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DD: Yeah, I think so. I mean, first of all, generally to create an engrossing story, you want characters that are bigger than life. To take Too Human as an example: you’re playing the role of a cybernetic god. So, you’re going to have a lot more influence than the average person, and all types of mainstream entertainment – in order to do something fun – create things where the player is larger than life. However, if you’re going to create something where this person is absolutely pivotal at all times and everything you do controls the whole world, it becomes quite boring. When things are completely in your control, that’s generally not a good vehicle for entertainment; you have to really balance it out. That’s my perspective on it, and I think a lot of people here at Silicon Knights would share that perspective. But, like all things in entertainment, there’s many ways to create an entertaining experience. I think by and large, though, that’s a good principle. GS: Moving on to the Sega project, you’re not announcing details on that until it’s done at this point? Are you implementing the ideas that you’ve spoken about recently in regards to the development cycle? DD: We’re certainly trying to find an approach where we’re going to talk about titles at the right time. I think it’s fair to say that when I first started talking about this I was honestly a bit surprised about the level at which it resonated. We got a lot of emails from people within the industry, and I talked to a lot of people at the Game Developers Conference about this, and a lot of people want this to happen. When we put it into perspective, often times you’ll say something pretty extreme to get people’s attention but I think in general we are moving towards that. But time will tell how we make it. GS: So what kind of feedback have you had from people in the industry? DD: Well, it’s pretty interesting. It depends on what people you talk to; if you talk to developers, they like it. If you talk to marketing people, they love it – it’s their perfect environment. For them, they have to guess how many copies the game is going to sell, then they have to put marketing money behind it, so this removes a lot of really unpredictable things for them and they’re just like, ‘This is the best thing ever’. Publishers, if you have the cash flow they like it very much. If you don’t have the cash flow, they don’t like it at all. Basically, the biggest publishers, they’re looking at it, and quite frankly some of them are already doing it – they’re just not talking about it. Others are not right now. The press response and the gamer response has been not as favorable, because the perspective that they have on it is that they see us as trying to take something away, which is not true. The gamers look at us like, ‘Denis Dyack is trying to take away our previews’, and that’s absolutely not true. All I’m saying is that what we need to do is delay the game’s release on the shelf to get some marketing and hype behind it, get some better planning – basically get a better production process for getting that game on the shelf than we now have. From a press point of view, the press want to see things as soon as possible, because they’re very enthusiastic. Some of the press are split on it – some of them think, ‘That’s right, in order for us to be absolutely critical of the products, we have to see the final project and it’s impossible to critique stuff before it’s done’. Others are saying, ‘No, no, our readers want us to go to E3 and see things and tell it like it is as soon as possible because that’s what our job is and we just need to get the information out there.’
I think there’s been a general misunderstanding, but quite frankly the speaking point of this whole production model really is internal to the industry. Other industries are doing it, and from that sense, the press – to some degree, not to a total degree – is not directly relevant for it. I have said this before and it seems almost hypocritical, but it’s not: the press in our industry, I believe strongly, needs to be more critical. For them to be more critical, they have to be absolutely be looking at final product, and not trying to predict the future of how a game is going to be based on the pedigree of the developer, whether the game’s going to be done on time and when it’s supposed to ship. So, if you’re doing a final review or a preview, the parts of previews for final footage [will] just go, ‘I think this looks cool, I can’t wait to see more’, and reviewers can review it and know it’s final and not worry about ‘Is this frame rate issue going to be fixed?’ or ‘Is this bug going to be fixed?’ – they can just report on what they see. But for the gamer, this is so far removed from them that all they see is, ‘Hey, we’re going to get more delayed games.’ They just see it as all negatives. I think, from that perspective, it’s actually all positives for them, but it would be so transparent for the gamer that it’s probably not the right audience for that. GS: Well, in the end it’s going to be the reaction from developers and publishers, rather than gamers that the success of this idea is riding on. DD: If that’s the case – if that’s truly what’s going to decide – then it’s already done. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like it in the development community. I’m not saying that there aren’t any, but most of the developers I talk to don’t ever want to show their game before it’s finished. Why bother? Why bother making that demo? GS: Do you think it’s a quirk of the games industry that the gamers do have so much of a voice to be able to announce their views so vocally? DD: That’s a pretty big misconception in our industry. I’m going to be very straightforward about this, but generally gamers don’t have any influence on games. Feedback from gamers from previews is universally almost never taken. If someone releases something in the press like, ‘Oh, we’ve heard what people are saying, we know the problems – we’re fixing them, please don’t worry’, that’s all PR spin. Generally, when a game is shown, there’s not too much time to alter the direction. The other thing, too, is that there’s better vehicles for getting feedback, like focus testing in a controlled environment. Not showing things at a show to the public; it’s not a good vehicle for showing things. We have been doing [focus testing] internally with Too Human, and those kind of show from a PR and marketing perspective; it’s always good to say, ‘Hey, we learn, we fix things, we get it’, but the reality is it just really doesn’t happen. That’s just a perception. I remember hearing about some game getting some negative feedback and then them saying, ‘Oh, we fixed it, blah blah blah’. But I’ve talked to those guys, and they were like, ‘Nah, we didn’t have any time for that! We just did the best with the time we had and got it done. And I really wish we hadn’t showed it at that show.’ That’s what I hear all the time. |
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