That mentality is what degrades the quality of art in our culture. That mentality is what gives us the Star Wars Prequels. That mentality is what gives us Buddy Cop movies. That mentality is what gives us D&D 4th edition.
It also gives us politicians like Mitt Romney who change their policy positions depending on which way the wind blows and shitty news programming on TV because people really want to hear what some random fuck on Twitter has to say about the uprising in Egypt. It is what created RealityTV.
"What the consumer wants" is a powerful negative force on our culture.
The final product has to reflect what YOU want, not what the consumer wants. You have to win over the consumer, they should not be winning you over. You have to market to them, they cannot be marketing to you. Else you will produce nothing but crap.
Though Zak Sabbath and I disagree on the subject of Art Direction (in that I consider the art director an artist too and they are creating their vision of a finished product rather than a single piece of art and thus they should exert some minor influence over the artist), I do have strong agreement with his general sentiment that the artist has to create what they WANT to create. They have to follow their vision. Zak makes this point about once a month, so just pay attention and you will see it come up.
In a perfect world, no one should design their art to please someone else. In reality, artists have to put food on the table and so they bend. But the degree of the bending should be reasonable. It is kind of like a diet. Your diet will not be successful if you don't put anything on the plate that you want to eat. You can't go to 100% bland and expect to stay on the path. You will break. The palate needs variety and so does the soul of the artist need to be in the work.
If your movie, video game, book, whatever; is purely designed to make money and contains none of your personal vision of the art form; it will suck. You will become George Lucas and you will be hated for it by people who actually gave a crap about the subject matter. This kind of thought underscores a lot of the commentary I see against 4th edition D&D. WotC tried to design the game not to be good, but to make money. They laid out the books in a way to force you to buy extra books. They tried to splat book their core books. They tried to rip us off and steal our money, and lots of people don't like that.
That said, following your vision doesn't guarantee success. Just ask Kevin Costner. He has made some movies that he really wanted to make, but that the culture as a whole rejected. I don't think he is sad about that though. He got to see his vision made into a reality. He got what he wanted.
I provide a steady stream of commentary on this blog about what I like and don't like. I occasionally even make statements about what my perception is of the majority of other people. I have done so in this post, actually. So in that sense, I am a part of the market. However, I would hope that no one out there is truly dissuaded from doing anything on account of my opinion. Because no matter what people say on the interwebs about my work, ultimately I never bend on anything I really feel strongly about to appease anyone out there. I encourage criticism and I try to evaluate it with a fair eye. But I am not beholden to it. And neither should you be.
The market will determine what it likes and doesn't like. Opinions will be aggregated. You cannot control that. If you try to design to fit the market, you may make money. You may make a lot of money, actually.
But you will be a hack
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