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

I always thought it was a privilege to have your game reviewed and even if it was a piece of crap you should be grateful that someone actually tried to play your game and give you feedback on it.

I feel that some people seem to think that whatever game they make, it is enjoyable in their perspective no matter what anyone says, some people seem to be blinded by their own pride that they actually do not see the flaws within their own game that numerous people to complain about, that's the reason behind the complaints because there are flaws and maybe, just maybe they would like to see this game get better so they make it a note to the developer by writing a review.

We're all gamers as well as developers and I guess if there was a chance that if we complained to a company like Squaresoft and there was a chance that they would listen to our complaints we would all be doing it outright. Slashphoenix made an excellent point about that already.

This is a very interesting and well argued topic by all of the above posters, and it is a subject I have given a great deal of thought myself over the years.

I do think gamers in general are more critical today than they once were. For example, there was a time (the 90s) when Squaresoft could do no wrong in the eyes of the fans, yet Final Fantasy XIII and XIV have been raked across the coals by reviewers everywhere. XIV actually got so much bad feedback that SquareEnix submitted an apology to the fans. For those of you who missed it, here it is:



I guess even the biggest names in the industry aren't immune to criticism!

Admittedly, I haven't been here very long, but I haven't seen any of the members here being 'haters', as all of the criticism has been grounded and phrased in more or less polite terms. When Creation gives a random game 15 minutes of fame on his Pass or Fail series, the audience knows what he likes and what his standards are going to be. There's no malice or ulterior motive behind the review, it's just feedback.

I think the big problem is that discouraging the creator of a game is very, very easy. When you're part of a design team for a commercial game that doesn't do well, you can just shrug it off and move on the the next job. But when the game is entirely 'your baby', any criticism, even the most well-intentioned, tends to give you a sick feeling of failure. "Oh man, my game doesn't have a custom battle system!" "Oh man, my game doesn't have a fishing mini-game!" "Oh man, my game uses some RTP stuff!" "Oh man, my intro sequence is longer than two minutes!" When one gets a lot criticism at once, especially for something the developer considered to be finished and polished, it can be too much and cause the game creator to give up in despair, thus robbing the world of untold creative endeavours.

I don't have any real solution to this, but I can tell you what I do when I get discouraged. I go to this site and look through all the old TurboGrafx-16 RPGs:

http://www.thebrothersduomazov.com/

Every single one of those retro-looking games was a commercial release. Some are great, some are terrible, but all are professional, and pretty much everything those games did can be recreated with RPG Maker. How technology improves in leaps and bounds, as what once took an entire programming team is now possible for a single determined game developer! These games provide realistic goals, and whenever I start to feel as though my work is a waste of time and that nobody would ever want to play an old school RPG, I remember these games when they were once king, and realize that they are what I should be pacing myself against. If they could do it, why can't I?

While competition is important, I've always believed that cooperation is more important still, being the foundation of all growth, learning and advancement. I WANT to see people achieve their full potential as designers. I DO NOT want to see them give up in despair and never risk rejection again.

There are good games, and there are bad games. Even so, call me sentimental, but the only truly failed game is the one that's never made.

Well, it's related at least. :)

I think so too. That's why I think it's important that, no matter how negative the review, a critic should always find something positive to say about the game first. After all, the purpose of criticism is to educate and improve, not to crush creativity and ambition.

Oh American Beauty. That movie scarred me.

Anyway, I think it's true that being a critic is a much safer prospect than putting your own work and reputation on the line, so to speak. Even so, if a critic becomes truly venomous then that reflects upon the critic, not the game creator. If a creator's response to a bad review is, "Well, sorry you didn't like it. I hope you like the next one more.", and a critic tells him to stop making games and go die in a fire, then obviously the critic is the one who is acting like a jerk and creating the problem. I have seen that sort of thing, in those exact words, on other boards.

I think people do notice that sort of thing, and it is worth speaking up about. It doesn't just hurt the creator, it hurts other, legitimate critics.

Makes sense to me!

When I thank a maker after playing a game, it's not for "providing me with a free game", it's for what is given from the maker to me through the game.

The problem I assume this was originally getting at was that eventually you can continue that notion to an absurd conclusion which pretty much just amounts to:

"This game would have been better if you were a better game maker but you're lazy and won't listen to crtiticism."

or

"This game would have been better if you spend twice as long on it but you're lazy and don't listen to criticism."

or

"This game would have been better if you spent x time learning every skill you would need to make everything in it from scratch and better than what you used before, but you're just too lazy and won't listen to criticisism."

author=supremewarrior
You know it always points back to this statement whenever there is such a debate on this issue, but you need to understand that when you are putting your own work out there for the public no one is forced to play it, they are doing so on their own free will.

Writing a review for your game is a privilege think about it, why should anyone review YOUR game? They don't need to but if they decide to do so by putting their own time and effort into it then you should be grateful. A review is a privilege in the amateur game making world don't forget that and don't take it for granted

Nobody needs to give me a birthday present. Nevertheless, if someone gives me a turd on my birthday, I'm not going to be grateful.

A review written by someone who doesn't know what he's talking about or a hater is not a privilege, regardless of how much he didn't have to write the review.

Also, when someone posts criticism, they are usually trying to affect the game maker's decision. Here's the deal, you can do the same thing with reviews. In other words, it's fully possible to write a review for a selfish reason. This is very likely to actually be the case if the review is written by a hater or a fanboy.

Finally, if you post a low score review and that way bring down the average score, it may affect someone's decision to play the game negatively. Now, if the reviewer raises some good points that other people are likely to not like as well, then that's fair and the creator also gets some usable information out of it. This however isn't the case if the reviewer has an ulterior motive for writing the review.