6/15/18 Twenty Lessons, Part 19--Feedback

All podcast content by Mark Rosewater, transcript by https://otter.ai, editing by Lucas Harrington

I'm pulling out of my driveway! We all know what that means! It's time for another Drive to Work. And I still have that cold but I'm persevering. 

Okay, so today is another in my series, 20 Years, 20 Podcasts. We are up to lesson #19. Almost done. So the lesson #19 is, your audience is good at recognizing problems and bad at solving them. 

So the interesting thing about this lesson was, every other lesson that I gave during my speech I had hit upon some time in my writing or my podcasts. You know, I had hit upon them. If you actually were a regular listener of me, a reader of me, when you saw my 20 Years 20 Lessons, most lessons you'd have heard me talk about somewhere else before. This was the one lesson that I had not mentioned before. 

It's a very specific one, very technical one. I was doing a technical talk. So this is not something that had come up before. And some people I know, were a little taken aback. What do you mean, the audience doesn't know what they're saying. And so let me explain a little bit what I mean by that. 

 One of my jobs is I am a spokesperson for Magic. I've done a whole bunch of different podcasts about it. But the short version here is, I am on multiple social media. I have a Twitter account that has like, I don't know, 75,000+ followers, I have a Tumblr account where my blog is that I answer questions every day. And that has like 25,000 followers on it. I have a Google Plus account, I have an Instagram account. 

And on--so basically, I do a comic a daily comic called Tales from the Pit that I--every weekday that I put on all those channels. I have a poll that I do on my Twitter thing, obviously answer questions on my blog, on Tumblr, and I write an article every Monday on the website called Making Magic and I link to that through my various online media stuff. 

And then on Fridays, I have a podcast, I'm assuming you guys know that since you're listening to it. And then on Fridays, that gets posted, two episodes per week. And then on the following Monday with my column, it gets linked again. 

Now beyond just that, beyond the social media stuff, I do a lot of video work. I record a lot of stuff. I also travel some, I do a live thing called Blogatog Live. I do it every year at San Diego Comic Con, usually one other event, I've done it at PAX, I've done it at HasCon, this summer, I'll be doing it at Grand Prix Las Vegas, because we're doing a big 25 year celebration that I'll be at. 

And that's where I answer questions live, where I'm not--it's not filtered at all. Because when I answer them online, I can pick and choose what I want to answer. Live, I have to answer what gets asked to me. And I do a lot of interviews, I am being interviewed all the time. Some of which are audio, some are video. 

But anyway, I interact with the fans a lot. I do a lot of outreach. And it's not just a matter of me talking to the public, it's me getting to places where the public can talk to me. The public can ask me questions or tell me things. Like one of the things that happens on my blog all the time, is people don't even post questions. They're just like, "I have something I want you to know. And I will tell you." 

And so I get a lot of feedback. And for the regular listeners, know that I consider that feedback to be like a really, really important part of my job, a tool of my job. Because, you know, fundamentally, my job is to make sure that we are making things that you all want. Well, how do I do that? How do I know that? A big part of that is just listening to you and having you tell me what you want. A lot of this lesson talks about the--that the audience themselves is a tool, a valuable tool. 

So the metaphor I use for this for this lesson was going to the doctor. So you go visit the doctor, what is the first thing the doctor does? The doctor says to you, "How are you feeling? Tell me about you." Now, obviously the doctor will check you out, the doctor will listen to your heart and look at your ears and he'll check you out. But he doesn't stop at just checking you out. The first thing he does is inquire from you how you're feeling. 

And the reason is, a doctor understands the following thing. You are the expert on you. You know how you are feeling better than anybody else. If you have a problem or are in pain, or if there's any issues that you have, you're the one that's going to know best. So the doctor comes to you, as you are the expert of you. But once the problems are described, he doesn't ask you how to solve the problems. He solved the problems. Why does he solve the problems? Well, he's the one that's trained in medicine and you're not.

So, part of what I'm trying to say with this lesson is a couple things. One is, there's some training that goes into it. That one of the things I've learned--like, before I was a game designer, I was a television writer. And what I discovered is, when you work in some sort of creative thing, that's entertainment-based, and your audience, you know, you are entertainment to your audience. 

Meaning that they absorb a lot of it, and that you're something they enjoy. When they spend a lot of time with that, there becomes this belief that, well, they could do it. That oh, I could write a television show, oh, I can make a game. And usually my response to that is, well, if you think you can, try making one. 

Because what you will find is, there's a lot of craft that goes into it. a TV show, you might watch--you're like, for example, my example here is, I've been driving a car now for 34 years. I'm familiar with the car, I have a general sense of cars, I have some idea how cars work. Could I fix the car? No. You know, I mean, other than really minor issues, I can't solve the problems with my car. 

It's not that I'm not used to cars, it's not that I don't interact with cars, I literally am in a car, about an hour a day, every day. I mean, I drive a lot, I know my car. That doesn't mean I can fix my car, because the act of making a car is very different than using a car. 

And that is true for games and other creative endeavors, that somebody can play your game and enjoy your game. But that doesn't necessarily [mean] they understand the underpinnings of the game. 

And there's a bunch of reasons for that. One is, there's a craft that goes into it that they might not know. Now, I personally, one of my goals has been to share the craft of Magic design with the audience. 

You know, if you want to design your own Magic stuff, and you want to understand the craft of Magic design, I am not exaggerating, I've written millions of words on this topic. Between, you know, between my podcast and my column and my blog, and I generated millions of words. Millions of words on the topic. So if you want to know how Magic is made, there is a lot of education you could do. 

And one of the things that's really interesting, like doing something like the Great Designer Search, is seeing people who really have studied it. Who really have said, I want to understand the craft of Magic. And the key, by the way to understanding the craft is not just reading about it, but actively doing it. 

So there are a lot of educated--in fact, there are probably more educated Magic players than there are a lot of other things, because I've spent a lot of time and energy educating the Magic public. 

But, I don't educate them on everything. And there's a couple reasons for that. One is, there's a lot that goes into making Magic. I did a whole podcast once about all the different people that you have to deal with when you're making a design. 

That there's developmental issues, there's art issues, there's story issues, there's templating issues and editing issues. There's rules issues, there's digital implementation issues, there's tournament implementation issues, there's brand issues, there's marketing issues, there's sales issues, there are printing issues. There's endless number of issues. You know. 

That when you make a Magic set, there's so many different people you have to interact with. And I've shared with you as much as I can, sort of the stuff I do. But that's not all the stuff that gets done on Magic. 

So here's a good example of something where this didn't come up until it came up. Like it's something that I knew. But until there was a moment to explain it, I never had a reason to explain it. 

So they were middle of Theros, I believe. And there are gods, there's a whole bunch of gods. In the first set there were five mono-colored gods, kind of the major--there are like major gods and minor gods. 

So the five major gods each had an artifact. You know, a hammer, a bow, a whip, you know. And these were powerful, you know, god-created artifacts. So because in Theros, the gods were all enchantments, in addition to other things, that these were enchantment artifacts. 

And a lot of players complained that we didn't make them equipment. Because it was a hammer. Why can't I give the hammer to my my goblin? And what the answer was, is it didn't fit on the card typeline. And they came back and they said, oh, well, that would be so many letters. But wait, here's a card--you put in this card, and this has that many letters. So why can't you do it? 

And then I had to explain typography. When you print stuff, letters have a width. All letters are not equidistant. They're not the same width. For example, an L is skinny, an M is wide. You in fact can have three L's or you could have one M. 

And so the point I made is, the other thing that we were able to print just had skinnier letters. Yes, it had the same number of letters, but the issue in typography isn't the number of letters, it's the total width. Because you're fitting it into a space.

Now my point there is, that's something that we as a business have to care about. I don't really think about that until it matters, like, until the editing team comes to me and says, hey, it just won't fit. We need to adjust this. You know, then we adjust it. 

It's the kind of thing that until somebody asked me about, like--when I'm explaining how I do my job, that is a relevant thing that will have an impact every once in a while on what I do. But yeah, I never mentioned it before, because it never came up in the context. 

So A, there's things that I'm willing to explain, but just haven't, some of it has to do with areas outside of expertise. Some of that has to do with just, hey, I never got there, it's a narrow situation that doesn't come up much, and I never happened to get there in any of my writing. 

And now the other thing is, there's proprietary information. Like there's things we do, like I talk a lot about collation. I mention the concept of collation, but I don't mention the details of collation. That's proprietary. You know, we don't want people to know how we collate. So I'll give you the gist of what we do, but not the details of what we do. 

But that matters. So for example, when I'm making a set, collation will directly impact what I can do. How I can get the cards in the pack, or how we can lay them out matters on how the set is built, like--even how many cards are in the set has to do with how we collate it. So like, there's information that's super important. But it's not something the audience knows. 

Then another big category would be the future. We're designing cards not in a vacuum, or sets not in a vacuum, but in an environment. And you guys might know what precedes it, but you don't know what comes after it. 

The classic example of this would be, we had made a set called Shadows over Innistrad that had a strong graveyard component. The set that followed it was Kaladesh. Traditionally, what we do is we give answers in the following block to the block before it. 

But we didn't, we didn't really give a lot of graveyard answers to Kaladesh. And the reason we didn't was, the set after Kaladesh, Amonkhet, again, had some graveyard elements that we were trying--we were trying this experiment where blocks two apart from each other repeated themes. It didn't work out great. 

But anyway, because of that, we didn't want to sort of undermine an upcoming set. So when the audience was yelling at us, how can you not do Thing X? It was because, well, because of reasons why that you don't know. 

So that's another big thing is, that, you know, the audience does not have all the information. One of the reasons the audience can't always give answers that are crisp, and clean, clean and clear, is they don't know all the factors that are going into it. 

Now, here's another one, which is what I call player bias. Or it's really audience bias. It's true of any, probably, art, but I'll talk about in terms of game design. And what I mean by that is, Magic has many components. That if you just take a Magic card, for example, and chop it up into all its components, I don't know, there's like 20 components on a Magic card or something. There's a lot of elements to a Magic card. 

Not every person cares about every facet of the card. For example, there are some people who the art--it's not that they dislike the art. It's not that they don't, you know, if you took the pictures away, they might be unhappy there's no pictures, you know. 

But the art is just like--it's a thing that helps me recognize the card. The artist, I don't know who the artist is, I don't learn who the artist is. It doesn't matter to me, you know, I just want the picture so I visually can remember what the card is. But the artist isn't a thing to me. 

Meanwhile, there's other people who the art is the thing that really, really matters to them. And knowing who the artist is, is super important. And whether--let's say we have a card that's like a reference to an old card, the fact that we reuse the old artist is a big deal to them. And if we don't, it would be something they would complain about, and it would lessen the card for them. So, like, here's an example of something in which, for one person, it's a giant deal. For others it's almost invisible, because it's not something they care about. 

So in general, one of the problems that--not problem, but one of the issues the audience has is, you have your own bias for how you see the game. And as far as you're concerned, that is what the game is. If you like playing a certain format or a certain way, or care about a certain kind of card, that's what a game means to you. 

So when there's a problem, A, you are more likely to identify problems in your area of expertise. And when you go to solve them, you prioritize what you care about. So a lot of times the way people will solve it is, I care about Thing A, B or C? Well, there's an easy solution. But that easy solution assumes that that is the number one priority. 

You know, and I mean it makes sense that people will prioritize their priorities, that's why they're priorities. But it also, when we are making a Magic set, we have a lot of priorities that we have to deal with. There's a lot of players we have to deal with. And I can't just make one kind of player happy, I need to make all the players happy. 

And what that means is on any one card, I have figured out who that card is for and maximize it for that person. But on another card, I'm maximizing for a different person. So when someone looks at a set, what they're normally thinking--I mean, I've done a lot of education, some players get this now, but I'm not making every card for the same player. So if you look at every card and go, this card could be better for me, yes it could, There are things we could do that make that card better for you. 

So here's a classic problem we run into all the time. So there's a format called Commander. Commander has one character, a commander, that sort of the deck is focused through. And to pick a commander, you have to pick a legendary creature. So whether or not I make a creature legendary determines whether or not that creature can be a commander. 

Okay, so let's say I make what we call a lord. Which is a card that makes a race better. Makes a tribal race better. Race or class. So you know, I make goblins better. I make birds better. I make merfolk better. You know. That they, they enhance in some way. 

So whenever we make a tribal lord of some kind, there's pressure. Because if you want to make a deck about that tribe, and you have something that can enhance them, and that thing stacks, let's say it's +1/+1, well, I want to be able to get multiples in play. Like let's say all my goblins get +1/+1. Well, I want to get four of those in play, and now all my goblins get +4/+4. 

But if I'm a Commander player, and I love goblins, and I want a commander for my goblins, hey, I want a legendary goblin that helps goblins. So right off the bat, here's the card that, if I make it legendary, I make one group happy and make another group unhappy. But if I make it not legendary, I make the the other group happy. but the first group not happy. I can't make everybody happy. That there's decisions you make in the game that will go one way or the other. 

So one of the things as the game designer, you have to realize is, it is your job to prioritize everything. That you have to look at all the players and all the things you're doing, and make those larger priorities. Your player base does not do that. Partly they don't do that because they don't know everything. Partly they don't do that, because that's not their priorities. And so one of the things when the audience is giving you feedback, they are not taking into account your priority. 

So here's another big one, for example. One of the things that most game designers have to worry about is the business side of it. For example, in Magic, one of my jobs, in fact, a pretty important job of mine is selling booster packs. If we don't sell enough booster packs, and don't make enough money, you know, we have to lay off staff, we have to--you know, part of what we do is we're a business. 

And now, one of my goals as someone who makes Magic is, the reason I want Magic to sell so well is it's so much fun that people want to buy it. You know, a big part of my goal to sell Magic is just make it so awesome that you want it. But there are other concerns that come up. There are other business decisions that get made. There are other things we do where we are prioritizing things. 

Like for example, I'll give a good example of this, is maximizing resources. So for example, let's say I'm making a set. And I feel I've gotten the set to the point where it makes everybody happy. I have to be careful not to overstuff that set. Why? Because I have to make everybody happy on all sets. And if I have a lot of really cool things, if I put too much cool things in one set, that just makes the next set harder to make cool. 

So like one of the things that I'm constantly doing is I'm making sure that I'm managing our resources. Now given, I want to cross the threshold of making everyone ecstatic for the set I'm doing. I just don't need to go--like once I'm above the line, I don't need to keep adding on top of that.

Another good example is, like with planeswalkers. There's a lot of design space in planeswalkers that is yet untapped. But that's on purpose, because it is one of our most popular and important card types. Like it is by far the most popular card type from just a player excitement level. We don't make a lot of them, and the design space is tight. 

So I've been really holding back, and there's a lot of things we could do. But I'm trying to mine the space. Like here we have something that's a really important resource. And I want to make sure that we're not burning through equity too fast. So I've been holding us back saying, let's carefully advance. Let's make small advancements. Because I want to preserve the design space. 

Now, when other people are designing their own sets, do they worry about that? No. No, they don't. You know what I'm saying? That is something that is very business-oriented, in that the long term health of the game is something that really, really is important. 

Now, given if people understand some of these, I'm not saying that designers wouldn't follow that. But it's a complex thing. And it's something that I briefly touch upon. But it's much, much more important to me than it is to the average person, because it's my job to make sure that, you know, I have years and years and years and years of Magic sets to make that need to be awesome. And I can't do that if I just put all the awesome in one set. And the other sets are like not that good. I have to spread it around. 

So when I say that the audience is not great at solving problems, I'm not dissing the audience. I know when I first said that some, people were like, why are you dissing the--I'm not saying the audience isn't capable of understanding the game. I'm saying--I mean, it basically it comes down to three things. 

One is, there's some training they don't have. Second is, there's information they don't know. And third is, there's biases that they have, that there's no reason for them to lose them. I mean, once you're going to make Magic, I mean, if you're trying to make Magic for fun, and you want to really, really make Magic, like we make Magic, yes, at some point, you have to understand your biases, and move beyond them. 

But if you're just playing Magic for fun, you don't need to--play the part you like. There's no requirement that you play all the cardsin any one set. Find the cards you like, build the decks you like, play those things. You know, we create so much content so that people can handpick what they do. The average person can do the things they enjoy, they don't have to do the things they don't enjoy. 

So a lot of these things of why the audience sort of gives answers that aren't the perfect answer is not a bad thing about the audience. It's just, hey, this is their entertainment. This is something they do for fun. 

When it's a job, you know, you have different--like, I spent a lot, and my colleagues, and we spend a lot of time worrying about the minutiae of minutiae. Tiny, tiny things, like the width of letters, you know, things that you guys really don't need to worry about. But that we do. And because of that, when decisions need to be made, when we're trying to solve problems, a lot of times the audience is just not going to understand that or not know that. 

Okay, so let's get to the other piece. So there's another big piece. I've been talking a lot about the audience response. Let me talk a little bit about what this lesson is saying for you, the game designer. The real big lesson to me is, one of the most important things when you're a creative of any kind, or actually--making things of any kind--is, you need to understand your tools, because a craftsman is only as good as the tools they have access to. 

And one of the things that I'm trying to sort of illuminate with this lesson is, your audience is a valuable, valuable tool. Much like my doctor metaphor. If you want to know if they enjoy your game--no one's going to know whether the game is enjoyable more than the audience playing the game. 

Now, you might say, but wait, I play the game. But you have--on some level, there's so many things you have to care about. Because you're so removed, and you're caring about all the minutiae, it is hard for you to sort of drop that information. You know, it's hard for you to have the first impression, it's hard for you--that you on some level, because you've gained information to understand some technical stuff, it becomes harder for you to not see--you know, it's harder to not see the forest for the trees, you know. 

That you're so holistic in what you're doing, that sometimes it's--you know, one of the things I love about playtests is, some of them just go, hey, this makes no sense. And you're like, yeah, that doesn't. How did I not see that? Because I was just looking at things from a different vantage point.

The example I give is, I used to direct. I used to be a playwright, and I would direct. And one of the things that was really illuminating is, having actors, because your actor is all about one character. And they're so focused on that one character, and how that one character interacts with everybody else, that they ask questions of you that are awesome that you never thought of, because you even as a playwright, don't have the luxury to sort of isolate yourself in each character for as much as the actor does, because the actor has only one character they have to care about. And they get to a depth that you don't normally get to. And they ask questions that you might not think about. And it's really interesting. 

And one of the collaborative elements of theater is that the actors really, you know, I love when the actors say, I want to understand--and sometimes, it's not even that you didn't think of it, but it reminds you that--like during the creation, you did think of it, but you sort of forgot that you thought about it, and it pulls things back out. 

So I want you to think of the audience as a valuable tool in your toolbox. They know things that you need to know. Like, your job in making a game is making something enjoyable for them. How do you know if it's enjoyable? you gotta ask them. 

Now, I talk a lot about playtesting. Playtesting is super valuable. You know, if you are making something, you need to see the audience experience it as they're supposed to experience it. If you're making a movie, you have to show it to them as a movie. If you're writing a book, they have to read it as a book. If you're making a game, they gotta play it as a game. That is super important. 

And that part of this lesson is, that if you have an audience who plays your game--I understand if you're making a brand new game, you might not have this luxury just yet. But if you at all are making a game in which there's an active audience, you know, that you can still make decisions while the audience can see things.

Now, in video games, there's a lot of--they get to change things on the fly, right? We don't get to do that in tabletop. But the idea is, oh, this sword is too powerful, they can nerf the sword, they can make the sword worse. Or they can make it something better, you know, they can change things, as the game evolves to sort of help balance. They can balance things after the fact. 

So one of the things that's super important is, you know, understanding that your audience is available, and then understanding what it is they're good and bad at. Your audience is going to have opinions. 

Now, be clear. I'm not saying not to listen to your audience's opinions, like your audience will suggest things. I'm not saying you're supposed to ignore their suggestions. Mostly, what I'm saying is, their hit rate tends to be very low. For the reasons I explained. You know, they do not have all the information. And they do not necessarily understand the craft. And they don't know lots of things. 

And there's minutiae that they--you know, there's inherent biases. There's all sorts of reasons why their answers usually aren't the perfect answer. That doesn't mean you shouldn't listen to their answers. Sometimes they do have a good answer. But what I'm trying to say is, in general, having done this a long time, and listened to a lot of players, usually the players don't provide the--I won't say they don't provide a solution, they don't tend to provide the best solution, given the larger issues at hand. 

And so one of the things that I'm trying to say to you, the game designer, is--there is a reason, especially in the age of social media, now. You need to be familiar with your audience. You need to have a relationship with your audience. Make no mistake, the reason I'm so active on social media--I mean, A, I'm inherently a communicator with my background. But more so than that, I understand the great value. 

Like one of the things, for example, at work is, I'm known for being really in touch with the players. Now that's not like some inherent quality of me, it's not like I just intuitively know what the players want. I know what the players want because I spend hours upon hours upon hours talking with them and listening to them and answering the questions. 

You know, the reason I know players are upset about something is--a couple things. One is, I've made myself available for them to talk to. So it's not just a matter of listening, it's also a matter of creating a relationship with them, where they feel comfortable to talk to you.

You know, I've spent years and years becoming this person that they know they can talk to. So that they do talk to. And, you know--I mean, be aware, by the way, there's--I mean, the one side effect of being the face, if you will, is you will get all the feedback. The good feedback and the bad feedback. If they love something even that has nothing to do with you, you will get credit for. If they hate something even though it's nothing to do with you, you will get blamed for it. Because you are who they know. So you get the credit and you get the blame. 

By the way, my my my tip to you as someone who does this is, share the credit. Meaning when they give you--when they say wonderful things, try to share with them who deserves the credit, meaning share the credit, and suck up the blame. Just take the blame. Do not--if something is wrong, I'm sorry, it was wrong. You know. 

In general, what I've found is, explaining that you didn't make the decision doesn't really--it just comes across as you not wanting to own up that something went wrong. Accept the blame. Share the credit, take the blame. That is the harsh reality of being the face of game. 

Get out there. Interact with your player base. And, what we in communication call  two way addressability. Talk with them, meaning, share information with them, get information from them and have a back and forth. 

Like one of the things I like to do on my blog is, I often will--someone will ask me something, I'll talk about it, and then that spurs other people to ask and then I will purposely, like--I like creating themes for the day where there's some topic that we get on, that people get interested in. 

And I purposely sort of help promote that, like, that's the theme of the day. You know, I like sort of--oh, we're talking about this thing? Well, let's really dig in deep on this thing. Because sometimes I'm like, oh, this is a cool topic. I want to go deeper on it. 

Like one of the reasons I started my poll, my Head to Head poll, is, I want people to give opinions of, what do you think on this thing? And I found the polls definitely generate conversation. You know, some days I'm like, what do you like better, A or B, and like people are like, oh, and they really get into and talk about it. 

And, you know, we've made decisions. For example, there's a set coming out called Dominaria. In it, there's wizard tribal, we care about wizards. And that directly came about from, I had done Head to Head on creature types. And wizards did way better than we would. We're like, wow, people really like wizards. And you know what? We haven't done that much wizard tribal. We've done some. But you know what, it makes sense in this world, people have shown they really are interested in it. Let's do it. And so, you know, while I'm trying to create entertainment, I'm also always looking for opportunity to gather information. To find ways to learn more things about my players. And then, I apply it. 

So go out there. How much information you share about your game is up to you. I absolutely am in the far end camp, I share a lot about my game. Like I said, I've shared millions and millions of words about my game. I think there's a lot of benefit that comes with your audience understanding your processes and why you did things. 

The big gain to me is that they have a much better appreciation of what you do, that when you explain all the nuances, they get to see and recognize things that sometimes they don't. One of the things that happens all the time when I explain stuff, is them going, oh, I never noticed that. But now that you point it out, that's really cool. So one of the things about talking about what you do is there's some--it increases the appreciation your audience has for the the game you're making.

Now, that said, you don't want to give away all your secrets. I talk a lot about the importance of discovery. I'm not saying you want to share everything, You know, we make a big deal to not tell you what the good cards are, let you find decks or find combos, you know, we try not to sort of spoil the fun of you discovering things. 

But I do like to talk about sort of how things get put together, things that you would never necessarily learn on your own. Those are good things to share, where, you know, you're going to learn what the good cards are, or what the best decks are, you're going to learn that. But how we put this mechanic together, you're never going to learn without me telling you. So that's good things to share. 

And in general, the other thing I find is, the more you share with the audience, the more they share with you. For example, what I found on my blog is, the more questions I answer, the more questions I get. And I mean,  on a day to day basis. Like let's say I have a really busy day, and I only get to answer like 10 questions. Okay. I don't--I mean, I get some, because I always answer questions, I get questions. But I just get less questions that day. 

Meanwhile, let's say I'm out and about, or I'm somewhere where I have a lot of waiting time because my kids are doing something and I'm just sitting around. And so I have opportunities to answer a lot of questions. I'll just generate a lot more questions that day. Because they'll see I'm answering it, and you know, when you see I'm answering, you're more likely--or even I prompt you, I answer a question that prompts you to ask a question. Just the more I answer, the more people ask. 

So what I would say is, you want to get out there, you want to share some stuff, internal processes that make sense for you. You want to sort of answer questions where you can, and you want to create a means by which your audience--you have a conduit by which your audience can explain what they want. 

And the point of this rule today is, the most valuable part of that is them defining the problems. The audience is really, really good at saying where they're happy and saying where they're upset. And when they're saying where they're upset, they're really good at pinpointing why they're upset. 

Now sometimes, by the way--actually I should dial back a little bit. Sometimes they're really good at saying what upsets them. And with a little bit of digging, you can find out why it upsets them. They don't always tell you up front why it upsets them. I get that a lot actually because I just, I've created a strong rapport with them. Meaning I get more whys than I think the average person because of the relationship I've created with my audience. 

Usually they'll tell you what they're unhappy with first. I don't like this thing. This thing in the game I don't like. You then need to work with them a little bit to understand why. They don't always tell you why they don't like something. But with rapport you can get there. 

I have a pretty good rapport with my audience, and I've actually gotten to the point now where I've educated them that I want the why. That--don't just tell me you dislike something, tell me why you dislike it. Because the why on some level is even more important than the what. Because yeah, yeah, you can change the what, but if you don't understand the why, you might just recreate the problem. 

Understanding the why is understanding the source of the problem, not the result of the problem. And yeah, yeah, you can fix the result. But treating symptoms is not, you know, you want to figure out what its cause is--I said that wrong. You don't--a doctor isn't just like, oh, you have splotches, what's causing those splotches. They want to get to the root of the problem. And the same, what you want to do. 

So when you get out there, get a voice, get a rapport with your audience, find out what they dislike, then find out why they dislike it. They will also offer up solutions. I'm just saying take that with a grain of salt. For all the reasons I explained today, that is not the most valuable piece of information you'll get from them. The most valuable information you'll get is what and why--and how sometimes. You know, how it is working wrong for them. Understanding all the components of where their satisfaction comes from will allow you, the person with the craft and with the the full information to understand how to fix it. Because you have all the information, where they don't.

So anyway, I'm (???) at work. Anyway, a lot of what I'm trying to say today is that you as a game designer have a responsibility to go outside the bubble of your game. That the audience is there, I'm assuming the audience is. Your new game, that's not true. But if the audience is there, ignoring your audience is not doing the full work of a game designer. That, you know, if you are trying to make your audience happy, you gotta go to your audience to understand if they're happy and why they're happy and what makes them happy. And what makes them unhappy. 

You know, you need to go out--that this is a--not just a valuable resource, I would say a fundamental resource. That if you have an audience and you are not tapping into them, if you're not using them to understand what isn't working about your game, you are not maximizing. You are not doing the best job you can as a game designer. 

And that really is the point of today's thing, is, you know, a lot of people want to focus on the aspect where the audience is good at this one thing. They're awesome at this other thing. They're amazing at this other thing. They are better than anybody else at this one component. 

And yes, yes, this other component, they're not as strong at for many reasons I've explained, but the first thing they're amazing at. So if you are a game designer, you need to be tapping into that. 

And, part of what I want to say today is, that is not something that instantaneously is just there. You don't just *poof* have rapport with your audience. You don't even have a conduit to your audience necessarily. You need to foster those, to find them, to foster them, to build them. 

That--I mean, if you don't have a community, to help build communities is really important. I mean, Magic has a lot of built in communities. But you need to make sure your game has a community. And you want it--like, part of building your game is building the conduits into it so that the audience has a means to get to you. Because that information, connecting their information with you, is what is going to take your game from good to great. 

Okay, so anyway, I am now parked, so we all know that means. This is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking Magic, it's time for me to be making Magic. I'll see you guys next time.