(I am not sure if it belongs here or in Beginners)

I find that feedback from other people might crush your faith in your own game.

A game developer might overvalue his own game, but others might undervalue his game.

Especially other indie game developers.

Usually you don't want to get feedback from other indie developers. Because many of them believe they are great designers and have to prove to themselves and others they know exactly what is a good game.

They also might have a Dunning Kruger effect of desiring to make a perfect game, so they will many times undervalue your game.

Not only that, most indie developers spend a lot of time developing games, so they aren't playing as much games as a gamer who is not a developer.

Gamers have a lot less interest to trash other developers' work.

So what I suggest is if you want feedback fro your game, find communties or forums of gamers who like the kind of game you make, and ask them.

Gamers who like a certain genre are very knowledgeable about the said genre. They probably know about it a lot more than you do, because they spend a lot more time than you playing that genre.

And again, even if you think you can ignore others soul crushing feedback, it might get into you and make you believe your game is worth less than it really is.

Some games might need some work to shine.

More than once I felt like abandoning games that if I have invested more time in them, they might have turned out a lot more succesful.

So be careful of other indie developers feedback.

I'm sorry, but you are sounding just really deflective and bitter.

Instead of trying to accept the feedback, you are trying to justify it by blaming the person behind it. What even makes you think that the person criticising your game is another developer? Do people usually say “Your game sucks! Oh btw I'm also an indie-developer, sup?"

See, there's a lot to say about feedback. If an overwhelming amount of people tell you that your game is bad, you know what, they are probably right. If only a few people say that your game is bad, but the majority find it good then its not about “ignoring the soul crushing feedback”, but it just becomes a matter where at least you can be sure that you have something good (as there will always be people to find bad in anything).

I mean, I kind of understand what you are saying. When I started out with my fan-fic game in a beloved franchice, I got virtually murdeded by people. Did I like their negative feedback, and hearing that the game that I thought I put so much effort into is essentially trash? No. But you know what? They were right. Did I rage and try to defame them and try to defend my game to the fullest? Yes. But you also know what? After I stopped that, took the message behind the harsh words to heart as well as accept the truth (that my game really wasn't that good), I managed to improve the game so drastically, and now I get nothing but praise from the fans of that genre. I really don't know when there was the last time I got negative feedback. And ironically, that only came to be because I was being trashed.

Is this always the case? Not necessarily. Surely, there are things that are eigther over or underrated but in the vast majority of cases, I belive that what you see is actually what you get. And so if you don't like the feedback you are getting, don't try to make the people criticising you be silent. Don't try to ignore what they are saying eigther. Don't take it personal; try to take whather you can from it to improve the game. And you'll see peoples reactions change.

I am not necessarily talking about the community here in gamedev.net.

Actually I got quite good constructive feedback in this community.

Some people will just trash your game, they will say it looks boring, they will say it looks like an adobe flash game, or that you shouldn't ask money for this game and give it for free.

Indie developers tend to make a better case for trashing your game, but many of them are just spewing nonsense themselves.

You should just keep in mind that some feedback might be dishonest, and that people might pretend to know what they are talking about, just to project their own frustration.

I have seen this kind of stuff.

You can't say this does not exist.

I am just saying, be prepared to sometime understand that the person who give you the feedback is dishonest and just trashing you for the sake of it.

I am not saying, ignore all bad feedback. I am saying, sometimes people give very dishonest feedback and are just negative in general.

There are people like that, it's a real thing. And people who aren't experienced might be crushed by those people.

It's kind of a take on “The expert", other indie developers might pretend they are experts and give you crushing feedback based on their perceived authority.

Zurtan said:
Some people will just trash your game, they will say it looks boring, they will say it looks like an adobe flash game, or that you shouldn't ask money for this game and give it for free.

And those people are indie-developers? Again, you haven't given any good reason why you even belive those people are developers themselve. You sound like an insecure person trying to play deaf to criticism by pretending its coming from group X/ethnicity X/whatever.

You should just keep in mind that some feedback might be dishonest, and that people might pretend to know what they are talking about, just to project their own frustration.

I have seen this kind of stuff.

Ok, and how did you know that their feedback was being dishonest? Sure, there might be some cases were you can clearly tell that someone is lying, ie. if they were to say that your games autoscroller was boring (when you don't even have an autoscroller) but other than that… you sound extremely entitled if you take someone that says “your game was boring” and just counter that with “oh, that person is lying”. Actually, that makes you sound very dishonest yourself.

I mean also, the crux of your post is that without having given any concrete examples, its just pointless rambling. Yes, cases of people being dishonest exists, but as I said its a matter of perspective. If 1/100 people trashes your game, whether its honest or not; if that bothers you IMHO its more of an issue of your own personality/maturity than everything else. If there are 80/100 people trashing your game than I'm sorry, they are not all lying. For example:

Zurtan said:
Some people will just trash your game, they will say it looks boring, they will say it looks like an adobe flash game, or that you shouldn't ask money for this game and give it for free.

Well, maybe your game does look boring. Maybe it looks like an adobe-flash game (which is more of a criticism of cheap and unpolished looks than meaning its made with flash). Maybe it is of such low quality that it doesn't deserve to get money. Those games also do exist. You can't say this does not exist.

But instead of dealing with whether or not that criticism is justified, you just say - ey, they are game-developers, their are entitiled, they are frustrated, blah blah.

My ;TL;DR btw is: you shouldn't be concerned with whether the feedback you get is honest or not. unless a person is absolutely blatantly lying (= talking about things that are not in the game); you take the feedback as feedback. Don't try to qualify that feedback based on your assumption of the person that wrote it. I get it, I was in that position and had that state of mind myself, but its not healthy.

(“What if?” arguments and reverse logic?)

Because I was in developer chats and forums and I knew these people are developers.

Well someone said “Well the font isn't matching the retro sprite style. Change it to some retro font”.

First of all, that's a very simple thing to be aware of. Second of all, it's not so simple if you try to support multiple languages.

That's like one of the flimsiest critiques. Then he go on saying “Your game looks boring, I am being honest.”.

This is from a developer who pretend to know about how to develop games.

Not all feedbacks are equal.

Not all critiques are equal.

Some feedback has a much better quality and effort than others. The ones that are are usually not that decisive.

I have a lot of good feedback on my game, that is why I know when something is trashing my game like “looks boring” is because of his own low effort and his lack of interest to invest some effort to understand what he is looking at.

He could say “The trailer doesn't show a lot of features or things going on” or something like that. But when he says “Your game looks boring” that's just lazy.

So I am just saying, be prepared for some people to really try and do cheap shots. Sometimes they might be on point, but most of the time they are not.

And most of those cheap shots come from other indie developers, from my experience.

I have also given you why usually indie developers feedback count less, because they play a lot less games than gamers.

Now, if it's an experienced indie developer, he is likely to give better feedback. But there are a lot of developers who just take cheap shots.

@zurtan I feel a little bad for you here. You've posted something that is (I think) supposed to be encouraging and prepare those of us who have yet to launch a game. It's likely that (in part from that retro-font comment you mentioned) you've experienced this stuff yourself, and you've taken it pretty hard. You've hardened from this unconstructive, better-than-thou criticism that you've heard from some people.

That you end up pointing fingers at certain groups by X parameter, as @juliean pointed out, isn't cool though. I'm sure what they have in common is that they're bad at giving constructive criticism. I think I know where you're coming from, and there are entitled people everywhere.

But please don't be one of them, even if it can be tough at times.

I don't really think that positive of the indie developers community, to be honest.

I mean, every person is an individual, but I have some criticism of the indie developers community.

But that is another subject.

What I am trying to say is… not all criticism is equal or valid.

Some people should just be ignored.

I don't agree to the reverse logic way of thinking.

Sometimes a lot of people might gang up on your game, because they are the same sour people from the same community.

Even if most critiques don't like your game, it doesn't prove your game is bad with reverse logic.

Because, the vast majority of games won't tap even 1% of the entire market, even get 1% of the entire market's share, is like… millions of downloads.

So even if most people don't like your game, it doesn't mean you can't have a lot of sales.

Take for example that RPG guy, that makes “shitty RPGs” just for his fans.

So even that argument of “If most people don't like your game, it means it's bad” might not be valid at some cases.

What I am saying is be very careful who you believe when people criticize your games. Because some people just don't like the type of game you make, or don't like you, or just frustrated themselves, so they channel their frustration in a very unconstructive feedback.

What do you mean, “becoming like them”?

I am allowed to say I don't like the indie community much. It doesn't mean I am going to give intentionally negative criticism.

There is also a matter that for a game to be successful on Steam, it doesn't have to be a good game.

To be sellable, is not the same as to be a good game.

When someone asks for feedback, he opens to the public something he might have worked on for months, and if someone trash it without thinking about it more than 5 seconds, his feedback is probably not worth a lot.

There are people who can give sharp feedback in a very short time, sure.

Whenever you get feedback, you don't only need to analyze the feedback itself, but also you need to recognize if the person is genuine or just channeling his own frustration on your game.

If someone tells me “This game looks boring”, maybe it's because he himself is already bored from being a gamer(maybe not, reverse logic for you).

Zurtan said:

What I am saying is be very careful who you believe when people criticize your games. Because some people just don't like the type of game you make, or don't like you, or just frustrated themselves, so they channel their frustration in a very unconstructive feedback.

Yeah some people…

Zurtan said:

I am allowed to say I don't like the indie community much.

Of course you allowed to say that here. In the same way it's allowed to go into a factory and say you don't like the blue collar community much. Perhaps it's not the best way to make friends, but at least you've made your statements clear.
You were also allowed to say

• (others might undervalue his game) Especially other indie game developers.
• Usually you don't want to get feedback from other indie developers.
• Not only that, most indie developers spend a lot of time developing games, so they aren't playing as much games as a gamer who is not a developer.
• So be careful of other indie developers feedback.

Are you absolutely sure getting feedback from indie developers is as big an issue as you think it is? I'd be so pleased to get some good feedback from another developer while going over my plans. One-man teams are tough. It's the same as with code reviews - if you become comfortable with them, it's often very productive, and you'll learn a lot from it despite learning a little humility.

Zurtan said:

What do you mean, “becoming like them”?

Well, you have critiqued the indie community, and while I'm sure no single individual is going to get butt-hurt over that, look at what remarks you've made: The sole constructive thing you've come up with is that developers spend less time playing than gamers - which even if it is a blanket statement at least has some constructive grounding in that we only have so much spare time. The rest is just a mess to me.

Zurtan said:

Because, the vast majority of games won't tap even 1% of the entire market, even get 1% of the entire market's share, is like… millions of downloads.

So even if most people don't like your game, it doesn't mean you can't have a lot of sales.

Take for example that RPG guy, that makes “shitty RPGs” just for his fans.

So even that argument of “If most people don't like your game, it means it's bad” might not be valid at some cases.

There is also a matter that for a game to be successful on Steam, it doesn't have to be a good game.

To be sellable, is not the same as to be a good game.

All relateable, just not to your point in the OP.

Zurtan said:

When someone asks for feedback, he opens to the public something he might have worked on for months, and if someone trash it without thinking about it more than 5 seconds, his feedback is probably not worth a lot.

There are people who can give sharp feedback in a very short time, sure.

Why are you concerned with how long people spend on providing feedback? If it's lousy feedback, won't you suggest just moving on?

Zurtan said:

Whenever you get feedback, you don't only need to analyze the feedback itself, but also you need to recognize if the person is genuine or just channeling his own frustration on your game.

Absolutely. And shouldn't this be your main point, really? It can be difficult to tell who the reviewer is unless they specify it, but it's much easier to tell if the feedback is relevant to you or not. So why don't you look at that first, instead of being “careful of other indie developers feedback”

Yea, there are a few points here.

I am trying to warn people of other indie developers giving them feedback.

I think a better term to use if game development is not your full time, is just to call yourself a hobbyist developer or if you do full time, then maybe a professional game developer.

Indie game developer has a culture behind it, a culture that I think is very toxic, it has it's own circles and communities, it has it's own politics, it already have one member who committed suicide over false allegations.

I guess when I say indie game developer, I don't mean all hobbyist game developers, just the ones who are in the same echo chamber of indie developers.

Of course, not all of them are bad people, but they are really living in an echo chamber, they have their own culture, their own communities.

Also, if you are conservative you are almost guaranteed to be expelled from some of their communities.

Ok, let's sum it up:

1. Some of the people who call themselves indie developers, are very bad at giving you feedback for multiple reasons.
2. If someone gives you bad feedback, you should always keep the option in your mind that he just might be wrong. It seems simple, but it's not always simple to realize that the person that talks with overconfidence is not just talking BS.
3. Game developers should probably call themselves hobbyist developers or professional developer, because indie developers is just a toxic culture that should be differentiated.
4. Gamers that play a lot of games in the genre you make, are probably more likely to give you good feedback than developers or other people who don't play as much of that genre as them.