> So much of what makes a game good is art and feel based so testing early and often whether you're on the right track is important. Game studios that are smaller have to do this. Larger ones can take the hit if they make a bad call in favor of controlling the marketing/presentation more carefully. I'm not entirely sure how they test. Similar to developers I think most people in the game development industry have good or reasonable instincts about games that would work.
I think I’m in the minority, but I really care very little about the art and feel; I’m die-hard about the mechanics of the game. I hear people ranting and raving about the “cinematic quality of the game art” and I find myself thinking, “I mean, that’s nice, but there are all of these glaring issues with weapon balance and map design, the net code favors laggy players, the time-to-kill is so low that network rather than skill dominates the outcome of almost every confrontation, and the server randomly disconnects people...”. I play a lot of first person shooters, and I rarely care whether the “skin” of the game is futuristic, present day, WWII era, etc as long as the mechanics are right.
I think I’m in the minority, but I really care very little about the art and feel; I’m die-hard about the mechanics of the game. I hear people ranting and raving about the “cinematic quality of the game art” and I find myself thinking, “I mean, that’s nice, but there are all of these glaring issues with weapon balance and map design, the net code favors laggy players, the time-to-kill is so low that network rather than skill dominates the outcome of almost every confrontation, and the server randomly disconnects people...”. I play a lot of first person shooters, and I rarely care whether the “skin” of the game is futuristic, present day, WWII era, etc as long as the mechanics are right.