That’s fair, I 100% agree. No matter the reason for a game’s poor quality, you shouldn’t let it off the hook. Especially if it’s a commercial product.
Personally though, I don’t think he’s pretending not to have heard that point. He clarifies multiple times in the thread that he’s fine with people criticising his work. Instead, he’s speaking to a kind of criticism that claims – incorrectly – to know things about the game’s development, and that offers naive solutions to complex problems. In my opinion, that kind of criticism is pretty worthless, and takes up air that could otherwise be spent discussing the game’s real, concrete problems.
But I get the frustration. Bethesda’s response to criticism of Starfield has been dismissive on the whole, so the director of the game coming out against some criticism is tone-deaf from a PR perspective.
Also, it seems like no-one who complains about discourse online takes the time to provide examples of what they’re complaining about… So it’s hard to know what exactly Emil is talking about here.