The Trouble of Tunnel Vision Gamers and Developers

Not Seeing the Forest for the Games

As someone who has had to bear witness to every game dev complaint cycle that has occurred on social media over the past decade, I can say that real life is a roguelike with how many times the same argument happens repeatedly. Recently on social media, I saw someone perfectly encapsulate one of the worst thoughts you can have about game design, and they’re not alone. A problem that a lot of developers and consumers have when it comes to understanding and analyzing games is when they only view games from their specific point of view, and it’s time to talk about why tunnel vision is bad for game design.

My Way or the Highway

Tunnel-vision in this respect is only looking at the industry and games from one specific point of view — yours. We see this from critics, journalists, YouTubers, streamers, and consumers: “I don’t like game X, so X is just bad” or “I really like this, so it must be perfect.”

We can also see this any time a game comes out as a surprise hit — your Balatros, Vampire Survivors, FTL, and so on. You will always hear a chorus of people declaring “Why is this game doing so well? It’s just X.” Game design analysis is still a mystery to people, not just those outside of the industry. Being able to…