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Developers can "get into a lot of trouble," worrying what the audience thinks, says Gilbert

Double Fine's Ron Gilbert has said game creators should have "no responsibility," to the audience. Instead, developers need to fail or succeed on their own accord.

Speaking with The Gameological Society, Gilbert said "anybody creating anything," should have no responsibility when it comes to managing audience expectations.

"You have to do what you want to do, and you have to do what you think is the right thing to do and what you think is the best thing to do," he said. "People who like what you do and are fans of your work are just going to like what you do as long as you do something true to yourself.

"You can get into a lot of trouble when you start to worry too much about what people are going to think because then you start to get into this weird self-censorship cycle. You do something that might be interesting and different and unique, but you become too worried what people are going to think, and you censor it."

Gilbert said when creating, no matter what they are,"books, video games, whatever—if they’re really good, they have lots of pointy little edges, and that’s what makes them interesting."

"It’s all these pointy little spikes and all these little things you can cut yourself and prick yourself on, that’s what makes creative work interesting," he continued.

"If you get into self-censorship mode, you start to pound all those pointy edges away because you’re very afraid of offending somebody or worried what somebody will think of it. And then what you’re left with is kind of blah, just not interesting.

"I think you just need to do what you think is the right thing to do, and hopefully people like it."

Gilbert's Double Fine game, The Cave, will release on PC and consoles in early 2013. He and the rest of the studio also have Double Fine Adventure in the works via its successful Kickstarter.

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The Cave

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Stephany Nunneley-Jackson

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Stephany is VG247’s News Editor, with 22 years experience (with 15 of them at VG247). With a brain that lacks adhesive ducks, the ill-tempered, chaotic neutral fembot does her best to bring you the most interesting gaming news. She is also unofficially the site’s Lord of the Rings/Elder Scrolls Editor.

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