Posted July 14, 2010
Yay for unverifiable "quotes" taken out of context :p
Seriously though, let's just take a quick look:
"Name me one popular game with motorbikes?"
Seriously, name one AAA title with a heavy emphasis on motorbikes. Sure that doesn't mean this couldn't be good, but there is a reason we keep getting more of the same: People WANT more of the same.
"Collecting giant coins feels unrealistic to me"
With the rise in popularity of "joke" reviewers like Yahtzee, that is actually a potential concern. People might mock a new game for stuff like that. I for one think it is crap, but at the same time, a single catchy bad note can kill a game. Look at Alpha Protocol. Most of the reviewers pointed out it was very rough around the edges, so the game has a rep for being a "buggy piece of crap". Although, that might be deserved.
Or Steam. A few games had problems being "modded" (because the mods were closer to hacks due to no mod support :p) and now people always assume you can't mod a Steam game.
Face it, PR is important. Give Yahtzee and the other idiots a chance and a game could have gotten pegged as "That goofy game where you run around grabbing huge gold coins. What a Mario ripoff".
It didn't happen, but hindsight is 20/20.
"I can see this working as a Facebook app"
That right there just shows that the dev is a bit of an arrogant jerk (and this set of quotes does NOTHING to reinforce that :p). Looking at the wiki page, this basically would be a perfect facebook game. Relatively simple, "indie-esque" graphics, and an emphasis on competing against others for high scores.
Either way, that isn't actually a rejection. So his pretending it was says a lot about just how willing the guy was to compromise.
Yes, the concept of a game shouldn't be compromised too much for sales. But, at the same time, look at Introversion and Darwinia/Multiwinia. Microsoft basically called them idiots and told them to fix it for the consoles, and they eventually realized they should.
"We want games that are less about fun right now"
Ah, yes. The king of all quotes. It sounds REALLY bad on the surface. But then look at the game itself. They don't mean "we don't want fun games". They mean "We don't want goofy games" and the like. I don't think anyone would ever call the Warhammer 40k universe "fun". The GAMES might be fun as hell, but the universe is pretty grimdark. And look at the trends, most publishers are going for grimdark, gritty, etc. Even CD Projekt are making a pretty gritty game with TWEE/TW2.
"We love the theme, but with a different game"
They basically felt that the theme had merit, but the game itself was a bit weak. And frankly, I agree. I didn't like Trials, and I doubt I would like this. Clearly I am not indicative of the fanbase, but it is something to consider.
"We believe the iPhone will be largely unsupported"
That is actually a pretty big concern for a lot of game devs and publishers right now (seriously, read up). Apple is making it a point to stifle the hell out of third party tools and the like (they are even probably going to ban Unity). That isn't how you build up a fanbase as far as games go (look at the Zune. Nobody really games on that).
"Can Joe be a monkey? We like Monkeys"
We laugh, but look at this thread. We like monkeys too :p.
Seriously though, let's just take a quick look:
"Name me one popular game with motorbikes?"
Seriously, name one AAA title with a heavy emphasis on motorbikes. Sure that doesn't mean this couldn't be good, but there is a reason we keep getting more of the same: People WANT more of the same.
"Collecting giant coins feels unrealistic to me"
With the rise in popularity of "joke" reviewers like Yahtzee, that is actually a potential concern. People might mock a new game for stuff like that. I for one think it is crap, but at the same time, a single catchy bad note can kill a game. Look at Alpha Protocol. Most of the reviewers pointed out it was very rough around the edges, so the game has a rep for being a "buggy piece of crap". Although, that might be deserved.
Or Steam. A few games had problems being "modded" (because the mods were closer to hacks due to no mod support :p) and now people always assume you can't mod a Steam game.
Face it, PR is important. Give Yahtzee and the other idiots a chance and a game could have gotten pegged as "That goofy game where you run around grabbing huge gold coins. What a Mario ripoff".
It didn't happen, but hindsight is 20/20.
"I can see this working as a Facebook app"
That right there just shows that the dev is a bit of an arrogant jerk (and this set of quotes does NOTHING to reinforce that :p). Looking at the wiki page, this basically would be a perfect facebook game. Relatively simple, "indie-esque" graphics, and an emphasis on competing against others for high scores.
Either way, that isn't actually a rejection. So his pretending it was says a lot about just how willing the guy was to compromise.
Yes, the concept of a game shouldn't be compromised too much for sales. But, at the same time, look at Introversion and Darwinia/Multiwinia. Microsoft basically called them idiots and told them to fix it for the consoles, and they eventually realized they should.
"We want games that are less about fun right now"
Ah, yes. The king of all quotes. It sounds REALLY bad on the surface. But then look at the game itself. They don't mean "we don't want fun games". They mean "We don't want goofy games" and the like. I don't think anyone would ever call the Warhammer 40k universe "fun". The GAMES might be fun as hell, but the universe is pretty grimdark. And look at the trends, most publishers are going for grimdark, gritty, etc. Even CD Projekt are making a pretty gritty game with TWEE/TW2.
"We love the theme, but with a different game"
They basically felt that the theme had merit, but the game itself was a bit weak. And frankly, I agree. I didn't like Trials, and I doubt I would like this. Clearly I am not indicative of the fanbase, but it is something to consider.
"We believe the iPhone will be largely unsupported"
That is actually a pretty big concern for a lot of game devs and publishers right now (seriously, read up). Apple is making it a point to stifle the hell out of third party tools and the like (they are even probably going to ban Unity). That isn't how you build up a fanbase as far as games go (look at the Zune. Nobody really games on that).
"Can Joe be a monkey? We like Monkeys"
We laugh, but look at this thread. We like monkeys too :p.