Thomas Mahler, the Game Director of Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps, took to gaming forum ResetEra earlier today to get something off his chest. He's tired of "snake oil salesmen" (as he calls them) getting hyped up by the games press and consumers, and then failing to deliver on their promises.
"It all started with Molyneux," he says, describing Peter Molyneux, the infamous British designer behind Black & White, Fable, and Curiosity - What's Inside The Cube? (spoilers: he was inside the cube). You may remember Molyneux from any one of his PR disasters, including that RPS interview where the first question is "do you think you're a pathological liar?" Woof.
Mahler goes on to namecheck Sean Murray, founder of Hello Games and creator of No Man's Sky, which was widely criticised for Murray's bombastic descriptions of the game that failed to be entirely true. "But what happened then?" says Mahler, "they released a bunch of updates, so let's forget about the initial lies and deception and hey, let's actually shower him with awards again."
Mahler's third target is Cyberpunk 2077, the catastrophic game launch at the end of 2020 that was filled to the brim with bugs, saying that "the entire CDPR department took all the cues from what worked for Molyneux and Murray."
"From the perspective of a developer, all of this just sucks. Back in 2014, I remember some journalist from some big publication telling us that Ori almost got the cover article of some magazine I read frequently, but ultimately they had to pick No Man's Sky cause it was the 'bigger game'.
...I really felt bamboozled once No Man's Sky came out and it became clear that all this hype was really just built on lies and the honest guy who just showed his actual product really got kicked in the balls because the lying guy was able to make up some tall tales that held absolutely no substance." - Thomas Mahler
Mahler then turns to blame gamers and journalists, saying that they "don't seem to mind all that much" that they're being lied to, with games journalists in particular "happily play[ing] along" with the deception. Never mind that negative coverage of Cyberpunk 2077 actually led to GameSpot journalist Kallie Plagge being harassed for weeks, or that reviews of No Man's Sky specifically mentioned its disappointing, overhyped design and technical troubles (at the time).
"I know this whole thread might come off as me sounding bitter," Mahler acknowledges. "I'm not. I'm sh***ing on liars and people that are okay with openly deceiving others."
Some of the comments below Mahler's post are critical of his take, with one poster, Hella, saying that it is "deeply irresponsible to encourage gamer rage...especially as a developer", and CaviarMeths pointing out that journalists write positive pieces because they are often otherwise "attack[ed] and cannibalize[d]" by gamers who don't agree with their negative opinions.
Some point out that it's strange to hear such a take coming from a renowned developer, with McBradders saying "you of all people should understand how these situations arise" and several criticising his "unfair" description of the No Man's Sky debacle in particular. Some, like Bosh, turn the criticism back at Mahler, saying that Will of the Wisps was unplayable on Xbox One, and nothing like the promotional art.
"This is probably naive but I don't think these people are trying to sell "snake oil." I think most of these people are generally really passionate about their art they are making and it gets out of hand when speaking about it.
...I don't know. I just don't have it in me to be that angry about the larger situation. If you don't like these situations then don't buy games until reviews? Sometimes I think the wider gaming community goes too far into the "cynical skeptic joy killer gamer" area. Just hype responsibly." - BradenAndEggs
As of around an hour ago, the post is locked.
What's your opinion on all this? Do you agree with Mahler, or do you think he's lashing out at a game that denied him press coverage? Let us know in the comments.
[source resetera.com]
Comments 177
I’ll give you Peter, he was def good at lying about his titles, but I’ll say no mans sky wasn’t that embellished. Cyberpunk just has technical issues but is just about the game they described.
I wonder how he feels about Pokémon sowrd/shield...
@Strictlystyles No man's sky straight up lied about being able to meet another player at launch didn't it? I thought two people went to the same spot and didn't see each other.
@Strictlystyles
No Man's Sky's touted multiplayer features at launch were so misleading that they had to apply stickers to printed game cases.
And it was discovered that the E3 2015 presentation for the game was staged based on a datamine.
https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/everything-to-know-about-no-mans-sky-data-mine
These are not little white lies.
"I really felt bamboozled once No Man's Sky came out and it became clear that all this hype was really just built on lies and the honest guy who just showed his actual product really got kicked in the balls because the lying guy was able to make up some tall tales that held absolutely no substance"
That's how the world works (sadly)
Mahler is very talkative and thinks of himself to be THE developer-god. I still remember that Will of the Wisps barely ran when it was released...
@kategray who do you think sold the most useless snake oil?
Comments like these can come back to bite you in the rear. Not that he's wrong but I don't know what the point was.
Peter was like a bullsh*t machine gun
I get NintendoLife defending games journalism, but how happily they post Brie Larson articles for the gamer-rage-driven clicks limits their credibility.
I may be alone on this, but I love games that strive to be something different, even if they fall short of their vision. At least they're TRYING and not just releasing another Military Shooter or cookie-cutter RPG. I love games like Fable and Spore and No Man's Sky because I love the games they were trying to be. I can see why fans would get upset when they pay for attempted greatness, but I feel like we should be encouraging the innovation behind it.
Blame the media who are the ones propagating these lies and exaggerations. They are the ones who are building the "hype".
He criticized gaming media, his next game will be a 6 out of 10 for going against the order.
In all seriousness, the fact that we still have traditional gaming media pretending they're some sort of authority in reviews and their opinion is the end all be all is hysterical. I remember how anthem was pitched as the GOTY and when it came out they really tried to defend it until the pushback was so great. You see that now with places like IGN, still defending Cyberpunk.
Imagine believing that game journalists tailor their reviews in a positive way to avoid 'gamer rage'. Whoever said that smokes ultra crack.
Journalists tailor gamer reviews for the publisher, so they can keep their jobs and anytime someone brings it up, they get labeled as a bad person and part of some 'hate group', but its been proven true so many times that I can't even count it.
Hype culture is the problem. I remember with Yooka Laylee got announced and the months after people were drawing fanart and all sorts ofother stuff and I questioned 'why? You haven't even played this game yet?" And they'd get all mad at me.
Then it came out and it was just bleh. Hype culture, same goes for Cyberpunk. I remember not caring the slightest about it but having people tell me it was gonna be the greatest thing ever-- they'd tell me this with zero gameplay footage. Hype culture is the problem.
I actually think from a design standpoint, if Peter Molyneux is controlled by a publisher, I.E. like he was with the first Fable game, the man is really good at his craft, he just has a big mouth and should keep it shut until features are fully fleshed out. Molyneux has always had an interesting way of making games because he's not actually a programer, he's just a dude.
As for the dev from Ori, I don't think he's wrong in a lot of the things he's saying, but there is def. some level of sour grapes playing into it. But people are stupid, they wanna be blindly hyped for the next big thing. The best part is, hype culture is designed so they never have enough time to be angry about the ripoff before the next big hype train gets them excited and its business as usual.
@GannonBanned I think there's a very interesting distinction between marketing departments and the devs. Often the former dictate the story, and the latter - who know the game can't live up to those promises - are forced to crunch to attempt to make the stories true.
It's more tricky with indie studios, when the people who run the studio are the ones doing a lot of the interviews, because I don't necessarily think that they are "lying" as much as they are lacking in media training and getting a little too over-excited when they talk to press. It's... messy.
@AugustusOxy as a games journalist, I can say that you're not correct, there. Maybe some smaller outlets want to appease the publishers, but every journalist I've ever met has more integrity than that.
I agree with his statements. Games can have flaws of course, but I think situations like No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk go way beyond mildly falling short of their vision.
In one case there were multiple bold face lies and in the other case they knowingly shipped a fundamentally broken product.
@RupeeClock I’m pretty sure Sean Murray never said it would have multiplayer at launch (I could be wrong). The problem with No Mans Sky was that the hype generated by Sony, the gaming press and influencers completely blew the game out of proportion.
As for the sentiment that we shouldn’t forgive people if they rectify their mistakes? C’mon... seriously? Sure, we don’t forget that they made them and we let that inform our decisions going forward, but we should definitely they forgive people who end up making good.
(Edit: second paragraph is not a reply. It is more a comment on the article and this particular director).
@KateGray that’s a salient point, but homebody Peter Molyneux kinda invalidates that defense by just being like “yeah I lie it’s good press whatever the games are super good” - No Man’s Sky always seemed like they’re legit trying to fix it and have integrity enough (haven’t played it, full disclosure)
@GannonBanned Molyneux is... a special case. My opinion of the guy is that he's just really hyperbolic, and wants to make games that just... can't exist, Peter. Then, his teams have to try to match his wild promises.
We've all had bosses that come into the office, proudly declare that they've had a brilliant idea, and then left, right? 😅
It was so sad to see the fall of Molyneaeuaueuaux. Him and the Bullfrog team were at the absolute forefront of gaming in the 90s, totally knocking it out of the park with games like Populous, Syndicate, Theme Park and Hospital - even with Lionhead he produced some excellent stuff in Black and White and Fable (even if not totally delivering on ALL the promises). With 22 Cans and stuff the bottom just dropped out, it's sad to see how it went.
My first playthrough of Will of The Wisps (on One X, no less) was completely ruined by the gaming performance at launch. Absolutely shocking state to release a game in. Couldn't believe the incompetence on display. I shoulda just quit but I struggled through to the end. Completely marred what should've/would've probably been my game of the year. God only knows how it would've performed on base Xbox one. I did play it again after the patch was released and it was great but it was too little too late. I'll always remember my first playthrough was an atrocious experience.
I’m of mixed opinion. It’s not like games journalists can fact check while a game is in development. They can only go by what is demoed to them and what they are told. Unlike many products, games can be doctored to do whatever is needed for positive perception.
That being said I think the industry as a whole has made a mistake in being all hype all the time. That’s why you get early announcements, bullshots and general disappointment and outrage. And gamers feed this hype monster as they demand more and more information as leaks are glorified and hacks are lauded. If Nintendo doesn’t release a Direct when they want, gamers act like the company is filing chapter 11. We are spoilt for choice in games, but it seems like it is never enough.
Games pare down in scope as devs hit limitations and the hard reality between what they want to make and what they can afford to make/hardware limits/demands from management, gamers and shareholders. But everyone takes that personally as a lie.
That’s why I prefer Nintendo’s shadow drop method. I buy several games a month. I don’t care about what is coming in 3 years. Three months before is more than enough time for me to adjust my budget.
People were pretty quick to forgive the No Man's Sky developers once they started getting harassed for their lies.
@mr_benn I bloody loved Black and White. Fable, too! Molyneux may be full of cheques he can't cash, but the ones he does make for fantastic games.
@Ryu_Niiyama I think I'm in total agreement with you. I don't think I'd be a very good (or fun) journalist if I just went around doubting the quality of every trailer I see. We have to cover AAA games, and they have colossal budgets for fancy trailers and previews - but we certainly aren't hype if the game is bad at the end of it.
I think a huge issue that's at the heart of all of this is how beholden to angry gamers the studios are. They promise big to get attention; they rush release because people send them death threats. It's not a great system, eh?
@KateGray reminds me of the Duke Nukem Forever director who would play Half Life or Shenmue and go “oh, y’all should add this! (Rain, puzzles, good writing, etc)
Good thing the game was so excellent when it finally came out 😂
Every industry has some shady companies that lie about things, especially when it's as big as gaming these days.
But we can't do much, except vote with our wallets (however effective that is).
I think the issue is these people who work on here aren’t journalists really. They are more bloggers or marketers. A lot of it is just copy and pasted from elsewhere. It’s nice to bring it all together on one site but Alex and co aren’t exactly out on the street getting the ‘next big Nintendo scoop’. Not a knock on them but I would be amazed if they all had journalistic credentials studying the profession to a high level. They are good at their job but the word journalist doesn’t sit right to me at least.
Sounds like he's jealous, esp of No Man's Sky. I've followed the story for No Man's Sky and can safely say they did make up for their failures.
@Ajent
In the specific case of No Man's Sky, the misleading marketing was definitely more on Sony than it was on Hello Games.
Hello Games did eventually pull through and deliver on many of their promises, and a meaningful game and experience. They are after all only a small studio.
Mistakes should be forgiven certainly, but if a company, or at least it's higher ups, were willing to deceive you to sell pre-orders for their product, that sows mistrust that isn't easily fixed.
When you examine the Cyberpunk 2077 situation, it becomes apparent that they were selling much more than just the game, but the idea of it. It would be such a landmark release for gaming as a whole, gaming culture would develop around it, and thus it became a marketing machine by which they could peddle all manner of branded merchandise.
The licensing of Cyberpunk 2077 swag alone would probably recoup the losses from refunds of the game itself, in spite of the record breaking pre-order numbers.
There of course, was also the willful business decision to push the game to launch on soon-to-be previous generation systems in order to push more SKUs. It has to be stated that developing games for simultaneous launch on multiple platforms is a very difficult task and can backfire, look no further than Mighty No. 9 as a key example of this.
Cyberpunk was and still is a technical mess, but could the developer and publisher afford to sit on it for another year until it was ready? No, that’s why they released it.
This issue with broken games hitting shelves will only get worse as consoles become more powerful and development teams grow along with development times of many years.
@quinnyboy58 well, that's rather rude!
@RupeeClock I'm not sure how much of No Many Sky I can blame of Sony. I distinctly remember the No Man's Sky lead developer going on a late night talk show and hyping up the came and specifically say that you can do this and that, namely being able to meet someone on the same planet. That want's put into the game until way later, and when it did show up it wasn't as the lead dev had said it would be. He also made claims it would take a person so many days to reach the center of the galaxy, which was also debunked when a guy tested it out and it took about on a few hours
Honestly there aren't many developers that can be trusted with delivering a finished product day one. Nintendo can do it for the most point, but even they had to issue a day one patch with Breathe of the Wild. Though for the most part it was still only 200 mb?
As Nintendo fans we often complain about delays and "droughts", but for the most part those games are almost always near perfection, other times they can be found lacking (looking at you Mario Party).
I don't know that they're lying or just deluded about how good their games are... 🤔
A man after my own heart. A person who begins their rant against gaming's biggest liars by dragging Molyneux into broad daylight and dressing him down is a dev I can respect. They also have a good point that gamers are partially to blame for this crap. You already see CDPR apologists happily looking forward to the day cyberpunk is fixed. How about we just don't give them money or the benefit of the doubt so that they actually learn a lesson for once?
@KateGray gaming is such a weird space because of the amount of transparency (despite what people may or may not believe about that) involved that didn’t always exist and still doesn’t exist for most companies.
Most products we consume, nobody but those involved know how they get from start to finish. If prototypes are shown, they aren’t hyped as final product until the company has solid plans. But gaming has walked backwards somewhat as gamers expect to be privy to things like they work for the company or have a major share stake. And that causes so many issues.
I think the culture around pre-order and pre-order bonus should go. Let the game launch, let reviews state the technical truths (performance, stability, blah blah) and then if the artistic vision of the game clicks with you, buy it. Demos are a special case, by all means, try that too. I recently saved at least 70 dollars following this - was super hyped to the point of pre-purchasing Empire of Sin (because it was offering exclusive content if you did), and then I calmed that impulse down, and when it came out, voila! It was a buggy mess with allegedly broken mechanics. As people, we should temper those impulses I think, only then will this industry take notice of the rampant lies and bad practices it throws at us, and maybe try a course correction.
@Strictlystyles But cyberpunk wasn't the game they promised. there are no cool random car chases, so many other features are not there, NPC's don't have advanced daily things they do, they walk around the block and sometimes duplicate.
He does have a point.
Many promotional materials, ads, and interviews tend to talk about the "ground breaking" technical aspects of a game and lose focus of what that means for a customer. Cyberpunk is possibly the best example of this. While I can understand there were some significant technical challenges to overcome, and they were trying to do a lot of things that had never been done before, what does that mean for the player of the game? If I play Cyberpunk, what experience am I going to have that is brand new and worthy of that kind of hype? Is there anything at all that I have not seen in other games?
@San_D but if we do away with pre-orders, where am I going to get my limited edition life-size statue of the main character with poseable limbs?!
I kid. Pre-orders contribute to disappointment and frustration. Waiting is hard, but waiting is good.
@Kalmaro they didn't lie about their game I think more people were mad before the game launched than after with the product lol. It still sucks but hey they were upfront about their crap cdpr only had to say it was just like their other games instead they promised something that won't be done right for five years. Cyberpunk was a good game but cdpr hyped it like it was the game to end all games when it really wasnt
@HamatoYoshi They knew they had an unfinished product though, why they had so many delays they could have delayed it again, they may have lost some preorders and further angered fans but all would have be forgiven if they released what they said/intended to release. They decided that they didn't want to ire of fans by delaying it further. So instead they received the ire of fans by releasing a game that they knowing knew wasn't complete, and didn't deliver a lot of things they said it would.
Now that can be squarely placed on the company, as it has been confirmed that the devs didn't want to push out a very subpar product with their names on it.
The ill-advised hype for No Man's Sky pre-launch has now turned into ill-advised praise for being such an underdog comeback story. They've received some proper marketing to try and cover up all their blatant lies and issues as of late. Just be wary when people tout that the game is 'good now'. It's not, it's still fundamentally broken in the ways it was before, it's just got more polish.
@Ryu_Niiyama You've more or less typed out what I wanted to write. I wouldn't say all journalists are blameless, but I'd say the majority at least value their honesty. I do agree that hype is a problem and that game announcements years in advance before the full shape/scope of the final product is realized is often harmful to all parties involved in game development from start to finish as well as the consumers. I'm totally fine with Nintendo's shadow drops and legit "coming in 2 months" announcements. To me this is more satisfying and doesn't result in unrealistic expectations and negative emotions. I daresay I'm more patient than many when it comes to gaming. XD
While I haven't personally worked in the gaming industry, I do know what dev crunch feels like to fulfill unrealistic deadlines and expectations. Thankfully my current job is better about managing time/scope/unforeseen issues and can adjust plans, support, and marketing accordingly.
@Ashunera84 He does in my opinion, but "gamers" too should take some responsibility. It seems we have forgotten that we are paying to buy a product, not that the company is doing us a favor. They will try every possible thing to project their product in the best possible light (that's how marketing works) - it is upto us to see past it. And honestly I believe with Twitch and YouTube, it is significantly easier these days to do a little bit of research before we hit that Pay button.
@KateGray Agreed, we ABSOLUTELY NEED those figurines and stickers and a virtual trophy saying you are worthy to be the lead character's slave as you launched the game first.
@Ghostchip But they did absolutely straight up lie about the game in the early trailers and features they have massive claims of what the game would have, and only a fraction of it was implemented. Even the development time wasn't accurate they literally started 2 years ago, not the 5-7 years that it was claimed to be.
I do however think if they stuck to solely policing it for PC only and not focused on consoles the game would have been much better, and possibly easier for them to work out the bugs, and workarounds for limitations of said consoles. What's done is done now and hindsight is 20/20. I just hope other companies take note to this and temper expectations to more realistic levels next time.
@Ghostchip If they said that two people could meet up, and players found out that was not true, then they lied. I don't see a way to get around that.
I'm not saying they are evil or anything, just liars.
Edit
I did more digging and I did find them saying how this game would be so big that you wouldn't bump into another person. Then players found out that the reason they couldn't see another person is because they literally would not let them see anyone else.
Hence, the videos showing people standing in the same location on their screens but it only showing one person.
That sounds like them embellishing with the intent to mislead gamers. Sounds like lying to me.
There isn’t any other for of entertainment that you pay for, which may or may not be complete. Not acceptable for a book, a film, a song, or a play. The fact we’ve allowed companies to get away with selling products they know aren’t finished and broken for this long is ridiculous.
@Nin10doh not to be rude but I don't remember anything but the early commercials showing the wild area and leon they did the Dex cuts very quickly. After it was revealed so I'm just curious what your referring too because I don't remember lol
@Kalmaro man I didn't remember that you have a point.
@KateGray well considering this is the only gaming journalism website that isn't a load of garbage hogwash I'd say that's something to be proud of
I feel like I read that same piece about a decade ago after Will Wright's "Spore" came out w/o it's underwater level. Hard to believe somebody wrote all that in 2021 w/o mentioning "Spore".
Since these games almost never seem to come to Nintendo consoles I'll just throw this out there, it happens to us too.
Zelda BotW interactive map on the Wii U Gamepad screen
@Ghostchip Not rude at all lol. I got caught in talking about Cyberpunk that I mistakenly attributed your comment about them as well. As far as Pokemon, I too don't remember much.
The only thing can I recall is there being some differences in what was shown to the public and what it actually made the final release. For me if felt very minor, but a lot of people were up in arms over it.
I think this is a really poor and irresponsible take.
I'm not touching on Molyneaux because that guy really is a special case, though I don't think he purposefully tried to mislead people.
My primary concern here is something that stretches outside of game development, and that is apparently "forgive and forget" shouldn't be an acceptable course of action? Do gamers really need more cynicism and vitriol? Forget gamers specifically - do people need that?
Whether or not Hello Games made up for their mistakes (which I very much believe they did) is sort of not the point here. Is the idea that we should all just be bitter, vindictive a-holes? One wrong move and your on humanity's blacklist?
Yeah, dude - I'd say you're bitter.
@Nin10doh the nice man with the snivy picture (one of my favorite starters by the way) said the thing you were referring too and it was how multiplayer worked was a complete lie in the trailers thanks snivy man for helping us out
@Ghostchip Yes I just saw that too. I will say for No Man's Sky they took it upon themselves to deliver what they said would be in the game, and it turned into some much better. I not sure if they've met all of their initials goals yet. The effort they've put forth thus far has gotten high praise.
I don't understand his motive behind calling these folks out. I thought Ori is widely regarded as a great game and has seen much success, so why does he feel the need to point out flaws in these other developers? Granted, they are valid points! I just don't understand his "why."
NINJA APPROVED
On of the major reason Nintendo is my favorite game company. They don’t release something until it’s done and ready regardless of how long it takes or gets pushed back.
@Pak-Man Agreed on all points, you aren't alone. These days a game will come out and I'll look at it and go oh, that's just Super Metroid, that one's just Contra, etc, etc. Then one comes out and you're blown away by how unique the experience is. It's a fascinating medium.
NINJA APPROVED
Yea honestly the man has a point. What we put up with as gamers is what's landed us in this land of Season Passes and 10-dollar horse armor and Games as Services that takes years to reach their originally advertised potential.
No Man's Sky was unfortunately a game that was built by a very small studio that was hyped so much because what it promised on. Also when a small studio like that has to release a game by a certain deadline with very little resources it isn't a surprise in released in the state it did. If it wasn't picked up so early by Sony for PS4 release they probably wouldn't have had such an unflexible release period. Commercial pressure to get things released quickly by publishers often plays a big part in that and the way they go around hyping it up. So out right blaming those who make the game isn't always the right thing as their are other factors.
@KateGray I don't envy your position, sometimes. You have an open forum where anybody can openly criticize your job. That must be super annoying sometimes. The tradeoff is that you get open discussion, otherwise, but it would be nice if some of the less considerate commenters hold their opinion about your job. I would imagine they would get annoyed if anybody from the public could walk up to them and criticize their job.
Just a thought. I like this site, and I like what (most) journalists do, they are generally trying to be informative and helpful!
So thank you.
NINJA APPROVES JOURNALISTS
Although I partially disagree with Mahler's criticism of gamers and reviewers, he's spot on about the practice of releasing games that don't come close to fulfilling promises. No Man's Sky absolutely did not provide what it promised at launch, and Cyberpunk was completely unplayable on the base consoles. This was textbook bait-and-switch. If these were automobiles or cell phones or movies instead of video games, the mainstream media would have been all over it and attorney generals would have made a show of going after CDPR. I hope the Cyberpunk episode in particular leads to a culture change in which reviewers are given access to the entire game and are allowed to publish their own footage in video reviews. And all of us should be holding game companies accountable for releasing anything less than the full product on day one. We shouldn't have to fork over full price for a partial game and the promise of patches and further features later. When I go to the diner and order a burger and fries, I get the whole thing at once; not a burger now and the fries to take home. Video games should be no different, but greed has taken over.
Some pf the fault lies on the gamers who dont seem to learn anything from the latest overhyped disaster. They get overhyped over a game it comes out and is crap they forget and then move on to the next overhyped trainweck. Gamers need to start being a bit more skeptical when it comes to the next overly hyped AAA game.
"Encouraging gamer rage"... what an absolute joke. Demanding transparency and honesty instead of knowingly lying and building the hype on false promises is now apparently somehow gamer rage. If anything, consumers have all the right to expect devs to not lie about their product.
Mahler is really brave to have these kinds of takes, but it's really important if we want to purge all the bad stuff that exists in the gamedev space nowadays. It might not be the number one problem, but it's definitely something worth bringing up.
I don't know Mahler well, but his point against lying dev is simply right.
It always bother me when some developers show up claiming they're game is the moon when they barely have a pebble.
Sure, making a great game, or even an okay one isn't easy, but that's not an excuse to skip the hard work and jump immediatly to claim you did it and gain the profit from it.
Even the fact these lied games get fixed eventually isn't an excuse. they may get fixed, but meanwhile they literally stolen the spotlight and sales from other games that actually released as promess and needed no fix, which can likely turn out to be a damage for this honest games and devs.
I think everyone involved is part of the problem to a differing degree. The developers (really the marketers) have been spinning tales since the Intellivision age, so anyone that believes them still deserves what they get. Gamers are to blame because we keep purchasing sight unseen or based on preview articles from people that frankly game in a different reality than most people (who else crams 40+ hour games into a weeklong marathon to write a preview/review article). Media are the blame for creating a who is first gets all the rewards system that punishes publications that do long-form writing or waits to publish a more complete and thoughtful review.
@BloodNinja it certainly can be annoying! Especially when I strive to write for the benefit of the readers. But hey, I joined games journalism eight years ago, and it quickly became the cool thing to distrust all journos.
There are plenty of lovely and good reasons to keep going, but there will always be those who just don't want to like us!
@Darknyht
Very true, but then it kind of becomes a chicken-and-egg thing. Who would put a stop to the cycle?
Is it us, the gamers, if we just stop purchasing this crud?
Is it the developers if they refuse to cave to their publishers (which they really can't do in 99% of cases).
Is it the media who needs to be more honest in their previews and impressions of games that aren't stacking up to be what they are promised?
I get Mahlers' frustration especially since he got booted off the cover of a magazine for someone who embellished if not straight up lied about his game and its features. And I love the dig at ole Peter Molyneux
@Tuulenpoika I think calling his take on this "brave" sets sort of a dangerous precedence. Gamers should be responsible with their money and be sure they make educated purchases.
He's not the only one to think, or say openly, that underdelivering on a game is a crap practice.
There are a lot of issues that need to be cleaned up in the game development space: a lack of diversity, harassment, crunch culture, etc. A dev getting excited over their project and misrepresenting the final product, most likely not with malicious intent in any of the specified scenarios (except possibly for Cyberpunk through no fault of the devs), is certainly unpleasant but hardly damning.
It's an odd rallying cry to try to drum up what apparently should be an unyielding anger towards these devs. To each their own, but I do think this line of thinking is indicative of a bigger issue.
@KateGray Some people create an "us vs. them" mentality and apply it to almost all things in life. It's old tribalism, burned into our DNA. Most of us can see the difference and accept other people's worldviews or at least try to understand them.
I kinda wish I could be a journalist for games, it looks fun from this point of view!
NINJA APPROVED
@rallydefault There will always be foolish people that will buy the hype and make dumb purchases, and there will always be those that prey on them. The rest of us probably need to stop pre-ordering games for a good start, and perhaps punish those publishers that are the most hostile to consumers by simply not supporting them. As for the media try to find those that behave the best and fully support them, but since so much of the industry is consolidated it is hard to find independent media that isn't effected at some level by the way our world absorbs information as entertainment.
Sounds a bit like sour grapes on the interviewee's part, but I have long held a personal policy to not buy into any game hype, ever. I don't pay attention to articles of games I'm interested in before they come out, I pay no mind to slickly produced trailers, and I have never pre-ordered a game. I just wait until the game is released and go from there. But hype works for a reason and developers are going to keep doing it, and should...just be a bit more honest about it.
Gamers are somewhat at fault though, for falling for the marketing tricks. At the end of the day, every developer wants to sell their game, and journalists need those clicks, but there needs to be more gaming journalism that asks the hard questions instead of just allowing a developer to boast about all their amazing accomplishments and the wondrous things their products will provide for the player.
Bitch and moan but people are still buying the stuff. Consumers don't care they've been lied to, had parts of their games removed and sold to them as DLC (microtransactions or/and season pass), are forced to download large Day one Patches because the whole game isn't on the disc (Lookin at you, Spyro), or even getting a functional game.
Let them. It's their money to waste. No skin off my back.
@BloodNinja I think a lot of people think it's really fun, well-paid, and "not real work" because all journalists do is sit around playing games all day. Truth is, I've had a lot of jobs, from call centres to video production, and this one's the same as any job. Some parts are more fun, but a lot of it's just work, you know?
I think a lot of people in comments and on social media think they need to punish games journos for having "fun jobs", but they don't seem to realise that plenty of people already do that, and it's the main reason the job ISN'T always fun!
@Dualmask I don't doubt that many journalists DO try to take these devs to task, but it's a bit hard to make them admit to lying in interviews where they've been coached to dodge these questions. You end up with non-committal answers like "we're working on it", and you can't really do much with that - especially if you don't have access to the game to check if they're telling the truth.
Didn't Will of the Wisps have technical issues upon release?
I mean, I 100% agree with the guy, but it seems like they're the pot calling the kettle black there.
@KateGray That's a really interesting take, it would seem the "grass is always greener," is at play in this case. How did you get into the field, if I may ask?
NINJA APPROVED
@DevinRex I recall that Ori launched smoothly on PC and such when it first came out.
NINJA APPROVED
@Strictlystyles you have got to watch Beatmups if you think the management of cd project red didn’t lie about cyberpunk. They deceived people for a total of millions of dollars / euros.
https://youtu.be/_CymqHdNYkg
@Rika_Yoshitake it got a 4/10. How’s that ‘defending’?
@quinnyboy58 let me criticize you on your job for no reason whatsoever.
What is it you do?
‘ Never mind that negative coverage of Cyberpunk 2077 actually led to GameSpot journalist Kallie Plagge being harassed for weeks, or that reviews of No Man's Sky specifically mentioned its disappointing, overhyped design and technical troubles (at the time).’
After these sites and many more hyped the games for months even years in advance. It’s all part of the gaming news cycle of hype but at least own up to it. /end rant
He might have a point, but Resetera is the least trustworthy videogame forum I know of. I don't trust what I read there at all.
@Friendly honestly most of that video was technical limitations and graphical issues. A lot of which will be fixed. I think the main culprit of that was too many platforms, receive management issues and unforeseen issues during development l. For the most part I got about 80 percent of what they said the game was going to be and it’s very enjoyable. I wouldn’t say I was very “deceived”. Unless you’re playing on a base ps4/xbone
I understand this is basically a parent frustrated their child is getting overlooked by the 'rich kid' perhaps . But telling the customers how to feel and be extra angry can turn around at him one day.
@BloodNinja Always wanted to be a writer, always liked games, and then at university I found out you could smash the two together. I ended up writing for the uni newspaper (fun fact: my first editor is now the deputy editor at RPS) and then, when I graduated, I got the Staff Writer job at Official Nintendo Magazine (RIP).
It's all been very downhill from there!
He has a point. It reflects badly on the whole industry when these situations arise. No Man’s Sky was literally on BBC News at 6PM advertising how it was the most exciting game to ever exist. And then it came out. CDPR lied over and over again and expected their ‘good guy’ reputation to bring the sales and fend of criticism which did happen to an extent but they got a lot more criticism than they expected. The games journalism sites do have a lot to answer for though, they hype these games for years and foster this ‘untouchable’ attitude which then makes the eventual negative review all the more controversial and is clicked on even more. You could say that Kallie Plagge’s harassment was indirectly caused by the gaming news cycle.
@UndercookedBacon He's brave because he is in a kind of position where people listen to him due to his merits, something not many people outside the industry can't say for themselves. Saying out loud things like this make him a target for people in the industry who happen to disagree with him, or regard these kinds of things as inciting "gamer rage."
@KateGray I see! That's a great backstory, thank you for sharing! Keep at it, you're a great writer!
NINJA APPROVED
@RupeeClock i dunno about no mans sky, I saw plenty of videos complaining about multiplayer and yet they never promised gamers multiplayer. A lot of people were unrealistically anticipating more then they were going to get and then blaming the dev for it. Like the game no mans sky was at day one, aside from the graphical issues was pretty much what I expected. The game it is now is something I figured it would have organically evolved to be even without all the backlash
This is why I never, ever buy a game at launch or pre-order. With patches and updates it’s just an excuse to rush something out to make money quickly and then fix it later. I’m going to sound old but before the 7th gen (Xbox 360/PS3/Wii) a game was ready at launch or it wasn’t. If it was buggy and crappy then everyone knew and avoided it like the plague, even if the hype had been huge. Even now you can track down a PS2 or GameCube game and if was good then it’ll be good now. DLC and positive updates to an already good game are great but I wouldn’t go watch a hyped up film, pay full price to see it only to be disappointed and have someone say ‘come back in 6 weeks it’ll be better!’ so I won’t do it with a game either <climbs off soapbox>
@Nin10doh you know what game really is the best case of fixed after launch? Battlefront 2 was bad enough to be in a top ten worst games ever list at launch it SUCKED. It has now been updated to the point of being a worthy successor to battlefront 2 2006 I mean what a turnarounds and going from one of the worst to a worthy sequel to one of the best
@quinnyboy58 I totally agree with you.
@KateGray he was definitely not rude. He just expressed an opinion you happen to (strongly, I guess) disagree with. Still, he was definitely, by any meaning of the word, not rude.
@Tuulenpoika That wasn't really my point. My point is more that heralding someone as "brave" for basically trying to incite anger and negativity at someone else is not something to celebrate. I mean - unless that person actually deserves it. You know, because they actually did something that was morally reprehensible like kicking a puppy or something.
Games are small fry. Remember Sony's E3 presentation for the PS3?
Graphics have gone backwards since then HAAAAAAAAAhahaha!
@AndreaF96 Calling someone's profession into question absolutely is rude. It doesn't sound like he was trying to be rude which is... odd. Specifically odd that somehow he didn't realize that was, in fact, rude.
Imagine if someone walked into your job or someone else's and falsely claimed you weren't what you claimed to be. Sounds pretty rude. Talk about a total lack of empathy.
@Strictlystyles honestly, you’re wrong about what the video was about.
So many ‘promises’. But most of them got cut. And to deceive the press with a fake video of gameplay was a horrible thing to do so that the press would hype up the game in their covering. And so was not providing review copies while still allowing pre-orders, and saying ‘we’re surprised at how good the game runs on PS4/XBox’.
I have only once in my life pre-ordered a game: Fire Emblem Three Houses. But never apart from that one time. This is why. Lying salesmen. Happens all the time, especially with western companies. Which is why I like Nintendo or Japanese companies in general. You (almost?) always get what you hear from them.
@UndercookedBacon When taking into an account the context of the statement, I think it's completely justified, no matter what actions people outside the person who sparked the conversation decide to take. This conversation is about video game development practices, not some general morality issue where it would be sensible to weigh which things are "actually" deserving of directed anger.
@UndercookedBacon he did not insult. He argomented sufficiently well. And I agree with him. Journalism means keeping power (in this case game companies) accountable for what they do and say. It doesn't seem to me that it is what happens here or in any other mainstream game related website. There is nothing wrong in what Nintendolife does, in my opinion. It's just that it isn't journalism.
@AndreaF96 that's not exactly what journalism is, and besides, you just read a whole article - written by me, a journalist - that's about holding devs accountable.
@Primarina it would be rude if what he said(and by that I don't mean your re-interpretation of it) was wrong. It isn't, in my opinion.
@AndreaF96 That is a poorly conceived argument. And just because you think something was "sufficiently argued" doesn't make it not rude. That's not how it works.
Regardless of what someone expects out of journalism, by the way, a journalist by definition is just someone that reports on news. Your expectations of what you're reading don't change that. I refuse to call a Subway employee a Sandwich artist but I'm not going to walk into Subway and tell that to someone because that would be rude. Funny, sure, but still rude.
@Strictlystyles reading your comment again i’m actually incredibly surprised and a bit disgusted from your attempt to defend cdpr. ‘Just technical issues’. The game was unplayable on ps4 and xbox. How would you like to get a glass of gin and tonic without tonic or glass? How would you like to buy a book with four pages ripped out of it? Or a movie with green screens in a couple of scenes?
It’s honestly baffling to me that a company delivers an unfinished project to buyers.
@KateGray Yeah, the problem is that you wrote it just because someonelse in the industry said something. The reality is that journalists (not just game journalists) seldom hold people accountable these days. I very rarely see something like "but remember that x years ago they did/said y which completely disagrees with what they are saying now" here on Nintendolife and, in fairness, in any other website where "journalists" write.
@UndercookedBacon He didn't just say it in a random article. He was on topic. If they didn't want criticism they shouldn't have posted the article or they should have closed the comment section. Criticism isn't bad just because it makes some people sad.
@Primarina Exactly what I thought. I looked it up but couldn't find any articles about technical issues surrounding Ori. Obviously CP was released before it should have been, there's no question there.
NINJA APPROVED
@Friendly you’re exaggerating a bit and so was that video. I disagree
@AndreaF96 Well now you're just changing the game. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, no one is arguing that. That doesn't mean saying what they said still wasn't rude.
Besides, I'm not even sure the "criticism" thing holds up here. They weren't even really criticizing the article. It was more of a general statement on their perceived state of journalism that just also happened to say that writers here weren't journalists.
And I'm going to leave it at that because I feel like this probably isn't going to lead anywhere.
@UndercookedBacon Yeah, it won't lead us anywhere because we perceive the original comment radically differently.
I want to close with a little note: I believe that most non-game-journalists aren't real journalists either.
@AndreaF96
Personally, I think what this person said in regards to journalism was rude. It isn't necessarily a journalist's job to hold someone or something accountable. They simply collect news on what is currently happening. It's not their jobs to force people to see possible connections or to hold them accountable. It's not required as a journalist to tell you how you should feel about something. All they do is write on the latest news and let the people do as they wish with it.
@JoeyTS I agree with you about the fact that journalists shouldn't tell you how you should feel about something. They should just point out important facts (which you may have missed or forgotten about) related to the news along with it. These days journalists (not just game journalists) almost never do it. Serious youtubers do it far more than journalists.
Still, I don't believe the original comment, as it was phrased, was rude.
@Ghostchip @Ghostchip Oh really? I hadn't heard that. I just remember the huge fallout from it, but didn't really hear any comments on how it was after the fact. That's good news to hear, but it begs the question is it too much to ask for that same polish upon release, and not a while afterwards?
@KateGray Don't let the arm chair journalist ruffle your feathers. It was a great piece. It elicited a very good discussion, based on the very issues you brought out, amongst the users here. Which is what all good journalist do. Kudos.
@KateGray I couldn't imagine having to play through a game like Monster Hunter Rise or Xenoblade Chronicles 2 in a week or two in order to write a coherent review of it. There is just too much ground to cover and in that way I almost pity reviewers that get them. But I also feel like there is also a bias introduced when journalists review online experiences before a game is released. Those journalists end up playing mostly with only other journalists and the developers themselves in an ideal situation, unlike what most of us experience when we play something online. Then there are situations where journalists are almost victimized by only being allowed to speak of certain parts of the game which is used to hide the warts and less appealing things about the title. It doesn't make for anything resembling what I would call "fun" or even "normal" gaming.
As I said previously, I try to generally purchase games well after their release these days with only a few exceptions for games I pretty much know what I am getting. I think that helps me greatly, but I know it can also hurt developers that are under publishers with "Blockbuster" mentalities. I appreciate reviews and the work sites like this do, but I am just as likely to listen to the review or let's play of the game a few months after release to understand it.
I really the cyberpunk disaster changes the way games are announced and hyped. They deliberately lied about this game for years, and let the hype machine do the work. I applaud developers like Platinum who just said forget about bayonetta for a while
Good games take time, so don't release them until they've had it.
A lot of these games were rushed to market, and fixed later on.
Clearly the real lesson to learn here is what Nintendo has been saying for decades.
“A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever.”
What these studios have learned is that they can release their eventually good games as beta tests for full price and endure the backlash to allow the initial buyers to fund the completion of the games. The games aren't bad for ever, nor were they rushed with corners cut, they just were rushed to market with the idea that they could keep tinkering with it after launch via free updates and paid DLC.
This is a problem of modern video games where the product isn't locked but can receive software updates, either free or even paid!
@Nin10doh thank you! That's very kind of you!
@Darknyht I'm certainly not going to pretend like it's hard to play games for a living, but it is hard to get a real sense of how good a game is from an intense period of playing it before a deadline.
I've rarely had an instance of being silenced by a specific embargo - I don't tend to review the big games any more - but I did have a lot of weird moments with Assassin's Creed back in the day.
Like you say, I played AC: Unity before its release in a room with other journalists, alongside a bunch of playtesters. It was weird and unusual. I liked it, though. Then, when the DLC came out, I thought it was awful, and gave it 4/10 - and the PR called up my boss to tell us off. My boss was a great guy and a fantastic journalist, so he said "that's the score" and it stayed. I do wish I'd held Unity more accountable for its bugs at the time, but I didn't see any of the worst stuff that made the news afterwards, so how could I?
@HamatoYoshi "Cyberpunk was and still is a technical mess, but could the developer and publisher afford to sit on it for another year until it was ready? No, that’s why they released it."
Nonsense. The company that owns GOG could have afforded to toss that whole game out and cancel it if they wanted to. They're not some small studio living from game to game.
@mariomaster96
This fact is why I feel extremely sad for our children's children.
#globalwarming
#whothe*cukisbrexitbetterfor
#chinaisspyingontgeworld but usa is safe
#learntoevaluatefactspeople...
Congratulations to the author on writing a more substantial article, I know I can be overly-critical sometimes.
It is a little unfair to lump Cyberpunk in with No Man's Sky, etc. The game is about on par with what players were led to expect; the fact that it happens to also be heavily glitch-ridden says more about their QA process than it does their marketing. Despite its glitches, it is still a very ambitious game, and it is still playable despite the glitches on the platforms it's on (that said, the glitches it released with are still severe). Sword and Shield by comparison were far more bait-and-switch in their PR, with numerous examples of dishonest or misleading claims leading up to release. The only difference between the two is that Cyberpunk is not a Nintendo exclusive (the industry, and gaming "journalists" in particular have a tendency to focus on just the two black box consoles and PC. On the rare occasions where a Nintendo-published title releases to some level of controversy, it tends to only be reported by Nintendo-centric sites such as this one, while controversial games like No Man's Sky or Cyberpunk become industry-wide debacles).
His choice in forum for airing his opinion is equally poor, ResetEra is not the first site that comes to mind as a forum for airing thoughts meant to be taken seriously.
@Roto13 so why didn’t they? They needed revenue, of course they couldn’t afford to start again. What an inane comment.
I think Thomas should probably try and make a game on the kind of scale of No Man's Sky or Cyberpunk before he gets into criticizing them.
The Ori games are great, but they are incredibly basic and simple affairs. If that's all the games industry was, it just wouldn't be a very interesting place. We need people who are eager to push the boundaries of what a medium is capable of doing.
It's almost impossible to have that without having people who tend to overshoot.
@Menardi The controversy around Pokemon Sword/Shield happened BEFORE release. This was because Gamefreak were actually upfront about the game.
Masuda informed everyone in advance that the Pokémon in the Dex would be reduced. They showed off real footage of the game and had it playable at various gaming expos in advance.
The snake oil salesman tactic is to promise big things and then remain silent knowing it to be untrue happily selling games until you called out, AFTER the customer has already bought the game.
If he wanted to be like CD Project Red, Hello Games or Peter Molyneux. Masuda could have just said nothing about the number of Pokémon in the game until people found out after completing the game and not getting the National Dex. But he actually did the right thing and told everyone long before the game was available.
@Dezzy I think there needs to be honesty though. If a game had massive ambitions but the developers failed and the game doesn't actually work as advertised they should say so.
They shouldn't get to sell it like they actually succeeded until someone figures out the truth. It'd be ambitious for someone to say they can turn lead into gold, but no matter how sincere their original ambitions if they resort to selling lead covered in gold paint they're a bunch of cheats.
@Strictlystyles unplayable game on ps4 and xbox. That’s exaggerating?
I know four people who returned the game after three hours.
@Roto13 exactly! They needed the money, which is what I said and you’ve just contradicted your first comment....the circus is in town and they’re always looking for clowns.
Isn’t it past your bedtime?
Next time you make a comment try reading your previous comments!
@Dr_Lugae
Well if it doesn't work at all, I think that should be the platform holders responsibility to block the sale of it. Cyberpunk shouldn't have been allowed to be sold on PS4 or Xbox One in the first place.
@Dr_Lugae There is more to what made Sword and Shield a poorly-marketed game than the Dexit aspect, which is a plus, if anything. The developers directly stating that time was spent creating models from scratch when they were not, for starters (it has been proven since release that models from previous games were in fact reused for Sword and Shield). Their art director publicly retweeting messages calling fans who dared to criticize the game the C-word, the fact that the end game content is locked behind $30 DLC, etc.
https://s.famitsu.com/news/201906/13177936.html
https://www.polygon.com/pokemon/2019/7/13/20693069/pokemon-sword-shield-pokedex-limited-game-freak-statement-nintendo-switch
Sword/Shield art director C-word tweet:
https://imgur.com/g5ma1VP
I like the cut of this man's jib.
@Menardi It was controversial but those links reasons for cutting down the Dex, or them having to re-create all the Pokémon models from scratch due to porting issues(Which the link to reddit in your source says), or James Turner liking a tweet with the 'c-word'.
That isn't the same as say Peter Molyneux claiming you can plant a tree in Fable as a child and it will grow as you play the game. Or if you kill someone there's a chance their children will grow up and hunt you down. When he knows it's not true. It's not the same as Hello Games claiming No Mans Sky had features that it didn't.
I think if something about a game is going to be controversial it's actually good for the players that it comes from the developers mouth before release. Not the players figuring they've been tricked after they've spent their money.
@Dr_Lugae They are one and the same: the developer claimed (and media outlets reported without retraction) that the Pokémon models were "rebuilt from scratch [...] for Pokémon Sword and Shield" and posed a challenge to the developers. It has been shown since the games' release that the models were not rebuilt from scratch as players were led to believe if they had read that July 2019 article, and were in fact reused from previous games (not that it's that big of a deal, it's fairly obvious to the average person that it reuses the 3DS models, but it is the sentiment that counts. There is no reason to mislead players who have otherwise purchased every game they have released since the nineties). It directly misleads the consumer in the same way Peter Molyneux does in your example, both of which are far more deceptive than anything CD Projekt Red have done to my knowledge (I think it's what they haven't done so far as QA is concerned that is the real issue, there. Besides the glitches, Cyberpunk does appear to be a fully-realized game, and all of the game's content is included in the initial purchase, which is more than can be said for Sword and Shield. As far as I am aware, Cyberpunk is simply a rushed Christmas release, which is fairly and often unfortunately common in today's industry).
@Friendly all that video showed were technical issues and some questionable game design. And yea, sure the base ps4 and xbone were next to unplayable in a lot of ways, those will be A bit more playable when the next big patch hits. And honestly I’m not too surprised it came out that way. If I was one of those gamers I wouldn’t be running out for a refund tbh, if the devs are going to fix it, fine. That’s just the state of gaming these days, especially when you have a brand new ambitious AAA title.
Fabled 2 was a pretty solid game which I still think about today. Gamers can do something about this just don't buy games at launch. Wait see if a game is worth it then get it on sale. It's easier said then done when the majority of consumers don't really care and wouldn't even read an article like this.
CDPR released Cyberpunk 2077 instead of allowing it to bake in the oven some more because they wanted their game to be on the minds of next-gen console buyers. It's not because they needed the money.
The game could've done with at least another year or 18 months of development; as it currently is, many of its features and systems are actually inferior to older titles' like GTAIV (not 5).
Is the press to blame for hype? I can't blame them as much as Hello Games / CDPR themselves, the dev studios (and their marketing department, obviously) are the ones who chose to advertise their game as something it isn't.
@Strictlystyles i truly despise your shrugging
‘So the game doesn’t work. Whatever.’
@fluggy
Are you one of those people who couldn't play Link's Awakening on Switch too? I played Ori at launch on a One X and while it had some issues it was nowhere near what you're describing and it was fixed within a couple weeks. The biggest annoyance was the lag in opening up the map. In hindsight it seems like they should have just delayed it an extra couple weeks, and I'm sure they wish they had, but in the grand history of botched launches it wouldn't even place in the top 100.
Maybe his tone and delivery could come off as bitter. But he isn't wrong about any of it
@Strictlystyles Did you already forget? Multiple interviews Sean Murray was asked if feature A or B would be in the game and he kept saying "Yes, you can do that. yes, that'll be in the game." Game releases and so many promises were either embellished or flat out lies. They may have patched in several of those promises later, but the fact is they still straight up lied at release.
I for one think this guy is perfectly justified in how he feels and what he says. Yes, management in all of these situations flat-out lied. The state of Cyberpunk on consoles was lied about to customers AND investors. Sean Murray and Peter Molyneux both promised features that simply were not in their games at release. The only difference is No Man's Sky got updated and several features were added in later. Still, that initial deception cannot be forgotten.
And yes, both games journalists and gamers are quick to forget these sins. The author of this piece will try to point out some counter-arguments, but within a week of Cyberpunk's troubled release some diehard fans were saying "leave them alone, they don't deserve this!" Forgetting and forgiving so easily is why companies can continually get away with half-baked releases. They know that the complaints will usually effect nothing in the long run. It takes a massive situation like Battlefront II's lootboxes or Cyberpunk's false promises to really have any impact.
@Strictlystyles its not an rpg, id reccomend watcing the e3 gameplay they showed before launch, and if you dont think that level gives the impression that choices matter, then fine but we were told it was gameplay and not pre redered, it was all pre rendered. straight up false advertising
@RupeeClock The multiplayer features were largely made up in people's heads. Don't you remember how all they kept talking about was how it would be almost impossible for a player to ever run into anyone else because the universe was supposed to be so big? How could there possibly be multiplayer? If they were dishonest about anything it was the size of the game.
@skullivan
.. it was as bad as I'm describing. It was pretty buggy anyway but it became UNPLAYABLE as soon as I hit Luna Pools. The frame rate literally ground to a halt. We're talking dipping under 10fps consistently for the next few hours.
ResetERA is garbo lol
Journalists do play along with it, I remember during the 360 era listening to 1up and the other big gaming podcasts at the time they couldn’t stop acting like there was something whimsical about Molyneux lying to them, this empowered Molyneux to make that Milo Kinect demo aka the fakest demo of all time that journalists would still hype all over.
@Kalmaro Listen to yourself, you literally start your comment by calling them liars for saying two players could meet up. Then you looked it up and realized that what they actually said was the opposite, that two players couldn't meet up and somehow that still makes them liars. You're carrying around outrage over something you can't even keep straight.
@Ajent @Ajent Not only did Murray not say that the game had multiplayer, their main gimmick was that the universe was supposed to be so large that it would be essentially impossible for two players to meet up. That was proven wrong almost immediately and they were rightfully called out for it, but somehow people simultaneously believed that a developer who kept insisting that players would never be able to meet up also somehow secretly created a whole multiplayer mode.
Also, early reviews (which came out a couple weeks in advance) were not kind to the game so anyone who went ahead and bought
it anyway really didn't have anyone to blame but themselves. I remember getting hyped on the game as it got close to release and then skipped it entirely when reviews came out.
@Strictlystyles "Cyberpunk just has technical issues but is just about the game they described."
I didn't care about Cyberpunk because I always thought this is just another "flavor of the month" game, like tRiPLe-AAAAHH-bLocKbuSteR games mostly are. People are always whining and complaining, just to pre-order the next FotM-game to repeat the same. The mainstream is moving in a circle.
Shiny openworld blockbuster blah game gets announced => Media hyping it up => People hyping it up => people hyping up each other, and everyone who doesn't care gets attacked => people pre-order (as if a game could run away?) => people are disappointed and complain => Back to step1. Lessons learned: 0.
I saw a video from a person that compared trailers and what the marketing said with actual game footage and... uhm... Just technical issues you say? The game they described? Sure...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omyoJ7onNrg
@Altina every video you guys link just proves my point, a lot of the things left out of the game as described in concept art and prerelease footage was stuff they didn’t have time to finish and had to cut out. The rest is just technical issues that can be fixed. And I never said we 100% got what they were pushing to us but let’s not act like we didn’t get a decent game as is.
I’d still give it an 8 even with the issues (on non legacy hardware that is) as I went into the game with no large expectations and I’m still playing the game and having a blast. I’ll even do another build on hard mode when they finally fix all the bugs and add some of the things they wanted to add initially (which we all know is going to come)
People like to irrationally hype things and equally like to irrationally rage over a perceived sleight or injustice. Makes it tough to be angry at devs who are giving "fandom" what they want either way.
@Friendly it’s more like , so the game doesn’t work and a week later the devs promise to fix the worst of it within 2 months. Ok that’s fair. Like if they say they have 2 huge patches coming up, i think I’ll reserve all the exaggerating Criticisms for a later date.
Either way it doesn’t matter, once they touch up the game it’ll be even better than before and that’s not a bad thing.
@Strictlystyles Lol. Try Cyberpunk on PS4. It is not at all the game they described if the essential mechanics make the game to crash. It is like you bring in a wrecked car and claim it's still Dodge.
@Strictlystyles you’re part of the problem if you think this is acceptable behavior by a company.
@skullivan False.
I said that, if they made the claim that players could meet up and they couldn't, that would make them liars. I never said they made that claim and even asked if they did in my first post.
I then edited another post pointing out that they were very misleading in trekking prone they would not meet each other due to just how big the game was. It turns out, you couldn't meet each other because that wasn't allowed in game yet, not because of the he's size. That's very misleading and looks intentional to me, thus, I called them liars.
Sounds like this guy never watched InternetHistorians video on NMS, you know what though Hello Games didn't cut and run and instead just made NMS bigger then what was ever promised and it was all free. I played and completed Ori and loved it and may replay it someday but NMS has got nearly a 1000 hours from me and its still going up especially with new updates.
@Strictlystyles it isn't the game they described not one bit at all. You can't even change your hairstyle. The voice acting is wooden with no flow to it. Your stuck to one apartment the whole game, you can't bring strangers home to have relations, people in night city don't lead their own life if you follow one npc you will see them walking round the block when they said that npcs would live their own life.
The list goes on tbh. The game was soo bad and soo buggy on ps4 Pro. It's definitely made me no preorder games from now on and wait till after release
@skullivan yeah, I think Murray gets a bad rap because of all the surrounding circumstances that he wasn’t entirely to blame for. This dev calling him out in this way just seems a bit disingenuous. In my profession there is a sense of camaraderie where we generally stick up for each; not finding mistaken excuses to have digs at each other. It seems off to me.
On another note; if you haven’t gone back to No Man’s Sky it is well worth revisiting. It’s on GamePass if you an Xbox and is fairly cheap on other platforms. It’s a completely different game now. I’ve only played a little bit (a few hours), but it really does exceed the scope of the original vision and it looks and plays really well (recently played it on PS5).
Edit: Auto-correct errors.
@Tyranexx same. I feel like people make wild assumptions about all the moving parts of getting a game from concept to console/PC and it’s a giant möbius strip. I feel like games journos get kinda chewed up by that process more than they are actively abetting it. After all integrity is 99% of your credibility; get caught lying and you can’t sell umbrellas in a hurricane.
I don’t consider myself a dev as my SQL/python/powerapps dev work is like only 30% of my job but I know crunch, I know having an amazing idea and hitting the wall that is logistics and finances, I know working lean cuz the CFO is cheap. So I have a much more moderate view of games. I think people that work jobs in similar streams (you being a dev for instance) understand that better than joe public.
I have my staples (Nintendo, marvelous, P*, any fighting game except Mortal Kombat) that I get hype over but I never feel let down because my hype stems from what is shown and track record. When BotW2 gets in advertising rotation, I’ll be the craziest person on here but never, ever due to speculation.
@Ajent I think there's a bit of unfairness that in an industry where its hard to get noticed.
The games which sold themselves on lies get both lots of press and exposure due to the lies. Then after its revealed to be a lie they also get the 2nd chances built on the exposure.
It's like why does Cyberpunk get loads of press coverage from overpromising, then get left off the hook to fix itself when it underdelivers? When loads of competent games that deliver the promised experience wouldn't even get a small percentage of that?
@Dr_Lugae well, I mean, surely that’s on us as the consumer/fans?
I still don’t think it’s OK to normalise and accept such emotions as resentment and then allow that to be an OK reason to act negatively towards others.
Cyberpunk does get press for the poor management of the game, but the alternative is that it gets no press coverage. Is that right? If they do turn it around eventually and it eventually gets rid of the bugs, should we maintain our position of not allowing them the credit? What precedent does that set? Remember, it’s is widely considered to be a very good game- it’s just a bug ridden mess and borderline unplayable on last gen consoles.
As I’ve already said, No Man’s Sky and Sean Murray are a bad example because the circumstances were not entirely of their making (and they totally deserve recognition for their dedication to commit and promise on their original vision - plus the game is quite good now).
Also, the director/dev in this article is the Ori dev. They have had their fair share of coverage and accolades, and a number of nominations for awards. So, in this instance there’s even less reason to be bitter and he seems to be taking shots for some other reason - suggesting he’s just generally unhappy at the moment.
Reminds me of the music business.
Fake it until you make it.
Influencer influenza.
Well, that was disappointing. He didn't really have anything to add to the conversation. What he says is true, but it goes way beyond the three examples mentioned, and the gaming industry as well. The industry is build around hype for many reasons and in many ways. It's by no means only due to individual actors.
But I do strongly agree with the sentiment that most of the "gaming press" (quotes due the lacking distance between the industry and press) is super lenient esp. with big names, esp. if those names are build on a house of cards and that they can be lenient because most of their audience is as well.
Why gamers don't care being bamboozled time and time again, I dunno. Maybe because 50% of the time, the thrill of the hype and anticipation actually outweighs the thrill of gaming? I kinda think so at this point.
Come on NL.
BradenAndEggs' reply is pointless to include.
That you could avoid the situation by not buying a game until the reviews arrive is not a very constructive input for what Mahler talks about.
It's not wrong, but it's not relevant either.
Ori losing out on cover exposure to a different game, that gets unjust attention, won't be solved by Mahler not buying a video game before reading its reviews.
Building on that, it's not as such an issue that CAN be solved. There will always be exciting but ultimately disappointing stories appearing in any media landscape. Mahler is just voicing a frustration that I'm sure many feel, when journalists and gamers alike appear ready to jump on the next implausible hypetrain.
It not the most professional quib, but an understandable one.
I think it's a combination of things that make this kinda issues:
-First the studios showing material that's not real
-Then the fans who enlarge and idolize those games
-Then the journalist cuz well, those clics aren't coming alone, are they?
To me the real problem starts with a developer trying to pass tech demos as real gameplay or footage
A little bitter aren't we?
it does feel like a lot of people who are heavily into gaming as a hobby (or "gamers") can be critical about these kinds of things and even during no mans skys hype train i did see a lot of people skeptical of the media hype, with cyberpunk it felt like it was more a case of it being from the devs of a well received title.
however it does feel like a lot of this kind of criticism is often dismissed as "entitlement" and while there are those who do go too far (such as those who harrass devs) those are often a small but vocal part of it.
Naturally not everyone who is in to gaming is deep into online forums and discussion and that is fine, but it is also why criticism can be very helpful, however sometimes it can be difficult due to embargoes or lack of publicly available demos a lot of the time. for example i imagine balan wonderworld would still have a degree of hype if wasn't for the demo, now a lot of people are more cautious (demos can also have the opposite effect too, with people who weren't too interested enjoying a demo)
Its one of the reasons i really appreciate transparency when it comes to interacting with the gaming community.
in terms of negative press regarding games, the no mans sky and cyberpunk example linked were both from reviews, this was after the months and months of largely glowing coverage and hype, look at various previews of games even by publications which gave said game a negative review.
before cyberpunk got leaked and actual footage was out in the wild most of the criticism towards it was regarding things like some of the questionable marketing choices or twitter comments than the games quality which makes it seem like either the devs/publishers were hiding things from the journalists or that the journalists weren't allowed to talk about criticisms when writing the article, so the picture of the game that was being painted was very different than what the leaks and finished game ended up being.
@Little_Squee the base legacy versions go without saying, I don’t know how many times I have to say that
@Crockin as much as I would like that the problem is with bayonetta everyone knows what that series is about and they don't need to drum up hype for it the community will do it for them. Cyberpunk needed to drum up hype or no one would have bought it and I'm no defending the lies they told cdpr should have just said it was the same kinda game as last generation and no one would have been disappointed and there still would have been hype.
@Mgalens in the end all the community wants is a quality product with work put into it. People can week and moan about a delay but in most cases a delay should be celebrated because it means they are taking the time to make sure it's a quality product like fans were promised
@Friendly I never said it was acceptable I said I’m not surprised and that’s just the landscape of AAA development . A lot of money and time and marketing went into cyberpunk and obviously it needed more time but they afford to delay it any longer and I get that.
But The dev promised to fix these issues fairly soon so it’s fair enough, so Im not gonna exaggerate and throw negative comments everywhere, because it’s actually a really good game even with all the bugs and features they didn’t have time to add(again, unless you’re on legacy hardware)
I’m not saying it’s appropriate but I understand. I’d rather have what we got rather than nothing at all because like I said, I’m having a great time playing it (minus bugs)
@Ghostchip my only point with bayonetta is that it's best to wait until you have a mostly finished product to show it off and say hey this is coming and it's gonna be great.
Obviously cyberpunk needed more buy-in, and i wouldn't expect a major developer like cdpr to downplay their new game as anything other than big, hype, special, goty etc. But this was just way too far in just about every way. CDPR execs were the only winners in this scenario, and all they won was keeping their company afloat.
@Ryu_Niiyama Oh, gosh. Some clients for a brand new feature: "It can be ready by next week, right?" /facepalm Depending on the project scope and where it ends up in the priority queue, it can be MUCH longer than that. My previous employer used to rush and promise features and changes without proper planning and tracking, so requests would sometimes fall through the cracks, be rushed through development, and/or not endure sufficient QA testing. In hindsight, the extra work I put in to stay caught up at times wasn't worth it when considering the lost personal time and what I earned back then.
I love the "Can't sell umbrellas in a hurricane" analogy. If you don't mind, I'd like to borrow that. Also, as I'm now experiencing BotW for the first time, I'll join your hype party due to what's officially revealed. I don't actively search for rumors but do bring plenty of salt along when I do stumble across them (usually if one is mentioned or addressed here).
@Tyranexx Woo yeah. I used to work for the company that makes the software I support and as mild mannered as I am, I was afraid I was gonna go to jail. Clients demanding rando mess, won’t test their databases or permissions or even checking their bank account setup (it’s accounting software) and then yelling at me or development when we don’t snap out a solution or the one we make gasp costs money cuz it’s customized to death. I’m happier to be a client where my only headache is the CFO and my users that I wanna punt off a cliff.
I agree with you on the extra work. I understand that logically but I have pokemon syndrome (I wanna be the very best) so I end up toiling away making changes, building reports and packages only for my users to blow stuff up two days later.
I’m at the point now that I don’t click on the rumor mill articles if I can help it. I can’t get those seconds of my life back. And sure you can use it, got it from my mama, and it doesn’t work as well for me now that I live in a desert. I don’t know what would be an easy sell during a haboob ... cheap u-haul to move away maybe? (If you don’t know what a haboob is look it up. It will change your life. )
Fable 2 was legit one of the best games of its type at the time it came out.
@Ryu_Niiyama Heh, it's like devs are human and can't whip out a fully customized module in two minutes. Who woulda thunk? We do some customization in some instances depending on the request, and if it's really involved we typically do ask for some extra payment. Usually that helps throttle the "We needed this yesterday requests. XD It also helps that I no longer am in a backup support role; most clients were fine, but "punt off a cliff" would be the nicer way to put getting rid of some of them....This is why games exist for venting.
I experienced severe coding burnout more than once at my last job. Some of it had to do with the company situation in general at the time, but a lot of it was overwork. My current job and work team are definitely a major improvement. I'm not afraid to put in extra time if needed to help finish a project or finish out a task for the day, but unless something is proverbially on fire I don't go too crazy with extra work these days.
I don't always click on the rumor mill articles - it depends on the subject in question - but I do like to know what's floating around out there sometimes. More in a "Yeah, that'd be cool, but it's not confirmed" manner than in a "ZOMG THIS IS AWESOME IT MUST BE TRUE!" reaction. XD
Ah, so haboob = sandstorm. I've heard the term, but used as a synonym of a word like "fiasco". I had to look it up. XD What would be an easy sell? :thinking_face: A private underground bunker with all needs fulfilled, maybe?
I haven't played Ori and this little rant has probably made me less likely to play it in the future. Not a great vibe coming from this developer.
Peter is still a legend that were ahead of it's time.
Powermonger, Populous, Syndicate, Magic Carpet, Dungeon Keeper etc.
Even today Bullfrog is still my #1 favourite developer ever.
Peter's prime time were on Amiga and PC during 1980's and 1990's.
Back then EA were great too. Made the legendary Deluxe Paint for Amiga among other things which also were used to make a lot of the GFX for Sega, SNES etc..
This Mahler sounds like a jealous ex: your game didn't get as much as hype as you wanted, so what? Life's not fair so deal w/ it.
Tap here to load 177 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...