Welcome back to what is quickly becoming one of my favorite articles to write every few months.
Those who know me, know that I am actually a take machine. I have takes on every stupid thing that comes across my feed on social media.
However, while social media is great at providing fodder for takes, it’s usually the worst possible medium to actually give those takes. Character limits mean that it’s hard to provide all the context that I want with each take, and people are often too lazy to read through an entire thread of tweets/posts.
This mailbag has been cathartic for getting all of my thoughts out there in a way that feels healthy, nuanced, and productive. I am truly grateful to all of those who have continued to offer questions each time I ask for them.
Let’s get to the questions from this month!
“How do you feel about the people that say you shouldn’t be as harsh on a small indie dev because they worked hard on their bad game? And what is your approach to reviewing them?”- Anonymous on Bluesky
First off, I promise that this was a real question. I didn’t pull out the old “anonymous question for a topic I want to write about” trick. I SWEAR.
I’ll be honest, I literally do not care what the price point of a game or backstory of a developer is when I’m reviewing something. Once I’m playing it, nothing else matters outside of how much I am enjoying it.
There are many reasons I feel this way. First off, we write reviews mainly to help those who are interested in a game decide if it is worth their time and hard-earned money. Only a very small percentage of people are going to know much about the developer and their backstory. And of that small percentage, I’m not aware of anyone who decides that they like a game more because “it’s a small team that made it” or “it’s the first game this person created.” While I think all of us who write for fun hope that our work benefits the developers that we love, we don’t actually write or create content for developers. We write for consumers. It’s not fair to those consumers to treat the developer with kid gloves because we like them more or because they have a backstory that we respect.
Secondly, as writers, the only thing we have as currency is our reputation. It’s insanely hard to build any sort of audience in this field. If you end up glazing games that aren’t that great, the few people that might enjoy your work could quickly be turned off. I personally enjoy reading or hearing viewpoints that differ from my own just to help me explore my own thoughts in a deeper way. But inevitably, those perspectives are rarely going to be the ones that I look to first for game recommendations. No matter how talented a creator you are, there’s going to come a point where people don’t trust you nearly as much if they notice your tastes consistently don’t align.
Just by doing things authentically, I’m going to have plenty of people who don’t care for my blog because they think my taste in games is bad in some way. So why would I fall on the sword for a game I didn’t even care for? It’s an illogical decision for any writer not to give their most authentic opinions on a game for their own sake.
Also, the healthiest thing in the world for any small developer is to find and accept feedback in order to get better. Making a game with a small team is a very impressive feat. These people have to wear many hats and can’t be as specialized as many get to be at bigger studios. At times, this probably makes it easier to create a cohesive vision for a game, but it also creates challenges.
If you are a small developer and truly want to make a living in game development, getting truly thoughtful, open, and honest feedback is one of the best things you can ask for. Getting better and truly making great games is the best way to make money in game development.
I feel like there are a lot of indie devs out there in particular where I didn’t love their first game but ended up really enjoying a sequel or a different game they made years down the road. My guess is that many of these developers took the feedback they got seriously rather than being defensive, and they got better from there.
I recently changed companies from one that did not give a shit about employee feedback, to one that actually genuinely seems to be very interested in it. It probably won’t surprise you to know that one company is significantly more successful and is a far better place to work.
This is obviously not to say that everyone is perfect. There is always going to be feedback that isn’t really fair, or that you straight up don’t find to be accurate. But on the whole, I think most people who do this for a living or devote their free time to it do so because we truly love video games. And part of loving something is trying to make it the best thing that it can be. In the end, I think it benefits the consumer, the developer, and the writer themselves to be completely true to what they think about any given game, even if it feels bad at times.
One of the harshest reviews I have ever written was for Cattle Country. I gave it a 5.0/10. It was a game I was actually pretty excited for, and I had been given a review code for it. It always feels a little worse to take a dump on a game that I literally received for free from a small developer that probably needs every sale. I also feel relatively sure that the developers read my review. There weren’t all that many on the internet, and my review was near the top of the Google search engine for something like a year after its release. Once again, that doesn’t really give me fuzzy feelings.
I’m sure they got feedback elsewhere too, but I can say that when I browsed the patch notes from the game months later, I saw tons of fixes that were exactly things that I had pointed out in my review. So, as much as it’s a bit unpleasant, ideally, the dev is also happy to have a list of things to fix, and future customers of their game will hopefully be a lot more pleased with the product they purchased and look to support the developer again with their next project.
I get that a lot of these indie games are cheaper cost-wise, but to me, that doesn’t lower my expectations one bit. My top 10 games of the year are constantly filled with games that are less than $20. And with everything I have going on in life, my time is really valuable too. Honesty is the best policy for like 99% of things in life, and game critique is certainly in that 99%.
“Where would you put the cutoff for what makes a retro game/system? A certain period of time, number of generations back, or around some kind of technological advancement?– RockDan on Bluesky
As someone who doesn’t worry about “retro” gaming at all, this is an interesting question that I’m sure people in that specific community have thought about plenty.
To me, the Xbox 360/PS3 era and on feels like the point where gaming roughly got to a point where evolution after that has been extremely slow. I am currently playing Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, and obviously it’s a much better looking game now, but watching trailers of the original, the difference in how the game looks isn’t that drastic. We might be 20-30 years from that original game actually looking pretty rough, or it could be more. To me, we talk about “retro” games as if they are their own genre, so they should have a distinctive feel in some capacity over just being called that when they get to a certain age. So I guess I’m on team “technological advancement.”
“Is there a genre of games that feels mostly dead or left behind that you wish someone would bring back? What is it and why?” – Jordan Wood on Bluesky
I feel like there are so many games out there now that most genres get tackled in some way. There are a lot of indie games that are basically attempting to create “new” versions of retro games as well. I think you can get most anything you want out there, though some of it might be pretty niche.
But Unicorn Overlord did remind me of one of my biggest gripes when it came out a few years back. It feels like every SRPG developer out there wants to make the next Fire Emblem or Shining Force, but no one wants to create the next Ogre Battle 64. I think the RTS with more turn-based encounters formula is such a fun mix that takes out a lot of annoyances I have with many of the popular turn-based SRPGs out there. Obviously, game development takes a while, so I’m really hoping that Unicorn Overlord inspires more people to adopt this formula in the coming years.
“I’ve seen gamers say OoT remake hasn’t shown enough in the initial trailer
I’ve also seen gamers say GTAVI doesn’t need to do any marketing or show gameplay to earn a preorder
Both are relatively known quantities from trusted brands and renowned devs. But the marketing reception differs”- Hana on Bluesky
This is interesting. I can’t say I’ve seen a lot of this sentiment, but maybe that’s one of the benefits of being slightly more sparse on social media these days.
The one thing I will say is that we’ve at least seen a little bit from GTA6. We’ve seen literally nothing from Ocarina of Time. I also think there’s always a touch more skepticism for a remake. I have been very eager for a new 3D Zelda experience that is a bit more of the classic formula, but that game being an Ocarina of Time remake is a bit more complicated. Obviously, it could be amazing, but as I’ve said before, that era was a bit janky. There’s a chance they stay a bit too true to the original in some ways, and it doesn’t hit quite as much as I thought.
Meanwhile, if you love the GTA games, it seems impossible that you won’t like GTA 6. I’m actually semi-skeptical about GTA 6 because I’m not a huge GTA fan, but I’m still more excited for GTA 6 than Ocarina of Time right now. At the very least, I know it’ll be an absolutely crazy and immersive world. I know Ocarina of Time will hit some very high nostalgic notes, but I’m less sure about it at this point. That’s the best logic I can come up with.
For what it’s worth, if I were forced to buy those games right now or I could never play them, I would easily take the risk and do it. The odds are very high that both will be great games, but I guess I see a few percentage points more risk for Ocarina.
“This one’s maybe a little dull, but what’s your favorite class to pick in an RPG? Rogue, sorcerer, warrior, etc…and why?”- Ross on Bluesky
I usually go with the boring warrior-type classes. I think one part of it is that it’s rare for the warrior class in a game to totally suck. I think I just like the general playstyle too. I like the impact of being up close and personal in these kinds of fights. One reason I’ve always been a big Halo fan is how prevalent and effective melee can be. I like to be in the thick of it.
Also, I think a lot of devs are just better at making warrior classes from a design perspective. I think FF7: Rebirth is a great example. The melee fighters in that game just have way more impact with their combat, in my view. Another example for me is Elden Ring. I know that magic can be strong as hell in that game, but the feel of the melee combat is just superior, in my view.
“You’ve talked about being less active here because of real life stuff, but you still find time for the podcast, writing about and playing games. How do you find balance?“ Andrew/Hushed Pixel on Bluesky
I’m definitely way less active on social media these days. My old job had long stretches of nothing going on, and I really didn’t have much else to do besides look at my phone once I got things done.
At my new job, there’s always plenty going on, so I’m never on my phone during the day outside of very briefly at lunch, and usually I have people to text back at that point.
I also work a few more hours than I did before, which is why I’ve cut down on my writing a bit. The once a week formula has been much better and has allowed me to continue to be consistent. Twice a week wasn’t feasible anymore without killing the little gaming time I have. The podcast is only possible due to all of David’s work with the editing on the back end.
From there, it’s just discipline and fitting bits in where I can. As a parent, it’s crazy how used to taking a break every 5-10 minutes from gaming you can get. But if the kids are playing independently, I’m usually trying to fit a few minutes of gaming or writing in where I can. Luckily, my 4-year-old enjoys hanging out and watching games sometimes, which helps. But I think the biggest key is that I don’t spend a lot of time scrolling through my phone even when I do have 10-15 minutes.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider following me on social media, or checking out The Big Nerd Gaming Podcast!
The Big Nerd Gaming Podcast on Youtube
The Big Nerd Gaming Podcast on Spotify
Big Nerd Gaming 
Leave a comment