Only through the eyes of a player. After the game is played through to check for technical issues, the game designer may play their game to imagine what the player feels and sees. They may treat this as a learning experience and use this as a continuous improvement cycle.

I design/develop games. During development, I play the game countless times until I'm 100% satisfied with whatever the goal is. To answer the question I will play my own games for fun IF the game design is VERY random by nature. This way the game can be somewhat unpredictable. I'm sure some of the developers of No Man's Sky play their game but Linear, Story based games; I don't think they would so much. This is why most designer/developer have a Procedurally Generated Game in their back pocket. It's a game they would probably play like Notch and Minecraft.

On 4/21/2018 at 3:21 AM, swiftcoder said:

As an indie with some creative freedom, why would you make a game that you didn't want to play?

Because you're still a small business and have bills to pay

If you made a multi-player game, then you should be playing it so you can be a part of your game's community (not just its maker).

On 20.04.2018 at 8:21 PM, swiftcoder said:

As an indie with some creative freedom, why would you make a game that you didn't want to play?

In the beginning, you want to play it! After a while, you get sick of the game because you test it all day  

I play mine all the time, but I keep getting beat by my AI.

I think the AI is better at my game than I am. 

Necro. Locking thread.