Very confused article. (Gaming)

by uberfoop , Seattle-ish, Sunday, November 03, 2013, 14:50 (4037 days ago) @ SonofMacPhisto

Maybe it was flimsy because it doesn't need justifying? Honest question.

I dunno. I find that irrelevant as to whether it's a worthwhile argument though.

I think the author means "play-tested" in sense that AAA games are play-tested - so that they can appeal to a broad variety of people and sell well.

Maybe.

Besides, I'm not sure one would play-test a game like this and be validated by the results. You'd probably get a lot of people saying they just didn't like/get it, and be unable to explain why or how.

That's true. Although, it's also somewhat true that people suck at articulating what works about things they like. When dealing with playtesters, you're often going to get wildly mixed (and somewhat incoherent) responses about things even if everyone had fun.

If you don't even get a pile of vague complaints that you might kinda/sorta be able to sort through? Well... at that point it's basically impossible to validate anything about your product's effect on those who experience it (aside from yourself, glorious sample size of 1 person, whose relationship to the game is very different from everyone elses). I guess that's one way to go about your business, but it puts you in a really crappy position in a lot of ways.