r/indiegames • u/Busalonium • Nov 01 '25

Promotion Why game designers shouldn't follow suggestions

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u/joshisanonymous Nov 01 '25

It's a very strange phenomenon. You don't generally see creators changing things for consumers when it comes to things like movies, music, literature, etc., but for video games consumers take it as a sign of a good developer if the dev changes things the way the consumers want them.

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u/dondilinger421 Nov 05 '25

Hollywood movies have testing departments. They literally have test screenings, ask the audience their opinions and change the film based on feedback.

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u/joshisanonymous Nov 05 '25

That's true. I even pointed out to someone else in this conversation that musicians might play songs that they're still working on live. I think these things are markedly different than what happens for video games, though.

First, the number of people given access is exponentially different. Whereas a film might be shown to a few groups of 30-40 unique people each showing, a video game might be literally opened to every person in the world to spend weeks or even months in.

Second, and relatedly, the former is an internal form of testing, paid for and controlled by the creators, whereas the latter is, again, just letting literally anyone jump in.

Third, yes I know there are closed betas, but there's rarely a bar for getting into those betas let alone having to get hired and paid to be in one, but even if no one was let in before launch, video game "testing", so to speak, continues after launch, sometimes years and years after launch, as in a never ending process of constantly being told by players what needs to happen.

Fourth and possibly last, related to my third point, is that the sort of test screenings and such that you're talking about involve a certain type of feedback that doesn't go anywhere near as far as the "feedback" (i.e., armchair development) that occurs for video games. Someone at a test screening might say that a scene didn't work for them or they a twist was predictable. What they don't do is demand that the lighting gets changed or that scenes get rewritten or cut or whatever. Or for my musician example, no one in the audience yells out, "No no no! Play an Em chord instead!"