Frankly people have an absurd notion to want and expect ridiculous amounts of everything in a game no matter what you deliver. Game developers will always be just under the bar for an acceptable level of detail in a game. It will be your personal problem and all the internet will be spamming you with how
you’ve ruined their favourite game, or made a game that’s sh*t and go jump of a bridge and die. Hmm?
Well the truth is everyone thinks it, including me that most games have missed the mark when it comes to being great. They could all offer so much more to the playing field. Or if a developer actually does get a game right, they butchered the sequel with things that have ruined what they’ve become so accustomed too. Well I did think that too a certain degree, in till I joined the course and realised that games do have realistic boundaries that they have to fall within. Blindingly obvious but overlooked. Developers are in a constant battle to reach equilibrium of having the awesome lipsmackingly good features vs. time vs. space vs. the people.
Every game has something that doesn’t make it too the final print, in fact the majority of what they set out to achieve will be redesign, reworked or removed entirely in order to actually make a functional game. If a developer set out to achieve all of its goals it wouldn’t succeed in making a profit or even realising the game in the first place. The process of making a game is trying to balance the key concepts and ideas and making them work in a very constricted way that will ultimately make the publisher money. It must be very degrading seeing people destroy the work that you spent two years making as good as it can be in the time and space given.
Of course not all games released are actually good. There are exceptions where the developer could have been a lot more efficient or could have picked a completely different and much better direction. But the majority of the time when people dislike a game, it’s because there not used to it, it’s changed, or it isn’t as long or as complex as the consumer wants it to be. People are generally picky and hate change that they don’t agree with. The reasons why this happens are because games development is driven on profit, the people making it want to be innovative and more efficient and those playing it want it to be beyond the limitations that it can. Frankly these ideas cannot work together.
An idea is crafted by management and directors rather than from what the people want. In order to make a successful games title, you need a great simple idea, a fast and very efficient team, a reasonable time scale and put a lot of hours into it. Actually moderation, actually just copy call of duty that seems to work well. You’ll never conquer 100% of the market share but develop a game that’s simple exciting, fun and put a lot of hours behind it and you can do pretty damn well. There is no “Game Designer” instead an idea that is given more and more focused direction in till it becomes the finished title. Working with entire team based on this original design. It’s very important that the original idea that’s drafted is expanded and crafted into a vast resource that will allow all the members of the team to adhere too and for the game to have a set direction. E.g. a Design Document. It will allow the money to continue to flow in from the publisher and for the people in your team to have enough information to get on with what they need to do without constant referral.
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