Game developers across the industry describe the complexity of making what seem like simple things in games, from doors to object interaction and more
Rebekah Valentine / IGN : Tweets: @javierabegazo , @krides , @liambme , @jennyyokobori , @mparekh , @jeff_tanton , @adambankhurst , @ysbrydgames , @therealandymc , and @bc_trevor Tweets: Javiera Cordero / @javierabegazo : We need more press like this. More compassion and empathy from gamers please 💖 https://twitter.com/... Sergey Mohov / @krides : Honored to have contributed my 5 cents to this amazing article. https://twitter.com/... Liam Edwards / @liambme : Honestly; this article is amazing - but ho BOY do I hate making menus. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Jenny Yokobori / @jennyyokobori : Please be nice to game developers, they're working so hard https://twitter.com/... Michael / @mparekh : Edge cases. Always the Edge cases. Not as easy as it looks. Games today, auto driving Cars tomorrow. https://www.ign.com/... Jeff Tanton / @jeff_tanton : This story not only perfectly encompasses the game-dev experience - but packs so many teachable moments into it that it becomes essential reading. Fully agree with @ghostordie's closing answer https://twitter.com/... Adam Bankhurst / @adambankhurst : .@duckvalentine has done it again. What a fascinating look into the world or game development that I recommend all to check out! https://twitter.com/... Ysbryd Games / @ysbrydgames : We are so thrilled to see @essecorrea from our cohort at @GlitchFTY give some perspective and behind the scenes looks along with several others amazing developers in this awesome article from @IGN! Worth the read! #indiedevs #indiepubs https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Andy McNamara / @therealandymc : Awesome work by @duckvalentine. Putting the difficulty of game development in simple terms is never easy but this piece knocks it out of the park. Every game is a miracle. https://twitter.com/... @bc_trevor : I love this article. It really highlights the fundamental disconnect between what is easy and difficult to develop vs what player expect and value. https://www.ign.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Rebekah Valentine's IGN piece aggregates working developers — Sergey Mohov, Liam Edwards, Jenny Yokobori, Ysbryd Games, and others — explaining why doors, menus, and object interaction are far harder to build than players assume. It lands in an industry conversation that has been building for years: Kotaku's coverage of static triple-A prices, developer burnout, and slowing release schedules framed the cost squeeze back in 2019, and the New York Times later reported executives admitting cinematic production costs are delivering diminishing returns.
The article's implicit argument is that invisible engineering labor is a hidden driver of both budgets and delays. That connects to Spiderweb's founder laying out the business case for deliberately retro, low-overhead visuals and to the indie funding crisis Wired documented, where studios close and talent leaves the industry entirely.
First-order effects
- Players get a rare look at the actual cost of polish — the contributors' own reactions, from Javiera Cordero calling for gamer compassion to Liam Edwards venting about menus, show developers using the piece to reset expectations about scope and timelines.
- The named developers and studios gain public credit for unglamorous systems work that normally goes unnoticed in reviews and marketing.
Second-order effects
- Studios can point to coverage like this when defending schedules and budgets — a counterweight to the executive admission that graphics spending no longer pays, shifting the value case toward interaction depth over visual fidelity.
- Press that humanizes development teams, as VICE found with Discord communities shielding devs from backlash, gives studios a playbook: transparency about difficulty becomes a buffer against abuse when features ship late or get cut.
Third-order effects
- If the empathy gap keeps narrowing through this kind of reporting, scope decisions — like Spiderweb's decades-long bet on retro aesthetics — look less like compromise and more like a durable strategy against rising production costs.
- The industry's structural problem, talent loss from studio closures and unfunded projects, gets a cultural counterweight: a player base that understands why 'simple' features consume months may tolerate slower, smaller, more sustainable games.
The trend: Game development is entering a public reckoning between player expectations of seamless polish and the rising labor cost of producing it, with transparency becoming part of how studios manage that gap.