How do you handle the sometimes harsh criticism and take care that the team doesn't lose motivation?asked by charmin

Well, it's hard sometimes. But at the end of the day I would say that the fact that we're building a game that we've all wanted to build, that we've all dreamed about building for a long time, and we can see it coming together is a big motivation. Yeah, it's totally frustrating to see everyone out there second-guessing decisions you make, or wondering why you're late, or 'god damn, they should, are they incompetent, they're not professional, they should get this thing out' and it's hard, because development is a very complicated thing. This is a very big project, there's a lot of people we have on it. As long as I've ever made games, it's very hard to predict stuff very accurately, especially in the early days, cause there's always so much R&D. There's a lot of things you try an experiment, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't work, and anyone can tell you that manages big projects, even not software projects, just say a construction project, the bigger the thing you have with the more items or elements that have to be done, that just means there's more chance of some of those things getting messed up, or not coming out the way you expect, and you having to redo them. So anytime you've got big huge projects, there is always a level of difficulty and unpredictability. And then it's sort of frustrating to sit there and have people wonder why you're taking so long and stuff, but at the end of the day, we're going to build the game in a way no-one else has ever managed to build it, and that isn't the majority of people anyway, and to be honest with you, I"m perfectly fine with it because, yeah I'd be frustrated if I was waiting, I want to play this game too. I mean, I'm kind of frustrated. I give people internally shit when things are late or they say, oh it was going to be here and it comes in late, and I"m like... I give them the same sort of abuse that sometimes we get back from the community, but I think that's sort of the price you pay, and the fact that we're building something that we really care about, and the rest of the team really cares about, I think is the most important team. And you just need to develop a certain level of either pigheadedness or a thick skin, because you have to realize when you get a large group of people, you're never going to please everybody all the time. You can please most of the people most of the time, but you're never going to please all the people all the time, so what I tell everyone here on the project, and i do this myself, is I say listen, it's really important to go with what you believe in. Listen to what people are saying, take it in, and if someone says something that resonates with you, that you agree with, then that's worth considering and putting into action and doing something about.So I think one of the problems with development in more of the sort of button down public company publisher world, is that there's a lot of second-guessing where people don't necessarily trust their instincts. Not necessarily the key people on a development team, but there's always a lot of other levels, on marketing, on publishing, where they're asking do we have the right feature set, is this what the kids want today, and but I saw this other game doing this, maybe we should have this other feature, and that's the sort of noise that hurts a game. Being true to yourself is really really important, and I emphasize that with the team, and if you manage to do that, and you take in the input from the rest of the community whether it's good or bad, and just say hey, it's input, it's really great to get input, and don't let it affect you personally, and use it for the benefit that you can get from it, then I think it's fine, which is one of the reasons why I"m perfectly fine with everyone arguing on forums about controller balance or whether they feel like the flight model's right, because people are passionate enough to really care about it, and are putting their views out there strongly, and it challenges myself and the team to make sure that what we believe in, we're doing. It doesn't mean we're going to agree with whomever's the loudest, it just means that I"m find with the debate as long as people are fairly civil about it. It's not fun to be namecalling or putting people down, but you should strongly put forward your argument, and why you think it's right, and I'm telling you that, even though some people feel like they don't have any input or have any effect, everybody here definitely pays attention to what everyone says in the community, and we do listen, and we take on things that we think about and we try to adjust and fix, I mean, it's an ongoing process, and that's, there you are. That's how we don't lose motivation, cause we're building the game we want to build, and we know there's a lot of people behind us, supporting us in having us make that game, even if they don't vocalize it in a supportive manner, we know that their heart's in the right place.