dragonlife
Member
This is why I rarely engage in actual discussions about video games. I just stick to my "I love this game!" Or "Eh, I didn't really like it" comments.
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Charles Randall on why game developers aren't more candid with public
- Thread starter Messofanego
- Start date
Not really, he does say "Being critical and explaining why you don't like something is fine." He absolutely isn't against level-headed criticism and feedback. That's not what this is about at all.
One thing I've noticed in my years of being on gaf is that a ton of people like pretending to be experts on technology and game development. This assumed expertise mixed with extreme negativity produces some pretty ugly posting behavior that I certainly wouldn't want to engage with if I were a developer. I think the tweets in the OP are correct in that it is a net negative for developers.
Thankfully there are fun approaches developers take to sharing info about game development like dedicated youtube series, in-house interviews, etc which give fans a look inside the work and also sidestep a lot of that toxicity.
Thankfully there are fun approaches developers take to sharing info about game development like dedicated youtube series, in-house interviews, etc which give fans a look inside the work and also sidestep a lot of that toxicity.
No, that's why it wasn't in my first post in this thread. However it get brought up very quickly on any discussion about devs/public relationship.
I did the same for BvS, but then I watched the entire movie, so I can talk about it in an informed way. I was more talking about snap reactions to games people barely or never play (*coughDestinycough*). Basically I try to be informed with my opinions, and to recognize when I might not be and so refrain from being critical. Not always the best at it, but that's what I try for. I feel too many people touch something, dislike it instantly, and then go all in with internet rage/snap judgement. Which is a disservice to the people who spent a long time making them, IMO.
I've walked out of a couple of movies recently, but never posted about them on GAF, because I didn't see enough to know if the movie was shit or if I just wasn't in the mood for it. And in either case, I prefer to talk about stuff I like, or at least be constructive in the criticism in the event it's something I didn't.
Mass Effect is a perfect example of hate for a game or dev turning into a meme. For forum-goers it becomes a fun joke, but for devs it becomes exhausting - and that's before the hatred starts being targeted at individuals. It becomes less about wanting to see the game improve and more about wanting to see it fail.
Jacksinthe
Banned
ITT: people prove his point.
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This doesn't just happen with jaded gamers, this happens with "developers", too. Right here on GAF a dev openly attacked another dev calling a post-process addition they made to their game since their Kickstarter a "bait and switch". They added a visual effect and were accused of pulling one over on Kickstarter backers.
That's some stupid ass shit.
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This doesn't just happen with jaded gamers, this happens with "developers", too. Right here on GAF a dev openly attacked another dev calling a post-process addition they made to their game since their Kickstarter a "bait and switch". They added a visual effect and were accused of pulling one over on Kickstarter backers.
That's some stupid ass shit.
Patrick S.
Banned
Charles used to post on PlanetCrap. He once wrote a lengthy statement that he was no longer at Ubisoft and was moving on to other things. Then he admitted, in a thread that was in the archive of the site but still active, that this was a "ruse" (his words) to get people off his back because dealing with people was awful. That was some time after Assassin's Creed came out.
Edit: I misremembered, he actually admitted it in PlanetCrap's IRC channel.
Edit: I misremembered, he actually admitted it in PlanetCrap's IRC channel.
Probably because when developers literally tell people how hard something is, people will actually get mad at them for telling them it's hard, or start threatening them, or various shit you never know is coming.
Another issue is that people will lambast a movie, but they generally won't call up and threaten the person that set up the lighting. The gaming community will.
Sorry yeah, I agree with it. I just think when people start going into that territory, people start misunderstanding it as the position of the dev, which is why these posts have to be made:
Games are also a living medium, compared to other mediums. Players get emotionally attached to games like Destiny, they become part of their lives, and even within the community opinions are divisive. This means that no matter what Bungie reaches out and says, half the community will be toxic towards them. Which means you get a bunch of vague non-answers all the time making everyone angry.
I know they've lied a couple times and that deserves to be called out, but they really have always been in a no win situation. I'd hate to have a community manager job.
I know they've lied a couple times and that deserves to be called out, but they really have always been in a no win situation. I'd hate to have a community manager job.
I'm glad this was brought up. That was a refreshing and very insightful read. It wasn't exactly something I thought about before, wondering why developers are "secretive" and whatnot, but I am very aware of how toxic geek culture is, specifically gaming. I can't say as much about comic books and others as I'm less aware/active in those areas, but they're very toxic as well from what I frequently see. I'd like to think that most geeks and gamers aren't toxic and are much better people, though, and that the toxic sub-group is the vocal minority and the former are the silent majority. However, that's one of the problems, the negative fans are so damn loud so it's completely understandable if it discourages developers and creators from being more candid with their audience.
It's perfectly fine, and even should be encouraged, to criticize games and other creations (artworks, movies, stories, etc.) because it helps the creators grow and see things from different perspectives that they may not have been able to see from before. Sadly, from what I've observed of my many years as a netizen, so many people are just so damn ready to hate instead. They don't do things constructively and they simply don't think much. And this isn't specific to media, of course, you'll see it everywhere. It is so easy to hate and be angry and oftentimes, that's what a lot of the loud, vocal people on the internet are doing. As Charles has said, these people will believe that they're experts on all sorts of things because of whatever reason they want to believe, and it's hard to reach out to these people because they're so close-minded.
On the other hand... There have been times when developers and/or publishers have been less than truthful about certain matters regarding their games. They should be called out for these things, but done so in a respectful manner. The audience should be criticizing their work ethic, the wrong thing that they're doing, their unethical practices, and what have you, not spewing hate and shouting as loud as they can. Now, the question is whether these loud, hateful voices, can actually do that. If they can not jump the gun and blast comment after comment of hate and anger.
I think the best we can do, is to still try and teach these people to be better and more open-minded, whether it's through being examples ourselves or directly talking to them when they're being hateful and whatnot.
It's perfectly fine, and even should be encouraged, to criticize games and other creations (artworks, movies, stories, etc.) because it helps the creators grow and see things from different perspectives that they may not have been able to see from before. Sadly, from what I've observed of my many years as a netizen, so many people are just so damn ready to hate instead. They don't do things constructively and they simply don't think much. And this isn't specific to media, of course, you'll see it everywhere. It is so easy to hate and be angry and oftentimes, that's what a lot of the loud, vocal people on the internet are doing. As Charles has said, these people will believe that they're experts on all sorts of things because of whatever reason they want to believe, and it's hard to reach out to these people because they're so close-minded.
On the other hand... There have been times when developers and/or publishers have been less than truthful about certain matters regarding their games. They should be called out for these things, but done so in a respectful manner. The audience should be criticizing their work ethic, the wrong thing that they're doing, their unethical practices, and what have you, not spewing hate and shouting as loud as they can. Now, the question is whether these loud, hateful voices, can actually do that. If they can not jump the gun and blast comment after comment of hate and anger.
I think the best we can do, is to still try and teach these people to be better and more open-minded, whether it's through being examples ourselves or directly talking to them when they're being hateful and whatnot.
Not to mention a lot of these things are by no means easy to explain or to understand. There are a lot of junior developers who maybe understand that some these things are hard or expensive, but when it comes complex game projects, you have to have years of experience and seen the process to truly comprehend the details involved and take for example all topics about budgets. So often do I see people here respond that games simply cost too much money to make "because of developers", when the complexities can be so big and the reality of it so hard to understand.
That's one of the reason why the industry isn't all that secretive when it comes sharing our learning, but it's just mostly in developer circles.
CountAntonius
Member
I'm not a dev but I can see how many people don't understand what they are talking about, take business decisions way too personally and have little respect for the work devs do. I wouldn't engage either.
I don't think so. Ninja Theory put out some really great and in-depth dev diaries for Hellblade right at the start of conception for the game, and you still had a significant number of people just popping in and saying things like "looks bad" or talking about dmc. Can't imagine what it would be like if the game had been a massive AAA production instead.
Don't worry, some still do.
They won't do this though, because in game development, something could work fine for 70% of development, and then it turns out no, it's not going to work. And you make the decision to cut it.
But because you brought it up as even a possibility for a feature or passed through it in an early dev video, you're now a liar or failed on a feature that isn't even in the final product to be judged as part of the game. People conflate personal interviews about development as marketing and PR, when it's not intended or supposed to be. Every game cuts content, and does so a lot, because if you don't cut you get feature creep and less hands on deck polishing up your good shippable features. For an example of how more social matured movies are, again, compared to this, directors and actors can openly talk about cut scenes or dialog from a movie, and the movie will not be judged on those cut scenes or elements by reviews. They will for a game. It's insanity.
And part of this is because people like to re-interpret internal debate and decision making as some "ooooooooooooooo" high school drama tabloid blah. It's a creative industry. People have this incorrect idea that game development is all drum circles and everybody pulls ideas out of the ether and are all on the same brainwave and that someone that wanted to cut a feature is a huge asshole because they preferred to do this this way instead. Developers bring their ideas to the table, you hear the debate, some people win, some people lose, with various degrees of winning and losing, but they don't (usually) hate each other like people seem to think as a result of that process. And of course, some people might still be sad that their pet feature got cut, but that's okay, because it's a creative industry and you're allowed to be sad your feature got cut. But the gaming public will sometimes take one of these tidbits and it'll end up as a "what the fuck are you EVEN SAYING" post on the internet.
I just... dont know. Its easy to call out the internet trolls, but when you have people like EA who claims bad shit as unprecedented partneship, you know that there are a lot of shit coming from the big Companies.
Remember when developers would discard Nintendo Wii just because it was weak!? Developers did that, the trolls came after claiming Nintendo is for babies!
The problem is that gaming companies ARE secretive. This is a fact! Who would have thought about MH world or Bethesda creating games for Nintendo!? Square going sony crazy with FF7 in the 90s and so many other betrayals that took the consumers in unexpected ways.
The public decides on which system they will put their money and time based on what we know and expect. And this sells the industry. Thats why E3 is so important: its the moment we discover whats going on for the foreseeable future.
And the toxic environment comes from the terrible cold war created by the hardware companies. Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony earn money creating communities. The big difference between games industry and the others is that you dont see this cold war in the other industries. Ive never seen fox, universal or disney talking shit against each other. The only place that i know the competition os fierce is on the Beverage industry (coke vs pepsi).
Maybe this guy is telling from his personal experience as a developer but I pretty much doubt he knows whats happening in the offices of the 3 big ones.
Remember when developers would discard Nintendo Wii just because it was weak!? Developers did that, the trolls came after claiming Nintendo is for babies!
The problem is that gaming companies ARE secretive. This is a fact! Who would have thought about MH world or Bethesda creating games for Nintendo!? Square going sony crazy with FF7 in the 90s and so many other betrayals that took the consumers in unexpected ways.
The public decides on which system they will put their money and time based on what we know and expect. And this sells the industry. Thats why E3 is so important: its the moment we discover whats going on for the foreseeable future.
And the toxic environment comes from the terrible cold war created by the hardware companies. Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony earn money creating communities. The big difference between games industry and the others is that you dont see this cold war in the other industries. Ive never seen fox, universal or disney talking shit against each other. The only place that i know the competition os fierce is on the Beverage industry (coke vs pepsi).
Maybe this guy is telling from his personal experience as a developer but I pretty much doubt he knows whats happening in the offices of the 3 big ones.
Lmao isn't this presumption that you know more than a game developer exactly what Charles is talking about?
Star Citizen's main PR issue is that the game development is simultaneously easy when they announce a new feature or an impossible to reach deadline, and the hardest thing in the universe when they miss the deadlines and the features slip.
But that's just symptomatic of the funding model which relies on hype and selling kewl looking ships which interact with gameplay systems which currently don't exist outside conceptual notes. I'm not putting a value judgement on it, but it's basically a neverending series of mini PR hype cycles when most games just run through the one big cycle. It's actually very interesting, as it suggests that too much information is actually detrimental to the consumers opinion of the product. Something like Pillars of Eternity 2 is probably hitting the sweet spot as to informing the consumer about development and not going to much into the making of the sausage.
The actual game build out just now is relatively functional if very limited. It's not really any fun though.
You know who said or tried to say indirectly that the games on ps4 should look better than on xbox!?
Sony on the day the demoed ps4 for the first time. You have 8gb of ram! Many people at the time could only speak and talk about that.
As the marketing teams speak, the developers keep their silence and people take for granted what the sales people, like reggie fils aime, say as true.
The switch is the best thing ever. If u dont have a 3ds, whats the matter with you!
Sony on the day the demoed ps4 for the first time. You have 8gb of ram! Many people at the time could only speak and talk about that.
As the marketing teams speak, the developers keep their silence and people take for granted what the sales people, like reggie fils aime, say as true.
The switch is the best thing ever. If u dont have a 3ds, whats the matter with you!
A similar thing happened with another game. Developer wanted to crowdfund money for a port, half the responses were people calling them liars for saying a port would cost that much.. when they were actually a relatively cheap port.
This has never been the case. I'd like to see these examples of easy things they said they did. I also notice that a lot of people happily project their prejudices on a lot of things the developers say and it colours their view regardless of the intent or what they're actually saying.
True. Though the number of developers I recall actually lying about some aspect of their game, or pulling a true bait and switch, I could maybe count on one hand.
Valve is a bit different in my opinion because they seem to actively troll the community on occasion. It's all a long running meme/joke at this point.
Marketing is another issue, but it's not really different than any other industry, and is generally seperate than the people actually involved in making the product.
Yes. When the loudest, most vile assholes are the ones who are front facing against the rest of the world, the industry the culture and the people within get a bad rap. See Pewdipie, see gamergate, see Steve Bannon.
If that makes you mad, you need to start speaking out against these fuckwads who paint you and what you do in a negative light.
Im not saying that i know shit about games. If i did, i would play on PC. The topic here is about why developers dont speak about their profession in a more wide fashion. Im not talking about how easy is to port.
Im saying that developers suffers with trolls because they keep their mouth shout and they love to troll gamers too.
No one on this industry is inocent. I play games long enough to understand that people treat games as soccer teams.
90% of gamers treat hardware companies as soccer teams. Theres a emotional link between players and hardware companies. And I think its easy to bash the end consumer for how toxic the whole industry is.
What's this nonsense? The first part is true, games did run better or look better on PS4 in general. It was a better machine at the time.
The second thing you said just doesn't make sense, and has nothing to do with anything. Reggie talked up his own product, and it's very popular. Your not liking it has nothing to do with the topic.
Saying an update would be out last year when a feature limited version* of it still isn't out nearly a year later is an example of selective ease of development as the hype cycle requires.
*yes it will be a feature limited version for the players at least if not in technical content.
Patrick S.
Banned
BTW I misremembered, he actually admitted it in PlanetCrap's IRC channel. I remember I made a screenshot of it.
Also:
"why don't they just switch to Unreal", aka Puff the Magic Engine, where supposedly switching to an engine will make everything easier and better just for switching to it.
Protip: literally everyone's engine sucks. Internal tools always suck. If you think your internal tools and engine are perfect, you're the ad agency hired to try and advertise the engine. The skill in game development is learning how to bend and mold using the sucky tools to get what you want. Not even Notepad is perfect software; that damn thing still can't understand unix newlines after 30 years. Why don't developers "just go and fix it"? There's only so much money and time and you have to balance it between tools development and making a game and making a new engine or improving the engine.
If I can get around an engine limitation with 30 seconds of extra setup and 40 seconds of rigging, it's cheaper and faster than speding 70,000$ of manhours replacing it as a bespoke module in the engine when that 70k worth of hours could have been put towards optimization for more level objects or having multiplayer supporting statistics. Triage is very real and very much a reason why you get good games.
Even Don Knuth, the creator of TeX, has said that his legendary software isn't perfect, and that upon his death, what will just happen is that all of the bugs in the software will officially become features.
"why don't they just switch to Unreal", aka Puff the Magic Engine, where supposedly switching to an engine will make everything easier and better just for switching to it.
Protip: literally everyone's engine sucks. Internal tools always suck. If you think your internal tools and engine are perfect, you're the ad agency hired to try and advertise the engine. The skill in game development is learning how to bend and mold using the sucky tools to get what you want. Not even Notepad is perfect software; that damn thing still can't understand unix newlines after 30 years. Why don't developers "just go and fix it"? There's only so much money and time and you have to balance it between tools development and making a game and making a new engine or improving the engine.
If I can get around an engine limitation with 30 seconds of extra setup and 40 seconds of rigging, it's cheaper and faster than speding 70,000$ of manhours replacing it as a bespoke module in the engine when that 70k worth of hours could have been put towards optimization for more level objects or having multiplayer supporting statistics. Triage is very real and very much a reason why you get good games.
Even Don Knuth, the creator of TeX, has said that his legendary software isn't perfect, and that upon his death, what will just happen is that all of the bugs in the software will officially become features.
It has more features than they said it would have last year. They also explained why. Because they found for some of the features they needed to implement, they actually needed to implement other dependencies.
FIREKNIGHT2029
Member
And this is why I dont go into armchair dev discussions. Im currently in school hoping to become a dev someday and I know how hard it is. Ive always appreciated the work that goes into game development. When I dislike a game I tend to forget about it and I dont dwell on it. Whats the point of ragging on a game you dislike and harassing its devs? Its a pointless and stupid endeavor.
I gave up after 6 months. went back to doing high res imagery and animation for advertising. The pay was significantly lower than what i'd been making, and the hours were absolutely terrible. Don't get me wrong, i'm in crunch right now at work, not having been off work since the 10th and i think i worked close to 90 hours last week, But I work at a SMALL company of 7 people (4 of us are actually artist, and only 2 of us do 3d, with me being the lead handling 90% of it) and 5 cats (yes, seriously). so we get heavy july-sept. but the other months, i'd be surprised if anyone even hits 32 hours in a week worked. when i did the same thing at a small game company, i felt it was always some random made up goal we needed to crunch for over and over and over. always working 48-60 hours. and it was obnoxious. Maybe if i was young and fresh out of college, i would've been all in, but i enjoyed having a life.
I actually think there's more of them than us talking about games online and contacting devs. There's still a problem here with this from a lot of us, though most of our most toxic members have been banned. Sooooo many have been banned here. This board isn't particularly representative when it comes to this.
AtomskEater
Member
Got any names I can google to see more about this?
I believe it. To me someone doing something so technical for the industry equivalent of fifty bucks and a few beers should set off warning alarms that it's probably not going to get done to a standard most people would be fine paying for. On the off chance, do you remember any relevant names for this project? I'm having fun going over the old Skullgirls thread and looking for similar entertainment.
it was the Rock Band 4 PC Fig.
The Albatross
Member
*edit* Sorry this is super long, didn't realize how much I bloviated until hitting [Submit Reply]...
TLDR:
Extended play:
"We're candid, but one caveat, we're only candid with other industry people." That's a mighty big caveat.
It's like saying mortgage securities traders were candid before the recession, but only with other industry people. Yes. They were candid with each other, but not with anybody else, and the reason is motivated by the same thing... The idea that "the public" cannot handle the truth. Now, obviously, the game industry is not as important or influential as the financial industry, but this attitude isn't something that's unique to game development, and the same lessons that other consumer industries have learned (or are too stubborn to learn) can also be applied to the videogame industry and every other consumer industry.
When any company is more candid, and more open about a product, the public is far more accepting of issues. When a company is less candid, more guarded, more secretive, or does things that the public thinks is dishonest, then the public becomes more critical. The antagonistic relationship between game developers (or, really, I think it's more often game publishers than actual individual contributors to a project) is a result of this decades long cagey relationship between publishers and consumers. It's very easy and it's very lazy to say, "well the public is just too dumb to understand, and the public is evil, so that's why we're candid with the public."
This is the same type of response that the airline industry gives consumers.
"Why are we stuck on the tarmac for 2 hours? Why is the plane delayed? I paid for a ticket why is there no room on the plane?" When airlines are upfront with reasons for these decisions, people are very forgiving. But when the public is given cagey answers, or details are hidden from them (even when it seems like that will be a good thing, because, y'know, everybody thinks the public is too dumb), and then they're asked to be consumers, the public responds negatively to that.
Whenever industries are shady with details and hide details from consumers, consumers will react negatively. Whether it's your mobile service provider sticking you with fees, your ISP downgrading your connection over a specific monthly alotment, your cable company raising your bill by $7 randomly, and this really goes through every consumer industry, you will find that the more honest the provider is, the more willing the consumer is to accept something that they don't like.
A great example of an antagonistic relationship between game publishers and game enthusiasts is with EA/EA Sports and their sports games. Fans of these leagues, say the NFL or NBA, love NFL and NBA videogames, and many of them have really attached themselves to one series or another, but enthusiasts in these games and the developers/publishers have formed an antagonistic relationship with each other. It only got worse this year, but that's not because of consumer's decisions to somehow be more antagonistic, it's because of how EA handled their relationship with fans. With Madden '18, EA banned footage of the game from YouTube, they restricted access to it, there were no open previews of the game, people who could preview it were selectively chosen and their feedback was censored, they were only allowed to talk about specific approved talking points, and gameplay was not shown for the game until two days before the game was released. EA did not give information about any of the major modes that enthusiasts have always played in Madden, namely, the Franchise mode, and the developers that EA feeds to the wolves on Twitter (the product manager, franchise manager, etc) would only answer questions about specific modes and wouldn't go into any meaningful detail. Beyond that, the game has become a vehicle for microtransactions this year, with some previously "free modes" (in quotes because a game mode in a $60 game being "Free" should not even be a concept) now being locked behind a microtransactions layer ("MUT Draft").
This generated a tremendous amount of negativity towards EA. Most of this negativity gets geared at "the developers," because people don't know how game development works from a planning and organizational point of view, so "developers" is just the catch all for what is really probably "development management," at a company like EA. That doesn't mean that your average Madden fan is mad at an individual contributor or individual programmer at EA for the state of Madden this year, it's just that they're mad at EA and the decisions they've made with the game.
This causes EA to get more cagey, which is the opposite of what they should be doing. As a corporation, they should recognize the incredible amount of bad will that they're earning with enthusiasts and address that with meaningful changes. And these changes aren't hard:
- Show gameplay early with the game. This will only help EA, as early gameplay reveals bugs that get reported and can be addressed. And anybody who knows anything about software development ("I happen to be an expert"), knows that bugs found before release are always cheaper to fix than bugs found after release, and that found bugs will always save you money. Always.
- Prioritize development on features that consumers want, not what you think consumers want. This means being genuinely engaged with the community, not being superficially engaged with 1 community manager handling thousands of customer requests.
- Prioritize development on your consumer's goals, not your finance department's goals. If you make something that consumers want, you'll make more stable money, always.
- Prioritize fixing bugs. It's embarrassing that a game has been shipped for 5 or 6 years with the same bugs in it, and these are highly visible, game altering bugs that have been well reported by the community. Buggy software, no matter what, will threaten your consumer relationship. It might be very hard to fix some bugs, maybe the code base is super old for that aspect of the game, but that's not your consumer's fault, that's your organization's fault.
- Remember: You serve the consumer, not the other way around. Unless you're one of a very small handful of incredibly rich individual developers who make projects for themselves and it's a biproduct that other people enjoy them, for the most part, you're making a product for your consumer that you're hoping they buy. Remember this whenever you do anything. Saying "The gamer community is toxic," is an interesting way of going about your life, considering that you're asking this toxic community to feed your family. If this leads to a major crisis for you, leave the industry. I wouldn't work for masters who I think are toxic and terrible people. If I worked for a company that did terrible things around the planet, unless they paid me some ungodly amount so that I could cynically brainwash myself with money, I wouldn't work for them. The game industry, generally, is not paying developers very much to develop games, so if you have a real problem with the people paying your bills, then you should absolutely leave and serve an industry that can bring you more peace of mind.
The antagonistic relationship between game producers and game consumers isn't very different from most other industries, and I'm sure that game developers have probably engendered dissatisfaction with other consumer services. Ever had a bad experience at a restaurant? The server was slow to get to your table, your drinks were wrong, the appetizers came out almost on top of the main course, the main course was wrong, and one of your items was cold...? I'm sure we've all had bad experiences at restaurants and other businesses, but the way that the business handles that bad experience contributes to your relationship with them. If the server doesn't come over for 10 minutes, and then finally gives you attention and acts like you're an inconvenience to them, you're not going to have a positive impression. But, if the server comes over and apologizes, explains that there was a mixup and they're really sorry, and maybe they give you some small token of appreciation (a free drink, a free app, etc), it'll change your outlook immediately. If the cook makes the wrong item or makes a mistake, and your waiter brings both to the table and then takes 20 minutes for the new item to be made, and it causes your other meal to go cold, your'e going to be pissed. But if the waiter apologizes and then rushes to the kitchen to try to get them to fix it, and keeps you updated with the status, you're going to be forgiving as a consumer. These sorts of lessons apply to any industry, and the way that the producer handles it, whether it's food, retail, videogames, travel, etc., influences the relationship you're going to have with them and if you're willing to give them more money in the future.
My wife and I love this one restaurant in the city, but the service is usually slow, it takes a while,a nd it's pricey. BUt the staff is attentive, professional, and the food is always excellent, so we're willing to pay more for higher quality and great service, even though a meal there takes a lot longer. We're very forgiving when something isn't right because the restaurant has built up integrity with us over the years. Likewise, when traveling, we typically stay at a Marriott and fly JetBlue, not because they're perfect (Far from it), but because whenever there has been a problem they've always been quick to rectify it. Marriott and JetBlue typically perform very highly (compared to peer companies) on customer satisfaction, and so consumers are forgiving of issues because they trust the companies will do the right thing.
The videogame industry is generally an enthusiast-driven industry and with that comes two things: Enthusiasm towards your products when something is good, negativity towards your products when something is bad. But, enthusiasm and negativity are both better than apathy, which is common in other industries. Just as a bad decision can drum up thousands of posts on a forum like this or many critical YouTube videos, there are just as many consumers who are still going to go out and buy whatever product you're making; they're going to be shills for your product and wear their loyalty around like a badge, They'll get into endless arguments about "The Cloud" and "4 the gamers" and parrot all of your marketing to other people. This is something that you only get with entrenched enthusiast consumers, something you also see with car brands (think of the Ford guy pissing on the Chevy logo or something), sports teams, and a handful of other consumer products. But, if you make the wrong choice and then you're cagey about it, then it'll drum up an awful lot of negative feedback. Think of the sports GM who lets the star player walk and then their team falls back. The GM or organization might think "Damn, these fans are terrible because all they do is criticize me, they have no idea how difficult this job is!" But, no, that same thing that makes people take to the internet to rip the coach for starting X player over Y, or the QB for throwing a terrible 4th quarter INT instead of throwing the ball away, is the same thing that makes people buy tickets every year, or watch commercials during your games, or buy merchandise.... It's what causes them to hate their team but still take to message boards and argue about how their team is the greatest because they won 3 Super Bowls 25 years ago, while the other team sucked.
As it is with any enthusiast industry. And the antagonistic relationship isn't only driven by consumers, and generally, isn't even primarily driven by consumers. And yet, despite this, these companies that seemingly have an endless barrage of consumer antagonism, are multi-billion dollar companies that gainfully employ thousands of people. So, as critical as the toxic enthusiast game consumer is, they're also generally willing to bankroll developers that they're critical of.
--edit--
Adding to this:
This post about producers vs. consumers does not explain the caustic response that many enthusiasts have towards people of color, women, and other under-represented groups in the industry. This is one area that enthusiast groups need to fix, not developers/producers, but they aren't without fault either. The software industry has been notoriously antagonistic towards women and under-representative of other groups, and so while the caustic reaction that disgusting gaming enthusiasts have towards those under-represented population is a problem for the enthusiast community (and society as a whole), but the industry itself is also at fault for catering to that audience for decades. NeoGaf is one community that is much more proactive with this than most other enthusiast communities. Intolerance towards women, people of color, and other subjects of harrassment, exists on NeoGaf but it's thoroughly discouraged both by the people who moderate the forums and the individual members. Many other enthusiast outlets cater to this intolerance, NeoGaf is much more active in combating it.
TLDR:
- The antagonistic relationship between developers/producers and consumers is normal in any enthusiast consumer market.
- Antagonism is better than apathy for your bottom line
- The antagonistic relationship is normal, but that doesn't mean it's necessary.
- It's up to the producer/provider/creator to fix antagonistic relationships, not the consumer
Extended play:
"We're candid, but one caveat, we're only candid with other industry people." That's a mighty big caveat.
It's like saying mortgage securities traders were candid before the recession, but only with other industry people. Yes. They were candid with each other, but not with anybody else, and the reason is motivated by the same thing... The idea that "the public" cannot handle the truth. Now, obviously, the game industry is not as important or influential as the financial industry, but this attitude isn't something that's unique to game development, and the same lessons that other consumer industries have learned (or are too stubborn to learn) can also be applied to the videogame industry and every other consumer industry.
When any company is more candid, and more open about a product, the public is far more accepting of issues. When a company is less candid, more guarded, more secretive, or does things that the public thinks is dishonest, then the public becomes more critical. The antagonistic relationship between game developers (or, really, I think it's more often game publishers than actual individual contributors to a project) is a result of this decades long cagey relationship between publishers and consumers. It's very easy and it's very lazy to say, "well the public is just too dumb to understand, and the public is evil, so that's why we're candid with the public."
This is the same type of response that the airline industry gives consumers.
"Why are we stuck on the tarmac for 2 hours? Why is the plane delayed? I paid for a ticket why is there no room on the plane?" When airlines are upfront with reasons for these decisions, people are very forgiving. But when the public is given cagey answers, or details are hidden from them (even when it seems like that will be a good thing, because, y'know, everybody thinks the public is too dumb), and then they're asked to be consumers, the public responds negatively to that.
Whenever industries are shady with details and hide details from consumers, consumers will react negatively. Whether it's your mobile service provider sticking you with fees, your ISP downgrading your connection over a specific monthly alotment, your cable company raising your bill by $7 randomly, and this really goes through every consumer industry, you will find that the more honest the provider is, the more willing the consumer is to accept something that they don't like.
A great example of an antagonistic relationship between game publishers and game enthusiasts is with EA/EA Sports and their sports games. Fans of these leagues, say the NFL or NBA, love NFL and NBA videogames, and many of them have really attached themselves to one series or another, but enthusiasts in these games and the developers/publishers have formed an antagonistic relationship with each other. It only got worse this year, but that's not because of consumer's decisions to somehow be more antagonistic, it's because of how EA handled their relationship with fans. With Madden '18, EA banned footage of the game from YouTube, they restricted access to it, there were no open previews of the game, people who could preview it were selectively chosen and their feedback was censored, they were only allowed to talk about specific approved talking points, and gameplay was not shown for the game until two days before the game was released. EA did not give information about any of the major modes that enthusiasts have always played in Madden, namely, the Franchise mode, and the developers that EA feeds to the wolves on Twitter (the product manager, franchise manager, etc) would only answer questions about specific modes and wouldn't go into any meaningful detail. Beyond that, the game has become a vehicle for microtransactions this year, with some previously "free modes" (in quotes because a game mode in a $60 game being "Free" should not even be a concept) now being locked behind a microtransactions layer ("MUT Draft").
This generated a tremendous amount of negativity towards EA. Most of this negativity gets geared at "the developers," because people don't know how game development works from a planning and organizational point of view, so "developers" is just the catch all for what is really probably "development management," at a company like EA. That doesn't mean that your average Madden fan is mad at an individual contributor or individual programmer at EA for the state of Madden this year, it's just that they're mad at EA and the decisions they've made with the game.
This causes EA to get more cagey, which is the opposite of what they should be doing. As a corporation, they should recognize the incredible amount of bad will that they're earning with enthusiasts and address that with meaningful changes. And these changes aren't hard:
- Show gameplay early with the game. This will only help EA, as early gameplay reveals bugs that get reported and can be addressed. And anybody who knows anything about software development ("I happen to be an expert"), knows that bugs found before release are always cheaper to fix than bugs found after release, and that found bugs will always save you money. Always.
- Prioritize development on features that consumers want, not what you think consumers want. This means being genuinely engaged with the community, not being superficially engaged with 1 community manager handling thousands of customer requests.
- Prioritize development on your consumer's goals, not your finance department's goals. If you make something that consumers want, you'll make more stable money, always.
- Prioritize fixing bugs. It's embarrassing that a game has been shipped for 5 or 6 years with the same bugs in it, and these are highly visible, game altering bugs that have been well reported by the community. Buggy software, no matter what, will threaten your consumer relationship. It might be very hard to fix some bugs, maybe the code base is super old for that aspect of the game, but that's not your consumer's fault, that's your organization's fault.
- Remember: You serve the consumer, not the other way around. Unless you're one of a very small handful of incredibly rich individual developers who make projects for themselves and it's a biproduct that other people enjoy them, for the most part, you're making a product for your consumer that you're hoping they buy. Remember this whenever you do anything. Saying "The gamer community is toxic," is an interesting way of going about your life, considering that you're asking this toxic community to feed your family. If this leads to a major crisis for you, leave the industry. I wouldn't work for masters who I think are toxic and terrible people. If I worked for a company that did terrible things around the planet, unless they paid me some ungodly amount so that I could cynically brainwash myself with money, I wouldn't work for them. The game industry, generally, is not paying developers very much to develop games, so if you have a real problem with the people paying your bills, then you should absolutely leave and serve an industry that can bring you more peace of mind.
The antagonistic relationship between game producers and game consumers isn't very different from most other industries, and I'm sure that game developers have probably engendered dissatisfaction with other consumer services. Ever had a bad experience at a restaurant? The server was slow to get to your table, your drinks were wrong, the appetizers came out almost on top of the main course, the main course was wrong, and one of your items was cold...? I'm sure we've all had bad experiences at restaurants and other businesses, but the way that the business handles that bad experience contributes to your relationship with them. If the server doesn't come over for 10 minutes, and then finally gives you attention and acts like you're an inconvenience to them, you're not going to have a positive impression. But, if the server comes over and apologizes, explains that there was a mixup and they're really sorry, and maybe they give you some small token of appreciation (a free drink, a free app, etc), it'll change your outlook immediately. If the cook makes the wrong item or makes a mistake, and your waiter brings both to the table and then takes 20 minutes for the new item to be made, and it causes your other meal to go cold, your'e going to be pissed. But if the waiter apologizes and then rushes to the kitchen to try to get them to fix it, and keeps you updated with the status, you're going to be forgiving as a consumer. These sorts of lessons apply to any industry, and the way that the producer handles it, whether it's food, retail, videogames, travel, etc., influences the relationship you're going to have with them and if you're willing to give them more money in the future.
My wife and I love this one restaurant in the city, but the service is usually slow, it takes a while,a nd it's pricey. BUt the staff is attentive, professional, and the food is always excellent, so we're willing to pay more for higher quality and great service, even though a meal there takes a lot longer. We're very forgiving when something isn't right because the restaurant has built up integrity with us over the years. Likewise, when traveling, we typically stay at a Marriott and fly JetBlue, not because they're perfect (Far from it), but because whenever there has been a problem they've always been quick to rectify it. Marriott and JetBlue typically perform very highly (compared to peer companies) on customer satisfaction, and so consumers are forgiving of issues because they trust the companies will do the right thing.
The videogame industry is generally an enthusiast-driven industry and with that comes two things: Enthusiasm towards your products when something is good, negativity towards your products when something is bad. But, enthusiasm and negativity are both better than apathy, which is common in other industries. Just as a bad decision can drum up thousands of posts on a forum like this or many critical YouTube videos, there are just as many consumers who are still going to go out and buy whatever product you're making; they're going to be shills for your product and wear their loyalty around like a badge, They'll get into endless arguments about "The Cloud" and "4 the gamers" and parrot all of your marketing to other people. This is something that you only get with entrenched enthusiast consumers, something you also see with car brands (think of the Ford guy pissing on the Chevy logo or something), sports teams, and a handful of other consumer products. But, if you make the wrong choice and then you're cagey about it, then it'll drum up an awful lot of negative feedback. Think of the sports GM who lets the star player walk and then their team falls back. The GM or organization might think "Damn, these fans are terrible because all they do is criticize me, they have no idea how difficult this job is!" But, no, that same thing that makes people take to the internet to rip the coach for starting X player over Y, or the QB for throwing a terrible 4th quarter INT instead of throwing the ball away, is the same thing that makes people buy tickets every year, or watch commercials during your games, or buy merchandise.... It's what causes them to hate their team but still take to message boards and argue about how their team is the greatest because they won 3 Super Bowls 25 years ago, while the other team sucked.
As it is with any enthusiast industry. And the antagonistic relationship isn't only driven by consumers, and generally, isn't even primarily driven by consumers. And yet, despite this, these companies that seemingly have an endless barrage of consumer antagonism, are multi-billion dollar companies that gainfully employ thousands of people. So, as critical as the toxic enthusiast game consumer is, they're also generally willing to bankroll developers that they're critical of.
--edit--
Adding to this:
This post about producers vs. consumers does not explain the caustic response that many enthusiasts have towards people of color, women, and other under-represented groups in the industry. This is one area that enthusiast groups need to fix, not developers/producers, but they aren't without fault either. The software industry has been notoriously antagonistic towards women and under-representative of other groups, and so while the caustic reaction that disgusting gaming enthusiasts have towards those under-represented population is a problem for the enthusiast community (and society as a whole), but the industry itself is also at fault for catering to that audience for decades. NeoGaf is one community that is much more proactive with this than most other enthusiast communities. Intolerance towards women, people of color, and other subjects of harrassment, exists on NeoGaf but it's thoroughly discouraged both by the people who moderate the forums and the individual members. Many other enthusiast outlets cater to this intolerance, NeoGaf is much more active in combating it.
InfiniteCombo
Banned
I'm glad this was brought up.
One thing that would help me immensely is to know/understand what developers are generally responsible for, as compared to publishers.
For example, in some industries, developers are generally the people focused on the various aspects of the product, but importantly things related to its technical existence: design, implementation, test, etc.
Then "the publisher" (Project Management staff) is the entity responsible for paying for the development costs. They also drive the overall schedule based on customer needs, but in this example case the Project Management can work together with developers to understand what features can be delivered in the required time. Quite often, schedules are ambitious, so sacrifices have to be made.
I wish I better understood what the different responsible are between the developers and the publishers. I feel like this can help heighten the level of discourse about game development. (For example, if people understood the different roles, they would rarely -- if ever -- type stuff like "LOL lazy developers!!" since overall schedules may be driven by the publisher, not the developer).
One thing that would help me immensely is to know/understand what developers are generally responsible for, as compared to publishers.
For example, in some industries, developers are generally the people focused on the various aspects of the product, but importantly things related to its technical existence: design, implementation, test, etc.
Then "the publisher" (Project Management staff) is the entity responsible for paying for the development costs. They also drive the overall schedule based on customer needs, but in this example case the Project Management can work together with developers to understand what features can be delivered in the required time. Quite often, schedules are ambitious, so sacrifices have to be made.
I wish I better understood what the different responsible are between the developers and the publishers. I feel like this can help heighten the level of discourse about game development. (For example, if people understood the different roles, they would rarely -- if ever -- type stuff like "LOL lazy developers!!" since overall schedules may be driven by the publisher, not the developer).
This isn't supposed to be me chastising you as much as it is supposed to be a testament to how complex these things are, but I thought I knew things about software when I graduated but I didn't actually know anything. A year to two years in, I thought I was beginning to get a handle of how much I needed to learn but I was still naive. I'm sure two or three years down from now, I'm going to look back to now and think about how dumb I was for thinking I knew things.
Does what happens in this thread really qualify as toxic? I just see some people disagreeing with certain points.
Fits into this topic I think. I agree with Randall and Bleszinski both. Nothing bothers and disappoints me more in this industry than the consumers. Not "lazy devs" or "greedy pubs", but obnoxious assholes.
Funny he should mention that, I don't think about him at all.
funkystudent
Member
I 110% understand why women in this industry would keep it on the low.
So many examples of women being picked out and harassed for even the slightest contact with a bad game these last few years. All you need is a line on a linkedin page somewhere and thats it. You cant have a public social media account anymore.
TissueBox
Member
As long as games are still seen as a service and product industry this will be perpetuated for a while as the strong clinical emotional make-up of nerd/geek culture keeps fixations rooted to a certain breed of entitlement.
Video games is one of the murkiest forms of media around because of its eclectic nature and modulated identity crisis.
Video games is one of the murkiest forms of media around because of its eclectic nature and modulated identity crisis.
To be honest this varies so much between project and if you take into account all disciplines and factors like marketing strategy, platform relations there rarely is a clear line to be seen. Publishers themselves are rarely "Project Management" and deal more in high-level product and portfolio strategy and greenlighting high-level decisions. Almost always the project management staff is still considered to be development team staff (so Game Directors, Executive Producers, Project Managers, Development Managers etc. are dev team staff, not publishing staff), and of course they work constantly with the developers themselves.
Honestly, it does feel like it's getting worse and worse for developers. This year at GDC I had some somber talks with people who were about to leave the industry because of personal attacks, and the feeling like you can't work with the community anymore, and whilst there were celebrations of the industry within getting more diverse and slowly starting fix some of it's shit finally (though these deeply rooted problems are being fixed at a snail's place outside of the mobile industry), same could not be said for community related topics.
Patrick S.
Banned
Edited.
Linkstrikesback
Member
My gut guess is, the snip
I know you can't comment
Don't make guesses at the name of people please. Best case scenario is nothing happens, worst is some dimwit sees a name and goes off to attempt to harass them because ... Well, of what this thread is about.