games should look ugly in development

i complain a lot on this blog, don't i? let's complain some more anyway. something that's always annoyed me somewhat is how commercialisation (maybe misuse of the word here but i'm sure you get the gist) has forced a lot of "in progress" screenshots of games to look beautiful and polished. especially as someone who is not capable of creating art for a game (well, if i want the finished product to look good), it makes me feel a little crazy for people to post photos of their 1-month progress on a game and have something that has custom ui, main character art done, or even custom music already that it seems like we now have this ridiculous standard of what in progress games should look like. it feels similar to how the concept of a sketchbook is now something that has be full of complete and finished artworks and not, you know, sketches, or works in progress, or half-baked ideas. social media is obviously the big driver of this change, with that bringing on the rise of self-employed…