Not meaning to sound too snappy here. But a developer isnt necessarily a good product manager (in fact most are not). The game discussion threads require a different attitude than the one a developer usually has. As a developer you should deal with designs, code, mechanics and when consumers think something is bad your developer brain immediately sees the implications on a development level and you feel like they call you a bad developer now . Which they are not. They simply see something isnt as they like to have it in the product or something is really not working out for them.
I agree here. Being a developer does not suddenly make one an expert on project management. This is a learned skill. I've looked out to the internet in the past to find help with this for projects I have done and I found this one company, Check Tech i think it was called, that helped me once before. They are a team, or maybe just one dude, who helps developers with the project management side of things. Having that little bit of help just in terms of planning, scheduling, prioritizing, etc, really helps developers in the early stages of work. I know that a lot of the people here can't afford to hire a team, and luckily for me, Check Tech didn't charge me anything at first. They advertise that they charge, but they ended up working pro bono, probably just to help their own experience.
Specifically if we want to get down to it, new developers have extremely unrealistic goals regarding their time, their ability and the length that of time that it will take to create something. On the old cprogramming.com boards this used to manifest itself with about 20 posts a week, usually with terrible grammar, telling people that they're a brand new developer and they're highly experienced in playing WoW but they know the one or two things wrong with it so they're going to make the next WoW and they want people to join them. "Like WoW, but..." was a common phrase used by beginner developers.
I definitely agree with that. I see a lot of people here with truly ambitious goals. "Every single choice you make changes the entire story!" - Like, that's a great idea, and I would love to see it, but the amount of planning that takes to ensure that you are planning out the story ahead of time for each of those options and how they will all interact in the future is a
lot of work. I write as a profession, and even I wouldn't dare try to say that "every choice" in my games has an impactful result. It's unrealistic to say that, if you are working on the story each month while you develop the graphics, code, etc. If you
truly want every choice presented to make a big difference in the story and gameplay, you need to plan that story out months and months in advance. There is no other way.
They know what they like, but consumers are notoriously bad at seeing beyond 'what is' into 'what will be'.
My god this is so true. For example, both of the games I am writing had parts end with events that were polarizing to the consumers. In fact, with Freeloading Family, people are still saying the game will be NTR, even though I am telling them straight up it isn't (but this partly comes down to your definition of NTR, i guess... but i stand by my statement. it isn't.) -- They see the one scene that is available because the update is over, and then instead of waiting to see what comes next, they become overwhelmed with assumptions. I cannot blame them, but I can say that it has caused a lot of devs (even some I work/worked with) to question their own game, or my ability to tell the story we are working on. The comments section here, when negative,
does affect the devs.
I have been writing long enough to know that sometimes you need to push forward through the negative comments to continue down the path you have set. New Life With My Daughter is an example there - People called NTR because of the ending I had to write (tl;dr: i was given images without context when i took over as the writer, and people were upset about it, but i did not choose the images, i simply had to incorporate them... since then i was able to prove to everyone that it's not NTR, and was instead only a plot device). There are devs who, in the face of negative comments definitely quit. I am not one of them. I continued on, and the game is back on track now.
I used this analogy with FFCreations recently while we were discussing the response to a recent update: When watching a movie, do you get mad at the hero 15 minutes in for not solving the problem? Probably not. You wait, you watch, you see where the story goes, and at the end, once it's all done, then you probably make your opinions. - The game isn't over if it's still updating. This analogy may not work with everyone or every game, but if you are writing a game and someone complains that something is happening in a way they wouldn't want it to, or a way they don't like... don't give up. All that is, that kind of comment, is someone giving an opinion when they don't know what will happen yet.
Personally, I think that when it comes to Criticism, the most constructive kind, whether it's good or bad, is the kind that takes the form of reactions, thoughts, and feelings while playing. This has been said already in here, but I'm just putting my two cents in - If someone plays my games and says "when I saw X happen, it made me worry about what will happen next," is
far superior to "X happened, now that game is ruined." -- Both have the feelings of the player, but the second version can make a new dev think, "oh man, i fucked up!" -- especially if others are saying similar things.
It doesn't have to mean that you've fucked up, though. It means that someone/some people do not like what they played. I am a firm believer in sticking to your plan. People will always find reasons to be upset, and nothing will please every person, so stick to your plan, build the game you want, and most of all, complete it!
