It’s no secret that game devs can be a little secretive about their projects. And it’s not always to create a mystery around the game, it can also be because being candid about it isn’t the best thing for them, thanks to the toxic culture in gaming.
Charles Randall, a designer and programmer who has worked for Ubisoft and Bioware wrote a thread on Twitter which presents an interesting point of view:
“The other day a friend commented to me “I wish game developers were more candid about development.” He was surprised when I said we are. The caveat is that we’re only candid with other industry people. Because gamer culture is so toxic that being candid in public is dangerous. See that recent twitter thread about game design tricks to make games better — filled with gamers “angry” about “being lied to.”
Forums and comment sections are full of dunning-kruger specialists who are just waiting for any reason to descend on actual developers. See any thread where some dumbass comments how “easy” it would be to, say, add multiplayer or change engines. Any dev who talks candidly about the difficulty of something like that just triggers a wave of people questioning their entire resumé. “Questioning” here being an absurd euphemism for “becoming a target of an entire faction of gamers for harassment or worse.”
There are still topics I can’t touch because I was candid once and it resulted in dumb headlines, misunderstandings, and harassment. So while I’d talk candidly about certain big topics right now — I know doing so would lead to another wave of assholes throwing shit at me. (And of course I face almost nothing compared to women/PoC/lgtbq+ folk)
But here’s the rub: all the stuff you ever wanted to know about game development would be out there if not for the toxic gaming community. We *love* to talk about development, the challenges we face, the problems we solve, the shortcuts we take. But it’s almost never worth it.
I did a public talk a couple weeks ago to a room full of all ages kids, and afterwards, a kid came up to me and was talking about stuff. And I shit you not, this kid (somewhere between 13-16 I’d guess) starts talking about how bad devs are because of a youtuber he watches. He nailed all the points, “bad engines”, “being greedy”, you name it. I was appalled.
I did my best to tell him that all those things people freak out about are normal and have justifications. I hope I got through a bit. But I expect he went back to consuming toxic culture via youtube personalities, and one day he’ll probably harass a dev over nonsense.”
He also compared it with the film industry, where movies are announced much before the actual release, saying that a similar case can’t work with video games. His tweets were met with a lot of agreement from the devs (along with some toxic response from the community, what a surprise). It’s certainly fascinating to see both sides of the argument, and while we can’t see an immediate solution to this problem, it’s imperative for the gamers to have a better idea of the development process for them to better appreciate the efforts that go in the making of their favourite titles.
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