Comment by adnzzzzZ
6 years ago
If you go up to a bunch of people doing a craft and you show yourself displaying extremely poor technique and care for the craft itself, those craftsmen will disrespect you, and they will be right. As an indie developer it's kind of tiring to hear all these developers constantly praising mediocrity and showing no will to improve their craftsmanship as long as they're able to make a living. You can also make a living and be extremely skilled and care about constantly improving, it's not an either/or situation.
That is just your opinion. But does it matter?
It is rare for any indie developer to be making any kind of "a living" from making games. The fact that Jeff does already makes him exceptional.
As a gamer, I could care less about whatever rubbish being claimed about his "technique" and "craftsmanship". His games are entertaining, unique, and better than most indies in my eyes.
>It is rare for any indie developer to be making any kind of "a living" from making games. The fact that Jeff does already makes him exceptional.
It's not that rare. https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1025672/2014-vs-2018-The-Shape This talk goes over how many games are doing extremely well at any point in time on Steam alone and it's actually hundreds of games. It's mostly a function of time and persistence for any individual developer and given that Steam has only been around for indies in a big way for about 8 years we'll start seeing more and more indie devs making a living over time.
>As a gamer, I could care less about whatever rubbish being claimed about his "technique" and "craftsmanship"
That's great, but your post complained about the actions of other developers towards him. I explained, from the perspective of a developer, why I received his message negatively. It's a message of mediocrity in an important aspect of the craft and it shows his lack of care for it. I couldn't care less about what gamers think, gamers aren't around me when I'm spending 10 hours a day every day in front of the computer coding. To make games you have to love the craft, and I won't think highly of peers who show no interest in the craft itself.
Like any art, the vast majority of indie games fail to sell. It doesn't need any further explanation.
Also, who are you to be the judge of one's technique and craftsmanship?
Apparently enough people enjoy Jeff's technique and craftsmanship to continue buying his games. And that's all that matters.
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His craft is surely in the stories as opposed to the visuals.
I think Jeff is pretty invested in his craft in general, but it’s just that he focuses on making an ideal product with the resources and abilities he has available to him.
> displaying extremely poor technique and care for the craft itself
That is a pretty presumptuous thing to say about someone who has made a life making games which are loved by his fans. What's the skin off your back that this guy has different priorities for what he likes in games than you do? Why is it ok for games to lack a good story but not ok for them to lack good art?
> Why is it ok for games to lack a good story but not ok for them to lack good art?
Personally I think that both are okay. Even more so when someone seems to be doing such a good job on one of the aspect.
What's not okay is going around and arguing that you just can't do better than that. He could do better, he just don't care and I repeat, it's alright to not care.
His older post was disrespectful to all people that do take pride in what they do and want to improve it.
> What's not okay is going around and arguing that you just can't do better than that. He could do better
Maybe he can't do better than that? Maybe not everyone can get good enough at art to make decent looking modern games on a tight budget? Using contractors well requires artistic skills so that doesn't solve the problem.
And don't come with the bullshit "Everyone can become great at X, it just takes practice, see I sucked once and now I'm great!". Sure you will never be great at something without practice, but it doesn't just take practice it takes a level of talent as well. Some people are just doomed to be mediocre at some things.
> His older post was disrespectful to all people that do take pride in what they do and want to improve it.
No it wasn't. It was about him not being able to make better art on his budget. Not about others not being able to make better art with similar budgets.
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Anyone with any aesthetic sense can point out how his games are lacking visually, so it's not that presumptuous at all. The effects of his game's poor art on his ability to run a business are another matter altogether that I personally don't care about.
As for priorities, people can have different priorities, but there are a few basics that in my opinion anyone can improve at with minimal effort as long as they try. Developing an aesthetic sense for what works together on a screen and what doesn't is one of those things. It's clear this guy hasn't bothered with this and in my view that makes him a mediocre game developer, which is a kind of developer that I will not look up to if I want to improve.
>Why is it ok for games to lack a good story but not ok for them to lack good art?
This can be a very long discussion but art is the one thing that is immediately visible to anyone. In some ways it's the most important aspect of a game. I don't have the same views on code that I have on art, for instance. With code you can get away with very poor practices and you can be very pragmatic about it because bad code is not nearly as visible as bad art.
> Anyone with any aesthetic sense can point out how his games are lacking visually, so it's not that presumptuous at all
Calling his art bad is not presumptuous. Saying his has "extremely poor technique and care for the craft" is.
> in my view that makes him a mediocre game developer, which is a kind of developer that I will not look up to if I want to improve.
You may not want to make games that look like those he makes, but that doesn't mean there isn't something (probably quite a lot) you could learn from him about integrating mechanics and world design.
> In some ways it's the most important aspect of a game.
Visual art may be critical to a game reaching widespread success.
However, as someone who spent a large part of their youth ensconced in MUDs, I disagree whole heartedly that (visual) art is needed to make a good game.
As someone who lacks aesthetic sense for what works together on a screen but is interested to improve, could you recommend how to do it with "minimal effort" as you say?
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>As an indie developer it's kind of tiring to hear all these developers constantly praising mediocrity and showing no will to improve their craftsmanship as long as they're able to make a living.
Well, someone who made this:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/760330/BYTEPATH/?curator_...
Shouldn't speak so derisively of Jeff's graphics.
This looks like a mediocre attempt of poor craftmanship and amateur graphics. It looks like a paint-over over something like Thrust with crude basic artwork...
See how it cuts both ways?
What's worse, unlike Jeff's games, where the gameplay and story are the important parts, this even has tired old mechanics and a trite shooter gameplay.
I've written about this game and the process of making it here https://github.com/adnzzzzZ/blog/issues/35 and here https://github.com/adnzzzzZ/blog/issues/31 if you're curious.
>See how it cuts both ways?
Not really. I haven't been in the industry for 25 years and I haven't written articles excusing my game's poor visual quality. I'm aware of my abilities and I'm constantly working on improving them. For instance, you can see the current game I'm working on here https://twitter.com/adnzzzzZ and generally people are responding better to its visuals than they did for my previous game.
If you find me 20 years from now making the same types of games and writing articles about how my games look bad and how it's actually all intentional then maybe you'll have an argument.
>Not really. I haven't been in the industry for 25 years and I haven't written articles excusing my game's poor visual quality.
No, just comments pissing on the work of others, who have managed to be in the industry for 25 years.
I don't get how somebody who does this:
https://twitter.com/adnzzzzZ/status/1148009596801507329
Gets to complain about the graphics in Jeff's games.
>If you find me 20 years from now making the same types of games and writing articles about how my games look bad and how it's actually all intentional then maybe you'll have an argument.
What if I don't find you 20 years from now, because you didn't make it and quitted the industry?
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I think that looks great, it is VERY stylized but it is consistent and definitely had a goal which is more than likely hit.