It's been a bumper week for objectionable quotes, with 2K's Christoph Hartmann insisting that diversity depends on photorealism yesterday, and Activision CEO Bobby Kotick attributing a market slump to lousy competition today.
Inspired by the fracas, we've spent the afternoon sifting through the news reels, digging up a few other verbal car crashes on the part of the industry's big players. Here are ten for you to get all steamed up about.
Hideo Kojima (Kojima Productions)
This one could be a translator's error. You'd certainly hope so. A translation error sounds a lot more plausible than the idea that the man behind Metal Gear Solid 4 isn't down with the whole linear storytelling business. "It's very difficult to implement a storyline into an interactive game. I actually think we shouldn't do that," Kojima insisted last month. "I am not trying to tell a story. You are inside a story, an environment, and acting as a certain character, and what that character is feeling inside that environment is what I want the players to feel as they play the game. You don't need an elaborate storyline for that." Or hour-long cutscenes, for that matter.
Ron Rosenberg (Crystal Dynamics)
Here's how you annoy the tabloid press, videogame developers: throw a massive goat-slaughtering party featuring topless ladies. Or if you want to save money, just trot out the word "rape" in an interview like it's on more or less the same bandwidth as "visceral", "gritty" or "atmospheric". According to Kotaku, Tomb Raider executive producer Ron Rosenberg tried the second trick in reference to Lara Croft's emotional development, apparently labouring under the assumption that the only way female characters develop backbone is via the prospect of sexual abuse. "She literally goes from zero to hero," he added later. "We're sort of building her up and just when she gets confident, we break her down again. She is literally turned into a cornered animal. It's a huge step in her evolution: she's forced to either fight back or die." Some girls just sign up for a few evening classes, Ron.
10 comments so far...
msbhvn on 3 Aug '12 said:
What, no pointing out of Casey Hudson's lies about the ME3 ending? I'd say that was a pretty big mistake. Yes, I'm still bitter.
And can you change that picture on the main page scroller? Bobby Kotick's greedy fat face is making me nauseous.
Clanger67 on 3 Aug '12 said:
Hey ! don't pick on Ken. the guy is a genius,from one of my fave devs. ever.Plus he has been around since the birth of gaming as we know it.Plus everybody is allowed to be a knob some of the time.
STE MO on 3 Aug '12 said:
And what of Bobby Kotick does that same law apply to him? Speaking of Bobby Kotick I think that his quote was a joke but the media twisted it to make it sound like he was serious. And I'm certainly not his biggest fan, but was just thinking of what I would say if someone quizzed me on raising the price of games
Grummy on 4 Aug '12 said:
Ken Levine's comments about the Elizabeth boobage thing are a bit half assed, but I have to say, people's reactions to that are terrible to the point of ridiculous. It seems to me that I'm the only one who sees it for what it is, which ISN'T a cheap sexual image for the 13-18 year old demographic. The whole 'controversy' is knee jerk reaction, completely invented in the minds of a few people who truly missed the point.
Also, you missed the worst of them all, John Riccietiello talking about the free to play model. To paraphrase, he said "if you're playing Battlefield and run out of ammo, and we charge you a buck to reload, at that time you are not cost sensitive". He was essentially saying 'we have free reign to rip you all the f**k off'. That wasn't just a face palm moment, it was the moment I utterly gave up on EA and have decided to never buy one of their games new ever again.
YoungTobias on 4 Aug '12 said:
They couldn't point that out, because Matt already stuck his own foot in it by trying to bring the debate down to 'art' a few weeks ago. Mentioning BioWare's repeated lies about the ending would also confirm that Matt didn't understand or research the backlash against it, which is obviously not something OXM are willing to do.
OXM ETboy on 4 Aug '12 said:
I compiled this list, YT, and while I've read and watch practically everything there is to read or watch regarding ME3's ending, I've yet to actually finish the game myself, so I'm reserving judgement for the moment. I do think asking a developer to expand a shipped game sets a dangerous precedent, though - we can't judge stuff that isn't finished, and what BioWare has done is substantiate the idea that no game is truly finished while somebody's dissatisfied with it. Having said that, you could argue that releasing single player DLC is tampering with a piece, so perhaps I'm guilty of hypocrisy here. Something else to bear in mind - the case for ME3's "false advertising" has been overturned by the ASA - http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/20 ... -3-ending/
Grummy: I see what you're saying, and I don't consider Elizabeth as flagrant a case of physical objectification as, say, Sophitia in Soulcalibur, but I do think he's trying to have his sophistication-cake and eat it. Regarding the Riccitiello comments - true enough, he's out for every dollar he can squeeze, but that's been the case with big companies since time immemorial. They'll get away with it if we let them, and when it comes to purchaseable reloads, I sincerely hope we won't.
Decent_Jam on 4 Aug '12 said:
I think the fact that these quotes come out and cause such an uproar is reflective of the emotional investment gamers feel towards the medium, you might get people disapproving of comments in the film world - Christian Bale's lighting rant for example - but you don't get such passionate debate anywhere else I don't think.
On the flipside, hopefully we're beyond petty arguments with name-calling and such here...not that I'm suggesting anyone has - yet.
For me I think a lot of these comments are just baffling, but at the end of the day people say stupid things all the time. The trick is to know the right time to cut your losses and just admit you've made a mistake. In the case of Casey (ahem) I think he was too prescriptive about what he said at the outset and so managed expectations very poorly, which is why the backlash was as severe as it was. Personally I found the ME3 original ending 'fine' and the redux version 'better'.
Grummy on 4 Aug '12 said:
Shut up, mong.
The problem I found with the ME3 thing is that despite people having problems, there isn't a singular complaint. Yes people were all disappointed with the ending, but for different reasons, it's difficult for Bioware to cater to everyone, which when you get down to it was the core of the decision for how to craft the endings in the first place. I don't think anything they could have done would really have made people happy, too many people had decided what they want their ending to be for themselves. There is also a small matter of EA not likely to want to give up on a lucrative franchise, so they were not going to want endings that were too definitive. For my part, I think the problems with the ending started in the games themselves, how everything you do during the game really isn't reflected in the endings because they are so similar. I personally would have preferred a few very very distinct endings with a bunch of interchangeable ending details about other races etc depending on what you did during the games than the generic fluff they gave us, but with that said, I was never really expecting that much anyway, games rarely if ever have good endings.
msbhvn on 4 Aug '12 said:
I'll admit to a little hyperbole when I called them lies, but Casey Hudson definitely got carried away describing an ending that hadn't been written at that point. Why he went on and on about how there'd be countless variations because all your decisions are taken into account and then allegedly co-wrote an ending that does nothing of the sort, we'll probably never know. I should really stop going on about it because I still haven't seen the Extended Cut.
Grummy on 4 Aug '12 said:
I think he must have just been feeling a little Molyneuxy at the time, it's a horrible disease of the mouth that makes people spew twaddle they don't really mean. Bless them.