When did We Stop Trusting Game Designers?

[garyh]

What I am interested in is how the reaction to game designer pronouncements has changed over the years. Prisoner6 makes a perfect test case example of what I'm talking about. The view, that I've seen espoused more than a few times, is that previous designers were "talented amateurs" who were only interested in producing a "good game experience" while current designers are only interested in hammering your pocketbook as hard as they possibly can.

I'm simply curious when this shift occured. Has it always been that way? Have people always viewed designers in this way, but simply lacked a forum in which to air their views? Or have we, as a community, become far more suspicious of designers goals?

Veteran baseball players and reporters in the 1880's were complaining about the new players only playing for money and not caring about the love of the game or playing the game the right way. Yes, the 1880's.

So my guess is that this sort of thing happens as soon as the second person becomes involved in something.

 

[Fifth Element]

Veteran baseball players and reporters in the 1880's were complaining about the new players only playing for money and not caring about the love of the game or playing the game the right way. Yes, the 1880's.

So my guess is that this sort of thing happens as soon as the second person becomes involved in something.

There's a lot of truth here. My second hobby is historical hockey research. I have personally read many accounts in newspapers from the 1900's and 1910's (organized hockey developed later than baseball, and wasn't openly professional until the mid-oughts), decrying the sad state of the game, how younger players didn't care about the game like they did "back in the day", and of course how they simply weren't the same quality of player either.

 

[Lanefan]

What I am interested in is how the reaction to game designer pronouncements has changed over the years. Prisoner6 makes a perfect test case example of what I'm talking about. The view, that I've seen espoused more than a few times, is that previous designers were "talented amateurs" who were only interested in producing a "good game experience" while current designers are only interested in hammering your pocketbook as hard as they possibly can.

I'm simply curious when this shift occured.

First off, trust in the game designers specifically is inextricably linked to trust in the company that pays them and thus, in effect, gives them their sailing orders.

For me, the loss of trust came partway through the 2e years, when I bought a few TSR splatbooks and found material from one repeated verbatim in another. It struck me then that these supplements weren't really put out to expand or enhance the game, but merely to make money. Since then, everything I've picked up has been viewed through this lens, and that extends to basic game design in 3e and particularly in 4e where (at least going in) there's a specific intent within the design to tie in with both DDM and an online subscription-based service.

Lanefan

 

[Garnfellow]

I'm simply curious when this shift occured.

Again, your basic premise is critically flawed, and people have given you plenty of examples why. There was no dramatic shift; designers have always been subject to criticism and skepticism from fans. There was no perfect Edenic state that we poor wretched gamers have fallen from. Cripes, schism and criticism was sown right there at the beginning of the hobby: Gygax and Arneson couldn't agree on what D&D should have been. RuneQuest, Tunnels and Trolls, Chivalry and Sorcery, the Fantasy Trip, heck, almost every RPG made is in some way a reaction to or repudiation of some facet of D&D.

So, I put it to you, when did "game designer" become synonymous with "something icky I scraped off my shoe"?

Just as a suggestion, I wouldn't recommend opening a thread with a rhetorically loaded post and then batting your eyes and proclaiming "I really don't have an opinion on any of this! I'm just curious!" I'm sure you're completely sincere, but it reads a little disingenuous.

 

[BryonD]

What I am interested in is how the reaction to game designer pronouncements has changed over the years.

But you are demanding that people accept your first premise, which is that there is a difference and your second premise which is that the difference is defined by the phrase "stop trusting".

 

[BryonD]

In any case, BryonD, I'm not quite sure what point you thought I was trying to make, but, whatever it was, it wasn't that. I was simply making an observation and putting it to the community to see if anyone else had noticed the same thing. No value judgements (other than possibly disliking the level of vitriol) attached.

Fine.
Then I am not responding to any point you are trying to make.
I am however responding to what you said.
No judgments (other than disliking the level of presumption and declaration of others position for them)

 

[Umbran]

So, I put it to you, when did "game designer" become synonymous with "something icky I scraped off my shoe"?

I don't think has ever been synonymous with that.

I honestly think you're asking the wrong question - Is the question when we stopped trusting them, or when we stopped accepting everything they said? If the latter - we never did. Ever. Trust is earned, usually based on past performance. Trust is something that may get me to buy a product with less than average review before purchasing.

But, in the past couple decades of gaming, I haven't taken a developer's design just because it came form a developer. I take their designs because I like them, or think they are good ideas - not out of "trust".

I am a free-willed, critically thinking, analytical beast. I can make my own choices. I like it when someone else gives me good ideas that I can work with, but that doesn't mean I have to take everything they choose to feed me.

 

[frankthedm]

My name is Paul Maclean. I live in Bradford (UK). I own Yog-Sothoth.com. I like roleplaying games.

I stand by my words. I will admit when I'm wrong (it happens). i endeavour to be courteous and civil.

How's that?

Brave and upstanding, though i'd caution against it becoming a trend. For someone who's income is tied to gaming, it is a decent idea. But this is a time when folks have been fired for blogging and applicants have lost job opportunities when their potential employers Googled them. Plus identity thieves don't need more ammo.

 

[WayneLigon]

Now, a thought hit me. What would happen if Mike Mearls had written either of these two bits in a recent Dragon magazine?

I think the only difference here is that the previous two bits occurred in a time before the internet as we know it. Firing off an angry letter to The Dragon required a fantastic amount of effort in comparison to replying on a message board. It would be fascinating to look at some of the APA magazines from that time and see if those fan-made products contained lots of invictive against the designers.

As others have said, I've never seen previous designers as immune to disdain. In fact, before the renaissance that D&D underwent with 3E, it was more popular to spit on D&D fans as losers who couldn't move on from a moribund and frankly stupidly-designed game. You think indie publishers show disdain for the more mainstream games? Feh, that is nothing compared to virtually all non-D&D gamers prior to 2000 and certainly nothing compared to, say, 1990. Entire marketing campaigns were built on the basis of 'this is how our game is not like *ptui* D&D'.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Gary Gygax, "From the Sorcerer's Scroll," The Dragon #16, page 21, July 1978

Excerpt from the end of the editorial:

In recent months, I have been the target of some pretty vicious and petty attacks from some of the “APA’s” [Amateur Press Association]. Much to the attackers’ collective dismay, I am still alive and well. I’ve never made any bones about my feelings toward the field: they are unprofessional, unethical and seemingly ignorant of the laws concerning libel. Most of the so-called “authors” seem to live in some sort of fantasy world, totally unconnected with the realities of everyday life. A good many of them are incapable of even quoting correctly.

When apprised of error or inaccuracy, their usual response is an outburst of paranoia and persecution complexes. As the author mentions, there are a scant few exceptions in the field. A few have written material for this magazine in the past. Hopefully, a few will continue to do so. There is one who once wrote for TD who will never be asked to again, after he grossly misquoted something I said at Origins last year.

When I first got into this business, I felt that the APA-zines might be good for the hobby. I even reviewed a number of them for TD readers. Now I know the error of my thinking. They serve no useful purpose.