I try to avoid criticism and use observation whenever possible. For example, let’s say you’re making a video game. You could post it to a forum, but that will give you a self-selected pool of critics (the most vocal ones) who will also mix in their own suggestions (like “the player should be able to talk to the monsters”). A better way is to hire random playtesters, watch them play, and draw your own conclusions.
I have begun to notice that even observing different audiences can have pretty dramatic impacts, when it comes to making video games. Imagine you were designing Animal Crossing — observing for example (inasmuch as one can identify player types by a single game that they play) ‘Call of Duty players’ interacting with your nascent design could be useless at best, and incredibly damaging to the process at worst.
Within some game design circles I have noticed a similar attitude regarding player suggestions but I think getting suggestions from the right type of player can actually be extremely valuable, and placing the emphasis on avoiding explicit criticism is not as useful as making sure whatever information you get is coming from a compatible place. (A concept which I did not fully understand before this article.)
Specific to your proposed better way, I would strongly recommend that anyone making a game look for something more specific than ‘random playtesters’, although the rest of the advice stands.
With my cohabitive games (games about negotiation/fragile peace), yeah, I’ve been looking for a very specific kind of playtester.
The ideal playtesters/critics… I can see them so clearly.
One would be a mischievous but warmhearted man who had lived through many conflicts and resolutions of conflicts, he sees the game’s teachings as ranging from trivial to naive, and so he has much to contribute to it. The other playtester would be a frail idealist who has lived a life in pursuit of a rigid, tragically unattainable conception of justice, begging a cruel paradox that I don’t yet know how to untie for them, to whom the game would have much to give. It’s my belief that if these two people played a game of OW v0.1, then OW 1.0 would immediately manifest and ship itself.
I try to avoid criticism and use observation whenever possible. For example, let’s say you’re making a video game. You could post it to a forum, but that will give you a self-selected pool of critics (the most vocal ones) who will also mix in their own suggestions (like “the player should be able to talk to the monsters”). A better way is to hire random playtesters, watch them play, and draw your own conclusions.
I have begun to notice that even observing different audiences can have pretty dramatic impacts, when it comes to making video games. Imagine you were designing Animal Crossing — observing for example (inasmuch as one can identify player types by a single game that they play) ‘Call of Duty players’ interacting with your nascent design could be useless at best, and incredibly damaging to the process at worst.
Within some game design circles I have noticed a similar attitude regarding player suggestions but I think getting suggestions from the right type of player can actually be extremely valuable, and placing the emphasis on avoiding explicit criticism is not as useful as making sure whatever information you get is coming from a compatible place. (A concept which I did not fully understand before this article.)
Specific to your proposed better way, I would strongly recommend that anyone making a game look for something more specific than ‘random playtesters’, although the rest of the advice stands.
With my cohabitive games (games about negotiation/fragile peace), yeah, I’ve been looking for a very specific kind of playtester.
The ideal playtesters/critics… I can see them so clearly.
One would be a mischievous but warmhearted man who had lived through many conflicts and resolutions of conflicts, he sees the game’s teachings as ranging from trivial to naive, and so he has much to contribute to it. The other playtester would be a frail idealist who has lived a life in pursuit of a rigid, tragically unattainable conception of justice, begging a cruel paradox that I don’t yet know how to untie for them, to whom the game would have much to give. It’s my belief that if these two people played a game of OW v0.1, then OW 1.0 would immediately manifest and ship itself.