I don’t think it’s hard to find examples of where a developer makes a change that’s generally disliked by most of the playerbase whether that’s through an update, sequel, or new IP.

I don’t mean updates that introduce bugs, glitches, or a game that was released in an unpolished state either, I mean, intentional gameplay updates that change the core experience.

A lot of the time, there’s severe backlash from the players, enough that the developers revert the change, but every so often, a developer sticks to their vision of what they want the game to be.

So, that had me wondering. Who’s in the right if there even is one? The players are what keep games “alive”, especially multiplayer ones, but I think it’s understandable that the developers would have some attachment to their design. Curious to hear your guy’s thoughts!

  • willrsaulsBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Any game is an experience created by developers for a player to experience. Even in games where you can customize your play style and find ways to break the game, the game was designed in a way to facilitate that experimentation.

    Player feedback is important, but at the end of the day, the developers should stand by the experience they wanted to provide and core gameplay changes should improve that experience and not just be whatever random shit gamers decide they want out of it (let’s be honest, gamers are often not game designers).

  • JfonzyBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    This whole social backlash mob mentality shit is why I am glad I got to experience games before social media, before the internet. A game was a singular vision, developed by a team in their own creative world. They then released their game, completed, with no ability to change anything, into the world. The team celebrates and moves on to the next project. We would have several unique, fully complete games from the same team/developer to enjoy. Add those to the other finished games from other developers- there was so much to choose from. They weren’t buried if they made a stinker. Everybody just moved on in the name of the next great thing in the world of gaming.