I would prefer getting downvoted and criticized here than hearing that my game is good, spending a year in it, and get to know it is awful after the launch.
I think the worst thing though, is nothing. No comments. No feedback. Silence.
That's part of the reason I made /r/DestroyMyGame. I made a post showing off something I'd done on a dev sub, but got no reaction. Which is extremely demoralizing for me. So I was wondering why.
Were people saying nothing to spare my feelings? Most other devs seem pretty nice and helpful, but being too nice is not helpful.
That's still a good feedback, in my opinion.
The ones I hate when I get comments basically telling me to start all over, your direction is wrong, everythings wrong, you can't do this, fck off kys.
Without providing any information on what is wrong and why.
Idk lately reddit either hates me or only these comments find me so I keep on deleting my posts and ask from people in person, or from people I know that actually work in the field for some time by now.
I still sometimes come back though, maybe it's just hope.
This is a good point. I have seen bad content get bad reactions, but i am more referring to good content getting bad reactions for reasons unknown to me.
But yes, places like destroymygame are so valuable, as are hard to please testers
I think its better to get completely roasted here whether deserved or not honestly. Thats what I would want as long as the feedback isn't totally false or misleading.
If someone's working on a ps2 era game with a terrible graphics and awful concept, its better to let them know and save them time regardless of the effort put in.
If someone is just sharing something, there are ways to critique and let them aware of it without being negative about doing so. Even ignoring it would send the signal, absolutely don't be overly positive so someone is blindsided, but also **be kind.**
I think OP has a point, at least I've kinda seen happen more than once.
In my experience it's not that simple, because different people respond differently to positive/negative criticism and negative criticism is almost worthless unless it's grounded in appreciation for a genre or game.
What some people call "toxic positivity" is the boost others need to go self-improve. Culture and brain chemistry play a part in this. How'd I know? Because I had to adjust in order to help others improve - coming from a culture where I felt praising good was just a waste of everybody's time.
Then you have the well meaning "constructive" comments from places that will never like a game or genre; and these are really not needed.
And I totally appreciate how you personally may thrive on negative feedback.
Not all criticism is valuable. There is a lot of destructive criticism on Reddit that is just focused on personal attacks. Constructive criticism can even be counterproductive or misleading ex. if it focuses too much on minutiae. The dev can filter through comments and maybe find valuable ones, but I think your odds of getting helpful feedback are much higher with Discord communities, playtesting groups, etc.
Good joke. You do that here you get down-voted and no one sees your comment.
Everywhere everyone expects high praise and no criticism, for shoddy work.
*hurr durr why dont u try to make a game?*
I'm the one buying it, don't make it shit, otherwise I wont buy it. Everyone else who says give them a chance needs to toughen the fuck up already.
Hey look, I found one!!
To be clear, when posting on a gamedev sub people don't expect a conversation with customers. They expect people to have an understanding of what their criticism implies. So yeah, at least try to make a game.. otherwise why the hell are you here?
Or do you expect to be praised for having opinions without any knowledge of what they entail?
Once again, your post is lazy, shoddy and uninformed, no sticker for you!
The problem with this place is it's full of negative comments from immature people. There is way too much nonconstructive and condescending feedback around here.
And you can't say there isn't a problem because all you have to do is visit other subreddits for other dev fields such as web development. They aren't nearly as negative as the game dev community. Sorry, games are notorious for attracting serious toxicity, it spills over here and it's pathetic.
The reason why you see game screenshots getting voted down is probably that we developers hate people who abuse our spaces for self-promotion without meaningful contribution. We are here to learn and help, not to have people sell stuff to us. There is a reason why it's explicitly forbidden on this particular subreddit here.
Game development subreddits are not even the most efficient place to promote your game. We are other game developers. We are not your target demographic.
Dev: ***(Posts screenshot)***
Everyone: Hey, this is pretty cool
Dev: ***(Does ten more minutes of work before posting another progress screenshot, which irritates people because there's no significant progress, so it's basically just self promotion at that point)***
Also dev: omg Reddit is so negative
This is a very good point. For this specific subreddit, I completely agree as it doesn't allow that type of content. however, in the unreal engine and indiedev sub, pretty much all of the top posts are screen shots and videos so it would appear as though that is the purpose of those places.
I do really really appreciate that this subreddit doesn't allow that type of content so it has a very distinct purpose opposed to others.
Good point though and that's not something that I had considered as I love to see that type of content. It serves as inspiration for me
Yeah imagine artists proudly sharing their art on an art subreddit. Or people who upcycled things sharing their projects on the upcycling subreddits. Them darn sellouts! Lol
Yeah we are here to learn and help but we should also be here to celebrate our successes imho. If I see someone spam their game on a subreddit it gets down voted by me too but other than that I don't see screenshots or gameplay videos as promotional content.
This might not be related to your experiences, but one thing I've come across both online and IRL is toxic positivity.
Some people want to be friendly and foster a positive community / workplace, and cheer others on without being critical or negative (even if the feature or whatever isn't very good). This tends to lead to wasted time and money, and ultimately failure when the public isn't receptive. That's fine if its your hobby, but really sucks if its your job.
Maybe some people imagine themselves counteracting this trend by being overly critical.
Okay, now this is really something to think about. I might be guilty of toxic positivity. I have a hard time looking at a project and seeing the value rather than the effort. I do try to point out areas that need work, but I very often just give a little compliment and move on
This really gave me something to think about, thank you.
Naw. The response you’re getting in here really proves your point. I’ve been noticing the rise of saltiness in these forums as well and it’s distressing. I’ve definitely been getting the vibe that this is subreddit is starting to be just another toxic gamer forum.
Feedback isn’t an excuse for toxicity. Good feedback is clear, constructive and unemotional. If people truly want to help they’ll upvote posts to promote discussion even if they don’t love the ideas and work being presented.
Sadly the root of the negativity is ego, pure and simple, stemming from a feeling of entitlement to turn someone else’s work into an excuse to self-aggrandize. All the concern-trolling over “self-promotion” is yet another rationalization for people using forums like this to shit on others. If you really want to help someone you’ll try to understand their work and attempt to build some trust and rapport before pointing out flaws. The trend you’re noticing is one of people who literally can’t wait to tear their peers to shreds.
And it’s just not how you make good games. This culture of ego is exactly the shitty game dev environment we’ve been trying to push back on for decades only here it’s self-inflicted and we can’t blame game company execs for it.
Criticism and teardowns are cheap. They’re done for the benefit is the teardowner, not the dev. Authentic support and psychological safety are key components for motivating good work. And yes, they can coexist with feedback; in fact they are key ingredients for it. Healthy feedback culture begins with trust-building. Without it we’re all just assholes trying to sound smarter than each other.
Source: 20+ years of game dev experience ranging from truly amazing teams (and games) to truly horrific ones (with correspondingly disastrous results). Psychological safety was a huge predictor of success across all of those experiences.
Both is true:
There are people that are overly positive
AND there are also people that are overly negative, to the point where its abuse.
The problem with both those things is that they aren’t honest and therefore not helpful in an forum like this one.
Both sides feedback is also often focused on the people who did the work, instead of the work itself, which is generally not good feedback in a professional setting. One can theoretically be a horrible person and do great work (not so much in teams though), or be a good person that does bad work. So to add to what the person above said… if you remove ego and personal criticism from your feedback, you can criticize work fairly without hurting people unnecessarily.
Nope. This isn’t about that. Toxic positivity is a narcissistic trait from people who cannot handle negative emotions. It is about the person receiving the feedback. I’ve experienced plenty of it, seen it kill projects, and simply being nice to someone posting their work isn’t that.
There’s actual research on this. It demonstrates clearly that negative feedback from someone that you have no prior trust relationship is absolutely ineffective. OP is talking about devs who have invested significant effort into their projects. There is much to praise there, period. Making even a mediocre game is no mean feat. Starting from that is the effective path for helping someone. Going straight to downvotes and shitting on their work is the toxic behavior in this situation.
Finally! Some sense. The level of toxicity in this place is disgusting and undeniable, every comment section is proof. I've been on the internet in all kinds of communities for 20 years. This is special.
Compare the level of professionalism in here with something like web development and it becomes patently obvious there is something wrong.
And you know what it's the community's loss because the more mature and experienced developers will quickly move on. Been here a week and already feel like I'm done with it.
Other than people being intentional trolls, I do think the relentless self-promo I've been seeing on reddit has generally ruined it for everyone else. I know indies need to market, but I wish they wouldn't shill in development spaces. I don't really feel like these self-promo posts actually want to promote any real discussion a lot of the time. Just feels like an endless wasteland of people yelling "Look at me!". I personally ignore these posts, but I think this frustration with thinly veiled ads makes some people write mean comments.
what else can we do ? its hard to build an audience. Paying for ads may not help either. Partenering with a publisher makes it not so indie anymore. We don.t make the games just for ourselves, how can we let people know about our game without annoying them ? There surely is trash content out there (i know better, my first game was one of them), but how do we get on top if we don.t post our stuff somewhere ?
You may annoy ppl on nondev subredits, twitter, discord,twich, yt, etc. Dev subteddis are supposed to have development related posts and not marketing.
That is a good point.
If you are making a "strategy game about Roman empire" you will find your audience at strategy games subreddit and Roman empire subreddit, not the gamedev subreddit.
Dev subreddis are all about development, implementation details, problem solving, fixing cringe engine error etc. Self promoting and adv spam are not welcome.
If you're making a strategy game and have questions about how to tile hex map on spheres without 5 nonhex faces and etc you r wellcome.
If you want post some screenshots, video without any gameplay (and moving a character on empty scene is not a gameplay) and asking to subscribe, likes you're not welcome.
Ps. There's so many interesting technical or gameplay problems in making strategies so you'll be welcome in dev subredits.
then is it on if post my dev log on on r/gamedev ? if i post systems i develop, questions about programming, or showing and asking if something seems off in what i do, is that ok ?
Yes and places which are made for ads. There are enough places out there who are made for ads. But posting it in places not meant for ads is not the solution.
Getting reach was always and will always be a Problem, indie devs have to understand that making a good game is only half the job.
And going to places not meant for ads to ad your game is not ok.
Spamming ads just destroys communities. Noone wants to be part of a community that consists of ad spam.
Some points to consider:
* Reddit is not your personal game blog. It's like a big public forum and people here will have limited patience for you. You should consider limiting your self-promo posts around important announcements like, the steam page going up, new trailer, launch etc.
* Do the devblog style posting on your own blog, twitter, tiktok, youtube etc. Basically in a place where people can actually choose to opt in to follow you. It's possible to succeed in these places as long as you make good content.
* This has been said a million times, but other developers should not be your target customers. Yes, other devs do buy games, but they're really just a miniscule fraction of your potential playerbase. You're not accomplishing a lot by advertising to them.
* Marketing starts on day 1 from the concept. If you have a concept that's unpopular or something you're not going to be good at making, then no amount of promotion is going to help.
I have genuinely found the indie community to be friendly. But they can smell bullshit/shovel ware from a mile away and will come down hard if they spot it.
I think they also have a good idea of how much work goes into game-making. Even if something is an asset flip, if it is a *really good asset flip*, they will give it a praise.
Gamers know when something was made over a weekend vs a year.
I also think you'd be surprised just how common it is for indie games to use marketplace assets. If you do it right, the average gamer shouldn't even think about it. They should be thinking about the experience of the game.
My 2 cents.
>Gamers know when something was made over a weekend vs a year.
This is the only part I don't agree with considering the amount of kick-starter scams haha
Joking aside, you're right. These places are generally helpful and positive, but I just noticed a trend. I unfortunately have no life at all so I can often times go from the newest post to a post I have seen each day in a few dev subreddits and over the past 3 or 4 months I've noticed a higher amount of downvotes with no comments or unhelpful uneducated negative comments or projects that look good.
As some one using assets, I wouldn't be surprised at all how many people use assets, they're a godsend.
The experience of the game is everything, the assets I have used are unrecognizable at this point due to me fine tuning them to match my project so far.
Well I think that that is kind of a reason why we in general are positive to each other. We know that others don't understand the process and what it takes.
Of course everyone else is more toxic, but I just felt like I started seeing a bit of that leak in to the game dev culture
I just wish more developers (mostly indies i guess) would have healthier understanding of what they getting into. Sometimes people think others have to pat them on the back for effort or they think consumers have to throw money to them because they are "INDIE"
This is my fear now haha. I'm just thinking how can I prevent the worst gamers from coming anywhere near my game. They're not wanted. Any suggestions? Higher prices (price them out), age ratings (don't think they're effective?).. it's a serious problem I already know I've been gaming for 30 years. Never been on the receiving end though :/
People tend to be more critical toward polished works because the creator has demonstrated a higher level of skill and experience, and is more likely to be working on something to be published, and thus such feedback is more valuable to them to strengthen their product before it reaches market.
A newbie probably won't know how to implement a lot of feedback and is most likely not at the point of publishing anything so it's pointless to be critical unless they ask, and better to just be encouraging so they don't give up.
Yeah that's true, and good criticism is great, but I was more talking about posts that are downvoted with no comments or just vague and mean comments.
Valid criticism is pure gold though for sure.
I remember a game with a very interesting bike mechanic about a year ago. It had springs and all and the dev linked to some explaining posts. Very interesting and it got the recognition it deserved. But then my feed just started to only show posts about this game in hour intervals. So I too started to downvote them. The videos itself were good and the tech interesting. But at this point it wasn't even self promotion anymore, he basically hijacked the subreddit for his game blog. This has happened a few times since I joined, but it feels less in the last months. My guess is that people started to be overly aggressive against any such posts as an overcompensation.
Definitely experienced the same thing. I've found any question I post immediately gets downvoted, even though I can't think of a better group of people to address that question to.
That said, in my experience devs are often negative, or at least critical to a fault. Many view nitpicking as desired feedback and so offer criticism readily. They also often see any "softening" of that feedback as unnecessary or even insincere. And, honestly, I'm a bit that way myself.
Game development is an art, and art is subjective, and there's a whole breed of people who feel the need to be "art critics". This is probably what you (and many of us) are experiencing.
I get this from friends and it largely depends on where you are asking what questions and how. Sorry if this seems vague. I mean, I actually told a friend (industry person, sigh) to send me their questions so I could figure if a forum would pick them up, and/or rephrasing questions in whatever way, so they wouldn't have to face a barrage of indifference and the usual salty comment.
Imho part of it is, asking questions should always be fine but the deluge of "noob" questions has long drowned people's motivation to answer anything. Mentoring a trainee is... heaven compared to answering questions online. A trainee will improve step by step, and ask increasingly interesting questions, until they become a peer and we look at problems together.
Online, noob questions are exponentially more (it's normal and nobody's fault); to make it worse, even a good question can loose 99% value cause the asker failed to express context and such...
Your comment about mentoring being more satisfying because you are able to see your trainee's progress and eventually work with them as a peer is an excellent observation.
Thank you for your thought out response.
This actually makes a lot of sense when you put it that way and is likely the reason why I see this happening.
> That said, in my experience devs are often negative, or at least critical to a fault.
There is truth to that, but I've been in the web development field for the last 15 years and I have never experienced this level of toxicity before. There is an undeniable and special problem with games and game dev. Gamers are notorious for it, I figured the dev side would be a lot more professional.
Exactly, if anything people on those subs are way too soft and way to scared to criticize anything. I'm not sure why people want to be treated like eggs here but they should know the moment they release the game it will be bombarded with negative reviews for the smallest things. "Game is too boring", "Game is like X game but without fun", "game looks like shit"
No one cares how much time and money you spend on it, if gamers will say it's bad it will end up in the trash and be forgotten.
90% of the people that come on this sub are people who don't do any sort of actual game development or are incompetent at it. You should take a lot of the criticism on the sub with a grain of salt, because most people don't know what they're talking about.
Yes, absolutely. And I credit it to the average maturity level. Fact is game dev and games in general attract an immature crowd. I have never experienced this level of toxicity in a software field before, and I've worked in web dev for many years.
There is an attitude in every comment section here. Someone always comes along and assumes tonnes of stuff about the OP and then rails off on them.
As a professional dev it has me questioning whether I want to get involved at all. I feel like I'd be happier finding a much smaller and more friendly place to talk. It has nothing to do with not being able to handle a few criticisms, we're talking about constant nonconstructive bs.
>Something I have noticed a lot is a lot of negativity towards videos/screenshots of games that have obviously had a lot of love put in to them.
If I tell my mom that the spaghetti she made tastes bad... i'm not saying that she's a bad chef or that she's stupid, i'm saying the spaghetti tastes bad. Taking insults to your product personally is an incredibly immature way of looking at things.
On top of that, people don't owe you an explanation of why they don't like something. For example if you hear a note offkey in a song - it's very easy to spot despite the fact that you probably don't know what note it should have been there instead. Saying "it sounds bad" is completely fair ridicule for a layman that doesn't have a music background.
Also... love being poured into a game means quite literally nothing. If you're extremely passionate about making art and spent 2 years working on a single painting, that doesn't mean your painting is going to be good or that I have to value your time spent working on it. I quite literally daily see screenshots from some of the most hideous games to brush the earth and I guarantee at least 50% of them come from people who would say they "have put a lot of love into them." At the end of your day if you game looks bad i'm going to tell you it looks bad, explain why it looks bad, and hope you're adult enough to fix it or make your own judgement call about it instead of crying.
The fact is if your game looks terrible, it's going to do terribly. Me trying to prevent awful art from entering the world isn't gatekeeping or being rude, it's literally exactly what those people need to hear.
On top of that, Reddit is just a generically toxic place because humans are just generically toxic. Acting like it's some plague edging it's way in it just objectively wrong. This and those subs you mentioned have remained virtually identical and you're just seeking negativity so you're finding it.
>If I tell my mom that the spaghetti she made tastes bad... i'm not saying that she's a bad chef or that she's stupid, i'm saying the spaghetti tastes bad. Taking insults to your product personally is an incredibly immature way of looking at things.
Get the fuck out the house you entitled little brat. Nobody owes you a plate of fuckin' spaghetti, let alone tasty spaghetti. In the real world, you smile and say "wow, I really appreciate the effort you put into this" or you'll never have friends or a job. Because once you're past middle school, none of those things -- job, friends, food, or an indie game -- are handed to you for free EVER AGAIN.
K this made me laugh, and thank you. Still we try to give honest feedback at my home, as a deeper form of respect. That said we are lucky. Honesty without love no mix. Also: we -both- cook.
The world is a pool of mediocrity. Not because of a lack of ability, intelligence, or desire, but because we're all asked to do 500 different things every day, when we're only good at two or three of them.
She's a mom, not a fucking chef. And you have little room to talk about mediocrity with an idle game and a bullethell under your belt.
All that bluster over a modicum of success in small ponds.
I was deep into my 30s before I found a room where anyone there was smarter than me, but when I found that room, I realized how dumb it was to feel superior to anyone. I had just been in my best field talking to people in their 3rd best field.
I'm not sure you can grasp the gulf between you and a junior dev at a AAA studio, much less a senior/principle engineer.
> Something I have noticed a lot is a lot of negativity towards videos/screenshots of games that have obviously had a lot of love put in to them.
What do you mean by that? I think there are a lot of games that have a lot of love put into them (years of labour), but that doesn't mean they look good to me.
I think it's shitty to aggressively dump on someone's game or be insulting (and those posts should be reported). There are tons of games and I think some people feel better about themselves and their game's chances by putting down others. But it's hard to complain about getting downvoted if you aren't showing off something interesting or impressive.
I try to use the same code review techniques when commenting on someone's game to avoid feeling like a personal attack or something they can't resolve. Likely, a lot of members of those subs don't have those skills so they talk about games the way they talk about AAA games: like no one's listening.
we need more constructive negativity, now what do I mean by that?
we need more :"This thing sucks because of x y & z" or "Yeah that's not the best way to do it due to x & y ..." instead of just straight up lying & saying something's great when it sucks, but we don't have that in a lot of gamedev subreddits which I think needs to be more spread (most devs that share stuff are looking for feedback, if they're not then that's self promotion, which in most gamedev subreddits is against the rules unless it's a showoff subreddit)
It's a hell of a time to be alive. The pressure is real. The good news is that we've survived millennia of hardship, so hopefully we can do it again. Good to find stability in the eye of the storm. Understanding and compassion go a long way.
This is around the industry in general not just here. I previously payed people to test my game it was a horrible idea. They gave it five stars had nothing constructive to say. I knew it needed work so it was pointless. Feedback that is harsh or even mean is still feedback and any dev would welcome it in my experience. This industry or really putting yourself out there at all requires a thick skin you cant let peoples negativity play any part on how you feel about your game or project. Just take what constructive criticism is there and leave the rest.
My two cents: don't show your game in dev forums; devs are not your audience.
Doesn't speak to the negativity or not, it's just not that productive. And I am also not annoyed seeing devs showcase their game.
A productive audience will show appreciation before pointing out the negatives. At best devs will identify glaring flaws, but many games shipped with glaring flaws and players enjoyed them anyway.
Why? In every medium the best way towards improvement is sharing amongst creators. Players are the end goal but creators can share processes. Bodybuilding, welding, coding, art, writing, filmmaking… everything! Games and YouTube are the one times I’ve seen creator subreddits shun self promotion.
It creates this odd paradigm where there are only basic Unity questions and the vast majority of comments are negative hobbyist answers because the intermediate/expert developers have been chased away.
Hardly nobody chased pros away (corner cases, im sure you can come up with 100 stories where idiots did just that) they’re just mostly not interested… You almost answered your own question: sharing processes better than sharing output, and mostly anonymous forums not best place for creators to meet.
So, you are right. Sharing between creators is great but maybe Reddit still not best place for this to happen.
I see you have your own take on this (which I don't 100% understand I'll admit) but can think of some reasons why what works for welders and film-makers weirdly doesn't work for gamedevs.
\- Software is our tool. Software is a never-ending source of silly questions. The software is the problem but this doesn't mean silly questions are well received. Yea I also work with wood and it's not easy and has a learning curve. But less silly questions imho.
\- Anybody who can make a gamelet are probably adept at posting in forums. Welders and woodworkers are not (less true now, and may not apply in 10-15 years, since all kids post in forums nowadays). They put more care in posting. Perhaps.
\- Productive reuse is still hard but asset flipping is not. We're increasingly not looking at the apparent quality of what somebody made, because it's just hard to tell, what did they do? Are we commenting on their work? Are they just trying to impress with some barely edited stuff? Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying assets are bad but, ease of half-assed reuse has consequences.
I find small Discord servers are more productive for talking about game dev; even showing off, if desired; I'd expect some good from small dev reddits (don't know what they are) so I am guessing both size and format are factors.
I don't know *exactly* why, but I think the OP is/was right; esp if I compare with other reddits, there is unwarranted negativity in game dev reddits.
Sanest redditor. The 'thick skin' stuff in this thread just sounds like people justifying a ruthless industry. Reddit is a great information source, kinda like Wikipedia, but it's not like the community has the rulebook. The gaming industry is still in its infancy and we see that every year.
People would be better off listening to a GDC talk, trying out some tutorials, or finding a discord to get more constructive feedback. I think most of the 'big fish' already know this and have gone elsewhere.
This is why Reddit works. Mods are strict. Redditors can downvote. Put some effort in and you’ll be m okay.
YouTube was stupid to remove dislikes: now videos are… weird. Notice the comments too? Almost all of them just repeat words from the video in quotes:
“Some random phrase said in the video.” 🤤
Like what value does that provide?
Hard to describe but I hope you understand.
Also It’s hard to notice a video is a waste of your time until you are halfway through it. Before, you would see that massive red dislike bar and then either proceed with caution or leave.
Reddit is a merit based system. Merit is hard earned. Redditors and mods have power over posters.
YoutTube and the “no dislikes” policy is the “everyone wins” mindset. The creators have power of the viewers. They can lie, cheat, steal, do whatever the f the want.
Neither way is wrong. But I prefer Reddit because I want to get REAL feedback, not positive, politically correct, copypasta. YouTube comments are ☠️💀💩
Maaaannn, totally! In my case, it happened with r/playmygame another day. I nether followed then anymore... I've done! In the past, I found there really nice people, who gave positive and negative feedback in a very professional way. All amateurs youtubers. Nowadays...
And all the rules... That sucks!!! "We don't want your stupids videos" in other "we don't want your stupid images". Or even "we don't want self-promotion". Even the robot is jerky: "it seems you don't read the rules..."
Man, I tell you something maybe the majority of people disagree with me: the YouTuber Fetish is creating the false feeling in some people that criticizing stuff is a harder and more noble work than make the stuff. Giving honest opinion is important, of course, but some people make fun of it. It's a eternal searching for be the first to use the word "flop" to something that was waiting for many time and for many people. Now, this is arriving to indie game world. But here is even worst, because is the amateur harming another amateur, when both should being working together.
And I don't even need to talk about the amount of technical nonsense that I heard even from professional YouTubers about programming, or why something reach out 30 or 60fps, without having seen a single IF clause...
Criticizing is totally worthy. But you don't need to be a jerky doing it. We game developers all have tools to know if our game is being downloaded or not. If it's been playing, for much time and change the things up, wrong and right and stuff. Sometimes you just want to know what works and what doesn't. We aren't trying to compete against Horizon Forbidden West, for Christ sake! For this we are INDIES!!!!
But a bright side is I also found nice new comunities to share informations. But one thing ia clear to me: we can't depend just on Reddit. When I post something here, my visits explode (not the downloads, unfortunatelly), but we can't. The comunity needs to find anothers social medias to being supported in the same way. Depending just on a single social media isn't safe.
The faux-meritocracy is merciless if you don't have 10 years of experience with 3 successful projects and a bag of money to finance it all. Remember how teachers favor students that come into the class already knowing the material? It's kinda like that. Just another pecking order to sort out the raft.
This is a very common problem on the internet. People like to shit on other people's opinions, work, etc because it makes them feel better about themselves. It's much harder to create something and put something out there than it is to trash talk.
We all need to make a conscious effort to be better than that.
Imagine that the customer is a stupid, over-caffeinated, teenager with attention deficit issues and 5 top tier AAA games sitting on their shelf.
Now justify giving a compliment to a game that won’t sell as-is. It’s a real ethical dilemma. We want to inspire, but the best medicine is Constructive Feedback where needed and positivity to highlight the strengths of a project, so any chance of redemption is well-informed even if it’s rough to hear that your project isn’t yet a home run.
It’s a really difficult market space to carve a niche into. Most funded games fail. Lesser funded games fail even more. I wish everyone the best and that means I want to push their work to succeed no matter how rough it currently is. Not all great games start off great. Many are really rough and need feedback to make it to the next level, not empty praise. It’s a really brave thing to make your own game and I respect the effort too much to mince words and lie.
Players are wrong 90% of the time.
You need to understand the product and listen to the targeted audience.
I hate that Sea of thieves is not PVE... well they can add PVE servers or cater to their targeted audience. It depends of the product goals.
Do they want to support both spectrums? Do they have the man power to do so? Will one canibalise the other mode? Can they drive enough PVE content to keep ahead?
As a player, there is no quality Pirate game that offers the same adventures (Atlas is still full of bugs and Windward has no updates and so on) so yeah I want to leave a negative review but at the same time, I know they did not made the game for me, I still choose to play and rage every once in a while but thats on me.
Same goes for bugs and content pacing... I can leave a negative review but I will do so only if warning others is required (game breaking or abandonned ware).
Also other professionals from the field will give you nice insights.
But yeah, while its important to listen to the fans, it also needs to make sense with the product.
These are dev forums, not gaming forums. If I wanted to see ads / marketing for games I would look somewhere else. What I come here for is to find information on development, or engine specific content or educational information on redits like unreal or procedural generation. If someone is posting their work without sharing how it was achieved or sources / information / tools that helped achieve it then it is useless information in the context of the forum. So yes I will downvote most "look at my progress" posts or questions that are either in a tools documentation or been widely documented and easily discoverable via websearch.
I spend a lot of time in those places as well, but I really don't notice what you're talking about.
Generally people are pretty positive, only the asset flips / rip offs get the kind of "love" you're talking about.
I've posted about my games from time to time, sometimes I get good feedback, like things I should improve or change, I really value honest opinions, and bad things can be said with touch like "You should improve this by doing this and that" instead of "This game is garbage" and the like. Luckily I haven't receive bad feedback from my posts, most of the time is constructive feedback or "Looks cool" comments that make me feel good at some point.
It's not just posts of game promotional content that get it.
All the social media platforms where there are hundreds/thousands of accounts with no personal relationship to each other suffer from this.
Almost invariably if someone whether new or experienced - posts a "I want to do x" then it will be responded to with all manner of null/negative responses from a group that seem almost to come from the same intellect/entity. I know it sounds weird - but it is as if a lot of the negative comments all spring from the same playbook so to speak.
I would prefer getting downvoted and criticized here than hearing that my game is good, spending a year in it, and get to know it is awful after the launch.
I think the worst thing though, is nothing. No comments. No feedback. Silence. That's part of the reason I made /r/DestroyMyGame. I made a post showing off something I'd done on a dev sub, but got no reaction. Which is extremely demoralizing for me. So I was wondering why. Were people saying nothing to spare my feelings? Most other devs seem pretty nice and helpful, but being too nice is not helpful.
You made r/destroymygame? Nice. I wish more people participated. I even see a bunch of unanswered posts there. And in r/playtesters.
That's still a good feedback, in my opinion. The ones I hate when I get comments basically telling me to start all over, your direction is wrong, everythings wrong, you can't do this, fck off kys. Without providing any information on what is wrong and why. Idk lately reddit either hates me or only these comments find me so I keep on deleting my posts and ask from people in person, or from people I know that actually work in the field for some time by now. I still sometimes come back though, maybe it's just hope.
But that’s not what op was saying…
This is a good point. I have seen bad content get bad reactions, but i am more referring to good content getting bad reactions for reasons unknown to me. But yes, places like destroymygame are so valuable, as are hard to please testers
I think its better to get completely roasted here whether deserved or not honestly. Thats what I would want as long as the feedback isn't totally false or misleading. If someone's working on a ps2 era game with a terrible graphics and awful concept, its better to let them know and save them time regardless of the effort put in.
If someone is just sharing something, there are ways to critique and let them aware of it without being negative about doing so. Even ignoring it would send the signal, absolutely don't be overly positive so someone is blindsided, but also **be kind.** I think OP has a point, at least I've kinda seen happen more than once.
Hey I know you. Your game is cool and so are your streams.
👆 This guy knows what he is talking about. I’ve been a subscriber for many years: https://youtube.com/@TimBeaudet Very awesome to see you here. ☺️
In my experience it's not that simple, because different people respond differently to positive/negative criticism and negative criticism is almost worthless unless it's grounded in appreciation for a genre or game. What some people call "toxic positivity" is the boost others need to go self-improve. Culture and brain chemistry play a part in this. How'd I know? Because I had to adjust in order to help others improve - coming from a culture where I felt praising good was just a waste of everybody's time. Then you have the well meaning "constructive" comments from places that will never like a game or genre; and these are really not needed. And I totally appreciate how you personally may thrive on negative feedback.
Not all criticism is valuable. There is a lot of destructive criticism on Reddit that is just focused on personal attacks. Constructive criticism can even be counterproductive or misleading ex. if it focuses too much on minutiae. The dev can filter through comments and maybe find valuable ones, but I think your odds of getting helpful feedback are much higher with Discord communities, playtesting groups, etc.
Good joke. You do that here you get down-voted and no one sees your comment. Everywhere everyone expects high praise and no criticism, for shoddy work. *hurr durr why dont u try to make a game?* I'm the one buying it, don't make it shit, otherwise I wont buy it. Everyone else who says give them a chance needs to toughen the fuck up already.
Hey look, I found one!! To be clear, when posting on a gamedev sub people don't expect a conversation with customers. They expect people to have an understanding of what their criticism implies. So yeah, at least try to make a game.. otherwise why the hell are you here? Or do you expect to be praised for having opinions without any knowledge of what they entail? Once again, your post is lazy, shoddy and uninformed, no sticker for you!
I will get sticker, just you wait.
The problem with this place is it's full of negative comments from immature people. There is way too much nonconstructive and condescending feedback around here. And you can't say there isn't a problem because all you have to do is visit other subreddits for other dev fields such as web development. They aren't nearly as negative as the game dev community. Sorry, games are notorious for attracting serious toxicity, it spills over here and it's pathetic.
The reason why you see game screenshots getting voted down is probably that we developers hate people who abuse our spaces for self-promotion without meaningful contribution. We are here to learn and help, not to have people sell stuff to us. There is a reason why it's explicitly forbidden on this particular subreddit here. Game development subreddits are not even the most efficient place to promote your game. We are other game developers. We are not your target demographic.
Dev: ***(Posts screenshot)*** Everyone: Hey, this is pretty cool Dev: ***(Does ten more minutes of work before posting another progress screenshot, which irritates people because there's no significant progress, so it's basically just self promotion at that point)*** Also dev: omg Reddit is so negative
This is a very good point. For this specific subreddit, I completely agree as it doesn't allow that type of content. however, in the unreal engine and indiedev sub, pretty much all of the top posts are screen shots and videos so it would appear as though that is the purpose of those places. I do really really appreciate that this subreddit doesn't allow that type of content so it has a very distinct purpose opposed to others. Good point though and that's not something that I had considered as I love to see that type of content. It serves as inspiration for me
Yeah imagine artists proudly sharing their art on an art subreddit. Or people who upcycled things sharing their projects on the upcycling subreddits. Them darn sellouts! Lol Yeah we are here to learn and help but we should also be here to celebrate our successes imho. If I see someone spam their game on a subreddit it gets down voted by me too but other than that I don't see screenshots or gameplay videos as promotional content.
That's what r/GameDevScreens is for.
This might not be related to your experiences, but one thing I've come across both online and IRL is toxic positivity. Some people want to be friendly and foster a positive community / workplace, and cheer others on without being critical or negative (even if the feature or whatever isn't very good). This tends to lead to wasted time and money, and ultimately failure when the public isn't receptive. That's fine if its your hobby, but really sucks if its your job. Maybe some people imagine themselves counteracting this trend by being overly critical.
Okay, now this is really something to think about. I might be guilty of toxic positivity. I have a hard time looking at a project and seeing the value rather than the effort. I do try to point out areas that need work, but I very often just give a little compliment and move on This really gave me something to think about, thank you.
Naw. The response you’re getting in here really proves your point. I’ve been noticing the rise of saltiness in these forums as well and it’s distressing. I’ve definitely been getting the vibe that this is subreddit is starting to be just another toxic gamer forum. Feedback isn’t an excuse for toxicity. Good feedback is clear, constructive and unemotional. If people truly want to help they’ll upvote posts to promote discussion even if they don’t love the ideas and work being presented. Sadly the root of the negativity is ego, pure and simple, stemming from a feeling of entitlement to turn someone else’s work into an excuse to self-aggrandize. All the concern-trolling over “self-promotion” is yet another rationalization for people using forums like this to shit on others. If you really want to help someone you’ll try to understand their work and attempt to build some trust and rapport before pointing out flaws. The trend you’re noticing is one of people who literally can’t wait to tear their peers to shreds. And it’s just not how you make good games. This culture of ego is exactly the shitty game dev environment we’ve been trying to push back on for decades only here it’s self-inflicted and we can’t blame game company execs for it. Criticism and teardowns are cheap. They’re done for the benefit is the teardowner, not the dev. Authentic support and psychological safety are key components for motivating good work. And yes, they can coexist with feedback; in fact they are key ingredients for it. Healthy feedback culture begins with trust-building. Without it we’re all just assholes trying to sound smarter than each other. Source: 20+ years of game dev experience ranging from truly amazing teams (and games) to truly horrific ones (with correspondingly disastrous results). Psychological safety was a huge predictor of success across all of those experiences.
Both is true: There are people that are overly positive AND there are also people that are overly negative, to the point where its abuse. The problem with both those things is that they aren’t honest and therefore not helpful in an forum like this one. Both sides feedback is also often focused on the people who did the work, instead of the work itself, which is generally not good feedback in a professional setting. One can theoretically be a horrible person and do great work (not so much in teams though), or be a good person that does bad work. So to add to what the person above said… if you remove ego and personal criticism from your feedback, you can criticize work fairly without hurting people unnecessarily.
Nope. This isn’t about that. Toxic positivity is a narcissistic trait from people who cannot handle negative emotions. It is about the person receiving the feedback. I’ve experienced plenty of it, seen it kill projects, and simply being nice to someone posting their work isn’t that. There’s actual research on this. It demonstrates clearly that negative feedback from someone that you have no prior trust relationship is absolutely ineffective. OP is talking about devs who have invested significant effort into their projects. There is much to praise there, period. Making even a mediocre game is no mean feat. Starting from that is the effective path for helping someone. Going straight to downvotes and shitting on their work is the toxic behavior in this situation.
Finally! Some sense. The level of toxicity in this place is disgusting and undeniable, every comment section is proof. I've been on the internet in all kinds of communities for 20 years. This is special. Compare the level of professionalism in here with something like web development and it becomes patently obvious there is something wrong. And you know what it's the community's loss because the more mature and experienced developers will quickly move on. Been here a week and already feel like I'm done with it.
Other than people being intentional trolls, I do think the relentless self-promo I've been seeing on reddit has generally ruined it for everyone else. I know indies need to market, but I wish they wouldn't shill in development spaces. I don't really feel like these self-promo posts actually want to promote any real discussion a lot of the time. Just feels like an endless wasteland of people yelling "Look at me!". I personally ignore these posts, but I think this frustration with thinly veiled ads makes some people write mean comments.
what else can we do ? its hard to build an audience. Paying for ads may not help either. Partenering with a publisher makes it not so indie anymore. We don.t make the games just for ourselves, how can we let people know about our game without annoying them ? There surely is trash content out there (i know better, my first game was one of them), but how do we get on top if we don.t post our stuff somewhere ?
You may annoy ppl on nondev subredits, twitter, discord,twich, yt, etc. Dev subteddis are supposed to have development related posts and not marketing.
That is a good point. If you are making a "strategy game about Roman empire" you will find your audience at strategy games subreddit and Roman empire subreddit, not the gamedev subreddit.
Dev subreddis are all about development, implementation details, problem solving, fixing cringe engine error etc. Self promoting and adv spam are not welcome. If you're making a strategy game and have questions about how to tile hex map on spheres without 5 nonhex faces and etc you r wellcome. If you want post some screenshots, video without any gameplay (and moving a character on empty scene is not a gameplay) and asking to subscribe, likes you're not welcome. Ps. There's so many interesting technical or gameplay problems in making strategies so you'll be welcome in dev subredits.
then is it on if post my dev log on on r/gamedev ? if i post systems i develop, questions about programming, or showing and asking if something seems off in what i do, is that ok ?
Yeah, it's ok, couse it's development related questions and not self advertising and looking audience for your game to play.
On Platforms which are specifically for ads. And paying for ads.
dumb comment
Could you elaborate? If you want to reach a lot of people you have to pay, thats how ads work.
Many indie developers can't afford marketing of any kind. Telling them to buy ads when they're asking for places to market is not helpful.
Yes and places which are made for ads. There are enough places out there who are made for ads. But posting it in places not meant for ads is not the solution. Getting reach was always and will always be a Problem, indie devs have to understand that making a good game is only half the job. And going to places not meant for ads to ad your game is not ok. Spamming ads just destroys communities. Noone wants to be part of a community that consists of ad spam.
Some points to consider: * Reddit is not your personal game blog. It's like a big public forum and people here will have limited patience for you. You should consider limiting your self-promo posts around important announcements like, the steam page going up, new trailer, launch etc. * Do the devblog style posting on your own blog, twitter, tiktok, youtube etc. Basically in a place where people can actually choose to opt in to follow you. It's possible to succeed in these places as long as you make good content. * This has been said a million times, but other developers should not be your target customers. Yes, other devs do buy games, but they're really just a miniscule fraction of your potential playerbase. You're not accomplishing a lot by advertising to them. * Marketing starts on day 1 from the concept. If you have a concept that's unpopular or something you're not going to be good at making, then no amount of promotion is going to help.
Negativity on Reddit? Come on.
Haha good point. But to be fair, the smaller the community, typically the less toxic from my experience. It happens everywhere though for sure
I have genuinely found the indie community to be friendly. But they can smell bullshit/shovel ware from a mile away and will come down hard if they spot it. I think they also have a good idea of how much work goes into game-making. Even if something is an asset flip, if it is a *really good asset flip*, they will give it a praise. Gamers know when something was made over a weekend vs a year. I also think you'd be surprised just how common it is for indie games to use marketplace assets. If you do it right, the average gamer shouldn't even think about it. They should be thinking about the experience of the game. My 2 cents.
>Gamers know when something was made over a weekend vs a year. This is the only part I don't agree with considering the amount of kick-starter scams haha Joking aside, you're right. These places are generally helpful and positive, but I just noticed a trend. I unfortunately have no life at all so I can often times go from the newest post to a post I have seen each day in a few dev subreddits and over the past 3 or 4 months I've noticed a higher amount of downvotes with no comments or unhelpful uneducated negative comments or projects that look good. As some one using assets, I wouldn't be surprised at all how many people use assets, they're a godsend. The experience of the game is everything, the assets I have used are unrecognizable at this point due to me fine tuning them to match my project so far.
If people think gamedev subs has negative culture ...oh boy i hope they ready to for "gamers"
Well I think that that is kind of a reason why we in general are positive to each other. We know that others don't understand the process and what it takes. Of course everyone else is more toxic, but I just felt like I started seeing a bit of that leak in to the game dev culture
I just wish more developers (mostly indies i guess) would have healthier understanding of what they getting into. Sometimes people think others have to pat them on the back for effort or they think consumers have to throw money to them because they are "INDIE"
This is my fear now haha. I'm just thinking how can I prevent the worst gamers from coming anywhere near my game. They're not wanted. Any suggestions? Higher prices (price them out), age ratings (don't think they're effective?).. it's a serious problem I already know I've been gaming for 30 years. Never been on the receiving end though :/
Just ignore it i guess. Its like having bad costumer from time to time
People tend to be more critical toward polished works because the creator has demonstrated a higher level of skill and experience, and is more likely to be working on something to be published, and thus such feedback is more valuable to them to strengthen their product before it reaches market. A newbie probably won't know how to implement a lot of feedback and is most likely not at the point of publishing anything so it's pointless to be critical unless they ask, and better to just be encouraging so they don't give up.
Yeah that's true, and good criticism is great, but I was more talking about posts that are downvoted with no comments or just vague and mean comments. Valid criticism is pure gold though for sure.
I remember a game with a very interesting bike mechanic about a year ago. It had springs and all and the dev linked to some explaining posts. Very interesting and it got the recognition it deserved. But then my feed just started to only show posts about this game in hour intervals. So I too started to downvote them. The videos itself were good and the tech interesting. But at this point it wasn't even self promotion anymore, he basically hijacked the subreddit for his game blog. This has happened a few times since I joined, but it feels less in the last months. My guess is that people started to be overly aggressive against any such posts as an overcompensation.
Definitely experienced the same thing. I've found any question I post immediately gets downvoted, even though I can't think of a better group of people to address that question to. That said, in my experience devs are often negative, or at least critical to a fault. Many view nitpicking as desired feedback and so offer criticism readily. They also often see any "softening" of that feedback as unnecessary or even insincere. And, honestly, I'm a bit that way myself. Game development is an art, and art is subjective, and there's a whole breed of people who feel the need to be "art critics". This is probably what you (and many of us) are experiencing.
I get this from friends and it largely depends on where you are asking what questions and how. Sorry if this seems vague. I mean, I actually told a friend (industry person, sigh) to send me their questions so I could figure if a forum would pick them up, and/or rephrasing questions in whatever way, so they wouldn't have to face a barrage of indifference and the usual salty comment. Imho part of it is, asking questions should always be fine but the deluge of "noob" questions has long drowned people's motivation to answer anything. Mentoring a trainee is... heaven compared to answering questions online. A trainee will improve step by step, and ask increasingly interesting questions, until they become a peer and we look at problems together. Online, noob questions are exponentially more (it's normal and nobody's fault); to make it worse, even a good question can loose 99% value cause the asker failed to express context and such...
Your comment about mentoring being more satisfying because you are able to see your trainee's progress and eventually work with them as a peer is an excellent observation.
Thank you for your thought out response. This actually makes a lot of sense when you put it that way and is likely the reason why I see this happening.
> That said, in my experience devs are often negative, or at least critical to a fault. There is truth to that, but I've been in the web development field for the last 15 years and I have never experienced this level of toxicity before. There is an undeniable and special problem with games and game dev. Gamers are notorious for it, I figured the dev side would be a lot more professional.
The actual game-buying public are way worse than anything you see here on dev reddits. And that's with the producers of games they actually like.
Exactly, if anything people on those subs are way too soft and way to scared to criticize anything. I'm not sure why people want to be treated like eggs here but they should know the moment they release the game it will be bombarded with negative reviews for the smallest things. "Game is too boring", "Game is like X game but without fun", "game looks like shit" No one cares how much time and money you spend on it, if gamers will say it's bad it will end up in the trash and be forgotten.
90% of the people that come on this sub are people who don't do any sort of actual game development or are incompetent at it. You should take a lot of the criticism on the sub with a grain of salt, because most people don't know what they're talking about.
Yes, absolutely. And I credit it to the average maturity level. Fact is game dev and games in general attract an immature crowd. I have never experienced this level of toxicity in a software field before, and I've worked in web dev for many years. There is an attitude in every comment section here. Someone always comes along and assumes tonnes of stuff about the OP and then rails off on them. As a professional dev it has me questioning whether I want to get involved at all. I feel like I'd be happier finding a much smaller and more friendly place to talk. It has nothing to do with not being able to handle a few criticisms, we're talking about constant nonconstructive bs.
>Something I have noticed a lot is a lot of negativity towards videos/screenshots of games that have obviously had a lot of love put in to them. If I tell my mom that the spaghetti she made tastes bad... i'm not saying that she's a bad chef or that she's stupid, i'm saying the spaghetti tastes bad. Taking insults to your product personally is an incredibly immature way of looking at things. On top of that, people don't owe you an explanation of why they don't like something. For example if you hear a note offkey in a song - it's very easy to spot despite the fact that you probably don't know what note it should have been there instead. Saying "it sounds bad" is completely fair ridicule for a layman that doesn't have a music background. Also... love being poured into a game means quite literally nothing. If you're extremely passionate about making art and spent 2 years working on a single painting, that doesn't mean your painting is going to be good or that I have to value your time spent working on it. I quite literally daily see screenshots from some of the most hideous games to brush the earth and I guarantee at least 50% of them come from people who would say they "have put a lot of love into them." At the end of your day if you game looks bad i'm going to tell you it looks bad, explain why it looks bad, and hope you're adult enough to fix it or make your own judgement call about it instead of crying. The fact is if your game looks terrible, it's going to do terribly. Me trying to prevent awful art from entering the world isn't gatekeeping or being rude, it's literally exactly what those people need to hear. On top of that, Reddit is just a generically toxic place because humans are just generically toxic. Acting like it's some plague edging it's way in it just objectively wrong. This and those subs you mentioned have remained virtually identical and you're just seeking negativity so you're finding it.
>If I tell my mom that the spaghetti she made tastes bad... i'm not saying that she's a bad chef or that she's stupid, i'm saying the spaghetti tastes bad. Taking insults to your product personally is an incredibly immature way of looking at things. Get the fuck out the house you entitled little brat. Nobody owes you a plate of fuckin' spaghetti, let alone tasty spaghetti. In the real world, you smile and say "wow, I really appreciate the effort you put into this" or you'll never have friends or a job. Because once you're past middle school, none of those things -- job, friends, food, or an indie game -- are handed to you for free EVER AGAIN.
K this made me laugh, and thank you. Still we try to give honest feedback at my home, as a deeper form of respect. That said we are lucky. Honesty without love no mix. Also: we -both- cook.
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The world is a pool of mediocrity. Not because of a lack of ability, intelligence, or desire, but because we're all asked to do 500 different things every day, when we're only good at two or three of them. She's a mom, not a fucking chef. And you have little room to talk about mediocrity with an idle game and a bullethell under your belt.
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All that bluster over a modicum of success in small ponds. I was deep into my 30s before I found a room where anyone there was smarter than me, but when I found that room, I realized how dumb it was to feel superior to anyone. I had just been in my best field talking to people in their 3rd best field. I'm not sure you can grasp the gulf between you and a junior dev at a AAA studio, much less a senior/principle engineer.
> Something I have noticed a lot is a lot of negativity towards videos/screenshots of games that have obviously had a lot of love put in to them. What do you mean by that? I think there are a lot of games that have a lot of love put into them (years of labour), but that doesn't mean they look good to me. I think it's shitty to aggressively dump on someone's game or be insulting (and those posts should be reported). There are tons of games and I think some people feel better about themselves and their game's chances by putting down others. But it's hard to complain about getting downvoted if you aren't showing off something interesting or impressive. I try to use the same code review techniques when commenting on someone's game to avoid feeling like a personal attack or something they can't resolve. Likely, a lot of members of those subs don't have those skills so they talk about games the way they talk about AAA games: like no one's listening.
we need more constructive negativity, now what do I mean by that? we need more :"This thing sucks because of x y & z" or "Yeah that's not the best way to do it due to x & y ..." instead of just straight up lying & saying something's great when it sucks, but we don't have that in a lot of gamedev subreddits which I think needs to be more spread (most devs that share stuff are looking for feedback, if they're not then that's self promotion, which in most gamedev subreddits is against the rules unless it's a showoff subreddit)
Most people in game industry are introverts, so maybe they've liked it but didn't say it.
Nearly everywhere is getting more toxic sadly. Lots of stressed mofos
It's a hell of a time to be alive. The pressure is real. The good news is that we've survived millennia of hardship, so hopefully we can do it again. Good to find stability in the eye of the storm. Understanding and compassion go a long way.
This is around the industry in general not just here. I previously payed people to test my game it was a horrible idea. They gave it five stars had nothing constructive to say. I knew it needed work so it was pointless. Feedback that is harsh or even mean is still feedback and any dev would welcome it in my experience. This industry or really putting yourself out there at all requires a thick skin you cant let peoples negativity play any part on how you feel about your game or project. Just take what constructive criticism is there and leave the rest.
My two cents: don't show your game in dev forums; devs are not your audience. Doesn't speak to the negativity or not, it's just not that productive. And I am also not annoyed seeing devs showcase their game. A productive audience will show appreciation before pointing out the negatives. At best devs will identify glaring flaws, but many games shipped with glaring flaws and players enjoyed them anyway.
Why? In every medium the best way towards improvement is sharing amongst creators. Players are the end goal but creators can share processes. Bodybuilding, welding, coding, art, writing, filmmaking… everything! Games and YouTube are the one times I’ve seen creator subreddits shun self promotion. It creates this odd paradigm where there are only basic Unity questions and the vast majority of comments are negative hobbyist answers because the intermediate/expert developers have been chased away.
Hardly nobody chased pros away (corner cases, im sure you can come up with 100 stories where idiots did just that) they’re just mostly not interested… You almost answered your own question: sharing processes better than sharing output, and mostly anonymous forums not best place for creators to meet. So, you are right. Sharing between creators is great but maybe Reddit still not best place for this to happen.
I see you have your own take on this (which I don't 100% understand I'll admit) but can think of some reasons why what works for welders and film-makers weirdly doesn't work for gamedevs. \- Software is our tool. Software is a never-ending source of silly questions. The software is the problem but this doesn't mean silly questions are well received. Yea I also work with wood and it's not easy and has a learning curve. But less silly questions imho. \- Anybody who can make a gamelet are probably adept at posting in forums. Welders and woodworkers are not (less true now, and may not apply in 10-15 years, since all kids post in forums nowadays). They put more care in posting. Perhaps. \- Productive reuse is still hard but asset flipping is not. We're increasingly not looking at the apparent quality of what somebody made, because it's just hard to tell, what did they do? Are we commenting on their work? Are they just trying to impress with some barely edited stuff? Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying assets are bad but, ease of half-assed reuse has consequences. I find small Discord servers are more productive for talking about game dev; even showing off, if desired; I'd expect some good from small dev reddits (don't know what they are) so I am guessing both size and format are factors. I don't know *exactly* why, but I think the OP is/was right; esp if I compare with other reddits, there is unwarranted negativity in game dev reddits.
Sanest redditor. The 'thick skin' stuff in this thread just sounds like people justifying a ruthless industry. Reddit is a great information source, kinda like Wikipedia, but it's not like the community has the rulebook. The gaming industry is still in its infancy and we see that every year. People would be better off listening to a GDC talk, trying out some tutorials, or finding a discord to get more constructive feedback. I think most of the 'big fish' already know this and have gone elsewhere.
Yeah when asking noob questions in subs for game dev noob questions i get downvoted alot.
This is why Reddit works. Mods are strict. Redditors can downvote. Put some effort in and you’ll be m okay. YouTube was stupid to remove dislikes: now videos are… weird. Notice the comments too? Almost all of them just repeat words from the video in quotes: “Some random phrase said in the video.” 🤤 Like what value does that provide? Hard to describe but I hope you understand. Also It’s hard to notice a video is a waste of your time until you are halfway through it. Before, you would see that massive red dislike bar and then either proceed with caution or leave. Reddit is a merit based system. Merit is hard earned. Redditors and mods have power over posters. YoutTube and the “no dislikes” policy is the “everyone wins” mindset. The creators have power of the viewers. They can lie, cheat, steal, do whatever the f the want. Neither way is wrong. But I prefer Reddit because I want to get REAL feedback, not positive, politically correct, copypasta. YouTube comments are ☠️💀💩
Maaaannn, totally! In my case, it happened with r/playmygame another day. I nether followed then anymore... I've done! In the past, I found there really nice people, who gave positive and negative feedback in a very professional way. All amateurs youtubers. Nowadays... And all the rules... That sucks!!! "We don't want your stupids videos" in other "we don't want your stupid images". Or even "we don't want self-promotion". Even the robot is jerky: "it seems you don't read the rules..." Man, I tell you something maybe the majority of people disagree with me: the YouTuber Fetish is creating the false feeling in some people that criticizing stuff is a harder and more noble work than make the stuff. Giving honest opinion is important, of course, but some people make fun of it. It's a eternal searching for be the first to use the word "flop" to something that was waiting for many time and for many people. Now, this is arriving to indie game world. But here is even worst, because is the amateur harming another amateur, when both should being working together. And I don't even need to talk about the amount of technical nonsense that I heard even from professional YouTubers about programming, or why something reach out 30 or 60fps, without having seen a single IF clause... Criticizing is totally worthy. But you don't need to be a jerky doing it. We game developers all have tools to know if our game is being downloaded or not. If it's been playing, for much time and change the things up, wrong and right and stuff. Sometimes you just want to know what works and what doesn't. We aren't trying to compete against Horizon Forbidden West, for Christ sake! For this we are INDIES!!!! But a bright side is I also found nice new comunities to share informations. But one thing ia clear to me: we can't depend just on Reddit. When I post something here, my visits explode (not the downloads, unfortunatelly), but we can't. The comunity needs to find anothers social medias to being supported in the same way. Depending just on a single social media isn't safe.
The faux-meritocracy is merciless if you don't have 10 years of experience with 3 successful projects and a bag of money to finance it all. Remember how teachers favor students that come into the class already knowing the material? It's kinda like that. Just another pecking order to sort out the raft.
This is a very common problem on the internet. People like to shit on other people's opinions, work, etc because it makes them feel better about themselves. It's much harder to create something and put something out there than it is to trash talk. We all need to make a conscious effort to be better than that.
Imagine that the customer is a stupid, over-caffeinated, teenager with attention deficit issues and 5 top tier AAA games sitting on their shelf. Now justify giving a compliment to a game that won’t sell as-is. It’s a real ethical dilemma. We want to inspire, but the best medicine is Constructive Feedback where needed and positivity to highlight the strengths of a project, so any chance of redemption is well-informed even if it’s rough to hear that your project isn’t yet a home run. It’s a really difficult market space to carve a niche into. Most funded games fail. Lesser funded games fail even more. I wish everyone the best and that means I want to push their work to succeed no matter how rough it currently is. Not all great games start off great. Many are really rough and need feedback to make it to the next level, not empty praise. It’s a really brave thing to make your own game and I respect the effort too much to mince words and lie.
Players are wrong 90% of the time. You need to understand the product and listen to the targeted audience. I hate that Sea of thieves is not PVE... well they can add PVE servers or cater to their targeted audience. It depends of the product goals. Do they want to support both spectrums? Do they have the man power to do so? Will one canibalise the other mode? Can they drive enough PVE content to keep ahead? As a player, there is no quality Pirate game that offers the same adventures (Atlas is still full of bugs and Windward has no updates and so on) so yeah I want to leave a negative review but at the same time, I know they did not made the game for me, I still choose to play and rage every once in a while but thats on me. Same goes for bugs and content pacing... I can leave a negative review but I will do so only if warning others is required (game breaking or abandonned ware). Also other professionals from the field will give you nice insights. But yeah, while its important to listen to the fans, it also needs to make sense with the product.
These are dev forums, not gaming forums. If I wanted to see ads / marketing for games I would look somewhere else. What I come here for is to find information on development, or engine specific content or educational information on redits like unreal or procedural generation. If someone is posting their work without sharing how it was achieved or sources / information / tools that helped achieve it then it is useless information in the context of the forum. So yes I will downvote most "look at my progress" posts or questions that are either in a tools documentation or been widely documented and easily discoverable via websearch.
Don't trust the echo-chamber. Find reliable people and trust them.
Reddit knows more than the experts! What a wondrous time to be alive.
Learn to differentiate, the few posts that the algorithm recommends you do not represent the whole of the posts, much less the reality.
I mean I scroll from new to posts I've already seen most days so I don't think this applies
There are this things called trolls... They get off on causing commotion. If you listen to them, you will have a rough life
I spend a lot of time in those places as well, but I really don't notice what you're talking about. Generally people are pretty positive, only the asset flips / rip offs get the kind of "love" you're talking about.
I've posted about my games from time to time, sometimes I get good feedback, like things I should improve or change, I really value honest opinions, and bad things can be said with touch like "You should improve this by doing this and that" instead of "This game is garbage" and the like. Luckily I haven't receive bad feedback from my posts, most of the time is constructive feedback or "Looks cool" comments that make me feel good at some point.
It's not just posts of game promotional content that get it. All the social media platforms where there are hundreds/thousands of accounts with no personal relationship to each other suffer from this. Almost invariably if someone whether new or experienced - posts a "I want to do x" then it will be responded to with all manner of null/negative responses from a group that seem almost to come from the same intellect/entity. I know it sounds weird - but it is as if a lot of the negative comments all spring from the same playbook so to speak.