The gaming world has been around for a very long time. People have grown up on interactive stories from the Atari to the Nintendo Switch. It’s no surprise that there would be deep passion from the fanbase. This passion can be positive. I’ve seen people come together and become lifelong friends, all stemming from a shared passion for games. Then there are those who take it to the extreme and attack others because there is a difference in what people like. Passion like this is harmful and if it persists, could be one of the factors that ruin the industry. I don’t think that issue will ever happen, but it’s hard to ignore the negativity, especially the stuff spewed toward game developers.
We’ve all heard the sayings like “Developers are lazy,” “These developers have no passion for what they do,” and even “The game has no heart and soul put into it.” While I’m not saying that there aren’t games put in development for a guaranteed profit because there definitely are. What I’m saying is that developers are often not the reason for a game’s egregious failure.
The idea that “developers are lazy” is fundamentally untrue if we look at the industry they work in. Getting into the games industry already takes loads of effort to accomplish and even after putting hard work into potential success, the journey still feels near impossible. Then the work just increases when you finally make it there. Developing levels, writing stories, and programming systems all take so much work that if there was a lazy person on the team somehow, they’d be fired. Even the most broken, unplayable, and downright heinous games take months of effort to get there.
Gaming is also an industry built on passion. People don’t join to make a quick buck. Going into games with that mindset will set that person on a road of disappointment. The people making your most anticipated games want them to be good. No one makes a game hoping it turns out to be a buggy mess with milky textures. Saying the developers have no passion for making games is just plain wrong and unfair.
As consumers, we developed this idea that the customer is always right. This can lead to many people thinking their opinion reigns supreme and must be heard. This is in extreme cases and obviously not the same as casually expressing your opinion. People can dislike games. But with so much passion, hype, and the power of the internet giving platforms to more overly pessimistic influencers, it makes sense that people would develop a cynical view of developers who released a game that met none of their expectations. It must be the people making the game that are at fault, right? As I’ve discussed, the answer is no. It’s a little deeper than that.
Developers have to work under unfair conditions, especially in the AAA scene. Crunch culture, publisher demands, and bad marketing all factor into a game’s failure. This isn’t a call to arms against publishers, but it is a hopeful writer and game developer suggesting compassion to fans with a passion that treads on misplaced scrutiny. Developers are no different than the eager customer waiting to buy the next Legend of Zelda or the parent who grew up on PlayStation sharing their nostalgia with their kids. Developers are gamers, geeks, and fans of everything you love, they just make what you love for a living.
