Feedback is essential no matter what the parameters of your creation are, but there is a difference between freedom and price - the extent of how "perfect" a product has to be in the professional sense.
Hear me out:
As devs period, we are best off making sure that our games are enjoyable to our target audience, and putting our best foot forward in that effort. In this process, feedback is CRUCIAL - that's why we publicize our game development. It is here that the tougher decisions come in - and a big deciding factor that I wanna focus on here is whether or not the game is for profit.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The metaphorical "game" changes when you are creating for profit or fundraising, you have to take feedback more seriously as you are trying to build an audience that will commit to paying for access to your game. Of course, different people will have different opinions, but you have to find middle ground between yourself and them in order to attract players, and you will have to do it on time to maximize profit.
This is where professional judgment comes in: you have less creative freedom as the profit you make will come from how marketable your game is, how appealing it is to the public "consensus" of what is considered "good" in its category/genre. Even your marketing strategies have to reflect this, as the game industry is too saturated for the public attention span to keep any one thing in mind for too long! Under certain circumstances, you may even have to invest money of your own to get the game to that "marketable" quality.
In the end though, the pay will probably be worth it. My best wishes go out to the devs that aim to make a living, but I am at a place where my work is satisfying, but not marketable.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
On the other hand, when you are not working for profit, you do not have to adhere as closely to the same standards as those who want their game to get revenue. Feedback is STILL just as important as before, but the extra pressure and deadlines are not there as you know you will get nothing monetary in return. You can set your own pace for marketing and complexity, and in the end it's just one more free thing the world can enjoy.
This won't stop your work from being judged as if you are expecting people to pay for your game, and I really wish that misconception would die and die quickly. Of course, some folks just jump at the chance to be a critic and forget that immensely helpful "spoonful of sugar", but there are some people who critique in order to help you better your devving skills. Thankfully, I have gotten mostly the second kind and while I hope you do too, I only hope so in the event that you are not satisfied where you are.
Which brings me to my title opinion: sometimes it is not worth the stress to address the criticisms targeting things that you, as the dev, are already fine with when making free-to-play games.
Remember that when making content for free, enjoyment is your currency. Focusing too much on criticisms that aren't necessary for the game to be how you envision it can easily turn into unnecessary stress that feeds into a perfectionist mindset, robbing you of your enjoyment (and possibly turning the project into something you become ashamed of later).
I'm not exactly where I wanna be yet, but if a criticism is all you have to give, please form it in the context of what the game is meant to be so that it can actually help instead of discourage. I know I will when giving my critiques as I know how stressful it can be to have a moving goalpost of what your game "needs" as your audience grows.
5 comments