How should someone in this line of work deal with criticism? My problem is with constructive criticism. Simply put, I don’t know when to accept someone’s word on what I should change.
I have this mindset that all my ideas are great, but I’m worried that if I change it based on someone’s criticism, my game won’t turn out the way I want it to. But then again, my game might be even better with someone else’s input. So how do you deal with constructive criticism? Do you have the same problem as me? Let’s discuss
Change nothing based on some__ones__'s criticism.
Ask 10, 20, or even 100, people to give you their honest feedback.
If they all say the same thing … better look into it.
If they all have different ideas / suggestions / criticisms, well that’s just noise. Ignore the whole lot.
Change it when it makes sense to you. It’s your software. Not the one of the critics. On the same time, listen carefully to feedback. Feedback is super important and essential. Usually the ones who gives feedback doesn’t do it without a reason. And your users are the ones who uses your software. Also check who is giving the feedback and for what reason.
“deal” with? I ask for it. I don’t “deal” with it. More honest the better. It’s your own intelligence, not a rule set that determines if you should be acting on a given piece of criticism.
If you don’t have that, then you’re a lost cause. You can’t be taught this, you can only learn from experience or have good judgement skills.
You don’t always have to agree, you don’t have to necessarily change it if it’s not worth doing. Some of it doesn’t make sense, “yo bro why can’t I shootz in the air?” Urrrrr what?
If you want to survive, you need thick skin. I welcome it, need it and feel honoured enough that somebody is interested in my game enough to give me feedback.
End of the day it’s up to you, but a group might spot a glaring issue you missed. Because you become to close to your own project.
I don’t think the question is about how to “deal with it” in an emotional sense. I think it’s about managing what changes to enact arising from the criticism?
First up, as @BoredMoremon says, be sure to find out the root of the issues raised. Henry Ford said something along the lines of “If I asked what people wanted, they’d have told me ‘faster horses’”. He didn’t do what people said, he figured out their problems and found a new solution.
Secondly, as has been said, it’s your software. You know your design goals, how it works, what you want to get out of it. I use feedback as a yardstick to see how close to the intended experience the thing I’ve built is getting. I also go more than just asking for feedback - whenever I can I watch people play, because there’s a lot in their reactions, in seeing how they do things, and seeing what they do and don’t give their attention to that will tell you things that conscious feedback just can’t achieve.
Personally, I look at making games as crafting an experience. I want players to have a certain experience when they’re playing my game, so I keep putting it in front of players, observing the experience they’re having, then modifying the game to bring the actual experience more in line with my intended experience. Regardless of the form of feedback or what other ways I gather information to achieve that, every decision comes down to “how can I change what I have to get what I want?” And players often know what they don’t like, but you are the only one who can answer that specific question.
Polls are finite. Gleen from the infinite.
You want people to tell you what they think without prompting nor fixation on topics as supplied.
It’s in our nature to want to feel like we’ve contributed, or that our ideas and opinions matter… Our “say” is significant.
When tasked to criticize, most will try damn good and hard to do just that… find fault. To do otherwise might lead others to believe that we lack perception… That we aren’t smart enough to have an opinion.
Fact is, most opinions are like assholes… everyone’s got one and they ain’t all that special.
Now, of course, broad sweeping questions such as: “What did you enjoy?”
and "What did you dislike?"
are perfectly cromulent*.*
Keep an open mind and don’t get married to your ideas. An idea is a seed, and the seed contains the foundations of what a tree is, but the tree adapts and changes its shape to best collect sun/water.
Know when you’re being stubborn vs sticking to your core idea. Don’t dismiss other people’s ideas because they aren’t “your idea”.
Play devil’s advocate with the criticism. Force half of yourself to agree with it and then argue with the other half about it. If you do this honestly, by the end of the argument you’ll know the answers.
Never ever ever let it bother you. In life, you should never worry about time, money, death, or other people’s opinions. There’s never enough time or money, you’ll die more times than you want to, and there are way too many opinions to take any of them seriously.
Look at a guy working on titan souls, he couldnt take criticism from total biscuit and now he boycotted the game.
Or the guy who behind fez, who got so hot and bothered by his critics/trolls he quit the industry.
Or the guy who went after jim sterling. I guess the moral of the story is learn to deal with criticism so if you do make it big these things wont happen to you.
I love digitalhomicide’s meltdown on this game and other games (see them pose as an anonymous user who actually enjoys their games in the attached screenshot).
–edit
Not only are those the same words digitalhomicide first game Jim Sterling regarding being an early access title and working on other games, it was also edited by DigitalHomicide despite the user ‘having no part in the game development’ and speaking the same awkwardly structured english that DigitalHomicide does.
It was? or do you mean another dev within the company ‘DigitalHomicide’? Or was DigitalHomicide editing the post made by someone else? Steam should make what’s going on there more obvious.
I think the latest dev to actually try dmca takedown is the one for that horrible skateboarding game that runs at 6-12 fps and you can’t really tell what’s going on because of the horrible camera positioning & controls.
@Aiursrage2k that’s what I was referring to, haha. Notice the terrible fps, camera controls and… my memory messed up storying the ‘skateboard - sktateman’ fuzzy key.
As for the image I posted, that was in reference to another game released by digitalhomicide called deadly profits.
Kanye West is a good role model, here. Yell at people. If needed, yell while they’re talking so nobody can hear them. Criticism is no more than “haters” “hating”. You are the best. Everything you design is superior.
Give feedback on games and study the responses you get from creators… and you will see truth. We are all skin thinned when it comes to our creations. Just accept what people say. Let it wash over you, then examine their points. Maybe they are right. Is it so bad to admit that we are imperfect? It’s not. It’s freeing. Then you can see clearly and make something even better. Do this enough, and you’ll get more and more praise. You’ll always get that criticism, though. If you do too well, you’ll start being accused of arrogance and perfectionism… so, the answer is to just accept the criticism exactly as it is. Respond to it without embarrassment.
I think there are really three kinds of criticism:
The kind where you’re asking about an idea, which is a useless point to ask for input in my experience. Most of the time it works like “Which do you like more red apples or green apples?” “Apples are stupid, do oranges!” Pointless.
The kind where it’s genuinely useful. “Hey, there’s a seam on that rock model.” “I noticed that there is a tear in the terrain here.” “This build is really laggy on my rig.” “I’m not sure I’d pay money for this, it doesn’t add anything to the inspirational matterial.”
and
The kind of criticism where they’re REALLY telling you that you aren’t conveying the concept well enough. “Why don’t you have the player KO when their life hits 0% like in Street Fighter instead of counting up?” “Because, Smash Brothers isn’t going to be a Street Fighter clone.”
or do you mean another dev within the company ‘DigitalHomicide’? Or was DigitalHomicide editing the post made by someone else? Steam should make what’s going on there more obvious.
