBG, GVG, etc etc etc. I just got a popup asking if I was enjoying the game. I said no, and it sent me to support or the forums. Both have been useless for addressing major issues I’ve brought up. Forge has an amazing foundation to drive revenue and could screw up 90% of everything they do moving forward and keep making profits.
I’m not saying any of the things mentioned are make or break or that inno is at risk of going under. I do believe that feedback and interaction with customers is important for understanding how to best serve them. When a small group of players regularly enforce status quo and shame players for wanting things different or not knowing what's happened in the past, it can really suppress issues and “wants” that are bubbling under the surface to inno's loss (and player's loss too, for that matter).
Back to OP for closing – Algona’s post was what I consider to be the best and most useful on the topic
https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/gvg.41600/post-354942
I have some interesting info about mobile gvg that I can’t share here due to forum rules. Feel free to PM if you’re interested.
Could a focus group of active gvg leaders work out solutions to address most/all of the objections? Absolutely. Inno won’t ask, and regulars here won’t let the discussion about what "could be" occur naturally. Would enough support behind GVG change inno’s tune? Impossible to say. People/businesses change their minds when presented with the right data all the time. Between the DSL and regulars openly hunting down and smothering GVG threads, Inno is missing out on really great feedback about a feature that might be refreshed/repackaged and turned into profit.