Here's how you can navigate rejection and criticism as a game designer.

Accept all feedback with fresh eyes and open ears. Even when it’s hard to hear. People are human; some are good at giving feedback some are not. Especially when the feedback is critical, ie negative, there’s probably something to learn about either why they don’t like it or what they expect! Take what you can from the feedback and don’t shy away from any feedback. All that said, feedback is subjective so be sure to take it ALL with a grain of salt and only act on what you feel is the MOST IMPORTANT to delivering the best design, experience, and game. Trust the process, play test feedback is one of the most powerful tools in a designers tool box.

Game design is an art and a science at the same time, and as an art, there is the possibility that people likes your work or not. Is the same than food, some people like apples and some hate them, is part of life. Negative feedback is not about your skills, your capabilities or your experience, is about likes and dislikes of people. Also, is important to keep in mind that there is an amount of valid negative feedback, that can show you exceptional improvements opportunities for the game. We as designers have blind spots when we design, but our players see these improvement opportunities (or bugs if any) and paying attention to them is a great opportunity to improve as a designer, and of course to improve the games.

To handle rejection and criticism as a game designer, stay positive and use feedback to improve your work. View criticism as a learning opportunity, not a personal attack. Be open to different opinions and willing to make changes. Remember your strengths and past successes to stay motivated. Seek support from colleagues and mentors. Focus on learning and getting better from the feedback.

Game design is an inherently iterative process; very few people capture lightning in a bottle before receiving feedback. It is important to be open to the idea that what you made isn't engaging, or doesn't support the goals that you set out to fulfill. It is equally important to listen to the feedback you get, as "finding the fun" can lead to some truly great designs. The first step to being a great game designer is learning to kill your darlings.

Feedback should be always analyzed carefully as there can be found very valuable information pieces. Think about feedback as when a patient comes to a hospital and adapt the medical triage to your game design: 1. Is this feedback indicating a game "life" threatening situation? If is the case, correct it asap. 2. Is this feedback indicating bothering or disturbing elements that should be improved to enhance the game experience, yet they are not vital and urgent? 3. Is the feedback showing "good to have" elements that are not urgent or disturbing but can improve the game experience? Plan to include them in a future patch/game version. 4.Is the feedback useless or not achievable? Drop it. Be objective about the feedback.

When taking and asking for feedback, remember some [read often] feedback will come from people with personal opinions, feelings, and experiences different from your own. Try to distill the essence of what they are saying, regardless of how they are saying it, into something actionable and productive to reaching your design goals. Further, sometimes feedback can just be used as a beacon in the fog of game design and the human condition. Ask people questions like “what did you feel about x mechanic” Write down what you want someone to say and compare that with their answer! If each change should get them closer to saying what you want them to say. (This is an art, not an exact science)

It’s important to understand where the feedback is coming from, why it’s rejected and who is your target audience is. The rejection isn’t personal and is based on what can be seen. Staying objective makes it easier to analyze the feedback and identify the core problems. It’s easy fall into rejecting the rejection because they don’t understand the vision which will limit its development and growth.

The first thing you need to do, that the AI doesn't mention is to filter the feedback. What feedback is relative and important and what feedback is non-sense or just people complaining? For example, I had a storytelling game design and one of the feedback was to remove storytelling. That is the whole genre of the game, so it was not feedback that was going to improve my game. Once you have filtered out the relative feedback and the ones that are just people complaining. Now it is time to learn from the feedback and figure out how you can improve the areas that the feedback addresses. Once you have done that, go back to the feedback that you filtered as irrelative, and see if you figure out what the real issue is that lead to feedback.

Find the positive in anything, if you’re getting negative feedback you’re already a step on the road to getting better feedback! If it’s all negative address the major concerns if half of the feedback is negative you might be better off than you think, if a small portion is negative; make sure addressing their concerns is ever helpful for you. To reiterate, find the positives in everything. The enemy of done is perfection.

Even in the worst case (especially in the worst case), it is essential to maintain morale. If someone tears down everything that you built, listen to them. Write down what your told and read it carefully. With enough ingenuity, you can turn almost any negative feedback into good design choices. If your playtesters are saying that something is too hard to figure out, or not engaging enough, or anything else, look at other games that are dissimilar to yours. Get a broad range of applicable design patterns that you can analyze. Think about how they could slot into your work and crunch the numbers. There is always a path forward, although it may require effort and creativity.

Not all criticism is constructive or helpful. You may receive unproductive or malicious criticism. It's okay to ignore those criticisms. If you receive similar criticism from multiple sources, it may indicate that a recurring issue needs attention. It would help to look for patterns in the feedback you receive over time.