Dealing with Criticism as a Game Dev

[SingSong]

About a year ago I watched a documentary on Netflix called Indie Game: Life After, a documentary film that focuses on the impact of the people behind successful indie games. I wrote down a couple quotations that really stuck with me. While cleaning my room recently, I found these papers, and I want to share them in hopes that it will help someone else understand the things you have to deal with as a game developer (putting your name out there) and how there's not really anything you can do about the criticism you will undoubtedly receive. You just have to be above it, respond professionally, and believe in your creation enough that no comment or series of comments will tear you down.

I did my best to transcribe these portions of the film accordingly:

Tommy Refenes (Meat Boy Programmer) 44:00

For every positive thing, like, for every million positive things, there's a negative. There's always negative. And negative has to be creative in order to stand out. You can have a million people saying it's great. You inspire me. You're great. But then one guy calls you, like, a stupid faggot or something, and like your brain, the stupid human brain, it's like—it latches onto that.

In a way, it's like some sort of stimulation that your brain looks for, like some sort of conflict. You kind of search it out just to be outraged about it. And it's totally pointless.




 

Edmund McMillen (Meat Boy Designer)

(He talks about his character assassination online and how his Twitter account was hacked. He made his AIM account available so fans could contact him.) 

But that was, like, the thing that kind of opened my eyes to, like, how I didn't need to continue to look at the internet.

Like, there's a big part of me that wants to be accessible to people who really have questions that they need answers to. And I struggle with the idea of... like, just in the past being inspired by certain people and then actually getting ahold of them and them just being assholes, and I just didn't wanna be that.

After the hack thing happened, and I took a step back and I realized how sucked in I was and how, you know, it wasn't good for me. It wasn't healthy for me what I was doing. Especially after Meat Boy I went through a phase of, like, I feel like I needed to know what people were saying about my work so I could get better.

Every day I'd set up Google Alerts so I could really see what was being said so I could get that constructive criticism so I could grow from it. But what that kind of turned into was more of an obsession of, like, feeling relevant in some way. And I didn't even realize it until I got hacked, until I didn't have that anymore and suddenly started to feel so much more healthy and realized how much time I was wasting on, like, searching for my name and what people were saying about me—just stuff you don't realize until it gets taken away and you're like, "Oh my god, I'm like sick."




 

Edmund continues on to talk about how one bad comment outweighs many good (similar to what Tommy said previously). He talks about how there would be misunderstandings and how he would desperately want to respond to correct things and then he realized that no matter what he did he could not be the person he wanted to be and he had to figure out a way to remove himself.

I think this kind of situation is similar to what game developers here go through. I think the majority go into it wanting to be that positive figure everyone can look up to, someone who's approachable and solves all the problems. We think that if we address all concerns, we can deal with the issues head-on and publicly and everything will be solved. But that's not how it works. You'll encounter unreasonable people or people that take your openness as weakness or people that will want more and more or people that will misconstrue anything they can to make you or your game look bad.

As a game owner, it's unlikely that you'll be able to be friends with your players, and I think too many creators here want that. Unfortunately, in a position of authority (being an admin or staff member on a site), you'll have many people gravitating toward you for the wrong reasons. Think of it like relatives that come out of the woodwork when they hear you won the lottery. The confidential information you share about yourself and your site will be used against you. Modifying rules or trying to please people to keep friendships just gets complicated. As a professional business owner, you really have to keep people at arm's length. I think not doing such is what causes the majority of the drama on these sites. You can't make everyone happy, but you can deal with criticism and negativity in a way that is good for your own health and the health of your site and your community.

Feel free to post your own thoughts and experiences.

 

[Imperial]

I agree that one bad comment or critic can leave a game owner feeling somewhat disoriented and on the defense.  But any game owner with any experience ultimately comes to understand that the negatives don't necessarily have to become a point of issue (good or bad).  If the critic is constructive, it can be helpful to better the game.  If the critic is simply someone being critical for the sake of drama or pettiness, the game owner can deal with it in several positive ways such as informing either the person or group that drama is something that will not be acknowledged or allowed (change the subject matter from the specific drama to the subject matter of drama itself) and/or contacting the person or group creating the drama/pettiness and asking them to PM you as the game owner to further discuss the issues (thereby taking the drama or pettiness off-site).  One-to-one communication is always more successful than public in-fighting.  Thus, the game owner always controls the game as that is their responsibility.

I also agree that a game owner should keep themselves at arms length and not try to be "friends" with players, but there are always exceptions and I have found that I can be "friendly" without necessarily becoming friends.  It's a fine line, but once a game owner hones that particular skill, it can be extremely rewarding for the game owner and the player alike.  Of course all of this is also based on the size of the game.  If it's a huge game with thousands and thousands of players, it becomes harder to be a visible entity on the game itself.

Ultimately, a game is a game but it is business and thus must be dealt with as a business.  A good ways of relating is to simply take the current circumstance and view it as if you were running a retail store and a customer came in with the issue.  How do you deal with it?  Do you have a loud, verbal discussion or argument in the middle of the store or do you ask that customer to step into your office to discuss the matter?  Of course that presumes that the game owner has had previous retail experience.  Sometimes, even in the retail business, you have to fire a customer because they bring little or nothing good to the business.  Thus, at some point, you may have to ban someone and if you are unable to settle the issue off-line, then you should be able to deal with that player (whether it be a ban or not) with the positive knowledge that you tried your best and that is all that you can do as a game owner.  Nobody is perfect and we can try to be as fair as possible with some understanding, but with the knowledge that the ultimate goal is to make the game as good and fun as it can possibly be.

 

[SingSong]

@Imperial Thanks for such a good post. I really like the retail analogy. I agree that most of these situations would be better handled privately. So often they are discussed in the middle of threads or sometimes even in news posts. When a player comes across these types of discussions around the site, it makes what could have been a small issue bigger. More people get involved in the problem that wasn't their own not really knowing the full story, and others just begin to see the game as being full of drama even if there are only a few of these problems overall.

And yes, being friendly without being friends is a good skill to harness. I like your mentality.

 

[Vix]

@SingSong @Imperial

Wow, this topic really hit home! These are issues I struggle with on a a daily basis when thinking about the kind of relationship I should have with players on CE. However, I find it increasingly difficult to maintain certain boundaries while a game in in-development. It is very easy to blur the line between Admin and members when you are actively seeking out member feedback. Do you guys believe there should be different "rules" for member/staff boundaries during development? How have you combated this issue?

 

[Imperial]

@SingSong @Imperial

Wow, this topic really hit home! These are issues I struggle with on a a daily basis when thinking about the kind of relationship I should have with players on CE. However, I find it increasingly difficult to maintain certain boundaries while a game in in-development. It is very easy to blur the line between Admin and members when you are actively seeking out member feedback. Do you guys believe there should be different "rules" for member/staff boundaries during development? How have you combated this issue?

To some extent, yes there should be different "rules" for member/staff boundaries during and after development.  This is because these players are not just players but part of a team with you.  Similar to having employees in a retail setting.  They are privy to some information but not necessarily to all information.  It becomes a bit harder but, ultimately you as the game owner have to decide where to draw the line between friendly and friends.

As far as in-development game relationships, again, they are a part of a team, but if they are for example testers or players giving you feedback on features, etc. the relationship should be further removed than that of actual staff (e.g. Moderators, etc.).  The key to keeping these types of relationships at a respectful and cordial distance is to always give specifics tasks (for testers) and give specific requests for feedback (e.g., on features).  Always remain cordial and always give them respect for the time they are donating.  I always make sure to thank them for their time and suggestions, etc. and that even tho' those "suggestions may not be acted upon they will be kept for possible future consideration".  This type of dialogue expresses that you are "friendly" and cordial and that you appreciate the time and effort they took to respond.  And albeit while it is important and necessary to acknowledge their contributions it is not a requirement that you become friends.

 

[hurricaneviolet]

Those quotes speak to me. Especially that totally 100 million people can tell you you're great, but if one person says you suck then immediately you're like "Oh no! What if everyone thinks this? What if they convince all the people who like me that I suck? What if I really do suck?!".

I've had to make peace with the fact that I can't please everyone, and some people just don't like my game. That's fine. And some people just suck themselves, honestly. You can be doing everything "right" and they will still go on a character assassination bender. Someone once told me that they hoped I died on a game gossip blog. It's really hard to separate yourself from that and not take it personally.

To another point, I am close friends with some of the players on my game, but I'm friendly with everyone. I'm in chat a lot and on the forums, so I know what's going on it people's lives, and I talk about my life, my pets, etc. But it doesn't really go beyond that. I may or may not have them as friends on Facebook, but there's nothing personal about me on there, it's just an extension of my professional persona.

I think that, for me, it makes sense to be friendly and have my life out there. It's part of being an internet personality (which you are if you own a game like this, whether you want to be or not). But it doesn't affect my authority negatively. At the end of the day, it's my game, and the rules still apply, even if we talked about how our cats look alike last week. If you're friends with a cop, they're still going to hold you to the laws.

 

[Imperial]

@hurricaneviolet  Such an excellent reply and right on point!! 

 

[SingSong]

Do you guys believe there should be different "rules" for member/staff boundaries during development? How have you combated this issue?

Can you elaborate? You mention the development stage, and I'm associating that with development forums before the site becomes a reality. I think during that stage, there's probably a lot of chit chat between staff and future players of the game. The purpose should be to have cordial discussions related to the game and its possible or in-development features so you can gain feedback and suggestions. There can be light off-topic conversations, but development forums should be focused on moving the game toward becoming a finished product. The forum should have rules that mirror the future rules of the game, such as no spamming, flaming, harassment, sexual discussions, etc. Staff are still staff members, and it's best to have a professional relationship with them, although if you slowly want to become friends with your staff and talk about more personal subjects like real life that's up to you. Just know that giving more information about yourself can create an issue later down the line. Staff should have access to the ideas you plan to put in place in the game, so you can get the help necessary to complete those things. You can have them sign an NDA, so they can't share the information freely with people outside of the team.

 

[Imperial]

You mention the development stage, and I'm associating that with development forums before the site becomes a reality.

Yes, I completely agree that all of these techniques can be applied to any stage of development including development forums.  Practicing these techniques at the development forums stage will give the game owner that much more experience and hone those skills in addition to developing the reputation of a game owner who is friendly yet in charge.

Having team members sign an NDA is an excellent idea, however the game owner should be sure that the team member is at least 18 years of age or the NDA may not be legally binding (depending on each State's or Country's laws).

 

[Digital]

This is a wonderful post. It is often hard to ignore the negative comment among a large group of positive. When you are pouring yourself into a project, the personal connection is often strong, and so is the pride and ego.

I have learned to manage this myself by working hard on myself in removing the ego and pride. I take comments (good and bad) and often look at them through the eyes of someone analyzing them for their source. What was good? What was bad? I document those things, and keep track of how many occurances of those I have. It allows me to see a complete perspective, without taking it personally.

By not taking it personally, I can apply a personal friendly touch in my communications, allowing me to at least attempt to connect to the community. I know I then have everything covered. I have my data from the comments on what is good as well as bad, and I know I can still communicate in a friendly form. I can act freely without feeling like I have failed because I have kept my ego and pride out of the process.

This is my process, it isn't always easy to do, and even I find myself sometimes feeling offended or hurt, but I find it allows a much more clear view of things.