It's business, why would you want to step out into the public and talk about potential flaws or show the public how things are going and the baby-steps it's taking to reach the next update or revision?
Because this is not the dark ages, where the populace was kept in the dark and did what they were bloody well told.
The vast majority of consumers are literate, educated, and have access to an enormous range of information. Trying to withhold stuff from them is foolish, it's not how customer interaction works any more. Customers want to make informed decisions.
Moreover, customers tend to appreciate being kept in the loop, regardless of how unnecessary it is. They certainly appreciate being kept in the loop once they've already paid money.
You're right that's a huge difference between the two games, neither is 'wrong', it's effectively the same thing in the end but one of them is being more unprofessional.
Which one? I suspect you don't think it's the same one that I do.
I think the way SMS has approached their project has been consummately professional. They defined clearly the expectations and goals, they communicate clearly when there are problems or things need to be changed, and they respond to feedback. They don't always do exactly what the customer might want, see for reference the fuss when X360/PS3 were dropped. But the customer couldn't claim that the feedback hasn't at least been considered.
I think the way PD has approached their project has been less than professional. Leading up to release there was a lot of conflicting information. A lot was made of post-release support, both with features and content. Post-release, there has been little in the way of actual support and less in the way of communication.
It's safe to say that things haven't gone the way that either PD or the customers expected, but PD has not addressed this, even to say "yes, we've hit some problems and things are taking longer than we thought. Sorry for the delay, but bear with us. Here, have some free Skylines". It's fine, problems happen, but if you have the customer's money already then it's probably reasonable to provide, say, monthly updates on the situation.
To my mind, there's no wrong way to do development, as long as it gets the work done. Both companies are managing to do that (presumably, we don't know with PD).
Likewise, there's no wrong way to communicate with your customers, as long as it gets the information out there. SMS are communicating well, in part because they have a large group of ambassadors who are pretty impressed with the way they work. PD are not communicating well.
Usually in any R&D team in any business field is kept secret, the technical headaches they have to get to a satifactory point and the steady improvements are not leaked to leave competitors clueless until at a point where they make an announcement.
Yes and no. SMS aren't exactly handing out raw code. They're handing out daily compiled builds and communicating with a select group of people who have demonstrated interest in the project and making it better. They're not reinventing the wheel, with the possible exception of the Seta tyre model. They're simply making good use of existing technologies and combining them into a good game.
I don't see what keeping stuff secret would gain them, compared to what they gain by having WMD. Arguably they gain far more by getting their name distributed well in advance of the game's actual release than they would do by keeping it all under wraps.
For that matter, I don't see what keeping stuff secret is gaining PD either, although they've sort of dug themselves a hole now. Were they to open lines of communication now, they'd likely get blasted for the first six months. But that's of their own making, had they started a process of regular communication with fans at the start of the PS3 era and maintained it, they wouldn't have that problem.
I've said before that between GT6, GT5 and GT5P they have all the parts needed to make an unquestionably genre defining game. PD don't really need to develop anything, all they need to do is put the parts together correctly, which they continue to fail to do.
GT is non-communicative in the eyes of the gamers maybe, I don't know I see all kinds of interesting stuff the company does, I hope the scattered projects and R&D merge into one flawless game on PS4. 👍
GT is non-communicative, full stop. I don't see how anyone could claim otherwise. It's not like they're talking to everyone but the gamers.
Maybe it doesn't matter to you, but they are non-communicative. That's their MO.
. It's business, why would you want to step out into the public and talk about potential flaws or show the public how things are going and the baby-steps it's taking to reach the next update or revision? You're right that's a huge difference between the two games, neither is 'wrong', it's effectively the same thing in the end but one of them is being more unprofessional. Usually in any R&D team in any business field is kept secret, the technical headaches they have to get to a satifactory point and the steady improvements are not leaked to leave competitors clueless until at a point where they make an announcement.