Game Developer Survey Question Two: What’s keeping you from obtaining your goals?

The second question on the game developer needs survey asked what it is that kept developers from reaching their goals. The overwhelmingly reoccurring response type had to do with obtaining funding, but there were other very large concerns.

Question: What are some things that are keeping you from reaching your development goals?

  • Time management issues. These ranged from not having enough time to spending too much time. Some developers are juggling many projects but don’t have enough hands.
  • Respondents also expressed feelings of burn out and being overwhelmed with tasks and needing help with workloads. They felt their quality of work suffers when they have too much to handle.
  • Not enough constructive criticism. Respondents were concerned with receiving too much negative criticism (assuming trolling comments like “THIS GAME SUCKS”) without suggestions on how to improve.
  • Lack of energy and motivation, tied to criticism and time issues.
  • Need for concrete goals and scheduling.
  • Need another designer to improve workflow and backlog.
  • For a designer with a language barrier, the need for someone to instruct the dev team.
  • Not having a game with enough playability to drum up marketing and fundraising buzz.
  • Art assets are lacking.
  • Lack of resources, often related to fundraising. Respondents expressed a need for video pitches and development services, lack of marketing and PR, and a lack of collaboration contacts.