Processing Critique & Feedback

“While I would hope for positive feedback about my projects, I value truth and direct criticisms over padded responses. If you genuinely think an asset, feature, mechanic, or even the whole game is bad, I am eager to learn about and improve from it.” - How I view feedback

Giving negative feedback on a game seems to be a process that is a bit uncomfortable to many. The discomfort increases even more if the individual giving feedback wants to be more direct and doesn’t want to tarnish the relationship. There has been much talk of constructive criticism, but what can be done to frame the feedback so that it is almost always more helpful to the developer(s)?

I believe that, in addition to any feedback, it would help developers more if they knew which bracket they were being critiqued in. That is to say, not all games are created equal and should be separated into weight classes of some sort. For example, truly gifted indie developers can create games that can comfortably compete with more widely known commercial products - thus becoming revered as such. Of course, the inverse is possible and there lies the problem.

If the developer knows which bracket their game is being placed in by others, it can augment even simple feedback such as “That’s great! or “Looks good!”. The aforementioned phrases have a big difference and a much deeper meaning if the individual thinks your game should compete with student projects as opposed to AAA games (like you may have hoped). This opens the discussion further for questions about what can be improved (if negative) or what features stand out (if positive).