10 Things Video Game Developers Wish You Understood Better

Knowledge is half the battle.

Horizon forbidden west
Guerrilla Games

In light of recent game-related events, a friend of mine remarked, "gamers were a mistake".

Though it was meant glibly, it's undeniable that, especially within recent years, a very tribal "gamers versus developers" feud has been percolating away.

With the prevalence and importance of YouTubers in contemporary gamer culture, it seems gamers are repeatedly pointed towards the game developers themselves as the target of ire (with that manufactured anger frequently manifesting as attacks on individuals).

Yet, almost always, these attacks stem from a misunderstanding; developers wish that the average gaming enthusiast knew a handful of key information that might have avoided that conflict.

After all, developers are just people, just gamers, too - we just mix a little business with pleasure. The problem is, when that business turns ugly...

10. Artists Don't Fix Netcode

Horizon forbidden west
Bethesda

"Well, like, uh, OBVIOUSLY!", screeches a Derisive Daniel from the back of the classroom. "Everyone knows THAT!".

Well, you'd think so, wouldn't you? But time and time again, individual developers with absolutely nothing to do with the feature or system in question will receive torrents of caustic hatred which they... well, can't do anything about.

Most recently, a dear colleague of mine received a private message on Twitter which read, "stop posting about your ****ing cat and get your ****ing online fixed!".

He's a vehicle artist.

Of course, you'd be forgiven for thinking this is more an issue of common sense as opposed to a 'gamer thing', but this occurs very frequently, with a large number of my current and ex-colleagues regaling others with their own tales of "the gamers shouting at me to do something I have no clue about".

Think of it like this - you wouldn't scream at a physiotherapist to hurry up and administer your anaesthetic, would you? Screech at a website designer to help you hack into the pentagon?

And even giving the benefit of the doubt and imagining a hypothetical situation where we DID sit right next to the online folks, do you think we're going to look at it and think, "oh, Frank the online coder really needs to see this cruel insult, that'll make him work even harder"?

In summary... specialist titles aren't just there for show. Just ask me to try to rewire your house with my concept art skills, and you'll see just how specialised I really am.

Contributor
Contributor

Hiya, you lot! I'm Tommy, a 38-year-old game developer from Scotland - I live in a caravan on the beach. I've worked on Need for Speed, Cake Bash, Tom Clancy's The Division, Driver San Francisco, Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise, Kameo 2 and much more. I enjoy a pun and, of course, suffer fools gladly! Join me on Twitter at @TotoMimoTweets for more opinion diarrhoea.