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Why can't mmorpg developers be this honest?
Zorvan
Member CommonPosts: 8,912
Well, I bought the game Blacksite: Area 51. To be blunt: the game is a turd. Don't buy it. Choppy performance due to totally borked sound programming, unless you like playing with no sound. Works better then, but what's the point?
At any rate, after hitting Midways' forums and finding that this is common for the majority of players apparently, someone made a link to this article talking with Harvey Smith, the lead developer of B:51:
blog.wired.com/games/2007/11/montreal-2007-h.html
Reporter Paul Arzt is in Montreal this week, covering the Montreal International Game Summit 2007. He kicks off his coverage with a report on BlackSite: Area 51 designer Harvey Smith's postmortem of his game, which garnered mixed reviews.
The first time Harvey Smith came to Montreal he had just finished his work as lead designer on the acclaimed classic, Deus Ex. On this trip, his last game was Blacksite: Area 51, a game published by Midway which one critic called "a major disappointment."
"This project was so fucked up," said Smith, by way of explanation.
Smith spent the last few minutes of his speech on a postmortem of the game. In part, he blames himself for Blacksite's less-than-warm critical reception.
Before it was released, Blacksite garnered some fame for its political message. It wasn't going to just give a general statement on morality or politics: Blacksite was supposed to be a first person shooter with a satirical look at the war in Iraq, the treatment of veterans and the whole military industrial complex. However, it was only in the last twelve months of work on the game that those political themes took shape.
At first, the game just didn't intrigue Smith. "I wasn't excited about this Area 51 game," he said. While making the game, Smith was overseeing two projects, and Area 51 was not his favorite. That didn't help, and he accepts some fault. "We got hammered so hard, and we deserved it."
"Everyone was forced to share tech. It took eight months to get one thing working." He wouldn't specify what that one thing was, but did note that technical problems set the team back, time and time again. Another of Smith's complaints was "the fact that we had four days to orange box something," meaning to fix and polish a level. Smith called this "completely reprehensible."
That lack of polish, of being able to sit with a final product and make sure it is up to the standards they wanted, was one of the biggest problems for Blacksite and for Smith. "With a year to go, the game was disastrously off rails." There were long delays just getting Blacksite playable, and once it was he says, "it went straight from alpha to final."
In contrast, once Deus Ex was completed, Smith says the team spent six months playing the game just to make sure everything was right.
Smith doesn't, however, think what happened with Blacksite is another example of developers fighting against corporate demands. When asked why he would be so open about the faults of the game so soon after it launched, Smith's response was, "I believe in personal accountability."
Even though he accepts his own faults with the design process, Smith still thinks the game was underrated. "I would give it an 80," he says, claiming the gameplay is still fun and that the contemporary political satire sets it apart from most games.
He's also confused how so many could ignore, or not appreciate, the satire. After describing one scene in which the player fights back a horde of military veterans turned to monsters by the United States, all of them under a banner reading, "Veterans Memorial," Smith asked, "how can you look at all these elements and not think this is super fucking subversive?"
Smith himself may appreciate Blacksite's subversion, but it's obvious the game didn't have the same meaning to many reviewers and players. The game only got a GameRankings average of 69%. In part, Smith knew that reaction was coming: the low scores, he admits, were "no surprise."
Comments
Why?
Because not everyone likes to or can admit when they f*cked up. Especially when a career is on the line. I'm sure him admtting he knew the game was going to not be very good isn't exactly going to get him a load of new projects.
I have read a lot of devs get fed up with game design and go into other software fields what are more profitable and much less aggravation. Maybe he is moving on.../shrug, who knows.
Developers are to proud of their work, good or bad and most can't just let them selfs admit it.
Playing: Everthing
Played: DAoC,AC2,EvE,SWG,WAR,MXO,CoX,EQ2,L2,LOTRO,SB,UO,WoW.
I have played every MMO that has ever come out.
The answer to this is obvious to me. A MMO isn't something you can shove out the door, wash your hands of, and forget about it, like a regular game. An MMO is an ongoing product, and if you want it to succeed you obviously have to be supportive and positive about your game.
A shame, that game really did look awesome. I still plan on renting it but i is firmly off my buy-list.
Why does Midway hate videogames so much?
Eternally mine,
Keebs
The MMO gaming blog I write for.
No some just rip you off let you buy game or addon, even they know its shut down soon (ac2 addon,mourning)
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
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CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
Because they don't want to admit they worked on a POS and have it on their resume?
It's like when your mate has a ugly friend and you ahve no idea why he's with her but he loves her for some strange reason.
Going out and saying "This project I did was a piece of junk because I messed up" doesn't make you look real good in the eyes of whoever you're trying to convince to fund your next project, "this product that I worked on an you're trying to sell is bad" doesn't endear you to the current person trying to sell it or whoever will try to sell it in the future, and so on.
I don't get what there is to appreciate about that. I mean, yeah, some veterans group might complain, but it really sounds unimpressive. An awful lot of developers try to throw in ham-handed subversiveness or darkness or etc. and end up making the game worse, this sounds like one to me.
After reading how he was using a videogame to bash the war and especially the country that allowed him to make the game in the 1st place...I'm glad it tanked.