I don't envy game developers sometimes, nor do I envy the assumptions they have to hear time and time again from their players. Assumptions like, 'Why didn't they add a theft/crime system?' or 'Why don't they just do this, it's so simple?' and, most infuriatingly, 'These devs are so lazy'. As a critic, I might absolutely dunk on the end product—but I'm never in doubt that folks worked hard, even when it's a stinker.
That same frustration comes clear in some responses to a recent mega-interview by 's Austin Wood—which is well worth a read. It's an assemblage of dozens of developers across the industry, who're keen to dispel myths about how they make their games.
"The one thing people misconstrue the most is—if you think about when movies are made," Pilestedt explains, "You get an actor and they're there, and you tell them what to say. But games are so meticulously crafted. You have to build the actor from the ground up."
Buckley echoes this later in the piece, as well—though he also side-eyes the live-service churn of our modern gaming landscape. "I think gamers have just become so used to this kind of constant cycle that they're now applying it to every game they play."
It does seem that way, sometimes—and while I'm guilty of having a moan about game content cycles myself on this very site (though I maintain that Square Enix [[link]] isn't a small studio, and probably has enough money to hasten a bit) I try to at least understand that those issues, as always, stem from outside and logistical factors rather than the sin of sloth.