An Hour with Randy Pitchford -
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015- ... -pitchford
Wesley Yin-Poole wrote:
"Typically, it doesn't matter what the game is, the usual ratio is about three love letters for every one hate letter," Randy continues. "The scale's different. Volume relates to impact. So Borderlands, we get a lot more mail than, say, Brothers in Arms. But it's usually about 3:1 positive to negative."
Even for Aliens?
Even for Aliens, Randy says.
The one exception to this ratio, Randy says, is for Duke Nukem Forever, a shooter universally panned by critics. 6:1 positive to negative for that one, apparently, which surprises me. It seems to have surprised Randy, too.
"It exposes how myopic we can get," he says. "Those of us who read the gaming websites and are super tuned into everything, we think that's the centre of the universe. But in fact it's like, here's the world, and it's like a pinprick of the actual people who are affected by interactive entertainment."
Wesley Yin-Poole wrote:
Eurogamer: I'm just trying to get to the truth of why it didn't turn as good as we'd hoped.
Randy Pitchford: I liked it. And it frustrates the people who didn't to hear me say that.
Eurogamer: Yeah.
Randy Pitchford: It's almost like they want to hear me say, yeah, it was rubbish. But it would be a lie for me to say it. I actually like, f**k, I like Duke Nukem Forever. I thought it was brilliant. I did! I know I'm not objective. But when I say that you should go, that guy's clearly not objective. Why would you expect me to be objective? Have you ever seen weird, bizarre art you don't even understand? The artist who created it clearly did it for a reason and loved it, you know.
And we're a collective. There's a whole bunch of us and everybody's trying their hardest. The notion of trying to get someone who created something they loved, when you don't, to try to have you... that to me is a dismal failure of human rationality. Look at how flawed our human reasoning is: I think this is true, therefore everyone else should also think this is true. But that doesn't make any sense, especially if the thing we're saying is true is either subjective, or completely unverifiable.
Eurogamer: As you've said, your opinion will frustrate people.
Randy Pitchford: They're welcome to be frustrated. What do you want from me?
Eurogamer: I know. But we've heard a lot about the development of the game, and it does sound like it was a difficult development. It had been in development for a long time. There was various outsourcing going on.
Randy Pitchford: All of our projects involve outsourcing.
Eurogamer: I know that, but -
Randy Pitchford: When you say you've heard a lot about it, don't forget you've not actually heard anything, because you've heard speculation and noise.
Wesley Yin-Poole wrote:
Eurogamer: We've seen 343 apologise for f**king up Halo. We've seen Ubisoft apologise for f**king up Assassin's Creed. Have you ever considered apologising?
Randy Pitchford: Apologising for what? Because I think earlier in the conversation I said I'm sorry if you didn't like it. I want you to like it, and I failed if you didn't.
What an outrageous question! How much of a jerk do you have to be to demand that a studio apologize for making a videogame that didn't meet your expectations? I can't even begin to fathom the spiritual
death lurking behind such a question. No wonder there's been such a massive reaction against gamers lately.
Randy Pitchford wrote:
It was funny, some guy on Twitter said, 'I just want the truth.' I said, look, you're not accepting what I'm telling you, because I've already offered you something, and you're not accepting that, you're also not accepting what the court said, I don't know what I can do for you. Because if those things are the truth and you're not accepting them, then you don't want the truth. You just want me to say what you want to hear. And he said, just because a court decided something doesn't absolve you of any accountability. Actually that's exactly what that means. You don't get it. This has been litigated. It's over.
Here's the thing: there are going to be folks for whom it doesn't matter what is said, it doesn't actually matter what the truth is. There are people who have decided I'm a villain and they're going to continue that narrative. And that's fine. They're free to do that.
There are other folks who maybe can see it for what it is. We should always be sceptical about offerings. But I hope when we make entertainment in the future - because we're just going to keep making entertainment, that's why we exist - and I hope when we make entertainment in the future that should be the kind of entertainment some of these people like, that they actually give it a chance. And if it's worthy of their joy, they give it that opportunity to create the joy for them. Because that's the only purpose we have, is to try and make joy and happiness and to create entertainment for folks who like video games.
We will keep going and sometimes we'll have good stuff, and sometimes we'll have those weird tracks on the b-side of the White Album.