Overly Positive

This weekend, for my work at Curse and Warhammer Alliance, I headed out to Games Day Chicago, which was obviously easy to travel to since I live in the city. During this affair, I was able to hook up with Mythic Entertainment, and became for all intents and purposes their native guide to all things Chicago.

While our site has a healthy relationship with Mythic, and is in constant contact with them online, it’s definitely another thing to meet game developers in person. I’ve done this quite a few times – at shows and at events, but as far as Mythic goes, this is the closest I’ve been to getting an insight into the games development industry.

The most important lesson I’ve learned so far? Mythic’s developers – and frankly developers in general, are actually people, too.

Shocking, right? But stick with me here. I’ve got a point to my Captain Obvious statement.

All too often, I think that the reason why players tend to be so acerbic on the internet towards game devs is because they’re not cognizant of the fact that like us, they have hopes, desires, failings, and successes. Developers – even the worst ones – don’t set out to make a game that doesn’t meet expectations or worse, falls flat on its face. The kinds of attitudes and ideas that many gamers have about good games are the same kinds of passions that developers have as well. You can see this when you actually talk to someone on the development team – not over chat, not over forums, but when you are standing there face-to-face with them. This weekend, for example, I jawed with someone from Mythic’s Dungeons and Encounters team. Every time we would chat about the kinds of things that he designed, you could see the same glint of passion that is in the most persistent of regular players like myself.

To players, developers are many times relegated to something that isn’t human – a bug, a crash, a class imbalance, and ultimately, a product. These are very non-human – heck, non-sentient things, objects if you will, and as is the case with objects, we don’t tend to treat them as well as we do a person – and why would we? It’s not like objects feel, or understand our various frustrations. But humans do. This is ultimately why whenever I’ve been critical of something, as I most certainly have for the products that are made by Mythic (DAoC, and now WAR), that I’m respectful, too. There’s a person on the other side of the keyboard reading what I write, and if I can get upset enough to write something in an enraged fit, they can get upset enough to affect them negatively as well – in which case, no one really wins in the end.

Note that I’m not really saying to walk on eggshells for fear of hurting feelings. I’ve never been afraid to put Mythic, or any other developer’s feet to the fire. I’m just saying you’ve got people doing a job, just like you, putting in their hours, just like you, and cutting a paycheck to pay their bills, just like you – but unlike you, they aren’t under constant scrutiny. In that respect, if you can’t level a criticism to someone that you would say in the same way to their face and not get punched for it, then you probably should think twice before posting it. Treat developers like they were human, give them feedback that humans can process, and you’ll probably get, unsurprisingly, responses and results that are human and will speak to your needs.

At the risk of seeming like I’m “going native”, Mythic’s people have been among the most personable and varied I’ve seen in my exposure to game developers, something I’d know even if I didn’t have a good relationship with them. It’s eerie to see how much their team has in common with actual players, from glee over certain geekery pasttimes, to the amount of time they play games (even their own – yes, they do play), to what kinds of things they might shake their head over in the industry at large. It’s almost a flaw – because in being so close to human, they’ve made a few kneejerk mistakes in WAR’s development in response to player concerns that have hurt them. But I’m betting that many development studios, and not just Mythic, are filled with people who care about making and playing a good game as you are about talking about it.

It’s no secret that WAR is in a fight to remain steady and soldier through the next few months, after taking a dip in subs, the loss of their long-time CEO/GM/VP and face of the company, and with new releases on the horizon. But if it does ultimately fail, it won’t be for lack of trying, desire, or passion on the part of the Mythic team. After all, that’s what humans have when they’re out to achieve a goal.