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Because I’m in the mood, here are some lessons I learned switching from games journalism to development (and back again), that have changed how I approach criticism:
(Some of this should be obvious. Comments are not necessarily related to games I worked on)
(Some of this should be obvious. Comments are not necessarily related to games I worked on)
Dev teams know which parts of their games are bad. They’ve analysed and painfully iterated its individual parts for years, and bitched and moaned about them in the pub every chance they got. So you’re not providing any killer analysis by pointing out which parts suck.
It’s not always the dev team’s fault. As the cliché goes, games aren’t finished, they’re abandoned. At some point you’ve got to ship it.
Most projects are as good as their resources (team size/budget) and development time, while 90% of staff are following the direction of 10.
Most projects are as good as their resources (team size/budget) and development time, while 90% of staff are following the direction of 10.
Speaking of which, anyone who's shipped a game now gets my respect. Building content is easy but actually wrapping it up and performing the immense plate-balancing required to get a final product in stores is a massive challenge. Some people make a living as shippers & deserve it
Game writers have a much tougher job than they’re credited for. The reason most game plots aren’t spectacular is because they’re usually at the bottom of the priority pile. Characters & levels that plot points depended upon can and will be removed right at the last minute.
Creating a game is like building a house via remote working. The parts might be lovely, but you’ve no real idea what the actual house is going to be like until they're put together at the end. Every game would be better if it was scrapped at the end and built again with clarity.
Tech/logistic issues arent necessarily the team's fault. There are middleware & partners involved in a project who the studio wouldn’t dream of criticising publicly. If you’re thinking ‘why is this dev making X stupid decision?’ There’s likely a sensible reason and they can’t say
Boxed games need to be finished months in advance & content is locked even earlier (making changes at all during the end is deemed too risky). Yooka 1 was done at Xmas and released in April. Day one patches allow devs to make your experience better, not because they’re “lazy”.
DLC and patches aren’t easy or cheap. They require extensive testing on multiple platforms and possibly expensive translation too. I’ve heard of plenty of finished DLC packs that were never released for this reason – it’s not a case of simply “releasing them”.
Finally, real people made the game you’re critiquing. Show some respect. If a game feature is poor, that’s unfortunate, not something to be spitefully gloated about. Everything is easy in hindsight (and often in game dev, well in advance) and nobody sets out to make a bad game.
This thread is by a critic who, in one of my first ever reviews for PC Zone in the early 00s, received a phone call from the developer who said: "Hello, I'm the 'drunken, blind artist' described in your review'"
Grow and learn.
Grow and learn.
Caveat: This is intended as a summary of my personal lessons, mostly for the benefit of consumers, rather than some obnoxious guide for game critics, so sorry if it came off that way to some. Professional critics are doing an excellent job (which is why I pay them regularly)
I’ve worked around professional critics for 2 decades & they are generally excellent at their jobs. I am in awe of the writers we use. Ultimately, their work serves a consumer audience & they don’t need to understand how the sauce is made to communicate why it tastes good
