Molyneux says authors should stand by their decisions

Which leads to other questions.

How many games endings are now affected by publishers? It's all well and fine to say developers should stand by their creative output when consumers give feedback, but what about the company paying the developer? At what point is a request - whether by the publisher or the consumer - justified? At what point is the removal of something to allow for DLC a corruption of the developer's creative process? Or the addition of something?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle brought Sherlock Holmes back from the dead, due to public demand. Does this mean that his creative vision was in some way ruined? The Return Of... stories are just as fine as the stories that precede his doom at the Riechenbach Falls.

"I think that we as authors of stories and entertainment...

Stories can be art and/or entertainment. Give me a truly creative work of gaming art, and I'll stand by the creator's rights to not change it. But give me a piece of entertainment, and it has to a) make cohesive sense within the universe it's made, and b) not be arrogantly assumed that it's art. Sometimes a game is just a game.

Edited 2 times. Last edit by Morville O'Driscoll on 29th June 2012 10:39pm

Posted:10 months ago

+1 to Morville. More than anything else, the ending of Mass Effect 3 felt rushed (and Bioware even admitted it was conceptualized only a few months before the game went gold). Does that make that Bioware's ending? Or does that make that EA's ending, caused by a deadline that they were wholly unwilling to shift? I'm inclined to say it's the latter, and Bioware's ending is the one in the Extended Cut, which maintains their themes but provides the level of detail, explanation, and dialog that we came to expect out of the developer.

If you want a great parallel, even better than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, you need look no further than another great science fiction work by Ridley Scott. Blade Runner was warped by the expectations of the studio, changing Ridley Scott's intended conclusion, and resulting in a much worse film. Now the Director's Cut of the movie is the only accepted version, and indeed the one Mr. Scott intended for us.

There's nothing artistically wrong about what Bioware did. I applaud them for maintaining their vision while striving to create something satisfying for the fans. Kudos, Bioware, and the Extended Cut is indeed a massive improvement!

Posted:10 months ago

I'll put my trust when there is a writer's vision behind it all, even if I don't like it.

I won't put my trust to something that's born out of corporate greed and not enough development time. We can't cover every stupid thing with the line "it's their vision". At some point enough is enough. We are not idiots.

Posted:10 months ago

The quality of the executive teams and managers is found wanting when dealing with high level quality entertainment of this nature - feet of clay means back-tracking, over hype and poor development team handling.

As a past developer, the number of excellent team members I worked with that had only a handful of actual releases too their name - compared to a cart load of actual projects that were abandoned, speaks of miss-management and a failure in the core necessities of business across all of he big publishers.

You can understand why investors are running scared of consumer development - when projects like Prototype 2 or the last of the DRIVER series fail in such a way. Hyped reviews, over inflated PR launches, and abysmal sales!

Fundamentally - the missed opportunity of establishing a clear DLC strategy, rather than prolong the corrupt retail model speaks more of a greedy under current in the development of consumer gaming than of a industry driven by innovation. Just look at the success of DayZ to see the future of true entertainment presentation (rather than just a flashy trailer at a press conference!)

"The gene pool needs more chlorine", when it comes to game executives.

Posted:10 months ago

agree!

Posted:10 months ago

No, I say fess up. At least people will respect your judgement. Imagine if Tim Kring never admitted his disappointment with Heroes, at least we know that he knows he messed up.

In fact he openly criticized some of the poor scripting, storylines and fight scenes when he put the show in the hands of other writers.

Gamers should not expect shoddy hacked together endings to plots they have invested a great deal of time. We should at the least honour the gamers who have funded the development by taking care of the core elements and commit as much as possible to delivering quality content or just being up front. Nobody needs to be duped.

Posted:10 months ago