Then it's their own fault that it will more likely fail and they lost a great PR opportunity too. There's no excuse for developing this game in a isolated vacuum.
To be fair, they've addressed some complaints. For example, the German community was up in arms about the Steamworks implementation of Risen 2. Many did not buy the game (or at least said so) because of boycotting Steam.
So Deep Silver listened and the German boxed version of Risen 3 is now DRM-free. It only comes with a DVD check, i.e. you have to have your disc in the drive but that's all.
But that was Deep Silver and not Piranha Bytes. As far as PB is concerned, I'm sure they keep an eye on some of the community's top priority issues though they can also be pretty stubborn and "blind" to criticism.
For example, there's a Risen 2
Gamestar interview where Bjoern Pankratz said that they tried to address the community's wish to have more emotional ties to NPCs [
ed: which IMHO was not exactly a success since barely any NPCs from Risen 1 reappeared in Risen 2 and there was certainly no level of NPC relationship building like with e.g. Diego from Gothic].
But then there's also a Risen 2
Gamona interview with story guy Mattias Filler who said that it is pointless to listen to "the community" since "the community" is way too fragmented and doesn't share a common opinion or goals.
As for Risen 3, I'm sure that swimming is back because of community feedback. On the other hand it seems they have not cared much about the widespread criticism with regard to all sorts of food being cumulated into "provisions", instant heal from drinking Grog and no potion drinking animation, the game pausing when accessing the inventory or picking a lock or no weapons reload animation or crafting just taking place in the UI rather than "in the world" etc.
There is a very vocal "old school" part of the community who keeps begging for changes in these departments but no dice.
So as always it's not a simple matter of black & white. They listen some and some is 'fuck you all, we're doin' it our way'.