Starfield design director calls out unfair game criticism: 'Don't fool yourself into thinking you know why it is the way it is'

Gamers: this game is not fun

Game Design Director: Funny how disconnected some players are from the realities of game development, and yet they speak with complete authority

Ok then smartass, you tell us why it's the way it is!

Sorry Emilio, but when you had a reported $200 million dollars, 500 developers, and 7 years to make a game, you don't get to play the "but its really hard" card when people complain that your game is soulless corporate crap.

You're a professional, act like it.

More gaslighting by bethesda

"The game isn't boring for the reasons that you think, it is boring for these completely secret reasons."

Ok.

These guys are getting harder and harder to take seriously. As disappointing as the game itself is, what the fuck is this? Defensively and passive-aggressively trying to argue with reviewers? Long ramblings on how unfair it is that one of the world's most significant game studios, freshly taken over by enormous capital... gets a little criticism for the flaws it its products? Do you need to be an expert Twinkie mass manufacturing engineer, really, if a new product is, let's say, a tenth of the size and tastes of sawdust?

If they're gonna insinuate it's not the obvious reasons, maybe they should've served up some less obvious reasons - I'm sure they would've been convincing.

Kind of sick of devs being such cunts and denying the criticism so publically.

Starfield might not be objectively shit, but there is heaps of fair criticism. I fucking hated it for what it’s worth. Probably worst game I’ve played in 3-5 years.

"You all are just too stupid to understand why we made the game so boring to explore and didn't put a single vehicle or alien ride in the whole fkng galaxy. "

Sincerely, SF Developers

Ok. But first you have to make better games.

You can’t argue me into believing the game is fun when it’s just… overall not that fun compared to other Bethesda efforts.

To be clear, it’s far from an outright “bad” game, but I’m still frustrated that I spent $70 on the fucking thing. If you charge that much, it’s completely reasonable for me to have high expectations for your game.

I don't need to know why it is the way it is. For AAA titles it doesn't matter. Finish the game or fuck off. If you can't do that your Company should sink and make room for those that can.

Indies proving left and right that it is possible with a lot less.

I think both ideas can be true: that game development is a complex, creative endeavor and that as a product, consumers can be dissatisfied with a video game they paid $70 for.

Lately, I'm finding myself waiting for sales on AAA games because so many release in a buggy, incomplete state. This paid dividends with games like Jedi Survivor, that had a big number of bugs and performance issues at launch and plays decently now several months later.

Oh I'm pretty sure I know exactly "why it is the way it is"...

It feels like every other Bethesda game ever made, because choosing to continue using the Creation Engine means you can only make games that feel this way.

I had fun with it. I put in about a hundred hours.

It's fine. It's not complete crap and had tons of potential. It missed the mark on a few things for sure.

These constant aggressive comments from the Dev team though... That I'm not a fan of.

Series of concessions and choices

Thats just life. But you made a number of poor concessions

"This game sucks!" "Don't pretend like you know why it sucks!" "Wait... wut? I was just stating my opinion O.o"

I don't care why it is the way it is. I care if it's fun or not.

TES6 lore Q&A gonna be like:

Don't fool yourself into thinking you know why it is the way it is

If you have to be in the industry to criticize something then I guess we need to remove all online reviews since who knows RiverrFucker69's credentials.

Sounds like they're getting a bit bitter, not a good look

Follow that up with why or I'll just assume it's complicity with a heavy reliance on the missing modding community

I can’t believe I was ever bothered by the fact that MS bought them out. It’s almost schadenfreude to watch this train wreck knowing it’s not ever going to be something I’ll have to deal with.

Like devs are disconnected from the promises they make and gaming in general.

Emil sounds defensive but he's right -- as someone outside the gaming industry, I cannot fathom how so much effort can result in such a shallow, tepid stew of shit. But because of how much time, staff and money were thrown at it, it's not a big stretch to assume that incompetence was involved -- unless it was leprechauns that stole the game's vision, plot, dialogue, sense of scale and exploration and replaced it with loading screens.

Don't fool yourself I to thinking we don't understand why your shit game is shit, Emil.

shades of the Jamie Kennedy documentary where any time someone says they didn't like Malibu's Most Wanted he complains that he "worked really hard on it" as though explaining why something is shitty is just as good as making it not be shitty

If your game sucks due to design and implementation decisions that were made with sound rationale behind them, your game sucks. It doesn't matter at all why it sucks, or that there's no feasible way to make it better. It sucks. You can tell me that there's no way to make it not suck, but I play plenty of games all the time that don't suck.

It's tough to make games, so I cut the Devs a lot of slack. Starfield was definitely too ambitious for the engine they built it on but it's probably the best it could possibly be... With that engine.

This seems like a deflection rather than accepting the game "is the way it is" no matter the reason.

It's shit because it is.

I just finished xenosaga episode 1 and it was way better executed than starfield. Starfield felt like chores while Xenosaga managed that I tuned in completely.

Lemmy. Where capitalism ruins everything...

Except video games. Those are ruined by the damned lying greedy developers!

I think it's a fair point. They're not arguing against all criticism, just the kind that comes from a place of ignorance for how games are made. There are certainly a lot of people who say things like, "why didn't the developers just do X Y Z", with no empathy for or understanding of how games get made. It's possible to criticise things without spreading ignorance.