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

I also think that people need to stop and think about their biases when offering feedback. It's probably already been said (likely in the first post, even, and I'm forgetting), but I believe that it is important for people to differentiate between things that are inherently bad design choices and simply something they don't like.

This a really excellent point, and sadly some of our more prolific reviewers fail to do this.

That said, I've played a variety of games, both good and bad, and I'm pretty forgiving to even the worst ones I've played (barring one or two... -_-; )
I think this is because of the number of games I've played. I've played games where all the dialogue was text-talk (oi, brian, lts go2 lake tmz!) and games where the script is amazingly polished and/or overly complicated (Phylomortis, anyone?). I've played games where floors are used as walls, doors are houses and a forest contained three trees. On the flip, I've played a few german games, a couple of french ones and others like Eyes Without a Face. I've played games where the plot is to collect four crystals, and enjoyed them. Played ones where the story is focussed on time travel and paradoxes. Games that used the RTP sounds and music, games with original sountracks, games that were buggy, but enjoyable, games that were solid but boring, games with incredible systems that were too complex or weren't fun, games with only the default systems that were a lot of fun and always will be.

XD

A quick example is an LT of one of my games where the LTer never bothered to grab the chests that were easy to see and get to, then complained about dying in the first battle because they hadn't bought anything at all (items or armour), bothered collecting treasure, listening to any NPCs or using skills. This kind of playing is, in my opinion, lazy and irritates me. As such, I listened to a few things that were said (tweaked the stats a tiny bit for the fights as watching that battle I'd noticed that some of the enemy skills were a little tougher than I'd meant them to be), but kept everything else the same.

This is almost exactly what this thread is about. It's good that you listened at all, but I think you would have been well within your rights to just tell that person to go fuck themselves. They obviously made no effort to engage with your game at all on any meaningful level.

I'm not saying this statement is wrong but... this point is rather meaningless when there's a key difference between a player and players (guess which matters more). Somewhere down the line your game's quality doesn't depend on how amazing your GAME DESIGN KNOWLEDGE is or even how much effort you spent on it. But it's how well you listen to your audience as a whole. If 10 people think your puzzle is shit, there's probably some good reason as to why it's bad, even if you thought the puzzle was a stroke of genius. That's something people shouldn't forget in the long run.

I don't disagree, but as I said last time....for me the number is about 5. Five is the number of people who have to not like something, and I don't mean 5 gross, I mean 5 net. If 5 people don't like something but another 3 do, I'll probably keep it in, because that's only 2 net. This is not an exact formula, of course. And one person with a particularly persuasive argument is probably more of a factor than 5 who just say 'I don't like it'. (People also favor the feedback of those they respect and trust...to a point.)

It would be great if ~10 people ever gave comments on what they hate love about a game, instead of just what they love hate.

Fixed that for you. We're, as a community, much too harsh. We encourage good games at the cost of discouraging games. Even making a game that is flawed or mediocre (note, I'm using the actual definition of mediocre, I've seen some people around here use it to mean 'bad', mediocre should mean 2.5 stars) is a laudable accomplishment deserving of praise and support.

And I personally have never had the problem of too little criticism, but have often quit projects because of a lack of audience enthusiasm.

It is very hard for me to take any feedback seriously if someone says they hate EVERYTHING in one of my games. It makes me think they just hate me. If on the other hand they say "I liked the story, but the battle balance has problems" I'll be much more likely to listen, and I won't just put on my rad/cool glasses, bump my head, and say "haters gonna hate".

You have to understand , when a player really liked a game, he(she)'s like a spectator in a concert, he (she) wants to GIVE you back something, and it's not going to be by saying : point a/ .point b/.. etc, no but : "wow, I loved your game!"or "Thanks!".
Maybe if you're getting "better" feedback for the secong game, it's because people like it less?!!

qft basically.

I think players need to realise the difference between a demo and a full-game a bit more when commenting. Saying that a demo is awesome is a great ego boost for the developer, but someone who players a demo should - if they like most of that demo - give the developer some tips so that the finished game is even better. It pays off in the long-run for both the player and the developer!

Strongly agree; and the flip side is 'plz fix' lists for finished games are pretty worthless/disheartening.

I am more forgiving when playing commercial games, but that doesn't necessarily mean I like them better; I just have more faith that whatever I am struggling with is temporary.

RM games gives us the impression that if X area had a half-assed design and Y area was to hard, then surely Z area is going to be ugly and impossible!

You can't see how this is a completely unfair double standard massively detrimental to the community that we should all struggle to overcome? Use the same 'rules' for RM games that you would for anything else. They're just as capable of being 'good but uneven' as commercial games, and commercial games are just as capable of being made of fail from the getgo, and not deserving of your patience (I'm looking at you, Alpha Protocol. Yeah, I tried to wait that shit out. And I regret it.)

I also went through AP using stealth tactics because it is a fucking spy game and I had an awful time. The game is pretty much universally despised, so seemed a good example for my point.

Starseed: Blood Machine there might be a grain of truth to what you're saying. To Arms! in my opinion not even a fucking grain. There are dozens of ways to play that game and win. I know, because me and half a dozen other people spent hours and hours playtesting all of them. I have no idea what to tell you if you're getting wiped out in that game. I can't even hazard a guess as to what you must be doing wrong, but I would guess it's something pretty fundamental. Either that or the laws of probability are spectacularly failing to apply to your RNG.

Also I wonder if the version you played was before or after I made it arbitrarily easier as a result of everyone's bitching. Ironically, I did that solely because of people's whining, yet none of the whiners seemed to have the good grace to go back and play the easier version, so I don't know why I fucking bothered.

I will firmly ask all people to confine further discussion of my games to their respective game pages and/or PM.

Sorry! Didn't mean to bite your head off! This is why I normally don't post in the mornings. : )