#armchair developer

Destiny Is Not Good At Games

I want to write this, because I really look up to Destiny, and he says a lot of really smart things. However, he has rare occasions where he’ll speak on the subject of game design. When he does, I’m always underwhelmed. It’s ironic that he can speak so deeply on most subjects, but even though he’s a long-time professional gamer, his discussion about games ends up being very surface level.

Also, he banned me from his Twitch chat when I mentioned this, so I’m gonna start documenting these occasions.

In the DT Podcast Episdode 11, Destiny and Trihex respond to a clip of Summit complaining about the design direction of The Division 2. He accuses the developers of listening to dumb casual players' complaints. This is why he thinks The Division 2 is "failing."

Destiny jumps straight into a lecture about subjective value. This shows how deep Destiny can speak on philosophical subjects, and it's a really good thing to understand. Describing the game as a "success" could mean something different to different people.

The Disappointment

This great lecture leads to the conclusion that “video game publishers only care about making a profit.” Wow. Brilliant revelation, this. You’re not wrong, Destiny. That’s my point though. You’re rarely wrong. You're just surprisingly obvious. I was hoping for more.

The Counterpoint

Destiny responds to someone in chat who says that developers’ ultimate goal of profit are WHY these games fail. He assumes this person simply misunderstood his point about subjective value, that profit is, itself, the only metric for success or failure from this perspective. It’s by definition.

Maybe that person did misunderstand this. Maybe not though. Maybe this person believes that if you make a game with the best gaming experience in mind, the money will naturally follow. If the design isn’t focused on catching every nickle and dime, it will be loved. The game will have a lot more staying power. Maybe these goals - profit and fun - don’t necessarily have to be opposites. 

...And maybe that’s still dumb, but it’s an idea to explore. The oldest games around today certainly don’t have as many profit-focused mechanics as the modern games that don’t live longer than a couple years. 

A New Idea

The first rule of game development is always listen to your players! 

The second rule of game development is your players don’t know what they want!

Okay, so the first rule is actually “playtest your game,” but this is the paradox I want to illustrate. It’s one of my favorite quirks about game design that I don’t think many people understand. However, I think it’s possible this was the concept Summit may have been reaching for. It sounds like he’s criticizing Massive Entertainment for listening to the casual player base. I would criticize them for listening to the loudest part of the player base at all.

What this idea describes is that players know when they’re having fun and when they’re not having fun. They just don’t know anything else beyond that. They can’t identify what specific mechanics are fun or not. They miscalculate how much fun an imagined mechanic would be. This is why they are not the game designers.

I see a lot of modern games fail this. It’s no wonder why though. Gamers get so offended when EA calls them “armchair developers.” Blizzard gets so much shit for saying, “You think you want classic WoW, but you don’t.” Gamers realize that satisfying them is the goal. Specifically telling them they don’t want what they’re asking for seems like a cardinal sin. But delivering gamers the specific things they ask for doesn’t always work out. Then the short term memory of the community forgets that this is what they asked for and complains again. 

Conclusion