Read from denofgeeK
Days Gone writer/co-director John Garvin (who has since left developer Bend Studios over what was implied to be personality differences) suggested that part of the reason why the game will reportedly not be getting a sequel is that not enough people bought it at full price.
“I do have an opinion on something that your audience may find of interest, and it might piss some of them off,” said Garvin. “If you love a game, buy it at f-cking full price. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen gamers say ‘yeah, I got that on sale, I got it through PS Plus, whatever.”
It’s an opinion that has indeed pissed many people off not only because it bizarrely insults those who played Days Gone but because it highlights several problems in the video game industry that some say help justify Garvin’s opinion at a time when we’re led to believe that increased access to games is in direct contrast to the act that’s still the lifeblood of the industry: buying a game at full price right away and in great numbers.
So rather than roll our eyes at the sight of another games industry member shoot themselves in the foot, let’s take some time to break down the many reasons why Garvin has identified many issues that plague the modern game industry in a particularly bad way.
In one of the interview’s strangest moments, Garvin seems to suggest that Days Gone somehow deserved God of War’s success.
“It’s like, God of War got whatever number millions of sales at launch and, you know, Days Gone didn’t,” Garvin says. “ Just speaking for me personally as a developer – I don’t work for Sony – I don’t know what the numbers are.”
Besides clearly admitting that he’s not working with complete data (which makes that argument kind of hard to stand by), Garvin seems to believe that you can cleanly compare God of War and Days Gone on the basis of them being Triple-A PlayStation games.
Simply put, you can’t. God of War was part of an established franchise, Days Gone was not. God of War received nearly universal praise upon its release, Days Gone did not. Both share some elements of that PlayStation Triple-A open-world design structure, but given that Days Gone launched when Spider-Man and God of War were already on the shelves and doing very well in nearly every respect, similarities between those titles (however passing) may have actually hurt the game rather than help it.
Garvin has since noted that he’s simply pointing out that a game making more money helps its franchise prospects, which is true in a way that can’t really be argued against but ignores the fact that even apparently equal games aren’t really equal and success should never be treated as anything close to a given during development or after a title’s release.
Days Gone writer/co-director John Garvin (who has since left developer Bend Studios over what was implied to be personality differences) suggested that part of the reason why the game will reportedly not be getting a sequel is that not enough people bought it at full price.
“I do have an opinion on something that your audience may find of interest, and it might piss some of them off,” said Garvin. “If you love a game, buy it at f-cking full price. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen gamers say ‘yeah, I got that on sale, I got it through PS Plus, whatever.”
It’s an opinion that has indeed pissed many people off not only because it bizarrely insults those who played Days Gone but because it highlights several problems in the video game industry that some say help justify Garvin’s opinion at a time when we’re led to believe that increased access to games is in direct contrast to the act that’s still the lifeblood of the industry: buying a game at full price right away and in great numbers.
So rather than roll our eyes at the sight of another games industry member shoot themselves in the foot, let’s take some time to break down the many reasons why Garvin has identified many issues that plague the modern game industry in a particularly bad way.
In one of the interview’s strangest moments, Garvin seems to suggest that Days Gone somehow deserved God of War’s success.
“It’s like, God of War got whatever number millions of sales at launch and, you know, Days Gone didn’t,” Garvin says. “ Just speaking for me personally as a developer – I don’t work for Sony – I don’t know what the numbers are.”
Besides clearly admitting that he’s not working with complete data (which makes that argument kind of hard to stand by), Garvin seems to believe that you can cleanly compare God of War and Days Gone on the basis of them being Triple-A PlayStation games.
Simply put, you can’t. God of War was part of an established franchise, Days Gone was not. God of War received nearly universal praise upon its release, Days Gone did not. Both share some elements of that PlayStation Triple-A open-world design structure, but given that Days Gone launched when Spider-Man and God of War were already on the shelves and doing very well in nearly every respect, similarities between those titles (however passing) may have actually hurt the game rather than help it.
Garvin has since noted that he’s simply pointing out that a game making more money helps its franchise prospects, which is true in a way that can’t really be argued against but ignores the fact that even apparently equal games aren’t really equal and success should never be treated as anything close to a given during development or after a title’s release.
