Quoting Archonsod, reply 2 we'd have an app which could potentially do X, Y, Z but you need your customers to tell you precisely which route(s) they'd like development to go down. You can't do that in the games industry unfortunately.
right now you can
there is internet, and forums you know
Gamers can tell you what they want. They can not tell you how to get there. Saying "I want Gears of War but in a fantasy world" doesn't really tell you very much in terms of how to actually develop that sort of game. Even with more specific feedback, outside of pure playtesting and iteration, video games (or any sort of creative industry) are hardly formulaic. A lot of what makes a game isn't features or pretty pictures - it's the intangibles. The design of the levels, the use of art and sound, the refinement of the engine and controls. Things that gamers rarely ever mention or think about.
And these things are vitally important for development.
No amount of internet whining and forum feedback will tell you that moving the collision box on all ledges to be half a foot away from the art makes the game more fun. At best, you'll know after the fact when they say "Screw you! You're terrible devs! Jumping on to ledges is too damn hard!"
No amount will let the artists know how the art is distinct and works with the level design to create mood and draw the player to certain things. At best, they'll say "Art sucks. I want more brown."
No amount will tell the programmers why the AI works or doesn't work. At best, you'll hear "The AI is too passive/too good". And that doesn't tell you how to fix it or what to fix it too because it can be any number of things.
One of the examples I always use is FEAR and something one of the devs talked about in an article. One of the things people always love about FEAR is the AI. The way they would flank you and surround you. They would take cover and suppress you. However, this is merely an illusion. In actuality, all the AI knows how to do is move from cover to cover. That's it. The reason they flank you is purely a result of the good level design.
But that's not something any sort of player feedback will be able to guide you to doing.
To add on to JJ Guzz's really good explanation, imagine if shards were changed not to be a damage bonus but provide typed mana (fire mana, water mana) with damage based on how much of that mana was used in a spell. The automated checking no longer applies in the least - it would need to be re-written. And yet this is the sort of change that could happen fairly frequently. After all within the span of a month, we're going to go from individual mana pools to a global one.
A more extreme example of what JJ said is Borderlands. Three years into development, the -entire- art direction was scrapped completely. Every single art asset was thrown out. And this was ultimately a good thing. While this is art, this is the sort of thing that happens - Valve and Blizzard will build multiple prototypes and even work on games but never finish them because they're not fun. Starcraft Ghost was essentially developed almost to completion five times before being cancelled because Blizzard just didn't feel it was up to par and fun enough.
