I didn’t have strong feelings about the current discussion regarding play testing and games on Itch. I didn’t feel compelled to say my own piece about it, especially at length.

And I really mean it when I say “at length.” Mute if you don’t like long threads, I don’t mind.

(For one thing, as my friend Lucian pointed out, how do you even *know* if a game has been play tested? I know a lot of very clunky, dysfunctional games that were play tested for years, as well as a lot of wonderful functional games that were never play tested.)

But, looking at the original thread now, I saw the OP say something that I found to be an actively undermining sentiment: namely, if you want to charge money for a game it needs to be play tested.

(I don’t want to land anyone in hot(ter) water than they’re already in, which is why I’m not QTing, RTing, or visibly replying to the original thread, but it’s not hard to find.)

For context, I playtest most of my games, because I enjoy the process. However, the two games that got me started in game design and built my momentum toward doing this full time were NOT play tested when people gave me positive feedback about them.

I strongly do not consider play testing necessary for every game that has a price tag on it.

The idea that you *must* playtest games you plan to charge money for seems to be the core thesis of the OP. That frustrated me and catalyzed a lot of thought on my part about how marginalized art has been historically disenfranchised by establishment figures in their fields.

We don’t need to do things that way in games.

Art made in the margins, by marginalized people, has always been underrated and delegitimized. There's a clear tell when that's happening any time, and it happened there.

The tell is: the second someone establishment says "when money changes hands [this thing that is largely inaccessible to people who are not also established must occur]." Whether intentionally or not, that enforces material disenfranchisement of marginalized people from art.

It is one of the reasons why “legitimate,” “highbrow,” “fine art” is so often EXTREMELY white, while there is a whole world of art made by ppl who look nothing like, say, Andy Warhol and his friends. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-artists-famous-friends-originality-work

In fact, I'd say this disenfranchisement is ESPECIALLY true in creative, artistic spaces when white people are used to setting the standards, whether culturally, financially, or in some other aspect of their field.

It is also why POC in the art world are so often tokenized, as a gate pass to proving an institution is progressive when they’re actually just as invested in upholding white establishment status quo as they ever were.

While I exist as an overlapping point on several axes of marginalization, the axis that drives my experience of identity as a marginalized person is my *racial* marginalization.

My status as a nonwhite person underscores and impacts every other aspect of marginalization I live out, so that is largely what I will speak to in relation to what I observe.

Seeing a white, established professional in the industry say “you need to playtest any game you plan to charge money for” immediately reminded me of POC art that is seen as “outsider”/“untenable”/“niche”/"unmarketable art."

To me, it's self explanatory how that carries material, negative consequences for POC artists.

I really enjoy the process of playtesting. I've learned important things about my games by doing so.

And, if this were a set cultural standard in indie games, I would never have released my first two games, let alone for money.

That's relevant to this conversation in a very tangible way, in that if I hadn’t set up the foundation of games work when I did, right now I would be in very, very dire straights. Intermittent freelance games work is my current sole source of income.

I playtested Your Dead Friend AFTER I received several dozen emails from people talking about how it helped them through their own experiences with loss, grief, and love for someone absent.

After playtesting it Your Dead Friend, post-release, I made one mechanical change that enhances it. I made the updated edition available for free to everyone who'd previously bought it.

And if I'd never made that change, I would still love and be proud of that game. I would still have released it. It was in its *un*playtested form that friends and peers whose work I highly respect gave me the feedback and praise that made me think I could do this for a living.

I'm proud of my work. That includes my messy work, my imperfect work, because they are important parts of my process. And, even in that state, other people also enjoy my work, support it, and play it, in all its iterations.

Are there games by others that have been released that could solidly benefit from playtesting? Sure. And I consider that, equally solidly, not my business in the public sphere.

If marginalized people who publish their games through Itch are able to pay for groceries, their bills, or gain artistic pride from their work even when it’s not up to your standards, and all of that activity is not cutting into your earnings…why the hell do you care?

People who make the kind of games on Itch the OP refers to charge an average of $3-$5 for their work. I’m moving toward charging $10 for many of my solo games, MAYBE $15 for games that got more attention, over the next year. I’ve never charged over $9 for a single game yet.

I extensively playtested Have I Been Good?, my most viewed (11,198+) and most downloaded (2,057+) single title. But I could easily have not, and probably ended up with a game quite similar, because all my playtests revealed was “my game does exactly what I want it to do.”

If I didn’t playtest Have I Been Good?, would the man who made one of the more popular titles in indie games begrudge me the whopping figure of $215 I’ve made on Itch, for my most popular title?

That $215 is over the last year, by the way. This was not a recent release. That’s an average of $16.54 a month. Why does someone who is CLEARLY in no danger of a zero sum game with his earnings in relation to my earnings care about my $16.54 a month through Itch?

Why does he “feel really torn by it” that marginalized creators are charging $5 a pop on a platform he doesn’t even use to sell his games?

So other people are filling their plates by doing things differently than you. Why is that an issue? If you’re still able to keep your lights on and your plate filled, and others are able to do the same in their own way, WHO CARES?

Do you really begrudge someone making $5, $10, MAYBE $20 a pop off their unplaytested art when you’re able to pay rent or debt with your (usually more expensive) playtested art?

In fact, isn’t it actually kind of wonderful that marginalized POC creators are able to make ANY MONEY AT ALL through their art right now?

Isn’t that something that established white creators who’ve boarded the “we want more racial diversity in our industry” train ought to be actively celebrating and championing?

And, clearly, Itch is not a huge windfall. That $215 is not paying my bills right now. But the people who read and loved that game mean a lot to me. The people who support me on Patre*n because they read and loved that game help me literally keep my lights on month after month.

Why is my ability to keep myself afloat, and hopefully one day thrive, threatening?

The most in good faith gloss I can give that thread is that the OP presented their personal opinions and preferences as a universal industry standard, or a position of objective expertise. I am going to respond to the most charitable interpretation of what I read.

Don’t present what’s worked for you as though it’s universally true. Be ESPECIALLY wary of doing so if you’re white and you’re talking to a sector of your industry that’s largely made up by POC, especially poor POC, queer POC, disabled POC.

This industry is not nearly as limited as people think of it as BECAUSE of spaces like Itch. There is no reason for anyone well-established to feel threatened by Itch.

I have my own preferences for what I like and don’t like, what I think of as polished enough to personally enjoy playing or still too raw — and in the public sphere, there is NO REASON for me to bag on someone else’s process. Art is truly the embodiment of “you do you.”

What the OP said *specifically about how designers should not charge money for games that haven’t been play tested* is what white gatekeeping looks like.

I hope he amends his statement, and comes out STRONG in making up for enforcing an impression with a large fan base that could ripple out to have real material consequences for creators on the margins of the industry in order to tip the scale back.

You do you. But be kind, courteous, and considerate.

If nothing else, do so for your own self-preservation. People who’ve been reaching up to gain a spot at the table have long memories for who talks down to them from a comfortable seat they’ve been occupying for a long time.