Posted June 25, 2016
The point was that I know Sony has delayed and heavily influenced the creative direction of a game before, after the design had been locked for a very long time. Which cost the developer a lot of unnecessary effort, delays and problems. That then Sony in the end lost money on as well.
And they did that because PR and their community folks decided the following: if any negative concern that anyone might have will be addressed, then this means more buyers. Since, they reason, any change to the game must make it better.
I'll be specific. This is anything from Ethan's bum being shown in Heavy Rain (I'm completely serious - this was a real concern that Quantic had to address to official Sony channels. It came from some random person who was uncomfortable with male bodies being shown without clothes, and stated this concern for review as the most obvious thing in the world. He was American, btw. While what we saw in the beta-channels were people violently arguing about intimacy in France vs. the US, Cage actually pointed out that he had to pull the creative independence card to put it in the game later on post release).
And to changing core gameplay mechanics that a game was initially sold on (in the beta-channel, we were insisted on that changing the overarching commander aspect in MAG to be symbolic, and to prevent squads from actually moving out of their sectors -- the only thing that made the game stand out in the early testing was how you could cooperate with the other commanders and focus your attacks. That's what made each game unique, and what glued some of us to the screen for way too much time in the beta -- had to be changed to make the game easier to play. That they basically gave the finger to everyone who were extremely happy about the way the game actually played was of no concern).
Because that's how they think. If there is one person with a "reasonable" complaint, as they see it, they still believe that removing that concern from the game is going to make that game better. And the bigger the title, the more expectation that title has for sales - the bigger involvement after the game is finished is automatically going to be justified.
So I'm just saying that the most likely "improvements" Sony will have offered in return for the delay will be removal of very silly things no one would have had a problem with. And typically also results in serious simplification and downgrade of anything that demands focus and thought for, say, two seconds at a time.
And I'm genuinely unhappy about the fact that I pre-ordered this game and didn't anticipate Sony's involvement towards the release. Because if Hello Games had said they were contractually obligated to release on ps4 and PC at the same time, and that their studio has a close relationship with Sony's Q&A, by contract or otherwise, over focusing on how their own in-house testers did the work -- then I wouldn't have pre-ordered, and I wouldn't have had much interest in the title. Because I know, for a fact, that practically anything Sony touches turns to shit.
I know that obviously sounds like I'm exaggerating. But read the argument in the quote over there - he thinks it's obvious that if something that would offend a creationist is in the game, then that should be addressed. Because creationists also play games. So therefore, and I assure you that Sony takes this stuff seriously - if there's talk about science and evolution and origins or species in the game - then that must be sifted out by a Q&A checking the game all the way through for potential issues. Since removing that issue would shield the game from criticism (they believe - until their internal papers are "leaked", and the magazines use their fictive concerns as a reference list for everything wrong with the game, etc), and increase the potential amount of customers. Sony has done similar things before, multiple times. And I have no reason to believe they've stopped doing it.
Then there's the gameplay and controls aspect - there's always someone who will want to add more assists, remove potential failures, and for example prevent someone from doing dumb things they'd be punished for. And this is something Sean has discussed in interviews, how he liked those moments a lot - no one prompted him to do that. But wistful wondering about the things that never make it into the final game are unfortunately nr. 1 on the list after the post-development Q&A from Sony turns up.
We'll see, obviously. But I'm going to be amazingly surprised if the game survives without cuts that are so obvious any player will actually see it when they boot the game up. Trust me, there's a good reason why they keep this secret and obligate developers to keep quiet during the finalization process, also after the game is done from the studio point of view.
