General opinion about Starfield is really divided. The work of Bethesda It touches the two possible extremes between the tastes of the community, because players love it or hate it. For example, on Steam there are already 129,369 reviews accumulated, of which 83,952 are considered positive and 45,417 are considered negative.
Even one of Skyrim’s most popular mod creators has complained about the state of the title, and now we have Emil Pagliarulo’s insight. We are talking about the design director of the space RPG, who has published an extensive thread on X/Twitter talking about the enormous distance that separates user opinions from their real knowledge about creating a video game.
It’s funny how disconnected some gamers are from the realities of video game development, and yet they speak with complete authority. I mean, I can guess what it takes to make a Hostess Twinkie, but I don’t work in the factory, so what the hell do I really know? Not much.
Part of me really gets it. When you are a consumer and you spend money on things, that gives you the right to complain about those things. I spend a LOT of money on games every year, and sometimes I have a hard time not shouting into the internet’s collective consciousness. I don’t complain about social media gaming for two main reasons:
1.) I know how hard it is to make games and I have too much respect for my fellow developers.
2.) I work for a game studio, and it would be inelegant and unprofessional to do so. But sometimes I want to. Oh boy.
Most people do not have these limitations and are free to post whatever they want. The Internet is a glorious wild west, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. And there was a time when I exercised that right very freely.
When I was writing game reviews for Adrenaline Vault a long time ago, I was absolutely that person who would say whatever I wanted about a game, whether it was good or bad. Sometimes the good was exaggeratedly good. And sometimes the bad thing was being a sarcastic idiot. But during that time, he actually had no idea what video game development was like. How hard the designers, programmers, artists, producers and everyone else worked. The struggle to bring a vision to life with constantly changing resources. Stress.
This is not a complaint about my job. I have experienced all of these things and I will do it again. It’s the nature of AAA game development. But I also have a great position and am still gainfully employed after more than 21 years. A blessing considering the thousands of layoffs this year.
I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind, because that’s the Internet. But given my position, I cannot help but share the truth. And that truth is that no one sets out to make a bad game. And most game developers are incredibly talented… even if the game they release isn’t up to par.
I didn’t know it, but video game development is a series of trade-offs and difficult decisions. There’s that perfect game you WANT to make… and then there’s the game you CAN make. Sometimes, if the gods smile on you, those two are very close. But to get there, to get as close to the vision as possible, the team has to work harder and harder… often while dealing with developers reorganizing (or leaving), looming deadlines, and creative decisions you wish you didn’t have to make. what to take And “team” is absolutely the key word. Lots and lots of people doing a lot of work. Writing, building levels, making character models, programming game systems, trying to program everything so it gets done so people don’t get burned, and so on.
So, yes, you can dislike parts of a game. You can hate a game completely. 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).
Chances are that unless you’ve made a game yourself, you won’t know who made certain decisions; who did a specific job; how many people were actually available to do that job; the time challenges faced; or how often you had to overcome the technology itself (this is TREMENDOUS).
Then yes. Love games, buy them, play them and complain all you want! It’s somewhat the nature of the developer/player transactional relationship. But… just know that the game you’re playing is somehow a miracle in itself. Normal people have come together to work FOR YEARS for one goal: to bring you fun and happiness. So it helps to remember that…and them!
It is true that Pagliarulo does not mention at any time Starfield, but it seems pretty clear that his entire opinion is directed toward his most recent work. The division is constant and perhaps a consensus position will never be reached, but the truth is that it wants to clarify that creating A work of this magnitude entails complex processes over time.
In any case, the title has not yet said its last word, as more patches and updates are coming for the future to improve the performance of the futuristic galaxy in 2024.
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