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Comment by alttab | Hacker News Reader

You would think after 25 years of making games he'd have enough sense to direct art himself in some way. Seems like he's rationalizing his choices instead of taking it upon himself to learn from his customer's criticisms and his own experience.

If I had made that many games over 3 decades I would have at least learned how to talk to freelance artists in a way that would get better over time. It seems Jeff has put no effort into it, or gave up too early because he's protected his choices with rationalizations.

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Yes I agree. I almost feel bad for disagreeing with someone who obviously put so much love in his games and rightfully stands behind them, but I cannot shake off the feeling that there is a huge potential for improvement there that does not involve hiring additional people, more expensive artists, etc.

Just investing some of his own time reading up on the fundamentals of art, visual language, perception, color theory, could vastly improve his judgement. I try to build games for fun and learning, and I consciously avoid anything that goes beyond my (non-existing) knowledge about creating 'professional' game art. In my case I resort to abstract graphics or introduce very strict voluntary contraints (like: only 8x8 sprites), ie: similar to what games like Baba is You or boxboxboy are doing. If I were to ever shoot for a game that required 'professional game art' I would definitely invest time to get better at it before even considering to start the project.

It's a bit like the programming side of things. Don't try to build your own engine for your game if you barely know any programming, for example.

I suppose, but all of that takes time, and he is only one person, and he only has so much time. If he directs some of it toward all the things you're suggesting, he'll necessarily be directing it away from the things that make a Spiderweb game a Spiderweb game.

I don't think he ever came out and said this directly, but he dances around it throughout the article: As a very small indie developer, that's a huge risk to take. He could end up alienating his current fan base, while at the same time failing to satisfy the tastes of others.

That's a really good point that I think a lot of folks are overlooking. Spiderweb games has been around for a long time and has a dedicated following. I actually felt pretty alienated when things like Geneforge came out -- It seemed like a huge step away from the simple sprite-based graphics I loved in his earlier games. (Not that Geneforge was bad, mind you! Just a big change.) Spiderweb has always had a very distinct brand of artwork. Call it crappy if you want, but I've always quite liked it.

Don't underestimate the risk of changing your style, particularly when it's a defining part of the experience. You will lose at least some customers. It may be worth it, but it's a significant risk.

I'm also thinking here of Telltale games. The original Telltale wasn't ever going to take over the world. But they had figured out a niche where some people (largely, admittedly, a nostalgia crowd) liked what they were doing enough to send a little beer money their way every time they put out a new episode. It was sustainable.

And then at some point they had a moderate mainstream success, and that got them thinking that maybe they could grow into a much bigger game company, and so they started pushing hard at trying to grow. That was the point where me and a lot of other fairly loyal Telltale fans stopped buying their games. The effort they put into other things meant that they were no longer putting as much care into the things that earned them their original fan base. And, at the same time, they found out that breaking into the mainstream market is a lot harder than it looks.

And now there's no more Telltale Games.

>I try to build games for fun and learning

so basically you aren't selling your games? Are you even posting them on itch.io? Your constraint set is WILDLY different

As mentioned in the article though, he did take steps to improve the art once, only to again hear complaints about it looking bad. How much effort should he be expected to expend chasing those consumers? Will the cost make up for it? His own reasoning is no, it won't, and it is difficult to disagree when people complain that 720p resolution is "unplayable".

> I try to build games for fun and learning

So you're a dilettante? That's fine. So am I. But I don't wonder about my future if my game doesn't sell (or doesn't even ship). He does.

Perhaps you should consider being a little more generous in your thinking.

I was just giving my perspective, not trying to draw any comparisons between my for-fun side projects, and game development for a living. That said, I don’t see any context were either investing time getting better at things you know are a weakness, or recognizing and avoiding them, would be considered bad advice. 25 years is a long time.

> If I had made that many games over 3 decades I would have at least

Yeah, but you have not.

Maybe Jeff having a single minded focus – maybe even bordering ignorance – is a huge part of the reason why he, in fact, has done it and keeps on going after 3 decades.

Considering different choices, could he be more successful? He probably could, but considering the immense improbability of the level of success he enjoyed over a couple of decades in this particular profession (indie game maker), it seems far more likely that any big change could have made it all crash and burn somewhere along the way a long time ago.

>Seems like he's rationalizing his choices instead of taking it upon himself to learn from his customer's criticisms and his own experience.

The thing about Jeff is that he very much accepts "good enough". Could he make more or do better? Maybe. But that entails risk. Why bring on risk when you're already doing what you love doing and living off it? To make more money? Jeff's not motivated by money except insofar as it's necessary. He just wants to do what he loves and enjoy his life and family, and the "good enough" pace he's set delivers on that.

His art does nothing for me, either, but I do admire his willingness to settle for "good enough" in order to focus on what really matters to him.

Seems like you're rationalizing your assumptions instead of taking it upon yourself to understand the experience he's trying to convey.

> It seems Jeff has put no effort into it

From the article: "I have had games where I worked very hard to improve the graphics, spending a lot of time and money"

> he'd have enough sense to direct art himself in some way

He does direct art himself in some way: "That is why all of my games have a more generic fantasy style. I have to work with a lot of different artists. It's the nature of the business. Thus I have to write games in a way that the artists can be replaced. The generic style this requires is not ideal, but it is necessary."

>If I had made that many games over 3 decades I would have at least learned how to talk to freelance artists in a way that would get better over time.

The definition of armchair criticism, if I ever show one.

From someone with no experience on that front whatsoever, and who doesn't even get the financial constraints clearly spelt in the article...

Some people just have no aptitude for aesthetics. It's one thing to know what you like personally, another thing entirely to understand what other people may or may not like.

Besides which, it feels like you're missing the larger point that he really doesn't care what other people like, which he can afford to do because he's making a comfortable living. I think it's great that he's making a living doing things that he enjoys without having to add stress by adding extra layers of complexity in the process - which would help how? More money? He clearly feels that he doesn't need more.

It seems Jeff has put no effort into it

While I agree with your assessment, his argument from experience seems to be that none of that will affect his sales, so why bother. I'm sure he knows more about that than I do.

He says at the outset that he’s responsible for the art and everything is done to his specifications.

Maybe art just isn’t where his talent lies.

I actually wonder if he couldn’t make 2x or more by investing in the art. His previous efforts went from terrible to merely bad. It would be interesting to see what could happen if he crossed the threshold into acceptable.

Then again, I don’t know the total market size for this genre. Maybe even fantastic looking games don’t make enough to support two full timers?

After 25 years of making games, he is directing the art. The art style hasn’t changed - that doesn’t happen over a span of decades without direction.

His art direction just doesn’t match the tastes of a large number of folks. Neither did H.R. Geiger’s. Nothing wrong with that.

The art style hasn’t changed

But it has, that's what many people are commenting on. His last two games looked much better than his current game. It could just be the luck of the draw with regards to which artists showed up rather than a conscious choice, but his new game clearly has a different look than his previous game.

Yes, I hadn't seen any pictures of his new game, so I thought he was talking about Avadon, the Avernum re-remakes, and so on, all of which look fine despite having a decent amount of re-used art and being iso 2D. The screenshots for the new game look worse than any game he's previously released.

Maybe, maybe not. You'd think after spending over 12 years or so trying to read through untranslated Japanese games that I'd get some sense of reading the language. I can't point out some kanji and even read some common sentences by myself but the fact of the matter is I'm not gonna be native anytime soon without focused study.

I imagine it's the same case here. There may be some passive knowledge gained over the years but not enough to be a competent art director compared to if he even spent 6 months dedicating himself to learning.

> You would think after 25 years of making games he'd have enough sense to direct art himself in some way.

It might simply be that he isn't particularly interested in learning it. If he isn't motivated by being an art director, then it would very likely lead to burnout.

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