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Emarv · Mar 30, 2015

I often find that people within an industry are the most interesting to hear criticism from. Their thoughts are usually very insightful and their explanation of terminology and limitations often raises the level of discourse on a particular game. Too often most of regular Games Media have a surface level of criticism that feels akin to something like an Entertainment Weekly movie review.

Idle Thumbs when talking about games often dig into design theory, as do many of their developer guests. Shawn Elliot is one of my favorites on any podcast, especially since his transition to the development side. People like Nels Anderson or Naught Dog's Cowboy have talked design on various podcasts, and there are lots of podcasts I believe that have Developers on to talk about their work.

While some may disagree with developers critiquing others' work, there is precedence for this type of intra-industry criticism within other mediums. For instance:
- George Orwell wrote many essays, including awesome Literary Criticism for fellow writers.
- In film, Francois Truffaut was a great critic and great filmmaker.

But, is there really longform, preferably written, Games Criticism that exists from notable developers? I definitely think there should be more.

Dragoon En Regalia · Mar 31, 2015

Dan Pinchbeck from The Chinese Room did an analysis of the original Doom called SCARYDARKFAST which you can read free online. I'm not sure if he was making games when he wrote it though.

Abounder · Mar 31, 2015

Dev's play from Double Fine has developers speed running through games and touches on a lot of video game design elements on the way; but it is not really criticism: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIhLvue17Sd6u2akeZZdYVBxNtfWZPm5W

Dusk Golem · Mar 31, 2015

I'd love to hear more of it too, but I also understand why they don't; Have you seen how many people have gotten in trouble from publicly expressing their opinion on things, both with consumers and higher-ups? We are in a current growing form of the medium, and people take issue with things in the gaming medium that are minuscule at best, ranging from small problems in games being overblown into big issues, crying foul and thinking developers are nothing but money-grubbing lazy vacuums over trivial things, social media being a nightmare for many people in business if they share an unpopular opinion, harassment for many gaming figures in the public eye, people in the industry being let go without notice because of something that isn't their fault or some minor thing.

I think we'll see more of this when the social side of gaming 'stabilizes', people in the film industry, working on books, whatever, can more openly express their opinion, not without criticism and some of this, but their so established at this point that a lot of this has cooled down with time and more open ideas of the mediums. But at the moment with gaming we're kind of going through growing pains and many vocal voices have to deal with a lot of shit.

Some pieces are written, especially by smaller devs, and they can be quite interesting and insightful, as you said. Mix of being knowledgeable on certain things, but also enthusiastic enough to know what it is their analyzing and usually interesting thoughts in how to break it down. However, if a dev were to go on full critic mode on a game, a lot of people would probably take offense, bringing up critiques of their game, or jabs, to much worse examples being personal threats, outraged fanboys, and just a whole slew of shit that one probably does not want to deal with when they have to already focus so much time on their own game development, and for some run the risk of losing their jobs for being outspoken.

Mr. X · Mar 31, 2015

I see people attacking the dev or their work if they say anything not nice about other games. I would love to see more but I don't think it'll happen.

Mik2121 · Mar 31, 2015

With the way people react to this stuff, I can understand why almost no developers say a word about anything else other than their own stuff. Even if you do a very constructive critique about something, some people will always try to spin it into some weird aggressive commentary and even attack said person or their games just because they didn't like his opinion.

GoodCoffeeJoey · Mar 31, 2015

It's unprofessional.

/s

Dr. Black Jack · Mar 31, 2015

You don't shit where you eat. One bad critique of someone else's game could ruin your networking potential down the line.

Jawmuncher · Mar 31, 2015

I think a part of it is due to how much smaller the gaming space is in a sense. It's far more common in the film industry to see criticism which I think is due to the larger space there.

Corpekata · Mar 31, 2015

Some of the ones I've seen do it tend to get a lot of shit for it so I am not surprised most of them keep to themselves.

JasonUresti · Mar 31, 2015

Funny you mention Idle Thumbs and Shawn Elliott, as Shawn had a bit of a meltdown when the Thumbs crew expressed some criticism of Bioshock Infinite and even threw some insults at Chris about it.

Shawn did pretty quickly apologize for the whole thing, but it shows why developers don't do it often and almost never talk about games their friends or coworkers/former coworkers work on. Not worth the potential personal cost. (It also makes me question how nasty and toxic the environment is when working in big AAA game studios that some rather minor criticism made an intelligent and typically thoughtful person like Shawn Elliott react to negatively and aggressively, but that is another story)

Mr. X · Mar 31, 2015

Dr. Black Jack said:
You don't shit where you eat. One bad critique of someone else's game could ruin your networking potential down the line.

Sad that pop culture considers criticism and commentary as "shitting" and "hating" instead of, y'know, being viewed as opportunities to improve or different perspectives.

Dr. Black Jack · Mar 31, 2015

Mr. X said:
Sad that pop culture considers criticism and commentary as "shitting" and "hating" instead of, y'know, being viewed as opportunities to improve or different perspectives.

Not pop culture; people hiring. All it can take is one person feeling miffed about a critique of their work to get blacklisted. It's not a "pop culture" thing...that's how networking works sometimes.

AlphaTwo00 · Mar 31, 2015

Dr. Black Jack said:
You don't shit where you eat. One bad critique of someone else's game could ruin your networking potential down the line.

This.

Also, we all already know how many external factors can affect decisions, and sometimes it's almost pointless as we know that if the other games had good designers, they probably know about it as well, and they can't fix it for A/B/C/D/E...so why bother in the public space?

For a while at my old studio we ran that sort of session as an in-team thing against both our own games, the publishers, and even other big games, but really what we did end up seeing was that even the best and worst ideas, we saw right away the technical and probably budgetary issues that made those happen: once you scratch the surface, you start realizing that designer's hands are often more tied than not.

Mr. X said:
Sad that pop culture considers criticism and commentary as "shitting" and "hating" instead of, y'know, being viewed as opportunities to improve or different perspectives.

What Black Jack said. The team's designer probably appreciate it; the companies HR probably blacklisted you for running your mouth online even before joining the company.

Dragoon En Regalia · Mar 31, 2015

Jawmuncher said:
I think a part of it is due to how much smaller the gaming space is in a sense. It's far more common in the film industry to see criticism which I think is due to the larger space there.

You can make a really small-scale movie and succeed, as there's multiple ways to get funding, distribute a product, and find work after the fact via better networking and union opportunities than have been set up in regional game industries around the world. The interesting trend in video games developing both as medium and community is that we're trying to implement the creature comforts enjoyed in the commercial industries formed around movies and earlier crafts. I'd say this applies to every form of criticism also, be it of the enthusiast, buyer's guide-style variety or academic critique or a more historical/canonical form of criticism. Game preservation and restoration is up and coming as well!

XiaNaphryz · Mar 31, 2015

It should be noted that developers often have done a lot of critical review and research of other games, usually in preparation for whatever project they're working on in the near future. Don't ever expect those sorts of analysis pieces to go public though.

Juniez · Mar 31, 2015

Mr. X said:
Sad that pop culture considers criticism and commentary as "shitting" and "hating" instead of, y'know, being viewed as opportunities to improve or different perspectives.

they probably already knew but didn't have the resources or time to persue or implement a viable solution

Formless · Mar 31, 2015

A lot of shit affects the direction of a game. A huge one being business related nondevelopers.

Dead Man Typing · Mar 31, 2015

JasonUresti said:
Funny you mention Idle Thumbs and Shawn Elliott, as Shawn had a bit of a meltdown when the Thumbs crew expressed some criticism of Bioshock Infinite and even threw some insults at Chris about it.

Shawn did pretty quickly apologize for the whole thing, but it shows why developers don't do it often and almost never talk about games their friends or coworkers/former coworkers work on. Not worth the potential personal cost. (It also makes me question how nasty and toxic the environment is when working in big AAA game studios that some rather minor criticism made an intelligent and typically thoughtful person like Shawn Elliott react to negatively and aggressively, but that is another story)

No one likes being told their baby is ugly, so generally devs don't say bad things about other games because they know how it feels when someone criticises something they worked hard on for years.

I'd love to see more talk about other studios games but it's just not respectful. Let the fans and the press do the criticism.

antitrop · Mar 31, 2015

Emarv said:
I often find that people within an industry are the most interesting to hear criticism from. Their thoughts are usually very insightful and their explanation of terminology and limitations often raises the level of discourse on a particular game. Too often most of regular Games Media have a surface level of criticism that feels akin to something like an Entertainment Weekly movie review.

The relationship between the media and developers is so close, that I'm sure many hold back how they really feel, because they don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. This leaves us with the 7-10 review scale and reviews that are regurgitated PR bullet points.

Renekton · Mar 31, 2015

It's too troublesome due to the way gamers pitchfork to even minor comments from developers.

SatelliteOfLove · Mar 31, 2015

I'd like to see some anonymous ones, though.

Robert at Zeboyd Games · Mar 31, 2015

Here are some of mine:

Monaco:
http://zeboyd.com/2013/04/25/the-genius-of-the-game-design-in-monaco-whats-yours-is-mine/

Dark Souls:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/178262/deep_dungeon_exploring_the_design_.php

Child of Light, Bravely Default, Persona Q:
http://zeboyd.com/2014/12/23/lessons-from-2014-jrpgs-bravely-default-child-of-light-persona-q/

Neff · Mar 31, 2015

It's a nice idea, but we're not in anything like a Truffaut gaming era. Even cinema left Truffaut's cinema era decades ago.

We're in an era where artistry and expression plays a distinct 2nd fiddle to sheer brute profit, advertising and branding, and it's a big fucking cynical cutthroat business with thousands of jobs on the line, rather than a clique-y pool of intelligentsia swapping design theory. As such, anything remotely negative put out in public can and does get taken very badly, as we see from no end of Twitter posts from purported professionals.

Developers playing their own stuff and going through the ins and outs of it though- that's quite harmless and definitely something I'd like to see more of.

Raging Spaniard · Mar 31, 2015

Sure!

Mortal Kombat is shit

There, all done, satisfied?

Gabeking · Mar 31, 2015

injurai · Mar 31, 2015

David Jaffe.

Mik2121 · Mar 31, 2015

Raging Spaniard said:
Sure!

Mortal Kombat is shit

There, all done, satisfied?

t

ClearData · Mar 31, 2015

Check this out op. It might be right up your alley.

https://www.idlethumbs.net/tonecontrol

Dragoon En Regalia · Mar 31, 2015

I couldn't name a games-related analogue to Cahiers du cinema if my life depended on it. Twine communities are too fragmented and the writer-creators too distant for that connection to have already occurred. Intelligentsia have come together for the purpose of game development, but not critics in the way I know from movie and music history.

GravityMan · Mar 31, 2015

Dr. Black Jack said:
You don't shit where you eat. One bad critique of someone else's game could ruin your networking potential down the line.

This.

It's Professionalism 101.

Sotha_Sil · Mar 31, 2015

Some of the guys who made The Vanishing of Ethan Carter are very vocal about other games.

kasavin · Mar 31, 2015

Interesting topic OP. As a game critic turned developer, I can offer a personal perspective on why I stopped cold turkey. I hung up my critic's hat when I started pulling a paycheck from game development (I remain grateful for having had the opportunity for both). My reasoning was that to continue being a critic could create the impression of a conflict of interest.

I thought it could be seen as inappropriate, and that alone would distract enough from the substance of it -- or just distract me -- to make it not worthwhile. I tried continuing to write game criticism anonymously, just to scratch the itch without the consequence (or the audience, which may be the same thing). But I gave that up either because I was too busy or too lazy, and it felt dishonest.

When I see game developers write or create criticism of games, I tend to enjoy it, so in practice I think my concerns are not real, at least not for those authors. More power to them, and I'm grateful for their perspective and their work. I myself remain uncomfortable with it for now. That's partially because in the time I've spent working as a game developer I've always worked with / under other people, so my own discomfort is a projection of their perceived discomfort with having an associate of theirs "speak out". All that dumb stuff you see in Twitter profiles about how "views here do not reflect the views of my employer" and all that... those disclosures of course are next to meaningless, and since the game industry is a small close-knit community, and call-out culture being what it is, the potential downsides of publicly criticizing games when you work in the field are, I think, in general not worth the upside.

It also depends on who's doing the talking. Reading a prominent developer being publicly critical of a game tends not to feel the same as reading a smaller developer saying the same exact thing. The volume of a critic's output also makes a big difference. If you review one game, you're singling it out. If you review games every day or week, it's just what you do. So, the other part of the reason I felt I had to give it up was because I knew I couldn't achieve the same output when working at a different job.

The other reason I stopped being a critic was because I wanted to see what it felt like to focus all my efforts into actions not words, which sells short the work I used to do and overinflates the value of the work I do now. That wasn't a good reason. Good criticism is valuable, creative work.

Massive Duck. C.M. · Mar 31, 2015

Not really safe to do this for most devs

DrNeroCF · Mar 31, 2015

Dr. Black Jack said:
You don't shit where you eat. One bad critique of someone else's game could ruin your networking potential down the line.

Except quite a few journalists have gone on to work for devs / publishers.

I've honestly wondered the same thing myself. I always want to talk about game design and who does it right / wrong, just don't know if anyone cares about what I have to say, haha.

partyphone · Mar 31, 2015

a lot of good authors are also good book critics. it's really a shame game company PR is so awful.

Emarv · Mar 31, 2015

ClearData said:
Check this out op. It might be right up your alley.

https://www.idlethumbs.net/tonecontrol

There's lots of these styles of podcasts but I was looking for something my longform or written and analytical.

This, basically, but I recognize that this current business climate isn't really conducive to what I'm looking for, it's still wishful thinking.

Dragoon En Regalia said:
I couldn't name a games-related analogue to Cahiers du cinema if my life depended on it. Twine communities are too fragmented and the writer-creators too distant for that connection to have already occurred. Intelligentsia have come together for the purpose of game development, but not critics in the way I know from movie and music history.

CambriaRising · Mar 31, 2015

I like seeing Shawn Elliot's occasional tweets about design while playing games.

Emarv · Mar 31, 2015

kasavin said:
Interesting topic OP. As a game critic turned developer, I can offer a personal perspective on why I stopped cold turkey. I hung up my critic's hat when I started pulling a paycheck from game development (I remain grateful for having had the opportunity for both). My reasoning was that to continue being a critic could create the impression of a conflict of interest.

I thought it could be seen as inappropriate, and that alone would distract enough from the substance of it -- or just distract me -- to make it not worthwhile. I tried continuing to write game criticism anonymously, just to scratch the itch without the consequence (or the audience, which may be the same thing). But I gave that up either because I was too busy or too lazy, and it felt dishonest.

When I see game developers write or create criticism of games, I tend to enjoy it, so in practice I think my concerns are not real, at least not for those authors. More power to them, and I'm grateful for their perspective and their work. I myself remain uncomfortable with it for now. That's partially because in the time I've spent working as a game developer I've always worked with / under other people, so my own discomfort is a projection of their perceived discomfort with having an associate of theirs "speak out". All that dumb stuff you see in Twitter profiles about how "views here do not reflect the views of my employer" and all that... those disclosures of course are next to meaningless, and since the game industry is a small close-knit community, and call-out culture being what it is, the potential downsides of publicly criticizing games when you work in the field are, I think, in general not worth the upside.

It also depends on who's doing the talking. Reading a prominent developer being publicly critical of a game tends not to feel the same as reading a smaller developer saying the same exact thing. The volume of a critic's output also makes a big difference. If you review one game, you're singling it out. If you review games every day or week, it's just what you do. So, the other part of the reason I felt I had to give it up was because I knew I couldn't achieve the same output when working at a different job.

The other reason I stopped being a critic was because I wanted to see what it felt like to focus all my efforts into actions not words, which sells short the work I used to do and overinflates the value of the work I do now. That wasn't a good reason. Good criticism is valuable, creative work.

That's for the post, man. Your journey was definitely one I had in mind when I made the thread.

Aureon · Mar 31, 2015

Robert at Zeboyd Games said:
Here are some of mine:

Monaco:
http://zeboyd.com/2013/04/25/the-genius-of-the-game-design-in-monaco-whats-yours-is-mine/

Dark Souls:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/178262/deep_dungeon_exploring_the_design_.php

Child of Light, Bravely Default, Persona Q:
http://zeboyd.com/2014/12/23/lessons-from-2014-jrpgs-bravely-default-child-of-light-persona-q/

Those are pretty awesome.

Dr. Black Jack said:
You don't shit where you eat. One bad critique of someone else's game could ruin your networking potential down the line.

I wouldn't want to work with anyone that took a well-constructed, helpful critique from a peer so personally he wouldn't want to work with me, anyway.

The issue isn't peers.

It's that the internet would quickly descent in the worst collection of ad hominems ever known to man.
"But your game <>!" - Small-time people would be ignored on grounds of conflict of interest, big-time people would arise the biggest shitstorms the internet has ever known.

Even pretty wide-aimed remarks from Miyamoto are considered inflammatory, guess even...

Emarv · Mar 31, 2015

I guess in the end, I recognize the ethical and professional issues with what I'm looking for, but I mainly just want the level of discourse of games criticism to improve from superficial "good vs bad" and cliche discussions to something more insightful and understanding of how games work. And often times I find developers are the most articulate and insightful into why games do and don't work. I just wish there were more of it. Maybe someday.

Salamando · Mar 31, 2015

What we need is more developers giving good post-mortems of their own game. Talking about what went right, what went wrong, and detailing exactly why what happened happened. They're always interesting to read.

Emarv · Mar 31, 2015

Salamando said:
What we need is more developers giving good post-mortems of their own game. Talking about what went right, what went wrong, and detailing exactly why what happened happened. They're always interesting to read.

Totally. I wish more of those GDC postmortems were readily available. Those are great.

KennyL · Mar 31, 2015

I'm sorry but the problem is not this type of criticism not existing, it's that you're not looking at the right place. Or even looking at all. Of course all the game media appears to be shit because you're only picking and choosing shit to look at.

Even in the face of it, do you have stomach for it??

Try this.

LUDO!! NARRATIVE!!! DISSONANCE!!!!! BAHAHAHA!!!

For deeper reads, start here:

Gamasutra

Critical Distance

RPS: The Sunday Papers

Emarv · Mar 31, 2015

KennyL said:
Or even looking at all. Of course all the game media appears to be shit because you're only picking and choosing shit to look at.

Even in the face of it, do you have stomach for it??

Umm, either this is some joke I missed or needlessly condescending. Either way, I disagree. I do read most of those places and while they don't always fit the bill, great criticism does exist and obviously isnt included in the larger pool of general criticism that I'm talking about.

dLMN8R · Mar 31, 2015

Most developers would love to dig into genuine game criticism. The problem is that most blogs would just snip out the most "interesting" nuggets, post that as the headline, and bury the actual interesting analysis within it.

So an interesting comment about game B by a developer of game A would be reduced to "Developer of game A says that game B is <Y>"

Then someone would go and post that headline to message boards. Then people on message boards would become further reductive.

"Maybe developer of game A should do more of <X> before complaining that game B is <Y>"

"Game A sucked. Why does the developer think he has any right to say anything about game B?"

"Game B? Oh, it's from the same publisher. The developer of game A is just being a shill."

And so the rage carries on, from message boards to Twitter, from Twitter to the game A developer's/publisher/s PR, from PR back to the developer, along with a firm scolding to never do that again.

That's why.

inpHilltr8r · Mar 31, 2015

KennyL said:
I'm sorry but the problem is not this type of criticism not existing, it's that you're not looking at the right place.

That and it happens in places you don't have access to.

GamerJM · Mar 31, 2015

Gabeking said:

How have I never seen this before? This is amazing.

Moon_frogger · Mar 31, 2015

I read jeff vogel's blog because he has years of experience and a finely honed critics eye toward other games. He makes budget old school indie turn based rpgs but loves AAA blockbusters like Dragon Age. He has great insight into the industry in general and most of all has a great writing style that is fun to read.

Sophia · Mar 31, 2015

Robert at Zeboyd Games said:
Here are some of mine:

Monaco:
http://zeboyd.com/2013/04/25/the-genius-of-the-game-design-in-monaco-whats-yours-is-mine/

Dark Souls:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/178262/deep_dungeon_exploring_the_design_.php

Child of Light, Bravely Default, Persona Q:
http://zeboyd.com/2014/12/23/lessons-from-2014-jrpgs-bravely-default-child-of-light-persona-q/

Wow, I just read your little mini section on Persona Q. You really nailed a lot of what we've talked about in the community thread, both the good and the bad.

I wish there were more articles like these in general. I feel like a lot of times RPGs don't get nearly the criticism and praise for their design choices that they should. Usually when I see stuff like this, it either comes from forum posts (GAF, etc) or from games with really dedicated fansites.

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