Every year in August, I make a trek to Germany to attend a video game conference ironically called Gamescon. When I say I make a trek there, I mean I listen to the a recorded version of the livestream on YouTube while I’m working on boring spreadsheets. The purpose of the conference, and all video game conferences, is game journalists asking game developers insightful questions. Some gems from the conference: “Is this a game?” “What do you do in this game?” “Can you tell me the title of this game and what is it all about?” I always find it helpful when they ask those questions. Occasionally, they demo the game, which is much more helpful, because it answers the questions I have about the game, like, “What is the title of this game?” and “What is this game about?” and “Is this a game?”

When developers answer the questions, they often talk about how they were inspired to create the game. A lot of them lie through their teeth and say stuff like “I was walking in a park and I saw tiny creatures battling with other creatures, so I stole that idea and made Pokemon.” My favorite one was the guy that said he went on a vacation to Mushroom Kingdom and he followed a guy named Mario and saw that he was hitting his head on boxes with question marks and coins appeared, and then he jumped on creatures called Goombas and then he jumped up flagpoles, and found a spiky shelled turtle that stole a princess. Inspired by that profound experience, he created a game called Mortal Kombat.

Another thing developers brought up was that they liked to scroll through forums, Discord, and Twitch, and create Beta’s so they could get feedback on how their games were resonating with the gaming community. Many of them said they found feedback very valuable in their creation of the game. They even said that they would make huge changes to the game after receiving feedback from gamers. I happen to believe none of them, because I know personally how destructive feedback is.

Some people, including game developers claim that feedback is a good thing. It is my opinion that feedback is horrible, destructive and out of touch. Some people even claim that the customer is always right, when in fact, the customer is always wrong. They just need to be fooled into believing that their feedback is “welcome” and “matters”.

That’s not to say that I don’t believe that the customer is always right, but it’s only true if the customer is me. When I’m writing a blog post, or writing my book, I don’t care what any of you think. I write what I know to be true or about things that I care about. In the immortal words of Adam Sandler said in The Wedding Singer, “I have the microphone and you don’t…so you WILL LISTEN TO EVERY WORD I HAVE TO SAY!” When Adam Sandler yelled those famous words, his microphone had a lot of feedback. But he didn’t care about the feedback, because the feedback was loud, screechy, wrong on so many sound levels, and completely useless to the guy that is yelling on the mike. That’s what feedback sounds like to me when I’m writing on my metaphorical microphone, this blog. It’s loud, screechy, wrong on so many levels, and completely useless to me.

Let’s look at the origins of the word feedback. It was first used in the early 1800’s when the first cows were abducted by aliens and given mouths on their backs. Farmers found that the cows made better milk and steak when they were fed on their back mouths instead of their face mouths. They started using the phrase “feed their backs” and then shortened it in the late 1980’s when video game developers at conferences got tired of saying “their” and shortened it to feedback when they asked gamers to feed them “information” instead of feed to make their games become meatier, not meteor.

I’ve made the mistake of asking other writers and readers to give me feedback on my book and I’ll never do that again. All their feedback is stupid. They tell me to fix sentences that don’t make sense, correct grammar and spelling, and tell me to fix huge plot holes in my story. First of all, have they never heard of Spell-Checker? Have they never heard of AI fixing mistakes? And have they never heard of Marvel movies, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings? No matter how much those books, comic books, and movies made, they all had nerds pointing out the tiny and huge plot holes in their stories. If even the best stories ever can have plot holes, why can’t the all-time best story (mine) have a few plot holes?

Even my life has quite a few plot holes, and it’s a true story. In other words, you can give me feedback on my blog, story or even my life, but I’m just going to ignore them, because the customer is always wrong when it comes to me.

Feel free to make comments on the post, but just know that feedback will be met with extreme hostility, even if you claim it’s “constructive criticism”, because I just call that “destructive criticism”. In the meantime, look closely at the Bitter Friday Giftures, because they are making you very sleepy and they are hypnotizing you into only leaving heaping huge praise upon this post…

Every year in August, I go to Germany…

When I say we go to Germany, I mean…

The purpose of the conference, and all video game conferences…

However, the developers often tell interviewers…

So can they spend time making their glitches in their games…

The origins of feedback come from the 1800’s…

And the aliens gave them mouths….

Some microphones get feedback…

However, I find feedback…

Though I still encourage you to send it in…

Especially that “destructive criticism”…

ARRGGGHHHHH

Bitter Feedback Ben