This topic was originally brought up in a Devruary post, but yeah....

DISCLAIMER: THIS POST TALKS ABOUT GENERAL OCCURENCES, NO ONE IS TARGETED.

Disclaimer - this article talks about marketing a lot. While this does mean profit potential, it also refers to "reach" or gaining a following or notoriety (especially for the purpose of creator revenue).

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No matter if you get paid or not, the game is a product of your mind. Like any creative endeavor, it is a vision. Sometimes that vision can change, but such changes should never come from someone that misses the point of the original. Focusing too much of that type of criticism can erode your motivation, make you feel like you're sliding back with every step forward, and perhaps even drive you to give up completely from constantly having to chase a moving goalpost.

Usually, when you do a project such as devving a game, the common assumption is that profit is your endgame goal, and so anyone with criticism will sometimes factor that assumption in and make criticisms based on marketability rather than message or purpose. This is not inherently wrong to do, but it means a lot more in general when criticisms stem from helping the game accomplish what it was made to do instead of what it is perceived to be. It can really help devs who are just starting out or just those wanting to express themselves.

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In the event that the assumption is true and your endgame goal IS profit, you will have to work harder to find a counterbalance between your vision and the player's feedback by focusing on the parts of the vision that are actually perceived the most by the players.

For example: say I hypothetically was designing a hybrid VN with a deep story and two forms of gameplay to explore it, all to be purchased (not that I would ever put a paywall, all my games will be free), and I made a demo for it. My vision may be that I want the game to provoke thinking of a real-world application of its story, but the demo results show that most if not all feedback from players focuses on the hybrid gameplay and nothing else.

This may reflect the hybrid gameplay being that good, or more likely the story being a little TOO deep for enjoyment. As much as I would want to retain the deepness of the story, the safe way would be to sacrifice it if I wanted to increase the chance of consumption. The best compromise would be to decrease the story dialogue while keeping the main points, increase the symbolism in its stead, and have the game focus more on integrating the story into the gameplay.

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In the event that the assumption of "endgame profit" is false, chances are you may be dealing with one or three critic types. Two or more can be true at the same time, and they are not always easy to tell apart.

• The "helper" - someone who just wants to help in case you change your mind and aim the game for profit later. This kind of critic will try the hardest to understand your vision, getting as many inferences and improvements out of story, characters, and gameplay as possible. They will most likely ask questions that try to clear it up and fill missing holes, while keeping marketability in mind as they may want to see a way for your vision to be marketable.

• The "agent" - someone who thinks the game SHOULD be made to earn profit. They will try and look at the game with potential for doing so, often disregarding its message/purpose to some degree. Their criticisms are usually extremely helpful in troubleshooting and technical details and they will often praise the parts that contribute the most to their view of marketability, but they almost never sound like they pay any attention to the creative parts at all. They are not mean people, but the type of criticisms from this way of thinking can often be condescending towards your effort in giving expressive depth to the work.

• The "balm bully" - someone who just wants the chance to be a critic for a minute and will ONLY focus on what's wrong, or "not good enough". THANKFULLY, I have not seen one of these in the gamedev community as of yet - probably due to the unspoken heard of how hard devving is, especially to those who are not yet in their comfort zone with it (or have no intention of learning it). They are basically anyone who offers commentary unprovoked without that helpful "spoonful of sugar" to remind you that you've made progress because they don't care, they are simply looking forward to have something to judge, which is not helpful in the slightest.

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Now, which criticisms you should take into account are completely up to you and your goal, but it is not worth freaking out over every little detail because of one piece of feedback that did not register as positive. Speaking from experience, focusing too much on comments like that can ruin EVERYTHING at a critical time.

This ideology can best be summed up as - "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", because the game is yours and it ultimately needs to reflect that in order to validate the work you put in.

#advice #opinion #solodev #gamedev #marketing #strategy #community #support #critic