"You aren't a game Dev so you don't get to have an opinion on what is or isn't bad game design"

[Elephant]

A player can tell you what they enjoyed and didn't enjoy about a game, without being a developer. The game is made for their entertainment purposes, so they're probably the most qualified to tell you if it's managed to do that. Is all criticism valid? Of course not. But if you have enough people complaining about the same thing, you might want to address it in your current or future games.

They don't have to understand the technical side of things, developers probably have a million and one reasons why the thing the audience dislikes is the way it is. But that doesn't make the criticism invalid.

As a creative, I know a lot of pride and effort goes into your work. So when it goes out to the public and it isn't well received it can be disheartening and I understand the defensive stance, but it's not a healthy stance to take. I'm sure they've critiqued something themselves without having any expertise in the field, whether it's a movie they watched, or their water dispensing kettle that only fills up 2/3 of a cup (damn this blasted kettle, I don't need new cups that's exactly the amount of tea/coffee I want to drink. I need a new kettle).

 

[CJCW?]

If you think it's bad in the gaming world, try being a wrestling fan. This sad excuse for an argument gets trotted out any time fans react negatively to something, and seems to be passed down to anyone who joins the business by the old guard.

While it's clearly just used as a shield against any criticism by those who can't handle the idea that their work might have flaws, that doesn't make it any less frustrating to hear it repeated, especially from people you thought you respected. As is always pointed out, these same people are all too willing to criticize works from other industries, with the understanding that any one person has the right to an opinion, but when it comes to their own work, a double standard suddenly gets justified.

 

[ShutterMunster]

Kobe

Oh you can definitely tell me what you like and not like, just don't act like you know how to fix it.

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And we're done here folks!

 

[Abylim]

So many people either didn't read the op or disagree with critics as a whole.

Only move directors and producers can criticise movies I guess from now on?

You can't be critical of anything unless you've done it yourself makes sense on a completely surface level, but it doesn't take experience making games or movies to know that something isn't great, or that something is.

 

[Deleted member 20471]

It's a pretty stupid argument, to be honest.

 

[Asbsand]

Developers know their theory and craft by hand and experience. Reviewers know it from their output and the game's they have played. It's the result and the output that matters. A theory is only as good as the game it produces so vex is full of horsepoop.

Also game design is so fucking overrated. You think that is the end all be all of a game's quality and we almost never praise the programmers and their implementation. They are the real magicians here and do the heavy lifting and smart systemic solutions that lift a designer's ideas. And programmers are often highly logical people who will see flaws in a design and fix it using the boundaries of reality off the cloud the designer was dreaming on.

 

[MarcelRguez]

The problem here is assuming people know how to provide useful feedback/improvements just because they, by virtue of experience, know when something is off with a game. I would say—although I'm not a game dev—that the examples provided in the OP are fair feedback, but we know that's not usually how the story goes with this type of discussions.

 

[kiriku]

I think it's fine to have opinions, just don't assume you know how to "fix" things or that the design was thrown together because the developer is lazy/bad or whatever.

 

[Corralx]

Oh you can definitely tell me what you like and not like, just don't act like you know how to fix it.

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With this we can close the thread.
The problem is not players having an opinion. Getting feedback is great and fundamental.
The problem arise when you pretend you know better how to do the job and how to fix the game, without any knowledge of the work and the context that led to that decision, regardless of whether it's tech, art or design.
This applies to journalism like DF as well, since the OP mentioned it.

 

[Fallout-NL]

Shawn Elliott. Though it was clear from the start he was way way too good to remain a journalist for very long.

 

[Dr. Mario]

I'm a professor of game design, so er.

I can say from experience most game developers also are not very cognizant of what they're doing.

Neither am I. This stuff is hard. Which is why everyone's input is valid, as long as you're very aware that you may be wrong.

It does help to have experience developing games though, if nothing else but for the realization good design is always a compromise.

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

It's still okay to make suggestions as to how something could improve right?

Just don't be an asshole about it.

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

Dear Game Developer,

Nerf Rock.
Paper is fine.

best regards,
Scissors.

 

[mudai]

Oh you can definitely tell me what you like and not like, just don't act like you know how to fix it.

Click to shrink...

This! Exactly this! Only a game designer knows how tough it is to fix certain things and the "lazy game dev" rhetoric in this (but also many other) is just super annoying and aggrevating.

 

[Cugel]

That's beyond stupid.
Some opinions can be more informed than others depending on one persons background or knowledge, but it is the same as saying
- you are not a director so you don't get to have an opinion on film making
- you are not a politician so you don't get an opinion on law making
- you are not a writer so don't get an opinion of book writing

Fuck this reductive exclusive rethoric

 

[Tiny Chihuahueño]

While I agree you don't need to be a dev to understand how shitty a game can be, it's true that sometimes consumers don't understand the limitations and hurdles the devs had to overcome in order to ship a game.
Just yesterday I learned Uncharted 4 had cut content like a whole set piece involving a crane (with recorded dialogue and everything) which they didn't have enough time to implement. Something that would have made the Scotland level (one of the most boring in the game) much more fun. Also, a climbing mechanic that should have made those endless climbing sections more of a minigame and not just mindless pressing up on the joystick.

So while Uncharted 4 may be disappointing, we don't know the full story of its troubled development, and we need to give them credit for still being able to ship a good game despite all the problems.

 

[King Metal Zel]

Some of the best criticism any artist can get is from someone who couldn't mix colors if their life depended on it. They're outside of the proverbial bubble and are often much more able to see problems that those in the bubble cannot because they've just "gotten used to it". When I paint I often get the best comments from people who don't paint and can tell me when something isn't working. Just because some can't articulate why they don't like something well, doesn't mean others can't.

The same is true of any artistic medium. And even if someone's feelings on a mechanic/design are in the minority that doesn't mean their qualms are necessarily wrong; sometimes they're just the first to tire of a mechanic/design that others get tired of later after a few sequels (i.e. they might just be ahead of the audience curve, so to speak).

 

[mxbison]

No idea what the options in the poll mean.

But I think its silly how you risk a ban here if you criticize game design.

Yes there is bad work, yes there is lazy work. Just like in EVERY other job.

 

[Siresly]

I'm not an author so I don't really know what I'm writing.

 

[Deleted member 8674]

So I should make movies to tell that the Emoji movie was awful?

Or should I have a interior design degree to decorate my house?

Should I be a chief to tell what good food taste like?

A book author to give a review on goodreads?

 

[SPRidley]

Lol at "no. Vex is wrong" winning.
What a shitty forum this is sometimes.
That or they didnt read the op, which doesnt make it a whole better.

Well ive been a game dev so I have a pass when criticising game design then?

Look, i understand that A LOT of people dont know or understand enough to criticise game design even when playing a lot, you kniw how you discover them and ignore their opinion? When clearly their opinion has no substance.

But that doesnt mean another lot of people, that are not game devs but have indeed play a lot have very informed design opinions also.
How do people think game devs are created? Lol
The thing is, you can be also informed, looking for info about how things work, and giving substantial opinions without ever making a game.

And you can clearly differeciate those people from the ones that have shit design opinions.

 

[mclem]

50/50 on this

A player can definitely tell what works and what doesn't once in the drivers chair. However, said player also can think fixing things or changing things iis far easier than it is "Just change the value to X" isn't exactly how things work.

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Yeah, that's fair.

I think it's worth separating 'recognising game design errors' from 'acknowledging the reasons for game design errors'. Both sides of discussions can make the mistake of conflating the two. Devs claiming that you can't criticise unless you're a dev is because they know a little more about the reasons that led to that choice (which possibly they also can't really share in any detail), but that doesn't make them not errors in design in the first place; contrarily, when all you have to go on is the error, it's easy for a player to assume it's a trivial toggle.

One I've mentioned in the past as an example - one that I do have first-hand experience of - is control remapping. It's absolutely something that ought to be included as a QOL feature. It's also a surprisingly fiddly job that's difficult to retroactively build in late on in development and in no way an important priority at the 'getting something up and running' stage.

 

[ActWan]

Holy shit this is one of the worst polls I've ever seen lol.
Anyway, agree with the OP.

 

[Deleted member 8674]

Holy shit this is one of the worst polls I've ever seen lol.
Anyway, agree with the OP.

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Game dev are sometimes so much in love with what they created that they don't see the flaws. I respect Square Enix approach. No, just because you're a game dev doesn't mean you know what good game design is or there will be no bad games ever.

 

[supernormal]

You're making a product for the consumer to use, value, and judge. That's your target audience and that's who will have the "most important" opinion about your game. I remember in my early days as a designer going back and forth with a client justifying whatever design decision I made. Yes, I could convince the person in the room to approve, but sometimes I could have simplified things or gone another direction. In the end, if the final product doesn't work on its own, no amount of explaining will make it work. That stuff should be invisible to the user.

 

[boris_feinbrand]

Sometimes you just create dogshit. Every professional in any creative field knows that. But only cowards use ignorance of work processes as a shield against criticism. Just because they can't formulate exactly why it stinks doesn't mean they don't have a point. Important thing is to actually read criticism instead of getting all uppity at others inexperience in your field.

 

[Deleted member 64609]

Game devs frequently make bad design decisions, but players also often label design decisions they don't like as bad whether they actually are or not, so it's 50/50.

 

[chipperrip]

The problem arise when you pretend you know better how to do the job and how to fix the game, without any knowledge of the work and the context that led to that decision, regardless of whether it's tech, art or design.

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This is flatly prejudicial. A good suggestion is a good suggestion, no matter the source, likewise for bad ones.

I understand that it's easy to be annoyed at the sheer volume of reactionary and emotional arguments (imagine reading r/destinythegame as one of the designers), but it's important to not sit in your high castle and be the cause of r/destinythegame.

 

[Corralx]

Game dev are sometimes so much in love with what they created that they don't see the flaws. I respect Square Enix approach. No, just because you're a game dev doesn't mean you know what good game design is or there will be no bad games ever.

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That's such a limited view.
I can guarantee that 99.99999999% of the issues you point out have been discussed in endless meetings and there's reason for the final decision.
That might be the case if design or art or tech was a single job, but it's the work of hundreds of ppl with constant feedbacks, meetings and talks.
Also, especially for design or art, some things are simply subjective, and what you might like or think is right might not be what the team or other players feel.
Or you might not simply be the target of the game and its design. To think that every game should be tailored and fitting everyone is very ingenuous.

 

[Corralx]

This is flatly prejudicial. A good suggestion is a good suggestion, no matter the source, likewise for bad ones.

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That's such a limited view.
I can guarantee that 99.99999999% of the issues you point out have been discussed in endless meetings and there's reason for the final decision.
That might be the case if design or art or tech was a single job, but it's the work of hundreds of ppl with constant feedbacks, meetings and talks.
Also, especially for design or art, some things are simply subjective, and what you might like or think is right might not be what the team or other players feel.
Or you might not simply be the target of the game and its design. To think that every game should be tailored and fitting everyone is very ingenuous.

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Quoting myself here because it applies the same.
A good suggestion is still good ofc.
But when you write "lazy", "half job" or "simple", you've lost me.

 

[Wireframe]

The wording of the poll is a little confusing imo. People seeing right and wrong will immediately associate it with the thread title and not your opinion OP. I had to read it a couple times.

 

[Dever]

It kind of depends. Hard to say. In the Doom Eternal thread, I've seen some people saying that the bosses are poorly designed, unfair bullshit because they keep dying. Meanwhile I died maybe a couple times and had a good time. So who's right? Someone had a bad experience with a game, I had a good experience.

Another example from last year is Death Stranding... So many people saying it's shit game design, while playing the game in the absolute dumbest way possible and ignoring half the systems. Sometimes it's not the developer's fault tbh.

 

[Deleted member 62078]

Saying I can't have an opinion on game design because I'm not a game dev is bananas. I'm not a cook, an author, a film director, or a beer brewer, but I am entitled to an opinion on food, books, films and beers I cross paths with.

Nobody is obligated to listen to or engage with said opinions, but nobody can tell me I can't have them.

 

[Unclebenny]

I'll preface this with the fact with the fact I have no game development experience.

Feedback is vital, especially now for games, which tend to not be static monoliths but can be slowly adapted and changed over time. Often not at all resembling what they began as when they were first released.

Even if a developer is "correct" about their design assumption, i.e. it is working as intended to push players into a particular mode of play, if no one is enjoying it, does it matter? Then, the feedback becomes vital, not necessarily on an individual level but if a large enough group is complaining it can force a re-think. There is an excellent Game Maker's Toolkit video, that discusses some of this idea, specifically how turn timers in Xcomx 2 angered a a lot of the player base despite working as intended.

Now, we can see that the community feedback is important in re-framing the developers view on their game. They didn't do "bad" design, just their design had unintended effects.

BUT when I see people decrying a lack of design background, it is nearly always because someone has made some half arsed assumption or suggestion. As opposed to "I didn't enjoy X part of game" it will be phrased "why don't they just do X", "they are too blind to not see X", "they are too stupid not to input X, it should be easy" etc.

The phrasing is important. Too many people on this forum and beyond don't consider that there are more factors in play than just "I don't like this thing in the game and any refusal to address this is a failure on the part of the developer".

Almost none of us have any real insight into the design process at specific studios. Commenting on it is a fool's errand, just focus on the quality of the game without the added speculative drama attached.

 

[Noodle]

It's a common fallacious argument. Can't refute the points a person is making so you make them "invalid" with arbitrary gatekeeping.

 

[Zombine]

At the consumer level you should primarily be commenting on if the game does what it claims to let you be able to do well enough, and if it is any fun. Feedback to devs should relate to input and if you encounter issues that interrupt play. If it is a story game or a sequel, there is a conversation that can be had about what you may have enjoyed more or less this time around, and what may encourage you to come back for more in the future.

Very seldom do people know exactly what is wrong and how to fix it, and usually when that happens the person is a dev or coder themselves lol.

 

[Necromanti]

The end user may not have the best input in terms of specifics, depending on the issue, but in terms of a broader overview, absolutely.

 

[aerts1js]

I'm glad I read the OP because that poll design needs some serious work :p

 

[Dogui]

Hot take: The poll is not badly designed, just puzzle driven.

 

[Redcrayon]

EDIT: PLS READ THE OP. I MADE A MISTAKE ;_; MY POLL IS THEREFORE BADLY DESIGNED. I AM SO ASHAMED.

Click to shrink...

If you'd like us to clarify the title and poll so they work better with your OP, feel free to report it and let us know what would be better, and we'll fix it :-)

 

[Phellps]

Anyone can tell whether a game is good or not, because that's mostly up to personal opinion. People find different things fun, so YMMV and you can say a specific design choice is bad because you didn't like it. Does it make it factually bad? No. That's just your view on it and that's fine.

Now, acting like you know what would guarantee a better experience is a stretch. No amount of games played and Wikipedia articles read will give you true experience in game design and what it's like to work at an actual game studio on an actual video game. So what people on the internet lack the most is the understanding that their knowledge of the reality is just scratching the surface and having the humility to admit it.

 

[Johannes]

I'm more or less 50/50. It all boils down how well the person can argument his/her criticism of particular aspects of a game. Unfortunately there are way more armchair developers who are unable or unwilling to put the time to make their point across without sounding clueless or otherwise arrogant.

I still remember the time when one particular games media person ranted about The Last of Us and specifically the issues with Ellie as an AI partner. Apparently people at Naughty Dog are complete tools, since it would have been better game design to "just do it better" or at the very least give commands to Ellie (stay here, follow me etc.) so she wouldn't run middle of enemies while sneaking and therefore destroying the immersion. One of the stupidest shit I have listened when it comes to non-developers criticizing games.

 

[OrangeNova]

50/50 is my vote.

I don't agree that a game dev automatically knows more, but anytime someone goes "Why didn't you do this, it's easy!" they're not thinking of everything that goes into making that happen.

 

[BassForever]

The average reviewer probably plays more games in a given year then your average game developer. This isn't a shot at developers it's simply the nature of the two jobs. Just because a reviewer can better identify examples of good vs bad game design doesn't mean they could make a better designed game then a developer. Both jobs have different skill sets and people in those fields hone their craft.

The issue I commonly see is when people throw out words like "lazy" or "incompetent" when talking about a developer. There the comment of "you can't call a dev lazy if you've never made a game" actually works. Are there times when devs are lazy or incompetent? Of course, it happens to all of us in all walks of life. Gamers seem to love to throw out those terms without actually finding out what happened behind the scenes of the games development.

 

[Vincent Grayson]

I think there's such a huge range of things to discuss that you can't give one generic answer anyway.

Like, if the conversation is around something like "I think X attack does way too much damage and makes the game less fun than if it did say, half as much", that's completely different from "Why isn't ever item I equip visible on my character? Lazy devs!"

 

[Deleted member 37739]

I think a world in which creative output could only be critiqued by other creators in the same field would be a weird one - and not a better one. Terms like 'bad game design' (even though I've used them often enough) are kind of meaningless though.

Design is contextual and judging efficacy is dependent on understanding what the creator is trying to achieve. It's way too common to see people appraise something based on how well it matches their personal preferences, but that's the not same as it being successful at what it set out to do.

The problem is that way too many people conflate personal preference with ostensible quality: it's okay to like bad things and dislike good things, to acknowledge the value of something independently of your feelings about it. I'm a classically-trained orchestral composer who takes no end of pleasure is singing along to cheesy four-chord pop songs. They're bad and I know why, but I still love them.

 

[superNESjoe]

Oh you can definitely tell me what you like and not like, just don't act like you know how to fix it.

Click to shrink...

Best response is already here. Wrap it up.

 

[Deleted member 27751]

I disagree with OP in that opinions from fans/consumers, even those 20+ years strong, is still just opinions. They are not informed by actual game development systems and typically react with emotion which is not factual to the degree an actual understanding of the business would have. Opinions from fans are great because not every question can be answered by developers or their QA, however it's still classified as amateur.

This especially comes into play with console warring or fans using incorrect facts to inform opinions. There's so many potential variations that a developer's cred does have more weight.

 

[Deleted member 8674]

That's such a limited view.
I can guarantee that 99.99999999% of the issues you point out have been discussed in endless meetings and there's reason for the final decision.
That might be the case if design or art or tech was a single job, but it's the work of hundreds of ppl with constant feedbacks, meetings and talks.
Also, especially for design or art, some things are simply subjective, and what you might like or think is right might not be what the team or other players feel.
Or you might not simply be the target of the game and its design. To think that every game should be tailored and fitting everyone is very ingenuous.

Click to shrink...

Yet there are games that get praised by most players and reviewers and games that are disliked by most. Sometimes from top devs with big investment.

 

[BLASTEROID]

Product design of any kind is an extremely collaborative process across product management, software designers and architects, developers, and yes - end users.

Among the most valuable direction is the user feedback. Guess what, if people dont want to use what you've built, then you did it wrong.