THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT - PERCEPTION OF DESIGNER & PLAYER "RESPONSIBILITIES" IN AMATEUR & COMMERCIAL VIDEO GAMES

This topic has moved into a really really interesting vein of discussion which I want to mine to the fullest.

Sometimes I post stuff in the spirit of "Hey guys look at this cool thing I made" not "Tell me what's wrong with this." If I have a question about something I'll ask, "Do you think I should do it this way or that way?"

The issue at hand is CONTENT PRODUCER INTENT (which I won't call 'Creator Intent' because I don't want to confuse it with the maker's authorial vision). Basically, if someone releases a piece of content to the internet, what response to they want?

Do they want all the criticism they can get to improve their project as much as possible? Or is the product no longer in the development phase, and they'd prefer if you can't say anything nice, to say nothing at all? Do they want criticism on some aspect of a game instead of others? Do they want feedback on dialogue, but not mapping? Do they want their feedback in the form of LTs instead of reviews, or vice versa? Do they want private feedback, but not public critique?

Is it legitimate for them to express these preferences? Is it courteous to align your feedback with these preferences? Do content producers even get a vote, at all, on the type of feedback they receive?

This is really, really, really fascinating, central shit here.

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Here is an incredibly common response I get when I have a less-than-positive or less-than-receptive response to some criticism

"I don't understand, if I was getting this kind of criticism, I would love it, because UNLIKE YOU I WANT TO IMPROVE MY GAME/MY GAME-MAKING AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Don't you want to improve? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? I DON'T GET IT."

I'm paraphrasing, but I've seen this response a LOT. Creation's post here is a version of it, after all:

author=Creation
The thought of not wanting feedback never crossed my mind. I’m always looking for the flaws in what I do in order to make fix them and make my creations better. I assumed, apparently mistakenly, that everyone felt the same way.

There’s a reason why big companies pay third parties to hire people to play games and find out what’s wrong with them. Same goes with private screenings before movies to get some feedback before releasing a movie, surveys and so on…

If people are paying to actively get feedback, I don’t see why anyone would reject it, feels like a waste.

Surely enough, not all feedback is necessarily relevant, but for those comments that make you change something in order to get something more polished, I mean, what is there to lose?

I believe that most of the feedback I ever got was harvested into making things of better quality in the long run.

I was actually about to comment your latest blog, space_monkey with some suggestions but if I understand correctly it's not what you're looking for. It's fine by the way, I'm just glad you're letting us now what your expectations are (unless I missed the point which is possible as I didn't read everything).

That’s just my opinion.

I have a lot to say about this. First off, you can't characterize content producer goals as a simple boolean variable/switch like: WANTS FEEDBACK/DOES NOT WANT FEEDBACK. It's a more complex array of possibilities than that. If someone does not want to hear any more about the fricking crystal they sprited for instance, that does not mean they don't want feedback.

Personally, speaking of my own experience, I have been doing this for an incredibly long time. Like, so long it's actually kind of weird, scary, and gross. For the first SEVERAL YEARS of my time in "the hobby", naturally I viewed myself as a RANK AMATEUR and was eager to receive as much feedback as I possibly could. Initially, I was probably quite immature and thought my early games were great because I didn't know any better--once I played some good games and realized why I sucked, I wanted to do everything I could to learn more.

But now...I am an old man. There are some things that I'm just not going to get any better at. My mapping skills, I think, have reached their peak. I don't think they're half bad. They're not great, but if you were to really look at my early games compared to my more recent ones, I would hope I'd at least win "most improved".

Other things, I still want to improve at, still want any and all feedback. But there are other areas where I feel like I'm at or near the top of my game, as talented as anyone. I will accept feedback...but only if that feedback is accompanied by some kind of acknowledgment of what I'm doing well. Why? Not because of vanity, but because if the critic cannot find something he likes *at this point in my life* then he is very likely one of the people who is never going to appreciate my games no matter how good they are.

I am an old man of chapsets, and I do not know why this community expects that my attitude must always and firmly be that of the young grasshopper, the humble apprentice, or else I am being "egotistical" or "masturbatory".

There is a certain point after ten years of game making where "getting better at game making" ceases to be the PRIMARY OBJECTIVES, and where the PRIMARY OBJECTIVE instead becomes "using the skills you've learned over the years to make games". OF COURSE I CAN STILL IMPROVE, OF COURSE I STILL WANT TO IMPROVE, BUT IMPROVING IS NO LONGER MY PRIMARY CONCERN; CREATING AND PROMOTING IS.

(Not to belabor the point, but I am definitely *NOT* saying that I don't want feedback or saying that feedback is wasted on me. OF COURSE I still want people to play my games and tell me what they think, because otherwise what is the fucking point? Creator motivation is a separate, important issue and I don't fall into the 'I make games purely for myself' camp.)

And even more important than the stance of a particular user with regards to feedback is the status of a particular game.

If the *COMPLETED* flag is to have meaning, then Completed games should simply not be treated the same way as games that are in development. If a user has flagged a game as COMPLETE, then it is inappropriate to respond with feedback like nitpicking the mapping or the battle system. A more appropriate response would be *synthesizing what you liked about the game* and *synthesizing in general terms what the author could improve with their next project, and how they could go about doing so*.

And by the way...there is nothing more counterproductive than hurling vitriolic, rude, or purely negative feedback on a completed game. No matter how *bad* you think it is, respect the fact that it is complete.

When you dump on completed games, you discourage game completion.

I wish we even had accurate figures on how many of those 396 downloaders actually PLAYED the game at all.