Why do people complain about games that they don't play?

[Tuomo L]

Long, long time ago on another, now defunct RPG Maker website, I made a social experiment; I registered a new account as Sephrirox 2050 or something, a huge FF fan from Poland and made a "Final Fantasy fangame" with really bad fake screenshots. (Which actually were from my own nooblet project so they were really bad) Actual game was just slowly panning image of Aeris and me weepingly humming Aeris themesong and every menu said basically "This is a joke" and then the game ended. It was less than two minute long joke but I was able to fool everyone into thinking this was legimate project, the first project by a first time developer.

When posting that fangame (and misspelling each Final Fantasy character's name such as calling Cid as Ciider), I got like 4+ pages of replies of people complaining about mapping and presentation, combat system, the length of the game, etc. without a single one of them having had played the game because in just 1 second, you would have realized that the game was a joke and so was the whole account with the whole thing having been massive social experiment. Many people sent tons of replies and comments without even trying out the game and complaining about maps and dialogue being corny and Final Fantasy not being good source material for games, etc.


Why do some people complain about games that they don't even play? I mean, this social experiment proved to me what I had known already for years that some people just leave a comment without having played a single second of the game "giving advice" without having tried the game at all or even seen single second of footage of it. Are these the same sort of people who also same Breath of Wild is the worst/best game ever without even having played a single second of it?


What are your thoughts on the matter? Have you ever had a comment from someone which made you go "This guy can't have possibly played my game"? Do you think this sort of a mindeset is also in RPG Maker Web or is it more on the "old school" RPG Maker websites, a relic of past?

EDIT: I found some of those old screenshots.

 

[InBlast]

You don't have to play a game to give a feedback, especially for RM presentations of games that aren't finished.
I mean, if the presentation is really bad, with bad screens, bad announced features, grammatical errors and others, people will not play the game, and will comment about what they can see. So, the mapping, the grammar, and the game's mechanims.
For a game with a good presentation, more people will want to really test the game, so you will have real feedbacks.

I don't see anything weird here. Make a good presentation of your product is something crucial averywhere when you want to sell something.

 

[Tuomo L]

You don't have to play a game to give a feedback, especially for RM presentations of games that aren't finished.

Yes, you do. If you're commenting on a game that you've not played or seen a single second of it, how can you form a solid enough opinnion to make a comment about things? The way you may think things work may actually work in the game itself.

It was also a full game and I did say it was one in the topic too.

I don't see anything weird here. Make a good presentation of your product is something crucial averywhere when you want to sell something.

I wasn't stupid enough to sell it, it was a free fan game that I was offering as a free download. It didn't take that much from hard space either and downloaded fast even on my old ghetto internet speed.

 

[Kes]

Although potentially interesting, this is not really a discussion about aspects of game making but speculation about motivations of (non)-players.

[move]General Lounge[/move]

 

[TriceratopsX]

I think @InBlast is right here. If a game's screenshots and presentation are garbage or display a lack of creativity/skill/what-have-you then nobody is going to play it, and you CAN gleam some idea of what the game is supposed/going to be about from screenshots, that IS what they're there for! For the potential player/buyers to get an idea of what they're in for if they play the game, so if screenshot's look terrible why should the game look any different? PLUS if there are a lot of typos and grammatical errors in the screenshots/game page then you're going to expect them in the game proper, because if they can't be bothered to make an effort on people's first impressions of the game who's to say they're going to make an effort on the game itself?

 

[Tuomo L]

Although potentially interesting, this is not really a discussion about aspects of game making but speculation about motivations of (non)-players.

[move]General Lounge[/move]

Sorry Kes, I wasn't sure about where to post it.

 

[Andar]

Yes, you do. If you're commenting on a game that you've not played or seen a single second of it, how can you form a solid enough opinnion to make a comment about things?

It depends on the presentation. I can think of two different ways that those comments could have happened, and you didn't give enough info about the original case to decide on this.

1) if you had the "game presentation" with screenshots of the (intentionally bad) mapping, then yes people can and will comment based on screenshots alone.
If I see a screenshot of a bad map as "advertisement" of a game, then I can point out to its problems without playing that game. And I wouldn't even want to waste my time playing it if the developer couldn't even make the screenshots interesting. But I would point out errors in those screenshots (has happened before when I helped moderating early feedback here in the forum)

2) Ever thought about the possibility that those people did play the game, learned that it was a joke and decided to go along with the joke by writing fake reviews about that bad game?

 

[Tuomo L]

It depends on the presentation. I can think of two different ways that those comments could have happened, and you didn't give enough info about the original case to decide on this.

1) if you had the "game presentation" with screenshots of the (intentionally bad) mapping, then yes people can and will comment based on screenshots alone.
If I see a screenshot of a bad map as "advertisement" of a game, then I can point out to its problems without playing that game. And I wouldn't even want to waste my time playing it if the developer couldn't even make the screenshots interesting. But I would point out errors in those screenshots (has happened before when I helped moderating early feedback here in the forum)

2) Ever thought about the possibility that those people did play the game, learned that it was a joke and decided to go along with the joke by writing fake reviews about that bad game?

1) The maps weren't intentionally bad, they were from my first ever project. They were genuinely bad, not intentionally that's why people didn't take it as a joke.
2) I thought about that too but you'd expect at least one person who commented on the four pages to go like "Oh, it's a joke."


It had stuff like Yuffie saying "I'm the greatest ninja...ever to have lived."


and people complained about that saying "This game's got such a corny dialogue, like you need to change it."

I think @InBlast is right here. If a game's screenshots and presentation are garbage or display a lack of creativity/skill/what-have-you then nobody is going to play it, and you CAN gleam some idea of what the game is supposed/going to be about from screenshots, that IS what they're there for! For the potential player/buyers to get an idea of what they're in for if they play the game, so if screenshot's look terrible why should the game look any different? PLUS if there are a lot of typos and grammatical errors in the screenshots/game page then you're going to expect them in the game proper, because if they can't be bothered to make an effort on people's first impressions of the game who's to say they're going to make an effort on the game itself?

Because Sephirox had hypothetically just joined a while ago and was sharing his fan project of franchise he loved, for free to fellow fans. It was fictional, hypothetical situation but one that was inspired by some people genuinely having done that and being shot down. I played many of the FF fan games and they were totally fine and never understood why some people were saying some really mean things about them.


Seriously, who goes to "Final Fantasy fangame" topic and complains about it having Final Fantasy sprite rips?

 

[dragoonwys]

Generally while I can say that it is unfair to make a comment about a game before you even played it, and especially horrible if you are trying to justify that particular comment as a 'fully fleshed out review'. One cannot shake the fact, that product presentation -will and can- sway what people think of the game before they even played it. Even if it is free, short and anyone with a potato level internet can download it quick, it takes a push for someone to click that download button in the first place.

Even if the dev intended it as a joke, when one sees a game on a game site (unless it's uploaded on April fools), people would automatically presume that it would be a legit game you are trying to show everyone and everyone will be in that mindset when pondering it's worth to download.

even seen single second of footage of it.

Screenshots are in a way 'a second of footage/material' to what is in the game. And if the screenshots already are bad, they would presume the whole game is like that and not even try to download it, since they have it in their mind that a game like that will not be fun and not worth the time to do in depth with it. It's like the ingredients tab for food, you wouldn't try a free sample of it if you seen that it had something toxic in it would you? But you would still point out why does it have that toxic ingredient in it even if you haven't tried it once.

This is why presentations are important, they are a sample for what to expect in your game even before they get their hands on it. Sadly to say, even if a game is amazing, if their marketing/presentation is horrendous (choosing all the worst parts of the game specifically for trailers and promotional material, leaving out all the neat things that are the core of the game), it will not fly as far as it could have or maybe not bothered with at all.

 

[TriceratopsX]

@Tuomo L

Seriously, who goes to "Final Fantasy fangame" topic and complains about it having Final Fantasy sprite rips?

You can expect some kind of quality from fan-games, besides I don't consider stealing someone else's work (IE Sprites) O.K and I'd think even less of it (if possible) if I could actually draw.

Because Sephirox had hypothetically just joined a while ago and was sharing his fan project of franchise he loved, for free to fellow fans.

If I had seen someone here joined "1 week ago" and had a game development page, or an early project feedback page, I'd be immediately suspicious of quality, and having the screenshots look like garbage would just cement in my mind the idea that this was some kid who just got RPG Maker and was biting off more than they could chew by trying to make their "dream game" this idea was probably in the minds of at least SOME of the people that commented.
I would tell them (the poster of said game) what could use work (based off screenshots) and point them to relevant tutorials for that subject/topic.

 

[immatx]

Huh, these were not the responses I'd expected. I have to respectfully disagree with the general consensus, I think it's VERY important to play a game first. The only time you shouldn't is when clearly saying that you are giving INITIAL IMPRESSIONS. Otherwise you can't tell without context. Maybe there's a reason why there's a particularly corny line, or the art is a certain way. Without playing the game you are pre-judging how you think it will be, and even though there are screenshots, you have no context whatsoever to where those pictures come from in the game. I can understand people giving off feedback based on those initial impressions before playing the game, but to condemn it because of that is just ridiculous, at least in my opinion.

Look at minecraft. Its a good game with an ugly interface, but it fits the context of the game, resulting in an enjoyable game.

 

[Fernyfer775]

I can agree with both sides of the field on this topic, and I can see where both are coming from. I would veer more towards agreeing that somebody should at the very LEAST play the game before they decide to provide feedback outside of the "aesthetics" realm. If they are making feedback about the look of the game based on the screenshots alone, then that feedback is warranted, but if they never played the game and try to provide feedback on the gameplay itself, then I agree with immatx and Tuomo L that their "feedback" is unwarranted.

 

[mogwai]

It seems to me if your game was made bad on purpose for sake of humor or social experiment or whatever, you should expect fair reviews for your bad game.

 

[Pine Towers]

Presentation.

Your "game" looked bad, so people previewed it bad. If they had played it they would reviewed it as a joke. Interestingly, what we see in gaming is not what we get. Recently, it becomes quite the opposite of your experiment: The game IS bad, but the screenshots and videos make them look good. *Cough* Mass Effect Andromeda *Cough*

I learned that every experiment generates experience and the conclusions sometimes are not the ones we searched for.

Your "game" showed that customers will judge your book by the cover and, if it was good, maybe they would have even pre-ordered it alongside the season pass and exclusive DLC only for the PlayBoxU platform. You discovered the sin that modern AAA developers use to make money (but in the inverse way).

 

[Tuomo L]

It seems to me if your game was made bad on purpose for sake of humor or social experiment or whatever, you should expect fair reviews for your bad game.

They didn't even look at the game, because they would have noticed what it was about. You literally can't make a review of a game or tell that something about it is broken if you've not played one second of it.


Seriously, some of the replies in this topic is the reason that I made the social experiment in the first place. Maybe I'm just a crazy person but I never go into random game topics and start going "Your game looks awful and has horrible maps" if I haven't or even plan to play the game which is what happened with Final Fantasy fangame.

EDIT: I found some of these horrible mapping screenshots that people complained about back in the topic.

I didn't find the screenshot with Yuffie going "I am the greatest ninja...ever to have lived."

 

[TriceratopsX]

@Tuomo L YES! If your screenshots show badly made maps people WILL comment that the maps look bad.

And some people go through the early project FEEDBACK(key word) and game development page to find rm games to play and possibly offer FEEDBACK on. (sry if this comment comes of as angry/mean spirited, that's not how I'm intending it)

 

[OwMeEye]

I'ts because most people don't write comments, responses or "reviews" with the purpose of "I played this game and I want to share my opinion so the author can make an even better game." I think most of the time it's more along the lines of "I've seen this somewhere or heard about it somewhere and I think it relates somehow to this thing which always annoys me in games, I want to complain about it so the others can share some of my dissatisfaction, especially the author."

There's another thing. People like to assume things, it's that little thing that causes all kinds of stereotypes and bias. It has the purpose of simplifying reality, which has it's uses, but also has drawbacks. "There is something about games that I think is frequent and which I don't like, I don't have time or interest to play this game, but due to everything that I've heard of it (bias from majority may also be involved, "I've seen other say so, so it must be true") I assume it includes those things which I don't like. So, let me complain about these things."

To put it simply, people like to and are prone to assume things based only on hearsay, or based on selective imagery. And, most of the time people are driven not by cold logic or rationalism, but by their emotions. People often assume things, often wrongly so, and then proceed to complain about it. This goes far beyond the scope of gaming. This is especially so when it relates to some heated issue of public dissatisfaction.

Furthermore, people often perceive things not like "this is a place for me to give genuine, well thought out critique and analysis", but more like "this is a place for me to complain about things and socialize with other people"

That's my wild guess.

 

[Tuomo L]

@Tuomo L YES! If your screenshots show badly made maps people WILL comment that the maps look bad.

And some people go through the early project FEEDBACK(key word) and game development page to find rm games to play and possibly offer FEEDBACK on. (sry if this comment comes of as angry/mean spirited, that's not how I'm intending it)

I posted some of the screenshots, couldn't find the Yuffie one but I can try and dig deeper.

 

[gstv87]

I got like 4+ pages of replies of people complaining about mapping and presentation, combat system, the length of the game, etc

when that happens, and you know that they walked right into it, ...... just facepalm.... slowly.... quietly....

 

[TriceratopsX]

@Tuomo L

1) The maps weren't intentionally bad, they were from my first ever project. They were genuinely bad, not intentionally that's why people didn't take it as a joke

I was more refering to this, sorry that wasn't clear before as I was replying on mobile.

Honestly though I can see and understand both sides of the debate here, yes it's bad to judge something without playing/watching it but if you make something bad intentionally then your just asking for negativity whether or not people actually played it or just looked at the screenshots