A call for greater appreciation of video game development caused a strong negative reaction.
Emil Pagliarulo is Design Director at Bethesda and is no stranger to fan circles. Because in his position he is jointly responsible for many design decisions regarding Starfield, including the particularly unpopular ones. Disappointed players therefore blame him when they are annoyed about the sci-fi role-playing game.
On Reddit, moderators have their hands full overseeing threads centered around Emil Pagliarulo, as comments often quickly become defamatory, like here or in this one too Thread.
But now Pagliarulo himself has caused new troubleby expressing his frustration on X (formerly Twitter). You can read the entire 15-post thread here:
Link to Twitter content
To bring you fun and happiness
What is it about? In essence, Pagliarulo calls for players to give their negative criticism a greater appreciation for how much effort and passion goes into games, and suspects a lack of expertise behind this:
It’s funny how out of touch some players are with the realities of game development, and yet they speak with absolute authority.
After this rather harsh introduction, he looks back on his own career from a video game journalist to his current position and how this has changed his own relationship to publicly criticizing games.
Pagliarulo then hits but more conciliatory tones: He emphasizes that no one intentionally sets out to make a bad game and that most developers are incredibly talented, even if they end up with a rather mixed title.
Video game development is a hard process, full of hardships, strict deadlines and a fluctuating staff situation.
There’s the game you WANT to make – and then there’s the game you CAN make.
Pagliarulo reminds that ordinary people have worked for many years towards a goal to bring you fun and happiness. Criticism is welcome, but as he puts it:
Sure, you can dislike parts of a game. You can completely hate a game. But don’t fool yourself into thinking you know why it is the way it is (unless it’s somehow documented and verified), or how it came to be that way (good or bad).
Angry fans and a lesson learned
Emil Pagliarulo may have intended only good things with his post, but it backfired. Because the fans and critics addressed to his tweets responded with incomprehension and ridicule.
The user 96ioBkcuF writes:
Nobody cares what it is like [ein Spiel] is made or what it takes to make it. I pay $70 and expect a finished, high quality game. Are you telling me that you would be happy if you bought a box of Twinkies and only got half the amount you expected? Especially if half of it contained cockroaches?
The user also blows the same horn Yasin Khalil:
Players don’t need to understand the process to conclude that your game wasn’t good. You have the wire [zu eurer Community] lost.
These were just two of the numerous responses to Pagliarulo’s posts – and we picked them out because they are among the most civilized. The person who caused this uproar rowed back a day later and emphasized that he had learned his lesson:
Link to Twitter content
It remains to be seen how Bethesda deals with the criticism of Starfield and whether the studio learns lessons from it for future game projects. You can find out what we already know about the immediate further development of Starfield here:
Now, of course, we are also interested in your opinion on this topic. Starfield continues to stir the hearts of many players, whether out of disappointment with the role-playing game or frustration with the prevailing negativity in the community. What about with you? Can you understand Emil Pagliarulo’s comments? Let’s discuss it civilly in the comments section!
