devtodev

haha - never said that :) It also depends what you consider to be a 'good game' or a 'bad game'. Why do people usually think that the game is bad? Some would because the game didn't meet their expectations - there are usually AAA-hits on top of the lists of the worst games of the year. Some would think the game is bad because it aggressively pushes players to pay (you might be talking about that in particular). If you ask me - I'd say that a bad game is a game that's not fun to play :)

I have degrees in Economics and Mathematics. I used to work as a business analyst at the consulting companies, led various projects for banks and the government. Then I started working at Xsolla which deals with payments in games. Moving my career to the gaming industry was really great, as I didn't have to dress up and wear suits to work :D After Xsolla, I had worked at the large MMO 'Tanki Online', and then started working for devtodev - a full-cycle analytics platform for game developers - where I've been working ever since ;)

I think that (1) devs usually underestimate the importance the first session and First Time User Experience (FTUE). And they are very important and very often you can fix the first session fast without spending too much time and money, and it leads to the significant change of the audience and therefore your revenue. I also think that (2) some devs don't set any specific targets for games. Players must always know what to do at any given point of time (short-term goal), why they need to do that (mid-term goal) and what they are doing at all (long-term goal). A game, its interface, its script must always remind about that. There's also a problem when (3) developers misbalance difficulty, fun and monetization. Balancing them is a very sensitive subject, and you really need a lot of experience and/or have A/B tests that might not to answer all of the questions as well. Hope it does look like a summary :)

The one who’s eating both of them :D

A lot of people criticize Destiny 2 for a dull and monotonous gameplay and as a player I do agree with that. Also there's a misbalance of weapons as well. Of course I don't like that first you pay to purchase the game and then you pay more money within the game, although I understand the developers' point.

I haven't played FarCry5 yet but it made it to the short list ;) As a player, within the last 5 years I'd say that Hearthstone and The Witcher 3 do stand out for me. Hearthstone has a great gameplay and continuous updates and The Witcher 3 has a great design of the game world.