Sir, that's a shrimp.

*Support, not sort.

If you care so much about games, get informed about the dev process. If you care about the people who make them look for ways to sort their efforts!
If that's too much effort for you, at the very least stop seeking blame when a game doesn't meet your expectations.

#gamedev #videogames #games

All of this is opinion. But this is what I've observed over the years of being in this space and being (for my sins) online.

I wish I had a happy ending to this conjecture, but I don't really.
My message will always be "be kind".
Like please don't abuse developers, or anyone for that matter.

Why, then, does this myth of the "Lazy dev" persist?
I think it's pretext. Usually for harm.

A lazy dev "deserves" their game to be pirated.
A lazy dev "deserves" a death threat.
A lazy dev "deserves" a review bomb.

A lazy dev is a dehumanised dev, deserving of the harm perpetrated against them.

It's hard to place blame on a system. Or rather, it feels unsatisfactory.
So then the blame is, more often than not, placed on the developers.

"Clearly they were lazy."
I've heard the "Lazy dev" argument way too many times.
I'm not going to debunk that one here, but rest assured it's a fallacy.

They also have expectations. With the often tight timelines and a thousand other requirements to balance games rarely deliver on all the expectations consumers have for them.

When this happens, consumers will often look for a place for that disappointment to rest.

So then why is there this veneration of "old games are better"? Or, more appropriately, why is there this drive to dunk on new games and dichotomize?

I have some theories on this also.

As games, and the process of making games, have become widely open and accessible consumers feel more ownership.

If that alignment is weak, bugs can easily creap in as misunderstood or changing requirements.
If that alignment is strong bugs can still creep in if tech debt isn't managed correctly.
All of this, of course, is a massive oversimplification. But hopefully this gives you a small insight.

As games get bigger, so too does the number of devs and amount of time required to make them. As number of devs and time increase so too does the number of people who manage those devs.
As creative control becomes increasingly segmented in a project it becomes more important to align on a vision.