I think it’s a fair point. They’re not arguing against all criticism, just the kind that comes from a place of ignorance for how games are made. There are certainly a lot of people who say things like, “why didn’t the developers just do X Y Z”, with no empathy for or understanding of how games get made. It’s possible to criticise things without spreading ignorance.
Yeah. The problem here is he’s talking to those people–which is valid–while pretending he’s never heard of the real issue: No matter the reason, the game is not good. Y’all already put it on sale because it’s not good.
You have the opportunity right now to tell us why, if you want, but you didn’t do that.
Ultimately it doesn’t matter the reason why.
You don’t get to pout and say “you don’t know how hard this is” when you’re selling your game for money. You’re not giving it away. You’re not doing charity work here. Make a better game or stop talking. Nobody out there paid $70 because they wanted your opinion about it. They paid $70 because they wanted a good game. They didn’t get it.
And yeah, it is hard. Even with all that money and all those developers, it’s hard. But nobody wants to hear your voice about it. They want a better game.
That’s fair, I 100% agree. No matter the reason for a game’s poor quality, you shouldn’t let it off the hook. Especially if it’s a commercial product.
Personally though, I don’t think he’s pretending not to have heard that point. He clarifies multiple times in the thread that he’s fine with people criticising his work. Instead, he’s speaking to a kind of criticism that claims – incorrectly – to know things about the game’s development, and that offers naive solutions to complex problems. In my opinion, that kind of criticism is pretty worthless, and takes up air that could otherwise be spent discussing the game’s real, concrete problems.
But I get the frustration. Bethesda’s response to criticism of Starfield has been dismissive on the whole, so the director of the game coming out against some criticism is tone-deaf from a PR perspective.
Also, it seems like no-one who complains about discourse online takes the time to provide examples of what they’re complaining about… So it’s hard to know what exactly Emil is talking about here.
with no empathy for or understanding of how games get made.
I don’t work on the industry, but I do mess around with Godot and have fiddled with modding Skyrim and Fallout. I understand part of the limitations of Bethesda’s own engine, or at least those older versions of it. I understand how often you can find yourself “fighting” the engine. Sticking with it for a game with space exploration was probably a bad idea. That decision can be easily thrown as coming from high up, “use everything in house”, much like how EA forces nearly every game to use DICE’s Frostbite.
But then you have stranger decisions, like “space exploration is just fast traveling to specific celestial bodies”. Having fast travel is one thing, all travel being fast travel, well, it’s just not fun. “Inventory interface will be like Skyrim, but slightly better” - why use some 70% of the screen to show the model of the item? Why not make a neat table with all the info exposed like the one in SkyUI mod? You could have weight, value, quantity in different columns and still have space to show the item model.
Now, Emil could’ve explained why some decisions were made. He didn’t. So it comes out as an empty rant.
This thread is full of people with strong opinions who have no idea how video games are made. They don’t seem aware that they are exactly proving his point.
I think it’s a fair point. They’re not arguing against all criticism, just the kind that comes from a place of ignorance for how games are made. There are certainly a lot of people who say things like, “why didn’t the developers just do X Y Z”, with no empathy for or understanding of how games get made. It’s possible to criticise things without spreading ignorance.
Yeah. The problem here is he’s talking to those people–which is valid–while pretending he’s never heard of the real issue: No matter the reason, the game is not good. Y’all already put it on sale because it’s not good.
You don’t get to pout and say “you don’t know how hard this is” when you’re selling your game for money. You’re not giving it away. You’re not doing charity work here. Make a better game or stop talking. Nobody out there paid $70 because they wanted your opinion about it. They paid $70 because they wanted a good game. They didn’t get it.
And yeah, it is hard. Even with all that money and all those developers, it’s hard. But nobody wants to hear your voice about it. They want a better game.
That’s fair, I 100% agree. No matter the reason for a game’s poor quality, you shouldn’t let it off the hook. Especially if it’s a commercial product.
Personally though, I don’t think he’s pretending not to have heard that point. He clarifies multiple times in the thread that he’s fine with people criticising his work. Instead, he’s speaking to a kind of criticism that claims – incorrectly – to know things about the game’s development, and that offers naive solutions to complex problems. In my opinion, that kind of criticism is pretty worthless, and takes up air that could otherwise be spent discussing the game’s real, concrete problems.
But I get the frustration. Bethesda’s response to criticism of Starfield has been dismissive on the whole, so the director of the game coming out against some criticism is tone-deaf from a PR perspective.
Also, it seems like no-one who complains about discourse online takes the time to provide examples of what they’re complaining about… So it’s hard to know what exactly Emil is talking about here.
It’s not a fair point when it comes from a company that relies on free labor to fix their broken games.
I don’t work on the industry, but I do mess around with Godot and have fiddled with modding Skyrim and Fallout. I understand part of the limitations of Bethesda’s own engine, or at least those older versions of it. I understand how often you can find yourself “fighting” the engine. Sticking with it for a game with space exploration was probably a bad idea. That decision can be easily thrown as coming from high up, “use everything in house”, much like how EA forces nearly every game to use DICE’s Frostbite.
But then you have stranger decisions, like “space exploration is just fast traveling to specific celestial bodies”. Having fast travel is one thing, all travel being fast travel, well, it’s just not fun. “Inventory interface will be like Skyrim, but slightly better” - why use some 70% of the screen to show the model of the item? Why not make a neat table with all the info exposed like the one in SkyUI mod? You could have weight, value, quantity in different columns and still have space to show the item model.
Now, Emil could’ve explained why some decisions were made. He didn’t. So it comes out as an empty rant.
This thread is full of people with strong opinions who have no idea how video games are made. They don’t seem aware that they are exactly proving his point.
That you, Todd?
Don’t have to know anything about how the food’s cooked to say “wow, this is bland. This cost $80?”.