Comments on: Should Game Producers Tell the Truth? (Even In a Restaurant)

By: Lumooja

Lumooja — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:01:00 +0000

I don’t think it’s polite to lie to people, so I always give constructive critics or constructive praises.

By: Jamie Woodhouse

Jamie Woodhouse — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:15:28 +0000

Would you like some actual constructive feedback, or would you prefer me to just say ‘everything is fine, thank you’ even though it isn’t?

If I give you the constructive feedback, are you going to actually take steps to improve the situation, for the next customer?

Why waste you time giving anyone constructive feedback, if they’re not going act on it?

By: Jordaan Mylonas

Jordaan Mylonas — Wed, 12 May 2010 02:26:49 +0000

I’d say it’s mostly fear of confrontation. Nobody WANTS to be the ‘asshole’ that reveals the horrible truth to someone. But, if things aren’t working, then most decent people would (or at least should :P) prefer to be informed of the problem, than to be left blind.
Of course, there’s an art to the delivery of criticism, as mentioned above.

By: Jeffer

Jeffer — Tue, 11 May 2010 15:31:18 +0000

Beyond politeness the cause of being willing to complain to associates but not to present the issue to the person who really needs to know is often a personal aversion to confrontation in general.

By: Sam Sweeney

Sam Sweeney — Tue, 11 May 2010 04:41:18 +0000

I think this is a phenomena that is relevant to not only the games industry; but in most if not all industries that can benefit from constructive criticism.

If your opinion on the subject is simply something along the lines of; okay, bad, good, terrible, etc than I don’t think that it is something worth saying and naturally most people will empathise and just not say anything. But when it comes to something like what do you think about the camera angles or player models, colours, sounds, etc, I think constructive criticism should be put out there and be viewed as a positive thing, because in many cases it brings a valuable insight to someone else’s view, whether or not it’s right is up to you because it’s subjective.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Tue, 11 May 2010 04:34:27 +0000

Did they not like the food because there was something weong with it? Because it wasn’t what they were expecting? Or because of their taste in food?

The first 2 it is better to be honest (well, usually the wait-person can’t do anything about the hype), and the last one it’s better to be polite (if you say “uugggg I can’t stand fish!” then why are you in a fish restaurant?)

By: Spunkmeyer

Spunkmeyer — Sun, 09 May 2010 19:18:50 +0000

Sandwich is a nice idea to be still polite. But I prefer to be honest. On the other hand, it is not always easy!

I think we are not always polite because of empathy. We can imagine how it feels when somebody says “I don’t like what you’ve done.”.

By: Jake Birkett

Jake Birkett — Sun, 09 May 2010 07:42:39 +0000

Sandwich technique = good, bad, good. I used to just to the bad, but no one liked it ;-)

By: archatas

archatas — Sat, 08 May 2010 20:20:42 +0000

It’s totally unrelated to game development, but an interesting theme anyway. In my opinion, it’s much better to tell the truth or not to tell anything than to lie to be polite.

Recently, I read some guidelines somewhere how to criticize others, where it was told that it is best to tell some good things at first, and then some bad things, so the criticized person doesn’t get insulted so much and can take this not too personally.

It’s totally important to be able to criticize politely as well as accept critics yourself. When people accept that they do mistakes, they can correct the situation trying to avoid problems in the future.

Analogous situations as you described, usually also happen between partners in families. But this is already another story.