Why Are Game Devs So Fragile?

A critical analysis of modern game developers' fragility, poor game design, and refusal to accept failure, with examples from recent games.

Key Takeaways

Many modern game developers lack the skill and willingness to improve, leading to poor game quality.
Developers often deflect blame onto external factors rather than accepting responsibility.
Constructive criticism is frequently dismissed or labeled as harassment, hindering industry progress.
Industry awards and titles do not necessarily reflect true quality or player satisfaction.
There is a growing disconnect between developers and players, fueled by arrogance and denial.

What the video covers

Modern game developers are described as fragile, complaining about criticism while producing games with obvious flaws.
The video criticizes lazy design choices like yellow paint, ugly characters, and failing sequels, highlighting the Wolverine game as a recent example.
Developers are accused of blaming external factors like media platforms and algorithms instead of taking responsibility for poor quality.
The video argues that many developers lack real skill and experience, relying on titles and awards rather than actual success or improvement.
Criticism is often dismissed as harassment, preventing constructive feedback and growth within the industry.
Examples include poorly received games like Concord, High Guard, and the Wolverine game, which failed due to bad art and design.
The video discusses the disconnect between industry awards and player reception, emphasizing the importance of actual player satisfaction.
It highlights the toxic dynamic where developers see themselves as superior to players and reject accountability.
The host investigates a game writing instructor whose credited works are known for bad writing, illustrating widespread delusion about skill.
The video also touches on mental health concerns related to online negativity and harassment claims by developers.

Chapters

Why does the video claim game developers are fragile?

The video argues that modern game developers complain about hate and disappointment while continuing to produce games with obvious flaws, refusing to accept failure or criticism.

What examples does the video use to illustrate poor game development?

The video cites the new Wolverine game, Concord, and High Guard as examples of games with bad design, art, and overall quality that failed due to developer mistakes.

How does the video describe the relationship between developers and players?

It describes a toxic dynamic where developers see themselves as superior to players, dismiss player feedback as harassment, and avoid accountability for poor game quality.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

The game developers of today are just so fragile. They cry and complain about hate and disappointment, even as they actively do the things that they know no one will like. Yellow paint, ugly characters, failing sequels, using a woman to mocap a male character. It

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seems so obvious why people are mad, yet the devs are always surprised. I think it's pretty hard to not notice how bad games have gotten lately. And I think an under-discussed reason is maybe devs just kind of suck now. Everyone wants to

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blame corporations in boardrooms, but I know it's a crazy idea, but maybe you have to be good at something to make something good. And if you're bad, then you're going to make something bad.

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Instead, people seem to have this extremely childish idea that there are all these super great and grand artists who are held back by society. And if only they could do whatever they want, we'd have the greatest games ever made.

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Well, all you have to do is take one look at Twitter to know they are doing what they want. They just suck. They're bad at it. Because in order to get good at something, you can't just go to

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college and get a title or have someone tell you you're good. You have to actually fail and improve. And the modern game developer cannot accept failure, no matter how obvious it is.

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The most recent example being the new Wolverine game, which looks like complete ass, contains some of the most lazy, tired game design that's been complained about by everyone for years.

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And yet still, the developers don't blame themselves. They don't even blame the corporations or restrictions. No, they blame the media platforms because they believe themselves to be gods of their world. They're the game developer and you're the lowly player. You don't

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know what you want. The player is far too stupid to chase what's directly in front of them. They need a red line to follow. Now, if you're stupid enough to keep buying this dog [ __ ], maybe they're

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right. But it's on principle that it's bad game design. That there are certainly more creative ways of drawing a player's attention than yellow paint.

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But you can't tell the devs this. You can't tell them that they're even capable of improvement. You can't tell them what you want because that's harassment. And harassment is illegal.

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Well, maybe I'm feeling harassed. If someone was throwing feces into your face all the time, I would consider that harassment. And having to look at and play these [ __ ] ass games, that might be even worse. Not that any real

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harassment actually happens anyway. And even if it did, can you really blame people? Good-hearted criticism has gotten nowhere. As I said before, this whole yellow paint fiasco has been going on for years, and you still see it. No,

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criticism has never worked. Not that harassment might work either, but at least it makes you feel better. But criticism never works because the devs already think they're masters of their craft just 'cause they made one overhyped seven out of 10. Or even worse, they've

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made only a series of bad games, but the industry and circlejerking on Twitter who think devs can do no wrong, tell them it's not their fault and that it's socioeconomic problems or something. And if you don't believe me,

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one of the 3D character artists for Concord is now working on the Wolverine game. The art of that game is the most objectively bad part. Maybe you could argue the programming was good 'cause nobody played it. But the art is

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visually disgusting. Nobody liked it and it's the reason the game failed. And now mysteriously the characters in Wolverine look hideous, too. But it's just a coincidence. It's never the dev's fault.

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And the funny thing is, it really doesn't even matter how obvious things are. You could make the biggest steaming pile of [ __ ] and it'd be 100% your fault and they still sit there wide-eyed and dumbstruck when nobody likes it. Concord

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even they blamed not themselves for making a terrible product that is obviously terrible. You can just look at it. It's one of the most maligned things in gaming history. And still they go on Twitter blaming the algorithm for

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negative discourse. And they're doing the exact same thing with Wolverine. They did the exact same thing for High Guard, the last piece of dog [ __ ] that came out. It's because quality doesn't matter to these people. Outcome doesn't

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matter. It's all titles. They think because they have a degree or an award, it makes them better than someone who's actually successful. It's like if there's some bear hunters and there's a guy who has killed hundreds of bears in

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his life. He has no formal training. He's just always lived in the old country, has real experience. And then there's another guy who went to college, got a degree in bear hunting, studies bears, but has never killed a bear in

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his entire life. In modern society, we're supposed to see number two as the expert, even though he got mauled to death on his last bear hunt. Anyway, this is probably the longest intro I've ever done. Make sure to like the video

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if you made it this far. YouTube's really mad at me right now, probably for being too mean, and this video is definitely not going to help. So, you got to like and subscribe if you support, you know, like harassment.

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Speaking of harassment, it's time to go into some real examples of this actually happening because the outside narrative is always just, "Oh, I'm receiving harassment. I'm receiving death threats for my game trailer that looks really bad," and then they never actually show

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anything. So, I'm going to show stuff. I want to start off with some Frog Meeron investigative journalism 'cause I was watching Neopets drama videos. I know I'm really a high culture kind of guy.

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And I noticed the channel also made game writing content, like advice for people wanting to work in the video game writing industry. And I'm not going to give you the exact channel 'cause I know you're going to bully her and it's going to get

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blamed on me. But I investigated this person's website 'cause I'm like, okay, they're trying to teach other people how to write for video games. So surely they must have written for some big game that everyone likes the writing for. Now take

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a look at the games they worked on. Of the games I actually recognize, all of them are well known for having bad writing. It's not a secret either. It's not like a niche community of like writing nerds who hate these games.

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Nobody likes this [ __ ] Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, the worst aspect of the entire game that you'll hear in almost every review is the long-winded, terribly written cutscenes. Vampire the Masquerade is famous for its writing.

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It's good only for that reason and the sequel didn't even come close to that legacy and it's why the game flopped.

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We're fabulous. We're going to live forever and the normies are terrified of us. You're a blood sucker, my friend. It doesn't get any more queer than that.

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So, how can you think you're good enough to call yourself a professional to teach other people how to do the job when you've never done it successfully a single time? You haven't even done an okay job. You've only done a bad job.

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Well, all you have to do is look over to the right to see why. Look at all of these awards. Who cares about what the players think, the people actually consuming the product? What matters are these meaningless awards that I don't

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even know what they come from. It doesn't say what they were awarded for. They just have awards. I don't mean to pick on this one person either. You see this kind of delusion everywhere. This is just an example. Bring it back to

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Wolverine Insomniac's new game. This is a quote from the director and community leader at Insomniac, James Stevenson. I think the wild way this algorithm amplifies and forces negativity upon you has me reconsidering my philosophy on telling devs to look or post here. It's

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a relentless onslaught that I cannot believe is good for anyone's mental health, nor representative. And this tweet has so man

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of the greater player base. Hence why we see all this garbage still in games.

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They just lie to themselves. No, the gamer loves yellow paint. Mary Jane is incredibly attractive. Marvel Rivals is popular for no reason. All the noise and complaining is just bots. I guess it's funny. You used to hear as a kid all the

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talk about participation awards and how it's ruining people. Well, now they're adults and they're still expecting the participation award except they don't think it's for participation. They genuinely think they're doing a good job. On this tweet, even you have a

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comment where someone saying, "Hey, maybe you guys should just make good games and then no one will complain." And of course, the epic Twitter clapback is a picture of a bunch of their new games that are six out of 10 and with

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the insane review inflation have been bumped up to eights and one singular nine, which looks good if you've never played a video game before and have never been a part of video game Discord.

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But to anyone who's paying any attention, every game that releases gets an eight or higher as long as it turns on. That's how low the bar is. Not to mention, all these games are sequels to better games that they already made.

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It's a decline in the company that cannot be denied. And since this guy seems to care about review scores so much, those games on the PS2 also had better review scores back when the competition was much higher, too. So all

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of your modern releases are below standard. Not below the standard of the industry, but by your own [ __ ] company. the sheer arrogance of these people to completely deny reality. Why?

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Because it hurts their feelings. Their feelings are more important than what they're making, which is why everything is bad. Their first priority is not, hey, I want to make a good game. I really hope everyone enjoys this. It's

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I'm great. I need to show people how great I am. And they'll deny anything to maintain that illusion. This has been going on for a while now, too. Anyone remember this? Have you ever thought about adding servers for previous

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expansions as they were then? No. And and by the way, you don't want to that to do that either.

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Remember classic WoW? For years, people were begging for old World of Warcraft because the horrible developers had ruined the game. Rather than reflect on that and improve the game, improve themselves, instead they make fun of you. And now years later, classic WoW

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arrives and big surprise, everyone loves it. Now, it's certainly fallen off in popularity because you can only play the same old game so many times, especially an MMO, which is supposed to be continually updated. But when it released, it was incredibly popular. It

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only took them half a decade because they couldn't look past their own egos. They will always think they're the greatest bear hunters of all time, even once they get mauled and end up in the hospital. It's the bear's fault that I'm

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bad at my job. Want another example of the delusion? How about the Bethesa layoffs? Everyone pretending like layoffs are such a bad thing, which they definitely can be, but when the industry is entirely bloated, makes nothing but dog [ __ ] I think a handful of firings

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can do some good. I think it's perfectly reasonable to think that someone who does a bad job should get fired from that job so that someone good might have a chance. Jobs aren't a daycare. It's not a handout. It's labor for a purpose.

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But anyway, after the Bethesda layoffs, you had some protests going on. People upset. And what do you think these former employees were saying?

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You know, we've been told that we're making great games that players love and great games, great games, great games.

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We make great games. make Wii. I don't know if you've played any Bethesda games recently, but their last two games, Starfield and Fallout 76, are the worst games they have ever made. And you would have to be completely delusional. Ignore

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everything from anyone to think otherwise. And yet they have the audacity to say players deserve better.

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They don't give a [ __ ] about the players. If they did, they would not have made those games to begin with.

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They wouldn't make a space game with no aliens and everyone is [ __ ] ugly. You know, all of these devs who were laid off worked on one of these two games, by the way, because of how layoffs work.

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You lay off the newest employees first. This is what I mean by delusion. They completely ignore the player base, ignore every criticism they've ever received, and then lie and claim that everything they do is for the players. I

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know everyone thinking this way has probably already left the video cuz they're angry. They're mad. They're like, "How dare you talk down to these poor devs. They're great at their job cuz, you know, everyone's good at their job. No one's bad at anything. Anyone

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can cook. It's just the corporations and the boardrooms that are keeping them down." The thing is, it's very easy to refute this argument when a bad game is rightfully being [ __ ] on. The devs don't say, "Yeah, I agree, player. It is bad."

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No, even if it's comically terrible, like Concord, they go out of the way to defend the game itself, cuz that really was their best work. They don't say, "No, I know I did a bad job, but it's the corporation's fault." No, they say,

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"I did a good job. You, the player, are wrong. Also, give me money for some reason." No, this excuse of corporate greed comes well after the fact to avoid any form of responsibility as an easy way to get people on their side cuz the

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corporations are always the villain because they are the villain but that doesn't mean there aren't other factors cuz no corporation is like, "Yeah, I know how we'll make more money by making a bad game." You can still make a good

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game with microtransactions or loot boxes or follows trends. No. If it is the corporation's fault, it's their fault for bad hiring practices that's incentivized by the US government and some other organizations. I've already mentioned Concord, but don't forget

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about High Guard. I'm sure everyone already has, but that was the other multiplayer massive failure that everyone knew was terrible before it even came out. And again, it received the exact same response where developers are blaming Twitter and negative echo

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chambers and how negativity is just so much more popular than positivity, which I don't know, you have to look at my channel for about 2 seconds to realize that toxic positivity is just as prevalent on these platforms. God forbid

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someone not like a Pokémon game. But that aside, the story is always the same. It's not their fault. To anyone looking from the outside, it seems so absurd how they could work for years on one project and no one can see the

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obvious flaws that they're about to lose tens of millions of dollars and ruin their reputations forever. But the reason why they can't see it is because they are incapable of taking any kind of criticism. They believe everything they

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create is great and they don't care what the player thinks at all. And this is where it leads them to Concord and High Guard and Starfield and Fallout 76 and Wolverine. And I could probably keep going on for hours and hours, but I

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think you get the point. And I'm not saying the players are always right and every game should be made by committee.

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But what I am saying is you do have to be capable of accepting objective measures. You can't make flop after flop, constantly fail at your job, and then think it's somehow not your fault.

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I don't know, man. I'm just saying if I made this, I would feel shame. Not indignant, though. I can't say I'm surprised. Indignant is a great word for it. Have you ever seen a scammer get called out? Like in those Indian

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scamming videos? They're not like, "Ah, you got me. I'm sorry." The first thing they do is get angry. A scam artist isn't ashamed of being called out.

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They're mad at you for identifying them. And that's what these game devs are now.

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They're scam artists. They know they have no real qualifications. And when the player calls them out, they scream at you for redeeming. And although harassment is bad, and I obviously don't condone it, maybe it's a little warranted in some ways when nothing else

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seems to get through when they have no problem [ __ ] on everyone else. Not to mention this harassment they get is basically nothing. They're complaining about playground insults and then sometimes it's not even an insult.

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People are allowed to not like you or what you stand for or who you work with.

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They have no problem insulting other people, but do it to them and suddenly it's a crime. And all of this isn't even to mention when developers do things intentionally to piss players off and then somehow get surprised when

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everyone's pissed off. Everything I mentioned earlier was people doing a bad job and thinking they're doing a good job, but sometimes they know they're doing something bad. They know they're doing something everyone hates and they do it anyway. And then somehow it's

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harassment if you call them out. There's making something ugly because you're just a bad artist. And then there's making something ugly cuz you want to avoid the male gays. You know, the males who buy your [ __ ] video game. The

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male gays is literally the only thing you should be appealing to. Especially when all the research shows that women also want to play as attractive women.

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So, they're doing this for nobody. But, it's just a coincidence that Marvel Rivals is incredibly popular despite being a clone of a clone of a clone. It doesn't take creativity or even really skill to just give people what they

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want. This isn't them thinking they know better either. They know it's a bad idea. They just don't care. They don't want you to play their games. They openly admit to hating you. Yet, you're not allowed to be angry. And you're

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definitely not allowed to be happy when they get fired. Well, I don't think people really care anymore. You're not going to shame me into feeling bad for someone who hates me. So, even if I know it's not going to do anything, a little

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bit of being mean to the game developers on Twitter at least makes me feel better. Because if I can't make you a better developer cuz you don't want to listen, at least I can make you feel bad. And that's something. Now, this is

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the point in the video where I'd give some positive examples of game developers really listening to the players and improving things. And maybe you could find that in the indie space, but in AAA games, I couldn't find a

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single example because it probably doesn't exist. Not in the modern day at least. Is it any wonder then why basically no good games come out? And when they do, it's all from legendary developers who have been making games

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for decades. I want to give one last example though to show you why I think this problem will never go away. At least not in the modern climate. Ksuki Tonab. have no idea if that's how you pronounce that, but I don't respect the

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Japanese, so I don't care. A Nintendo developer who recently retired and is most famous for ruining basically every game he's ever led. He ruined the Paper Mario series, taking out all of the RPG elements and leading to failure after

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failure where every player was saying this is the wrong direction, and he refused to listen. Then as proof that it really is his fault, not Mario Mandates, not some other Nintendo developers, was he got to lead a Metroid game. Metroid

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Prime 4. The worst Metroid game ever made. One of the most anticipated Nintendo games of all time. Completely ruined by one guy who's done nothing but ruin games. ruining not only the legacy of these serieses, but also the legacy

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of the people working on those games, wasting their effort on things he knows no one will like. And when he finally retires, want to know what people say?

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Well, you're a bad person if you're happy he quit. It's just video games, dude. You should never wish for someone to be fired. Excuse me. It is the most normal thing in the world to want someone who does a bad job to be fired.

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But this is just the way of society now. I know we're not talking about video games anymore, but I think you can see this quite literally everywhere that the quality of everything is going down because you're just not allowed to be

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upset about things anymore. That you just don't know how hard it is working retail. And that means you have to be okay with the McDonald's employee who's [ __ ] up your order 500 times in a row.

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Or you go to a doctor's appointment and there's no one to check you in because nobody shows up on time. and nobody shows up on time because no one is forced to clock in. This is a real example, by the way. I obviously won't

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say where, but we're here complaining about video games, but there are hospitals that don't force their employees to clock in and out, so people just don't show up and are still paid by the government. I don't know. I think

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the point of this video is game devs don't get nearly enough hate that all of it is distributed to random boardroom people who probably don't even exist. I mean, they're always talking about a committee. Who is the committee? Where

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are they? I think you're the committee and I don't like you. I also think having a job doesn't necessarily make you good at that job. Way too many people on Twitter or on YouTube are like, I'm a professional game developer.

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Here's my advice. But then they've never actually made a good game. Anyway, that's all I got. Uh channel update.

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Yeah, I'm thinking I'm back. But YouTube's kind of mad at me for, you know, not uploading for 4 months. So, I kind of have to like slop out a bunch of videos to to show YouTube that I'm I'm

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I'm coming back before they'll let me into the algorithm. So, get ready for a bunch of slop in the coming weeks.

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Anyway bye.

Topics:game developmentgame developersvideo game criticismWolverine gamegame designgaming industrydeveloper fragilitygame qualityplayer feedbackgame writing

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