Starfield developer Emil Pagliarulo has criticized player discourse surrounding the game, and how disconnected some are from the realities of game development.
Studio Design Director on Starfield at Bethesda Game Studios, Emil Pagliarulo, took to Twitter/X to highlight how some players speak with complete authority in their complaints, despite being disconnected from the realities of game development.
Pagliarulo mentioned that he acknowledges the consumer perspective, and agreed that when one spends money on things, that gives them the right to complain about those things. He stated that he doesn’t complain about games over social media, as he knows that it’s hard to make games and because he has too much respect for his fellow developers. He also doesn’t complain over the internet because he himself works for a game studio, and it would, therefore, be unprofessional for him to do so. According to him, most people don’t have these constraints, and are free to post whatever they want. According to him, the internet is a “glorious wild wild west”.
The Starfield Design Director stated that when he was writing game reviews long ago, he was that person who would say whatever he wanted about a game, whether it be good or bad. Sometimes the good was over-enthusiastically too good, and sometimes the bad was him being sarcastic. Yet, at the time, he actually had no idea what game development was actually like, and how hard the designers, programmers, artists, producers etc. struggled to bring a vision to life with constantly shifting resources.
He mentioned that this is simply the nature of AAA game development. As per him, nobody sets out to make a bad game, and most game developers are incredibly talented, even if the game they release isn’t up to par.
According to Pagliarulo, game development is a series of concessions and tough decisions. There’s that perfect game you want to make, and then there’s the game you can make, he said. Sometimes, the original vision and the final product end up being very close. However, in order to get a game as close as possible to the vision, the development team has to push itself harder and harder, often while dealing with developers being shuffled around (or leaving), looming deadlines, and creative decisions one wished they didn’t have to make.
He stated that people can dislike parts of a game, and they can hate on a game entirely. However, he added they they shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking that they know why it is the way it is (unless it’s somehow documented and verified), or how it got to be that way (good or bad).
Furthermore, Pagliarulo said that unless you’ve made a game yourself, you don’t know who made certain decisions, who did specific work, how many people were actually available to do that work, any time challenges faced, or, more importantly, how often you had to overcome technology itself.
