Marek

Why are developers held hostage by PR?

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I know Jane Pinckard is both loved and hated around here, but I just read a blog post by her that I think touches upon a huge issue in the industry and which deserves attention. I feel pretty strongly about it because I have the exact same feelings after GDC. I'm going to be rude and copy most of her post here.

She talks about hanging out with many developers at GDC. People who are working on interesting problems and challenges, people who might have some great insights to share on the projects they're working on, or just on games in general. Why do we never hear anything from those people?

I love these people and find them funny, vibrant, refreshing, smart... wouldn't the audience of the 1UP Show like to meet them? What if work could be simply a series of meetings with groups of friends, talking candidly on camera about a Thief 2 post-mortem, or challenges with developing Spore, or simply what games they're enjoying right now?

But how likely is this? With some friends of mine who are independent developers, consultants, or freelance, it would be only a matter of asking if they'd like to do it. But some of my friends work at companies where they have to get clearance. Lulu couldn't talk to me about Tomb Raider -- a few weeks ago, I asked her to -- because Eidos said they wanted to "keep the focus on Toby Gard." I had a conversation with Doug Church, who has sometimes been called "the most famous game developer you've never heard of", who acknowledged that his employer (EA) was notoriously close-fisted with their developers, hardly letting them out at all except in the case of obvious luminaries like Will Wright. EA doesn't like to let anyone inside get out unless it's to promote a specific game. That has to change if we're to see a more multi-faceted face of game development.

Jason Rubin once gave an impassioned talk in which he argued that game developers must absolutely have more visibility. He compared it to musical artists, whom everyone associates with a body of work. And some companies are clearly heeding the call (albeit years after Rubin's speech). Sony has been increasingly open with their developers. David Jaffe is well-known as the face of God of War, for example. And Sony has been pushing out its Japanese developers as well, letting Ueda (Shadow of the Colossus), Keita (Katamari) and, of course, Mizuguchi (Ninety-Nine Nights) become recognizable faces.

But I would want to go one step further. There are dozens of talented programmers, artists, designers, and producers who work under the David Jaffes and the Ueda Mitos. Those are the people I talk to at GDC, and, because of their enthusiasm and energy, they can often be the best ambassadors for game development. There needs to be more transparency in the industry. [my emphasis] Sony used to want to brand Insomniac games, to the public, as simply monolithic Sony games; now they are happy to let Ted Price, head of Insomniac, talk about Ratchet and Clank, because Ted can put a face to the product in a way that Sony PR can't. But you know, what about the concept artist who slaved over the face of Ratchet? Or the camera programmer who made sure that the action game would have a smooth, intuitive camera? I don't know these folks, and I don't know how much they want to talk about games, but surely there are some valuable, interesting nuggets there that would increase the cultural capital of games and turn artists and programmers into real people in the gamers' eyes. Real people whom I know and admire and respect.

This is a HUGE issue that personally frustrates me to no end. Access to the real people behind the games is very very limited. The PR people build shields around people they don't want you to talk about, which is usually everyone on the team. This only changes when a specific game needs to be promoted... some press will be allowed through the barier to speak to the producer or project lead, who of course have been trained in PR-speak and knows the official company line on everything. (This leads to super boring interviews, unless the guy is well-known enough to get away with a proper interview.)

This is why GDC is so surreal. GDC feels extremely human, as opposed to E3 which is ice cold. As I said in another thread, GDC is like living in a bubble for a week. Inside that bubble the people behind the games can speak and be seen, but step outside of the bubble and they're gone, shrouded by meaningless company logos.

It's ridiculous that the best interviews you get to do are with people who are not actively employed at a game company (see: Eric Chahi, Ron Gilbert, etc.). Good luck doing an interview like that with someone who has an active project. You might succeed with someone like Will Wright or Tim Schafer, but almost anyone else will have to put on their PR robot voice when you talk to them. The saddest part is that many developers think they actually have to use the PR robot voice, because that's what industry professionals do. Some even think that stepping into the limelight is a big no-no, because no one else on their level is doing it and they feel too humble about it. David Jaffe became a public figure after doing two games (due to Sony pushing that), but because that's so unusual he gets shit for being too attention-seeking.

There's still a broader issue here which is that 95% of game industry PR people are terrible at their jobs. I know a couple of really good ones (hi guys!), but the majority are robots who spend most their time sending out press releases and screenshots (in between making schedules for sending out press releases and screenshots). If you have a request, no matter how small, for an article with a unique angle on the product they're promoting, they will almost never be able to help you.

Sometimes I wish I had more energy so I could "fight the system". I hope more developers get out of the woodworks and get in touch with sites that will do proper casual interviews with them. Who cares what PR says.

The current situation only leads to:

- frustrated developers, because talking to the press is horrible

- frustrated readers, because every interview sounds the same

- frustrated journalists, because it makes their jobs suck

Sorry for the rant.

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And here I thought I wouldn't be reading an article on the thumb for a while. Good rant man. Quite enjoyable.

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Developers > publishers > P.R > | line of bullshit | < press < Gamers

The straight line of information, which becomes mixed in with more and more shit before it reaches the gamers...

it needs to be circular with gamers sneaking in the back way and secretly talking to developers ¬¬

REVOLT!

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It doesn't help that many game journalists reinforce the ideas of those misguided developers that believe in PR-speak. Asking questions about the number of levels or how many shotguns there are is pointless. Those things can be gotten from a fact-sheet with more ease, and less reading for the consumer. But that's the level that many that cover games, both printed and net-based, place themselves on and seem quite happy with.

For shame !

My point is that the problem is often augmented by "journalists".

I know for sure that I'd really like deeper insights in the development of certain games as well as the thoughprocess behind them. It would perhaps be interesting to know what issues the writers (if there are any attached to the project) have decided to tackle or not tackle and why... If there aren't even any writers then I'd like to know why too, and what the people working on the game think about that lack of direction.

I guess I could go on forever about what I'd like to see, which only further proves that there is a serious lack of decent interviews and insights.

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Some game journalists are really trying. They get sick of the standard questions too. Some of the writers at GameSpot, 1UP and a few other sites are clearly aiming to do a better job, so gotta give credit for that. (See: Dan Hsu's Peter Moore interview).

I think the problem is not in the initial questions, but in not asking good follow-ups. Only very rarely do you see journalists ask to clarify something, or prod a little at a politically safe answer. Answers like "We believe both veterans of the series and newcomers will enjoy the latest installment" or "We don't think removing feature X and Y is 'dumbing down' the game, we are adapting the game to a console audience." or "We plan to support the game well after release" (what support specifically? what will you commit to?) etc. etc. These are just three random things that came to mind, out of a billion stock phrases.

It would be funny if for every time a producer says "we are thrilled/excited/pleased to be working with X on this project" the journalist says "on a scale from 1 to 10, how thrilled are you really?", or just make a joke saying "oh come on, you totally hate them, admit it".

You have to get off-script. No one wants to hear the obvious.

I just went to BluesNews looking for some interviews. Here's some great examples of SUPER BORING pre-scripted ones:

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/698/698693p2.html

http://www.firingsquad.com/features/x-men_official_game_interview/

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?gameId=9&setView=features&loadFeature=521&fp=1152,864,3308054625,20060329100208

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/698/698487p1.html

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/deadoralive4/news.html?sid=6146247&mode=previews

etc. etc.

That last one has a perfect example of what I mean, right at the top:

GameSpot: How do you feel about the way Dead or Alive 4 turned out?

Tomonobu Itagaki: Everything generally turned out as I expected, but I am surprised at the high percentage of people who are playing online over Xbox Live.

Obvious follow-up: Really! How many people played it on Xbox Live?

Or: why was it surprising to you?

What we get instead:

GS: Did you accomplish everything you wanted to with the game?

Tomonobu Itagaki: Conveniently, I've already got a Word macro for answering that question! Here we go........ feel free to call it an 'exclusive'!

I'm in a really ranty mood today.

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I completely agree and might add that I'm feeling pretty rant-y myself.

This could be sarcasm, but it's not... really!

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I've also seen this crap in mod teams (you know, people that create a modification for a game).

They want to look professional and stuff (they even use idiotic "job" titles). Instead of the actual developer asking a question in a public support channel we get a "pr" like dude to ask it for him instead. Because the developer might reveal some details about their great unique never seen before awesome design.

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Although I agree with everything you wrote, I stil have to wonder if I am actually the average reader.

I was catching a plane yesterday and this kid came up to me while I was playing my Neo Geo Pocket colour, he asked me if that was th eold Gameboy Advance. Which is fair enough as they are laid out in a similar fashion.

As he carried on talking (bless him he was only about twelve) he showed that he thought the original Nintendo I was referring to was the N64. again I didn't hold it against him as he was young and hadn't heard of the NES.

But then he made the statement 'Games have to have good graphics, or I don't like them'

It strikes me that he might be closer to the average gamer than I am, sitting there with my obscure handheld, yearning to get home to my Dreamcast. And that, bulshit hype might be just what he wanted to hear ande only that he was only interested in listening in Hyperbole.

This doesn't mean he is right though, little bastard.

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But then he made the statement 'Games have to have good graphics, or I don't like them'.

Is that kid to blame for the generation he's born into? Graphical capabilities have been the only thing that has been publicized from the get-go on the last three generations of consoles.

It would seem only logical that his feeble mind equals, "better consoles/games" with 'better graphics'. And let's not lose hope, he's young and un-enlightened.

But is that really what the average gamer wants?

Isn't that more what the average, self-proclaimed hardcore gamer wants: fanboyish interviews saying how everything is so awesomely sweet and how everybody is so hyped up to touch Itakagi's Kleenexes?

That's what I'd like to do: blame it on the fanboys. Again, that's what I always do so I'll just shut my yap.

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I can't say I necessarily agree with this. It's all well and good to want more access to developers, and for them to speak more freely. But functionally, how well does this work? For one thing, most members of the team are very focused on their own roles. A programmer is very knowledgeable about working with his code and making the game systems work properly, but would a mainstream media outlet have much to ask him? And furthermore, most members of a development team aren't necessarily media-savvy. Do they even want to be interviewed? Would they have the personality to give good interview answers? I think that more members of a design team are interviewed than one might think, but that programmers or technical artists or environment artists tend to receive questions from specialist publications as opposed to somewhere like GameSpot or 1up. You see essays and such from these people in Game Developer magazine and on Gamasutra.com, where the industry audience for them exists. The creative directors, producers, and lead designers that are usually interviewed by mainstream gaming press are the ones charged with holding the overall vision of a game's design, and knowing what to talk about and how to say it. They really are the best ones to talk to about a game overall.

Another question is of consistency. Everyone who talks to the press needs to be on the same page about which features to confirm or deny, when it's too early to mention certain aspects of the game, what constitutes 'spoilers' or simply isn't relevant from a publicity standpoint. Remember when Molyneux went telling tales out of school about Fable, and all the backlash that created? And he was the president of the company! Every extra person that PR allows to talk to the press is one more opportunity for someone to run their mouth, stir up the NERD RAGE in the fanbase, and cause problems for the game before it's ever released.

Oh Marek-chan why would you take something that Jane Pinckard said seriously :mock:

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This doesn't mean he is right though, little bastard.

Let's track him down and beat the shit out of him!

I too have found it difficult to communicate with younger gamers. I remember when we were all amazed at Genesis graphics. 13-year-old boys are a key demographic in films as well, but I don't think that demographic really reads as much journalism on films. Game journalism seems to be pandering to that demographic.

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I work in the video game industry. Ask away!!

...I'm kidding, I can't tell you a thing. They'll shoot me if I do. No... really.

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Sorry for not qouting, but that is exactly my point, graphically Psychonauts was fantastic. But we all talked about the script and the humour.

What I perceive as the average gamer only wants a 'wow' factor, and unless the interviews are generic and 'wow' inducing to the average gamer, it generally won't sell (hats off to 'Shadow of the Collossus' for debunking that trend). And we willl be stuck in crap game limbo.

The kid lives two streets from where I'm staying in England, in a twist of fate. On the flight back, I let him play Samurai showdown 2 on my Neo Geo pocket colour for a bit, he got bored and went back to some Episode three related game that he had on his handheld.

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In my selfish defence; in my Psychonauts review on Captain August I talked about Tim, Scott (Campbell, the artist) and the host of wonderful voice actors that played all the roles.

I did not talk about Chris Remo. Though he deserved his own little chapter of course. What injustice we do to him.

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Steve, aren't those mostly just limiting beliefs (like, "Ehh it wouldn't work anyway"), not actual problems?

Are some people not mediagenic? Sure, but some are. Do some of them not want to be interviewed? Yep, and that's fine, but some would really like to if they had the opportunity, and if it wasn't perceived as much as something purely self-promotional. Will some people have absolutely no interesting things to say? Well... there's no way of knowing until we get them to talk!

My rant has two layers I guess. First we need to get the project leads to give good interviews (and journalists to take them), which isn't always the case now. Then we need to open up access to some of the people below them.

I strongly disagree with the notion that lower level team members are not interesting enough. I saw a lecture at GDC by the community manager of Spore and Sims 2 and I know she's got several pages worth of great magazine content simply based on the specific job that she does at Maxis. Actually, the Spore team is an interesting example. They've got an unusual number of veterans on the team so we know a couple of their names. Don't tell me Chris Hecker, their lead progammer, isn't interesting or mediagenic. I mean, you heard his great rant at the Game Developers Choice Awards. And did you know Spore has a Lead Designer, besides Will Wright? He was in half the workshops and lectures I was at though I only discovered afterwards. That's got to be an interesting guy!

I'm assuming every team out there has a couple of strong personalities. The 'running their mouth' thing isn't half as much of an issue if more interest is taken in their specific area of expertise, or their past projects, or their general opinions on games.

The 1UP show that Jane Pinckard works on occasionally has casual interviews at industry events with random industry people I've never heard of and they're actually great. At an Xbox 360 launch party they got CliffyB and some random member of the Halo team talking about each other's (past) games and it was really entertaining! Stuff like that is great, but the chances of those things happening are often really slim. Note that they only featured that Halo guy for like five minutes for an overall interview, it wasn't exactly The Great Interview With That Programming Guy From Halo In Which They Only Talk About Code And AI For Half an Hour, which agree would be dumb and pointless.

Finally, I know there IS an audience for good interviews. The 12 year old kids are very well catered to, but they aren't the average gamer anymore. Gaming (and gamers) get a year older every year. In a decade, the average gamer might be the ones playing games like Brain Training and Cooking Mama.

Heck, even 12 year old kids get tired of hearing the same crap over again. You can even talk about graphics in an interesting way, without using the same canned phrases. A 12 year old kid will go fucking nuts about an interview in which Mark Rein says outragious things about graphics, and where the journo continues to push him. They WON'T go fucking nuts about an interview that says "our team is dedicated and working very hard on taking the graphics to the next level". Sweet, the next level!!!

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I like reading interviews with, and articles written by, programmers behind the PR curtains. How they manage to solve certain problems, optimize certain algorithms, that sort of thing. That's why my favourite game-related magazine is Game Developer.

edit: possibly because i'm a programmer

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I like reading interviews with, and articles written by, programmers behind the PR curtains. How they manage to solve certain problems, optimize certain algorithms, that sort of thing. That's why my favourite game-related magazine is Game Developer.

edit: possibly because i'm a programmer

My point exactly.

Another thing is the question of return on investment. For most people in a specialized role on any given title, their time is better spent performing their development tasks than doing interviews which the majority of mainstream readers might not find interesting. It's all about marketing, but that's reality. Doing interviews takes time out of anyone's schedule, but dealing with the press is part of a creative director or executive producer's job, whereas that isn't the case with, say, an AI programmer.

I think the point's come out of this thread though that a wide array of people in game development are interviewed, but less so, and less publicly, when their role is further from the top. I mean, these people do get proportional exposure, as has been noted in the examples from the 1up Show or Game Dev magazine, or specialist trade/fansites. I don't know that there's anything especially wrong with that structure.

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I guess I'd better speak up here, since I was a profesisonal PR monkey and all...

Here's the thing most people on the outside don't get: MOST DEVELOPERS DON'T GIVE GOOD INTERVIEWS.

I'm dead serious.

Most developers, like most people, just aren't that interesting. Even when they're talking about things they're really passionate about. You read interviews with guys like Will Wright, David Jaffe, Harvey Smith, Todd Howard, Sid Meier and you sort of assume that all developers must be that way, but they're not.

A lousy interview means the perception of the game is going to be lousy. Therefore, why would you open yourself up to that? Doesn't it make a lot more sense to choose someone who can eloquently talk about the game, than to allow every random guy to give any interview they want?

Also, let's not forget how fickle the games press and public can be. You can complain that there's not enough decent press out there, but I've seen it both ways. You do none, people want more. You give them what they want, and suddenly your game is overexposed, and you get "why won't these people shut up and finish the game already?"

And that, in a nutshell is what PR is. It's balancing the "shut up and finish the game" with the "OMG WE NEED TO KNOW MORE GIVE US NEW SCRENSHOTS AND MOVIES AND INTARVIEWS".

If you want better articles, write better stuff. The primary problem is with the journalists in that regard. You can't blame the PR people if some hack writes a preview based on a fact sheet and two screenshots.

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Doesn't it make a lot more sense to choose someone who can eloquently talk about the game, than to allow every random guy to give any interview they want?

I don't mean to completely dismiss your point, but I would like to point out that a game's designer isn't exactly a "random guy" giving any interview s/he wants. Of course, actors appear on TV shows much more commonly than film directors, so there's some PR control as well.

But if you want to ask what made the creator want to take games in this direction, what made him or her think this game is important, then you kind of need to talk to the designer. Of course, you have to hope that the designer has more to say than, "Uh, I got hired to develop this license. So I did."

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I don't mean to completely dismiss your point, but I would like to point out that a game's designer isn't exactly a "random guy" giving any interview s/he wants. Of course, actors appear on TV shows much more commonly than film directors, so there's some PR control as well.

But if you want to ask what made the creator want to take games in this direction, what made him or her think this game is important, then you kind of need to talk to the designer. Of course, you have to hope that the designer has more to say than, "Uh, I got hired to develop this license. So I did."

Believe it or not, I don't disagree with you there.

Unfortunately, most journalists aren't asking those questions. Most questions they get asked are fairly mundane.

From a PR standpoint, we were in the unusual position of intentionally going out of our way to *push* one designer, because he: A) Gave great interviews (due to generally being a very interesting and well spoken person) and B) Would otherwise have been lost in the shadow of an industry legend.

I'm talking about Soren Johnson, the lead designer on Civ IV. Sid Meier oversaw the game, but it was Soren who did the brunt of the work, and we intentionally promoted it that way. But it's Sid Meier who gets sales and traffic, so Sid still did a lot of interviews. But only rarely were there any articles that had just Sid, without Soren. Sid wanted it that way and so did both 2k and Firaxis.

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Is anyone here familiar with this show called "Electric Playground"? We see it here in Canada, and it has the lamest interviews with developers ever.

They have female "journalists" who are obviously hired for sex appeal (but make no mistake, they are not sexy) and ask the stupidest questions. They know nothing about games and ask no follow-up questions. Ever.

The most frequently asked questions include

"Tell us about level designs"

"How many weapons does this game have"

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To mind comes the Chronicles of Riddick PC version of the game that has that dev commentary. All of it is really interesting and I listened to all of it. I wouldn't mind those more-or-less random, non-PR people being interviewed or speaking their mind. I wrote a little blurb on it (scroll down to the bottom of the page to find it).

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I thought about the same Riddick-DC-talk reading this thread, but didn't got up to write it down (and now I think, man he made a good point there...crap...it should have been my point).

The mocap-actor. Creepy. But he kind of showed that the thing didn't went through to much target-group-filtering (Just guessing. Nonetheless they had to cut some stuff they said...wonder what?).

Good way to let the working people talk, but questionable, whether some EA thinks it's worth the money? I think it's a feature that most buyers never used or cared about. Okay, same goes for the good coder-guy interview, but I liked it a lot and so I'm totally for it (Riddick-style and interview).

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