Introduction
After I posted How I Learned to Finish Games After It Took Me Six Years to Release My First One, I received a lot of feedback.
Among that feedback, the line
“A released bad game is more valuable than an unreleased masterpiece”
seemed to be taking on a life of its own, so in this article I will add some context.
Excerpts from the Responses
I searched Twitter for released bad game and unreleased masterpiece, and there were all kinds of reactions.
Here are some excerpts:
- “What even is an unreleased masterpiece?”
- “A released bad game is harmful.”
- “A game that has not been released but has attracted attention is more valuable.”
- “A game might still be a masterpiece even if it is released.”
- “Maybe it is a masterpiece because it was released, and a masterpiece because it was not released.”
Organizing the Statement
There were parts of my statement that did not come across clearly because the definition was vague, so I will sort that out here.
What Does “Unreleased Masterpiece” Mean?
Some people were confused and asked, “What is an unreleased masterpiece?” but they were probably looking at it from the player’s point of view.
This is a term from the game developer’s point of view.
By “unreleased masterpiece,” I mean a game that the developer and test players can recognize as fun, but that most general players cannot.
I used the word “masterpiece,” but you can read it simply as “a game that is fun to play.”
A Game Can Have Multiple Kinds of Value
After seeing the reactions to my statement, I realized that games can have multiple kinds of value.
Broadly speaking, game value can be classified like this:
| Value as a game | The value it has when people actually play it. This is the value most people usually mean when they talk about games. |
| Value as experience | The value it has as experience for the game developer. |
| Value as art | The value it has when its visuals are appreciated. |
| Value as entertainment | The value it has when people are excited for its release or have fun talking about it together. |
Most of the reactions to my statement were referring to one of these kinds of “value.”
The reason the reactions were so divided was that my use of the word value was ambiguous about which kind of value I meant.
What I Really Meant
What I said, “A released bad game is more valuable than an unreleased masterpiece,” was basically meant to encourage the following people:
- people who keep polishing a game forever and never manage to release it
- people who hesitate to release their own game because they are not confident in it
That phrase spread much farther than I expected and was seen by players as well, which seems to have caused the gap in expectations around the word “value” and led to the mixed reactions.
So to make the statement clearer so that it still makes sense even if it spreads on its own, a more appropriate version would be:
“A game that is never released will never be evaluated for its value as a game.”
What “Value” Meant in That Statement
In my statement, the word “value” covered two things: “value as a game” and “value as experience.”
I wrote it without thinking about the different kinds of game value, so the two meanings got mixed together and became vague.
Below, I will spell out exactly what I meant by “value” in that statement.
Value as a Game
The first meaning is “If you do not release it, it will not be evaluated as a game.”
If you watch game development Twitter, you sometimes see a game you once saw in progress and think, “It had great visuals or interesting technology, but I do not see it anymore…”
Those games may have “value as art” or “value as entertainment,” but they do not have “value as a game.”
That is because they cannot actually entertain players as games.
The same applies to AAA games that have already been announced and will probably be released eventually.
Until people can play it, it has no “value as a game.”
Only after it is released and becomes playable does “value as a game” finally emerge.
That is reflected in reactions such as “It is a bad game because it was released” and “It is a masterpiece because it has not been released.”
A game that is never released will never be evaluated for its value as a game.
I Was Not Denying the “Value at the Moment of Release”
After seeing my statement, I noticed that it made some game developers feel a little bad.
Maybe they felt as if I was saying, “That game you have been working on for ages and still have not released has no value.”
What I do not want people to misunderstand, though, is that I was not denying the value that comes from being released.
Games that no longer show up on Twitter, or games someone is still making somewhere, still gain “value as a game” once they become playable.
And I have also seen many solo developers say things like, “I spent years and finally released it!” Those games are usually polished and well received.
In the same way, if you are confident you can release a game, then I think you should keep polishing it for as many years as needed, release it, and demonstrate its value as a game.
Value as Experience
The second meaning is “If you do not release it, you will not grow as a game developer.”
Some of the reactions to my statement were things like:
- “A released bad game is harmful.”
- “A released bad game steals people’s time and money.”
That is certainly true.
Even if a game has value for the developer, it may have no value for the player and can even be a negative experience.
I also saw game developers who seemed reluctant to release because they did not want players to suffer through a bad game.
Even so, I still believe they should release it.
Everyone starts out as a beginner.
You may play games and read about how to make good games, and that can give you some sense of what a good game looks like. But that is knowledge without blood in it.
For example, in competitive games, studying the game or watching a pro player does not magically make you good at it.
You need to experience it, not just feel like you understand it.
Game development is the same. Even if you play great games or read about how to make great games, that does not mean you can immediately make a game that everyone will enjoy.
You need to release something once and look at how players respond.
Only then do you gain blood-and-bone knowledge about what went wrong and what worked, and only then do you grow as a game developer.
If you want to get better at making good games, you should release them.
Closing Thoughts
What I wanted to say is simple: do not keep postponing release by using quality as an excuse.
A game can only be evaluated as a game, and you can only truly learn as a developer, after you release it.