Thread by @JesseHeinig

If you want to be a better game designer, destroy your ego.

(A thread.)

You will make mistakes. You will make cringeworthy material. You will design something that is clunky, or ineffective, or a perverse incentive, or insensitive, or a mechanic that threatens the entire game's integrity.

These are moments to learn from, and people who talk about them are giving you feedback to absorb.

Taste is subjective. People who rail on your material because of differences in taste are expressing opinions, which means you can decide how much weight to give them.

People who point out mistakes and errors are sometimes jerks about it. You can't do anything about that. What you can do is decide what you learn from those mistakes and errors. If you choose to reject such feedback because it made you mad, you just lost a chance at improvement.

You're under no obligation to platform people who are cruel to you, but don't mistake "this was an error" for a personal jab. If you cut out everyone who gives you critical feedback, you lose a significant chunk of material from which to grow as a designer.

Some things you can't do anything about. When people are jerks about it, ignore them. If you can't do anything about it, why waste your time and energy on it?

Folks love to go online and say "Why haven't you done this thing?" when your company or your product isn't planning to go in that direction. And some people won't take it well and will never accept anything you give them. Ignore the ones you'll never please.

When you make a big mistake, that's a teachable moment, both for you as a designer and about you as a person. Do you own up to it? Or do you double down, try to silence the people who are giving you critical feedback, go on as if nothing happened, learn nothing?

If you're a game designer, you should internalize this difficult lesson as early as you can. Otherwise you can spend years losing valuable critiques, insights, and learning experiences.

Destroy your ego. Use your mistakes to learn.

~Fin~