"The letters were universally complimentary, and we designers loved hearing that our games were being enjoyed, but if they weren't sending us a picture of their screens most of those writers would have spent their time playing the game rather than writing letters"
About this Quote
The line about screen photos is the tell. Crane isn’t dismissing players; he’s triangulating truth. A written description is filtered through memory, ego, and the urge to be polite. A picture of the screen is raw evidence: where the player got stuck, what state the game was in, what the machine actually displayed. It’s an early, analog version of the bug report, the screenshot upload, the crash log. The subtext is that the best relationship between designer and player is almost wordless: a game so absorbing it suppresses commentary.
Context matters. Crane comes out of the early console era, when shipping meant living with your mistakes and support channels were slow, personal, and imprecise. So he splits fan communication into two categories: affirmation (emotionally welcome, creatively irrelevant) and actionable telemetry (rare, precious). It's a sly reminder that "engagement" has always been the medium's highest compliment - and its most unforgiving critic.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Crane, David. (2026, January 17). The letters were universally complimentary, and we designers loved hearing that our games were being enjoyed, but if they weren't sending us a picture of their screens most of those writers would have spent their time playing the game rather than writing letters. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-letters-were-universally-complimentary-and-we-41000/
Chicago Style
Crane, David. "The letters were universally complimentary, and we designers loved hearing that our games were being enjoyed, but if they weren't sending us a picture of their screens most of those writers would have spent their time playing the game rather than writing letters." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-letters-were-universally-complimentary-and-we-41000/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The letters were universally complimentary, and we designers loved hearing that our games were being enjoyed, but if they weren't sending us a picture of their screens most of those writers would have spent their time playing the game rather than writing letters." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-letters-were-universally-complimentary-and-we-41000/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
