IN tweet lead designer Starfield and Bethesda design director Emil Pagliarulo laments “how out of touch some players are with the realities of game development” and urges passionate fans to avoid speculating about how and why certain decisions are made.
It’s funny how out of touch some players are with the realities of game development, yet they discuss the process with complete confidence. I mean, I can guess what it takes to make a Twinkie, but I don’t work in a factory, so damn, I don’t really know much. Very little.
Pagliarulo acknowledges that consumers have a right to complain about something they pay money for, although he personally doesn’t criticize games publicly out of “respect for my fellow developers” and because “it would be wrong and unprofessional for me to do that. But sometimes I want to. Oh yes.”
The developer mentions his time writing reviews for the 1995-founded site Adrenaline Vault, when he “said whatever he wanted about games” and some of the negative comments amounted to him being a “snarling jerk.”
But throughout this entire time, I actually had no idea what game development was actually like. How hard designers, programmers, artists, producers and everyone else work. The struggle to bring a vision to life with constantly changing resources. Stress.
After his own experience in development, his view changed.
I can’t help but tell the truth. And the truth is that no one is going to make a bad game. And most game developers are incredibly talented… even if the game they release doesn’t live up to expectations.
Pagliarulo describes game development as a series of trade-offs and difficult decisions, building a gradient between the ideal game you want to create and the game you can create. Closing the gap is difficult even under the best of circumstances, and even more difficult due to team shuffling (or developers leaving), looming deadlines, and creative decisions you don’t want to make.
So, of course, you may not like some aspects of the game. You may completely hate the game. But don’t fool yourself into thinking you know why she is the way she is (unless it’s somehow documented or verified) or how she got to this point (good or bad).
Chances are good that unless you’ve made the games yourself, you don’t know who made certain decisions; who performed specific work; how many people were actually available for the job; what problems arose over time; or how often the limitations of technology had to be overcome.
Pagliarulo notably doesn’t directly elaborate on Starfield or any specific pain points in its long development cycle, but it’s easy to read between the lines. The mixed reaction to Starfield has sparked discussions about Bethesda’s design philosophy, the game engine used, Starfield’s weaknesses and bugs, and more.
Such discussions recently intensified after a viral video from YouTuber NakeyJakey called Bethesda’s approach “outdated.” It went viral in the Starfield community and received over 3.3 million views in four days. Around the same time, the famous creator of the popular multiplayer mod for Skyrim, who had originally planned to bring his modding talent to Starfield, gave up and called the game terrible. There was also active discussion about Bethesda support’s responses to individual negative user reviews on Steam.
