Haha, I almost added a footnote explicitly excluding players/customers because this is way more of a grey area, but I didn't want to dilute the original message

Haha, I almost added a footnote explicitly excluding players/customers because this is way more of a grey area, but I didn't want to dilute the original message. However, you're right. Player feedback is arguably even more important for indie devs than big-studio devs, since they're often operating on what feels fun versus operating on player data (especially from previous games, industry metrics, their own industry experience, etc) and getting that raw feedback of "is this actually fun?" is vital. The big difference, however, is that the creators of indie games still have the "final say" on that game game. It's generally a Very Good Idea to listen to your players (and listen hard!), but it's rare that your studio will e.g. have its funding pulled if you _don't_ listen to them[0], unlike with (some) publishers and other stakeholders. That's a big difference IMO. [0] With the obvious caveat of equating funding == sales when you try to release a bad game after not listening to players