• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Veilguard Director interview: hate campaign towards the game is "a little naive"; devs need to "see themselves reflected in their work", and more

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
Create a new IP. Don’t wreck existing ones.
What happens when they try to create a new IP instead of piggybacking on the successes of others:

capsule_616x353.jpg


Concord_key_art.png


bc1ce372-20e6-4c7b-b1b4-4efee113ebfe.jpg


Dustborn_cover_art.png
 

Saber

Member
Its aways the same strategy. No, it cannot be their fault or fault of their low effort product. It has to be something else. Hopefully this kinda of people are forever doomed to fail.
 
Last edited:
Naaaa arts always been very political [...]
That is not what I was saying, though. Emphasis is on "rubbing it under the nose of the recipient". By the way, no, art hasn't "always" been political, your history of art otherwise couldn't go farther back than say 100 years at best. For example, during the entire middle ages, artists were replicating nature in their works, and their work was always based on a specific commission by some worldly elite. And yes, modern art has always been very political. However, an artist is smart enough to not let petty day to day politics contaminate his work. The piece will have meaning on a political level and might even comment on relatively specific issues political in nature. But it will always leave the work as whole open to interpretation by the recipient to avoid insulting the intellect of the viewer/reader/listener.

Edit: I have to correct myself, its more like 150 years instead of 100 for art being somewhat political, depending on where you draw the line blah blah blah
 
Last edited:

Fabieter

Member
Again with the ‘games are for everyone’ nonsense. No, games are for the people that actually play them. If your audience is comprised of 65% straight men then filling your game full of gender theory and LGBT themes is a bad move. It’s really not that complicated.
 

Drake

Member
They can only make games when there is money to do so. Stop buying this garbage. Vote with your wallet which is what we are starting to see now. So many woke failures over the past few years. It gives me so much joy.
 

cormack12

Gold Member

OkpNPcp.jpeg


Devs, you can get likes on twitter, and loads of sycophantic ass kissing or you can have success. Assuming that gamers will tolerate DEI if your game has a big enough heritage attached is not the way forward. This is where we are now.

That Barv scene was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in any medium and that includes Adventures of a teenage dragon slayer.


Edit
Although having said that there is clearly an issue why so many of these people are getting senior positions in big studio's, being given carte blanche to ruin established power houses of IP
 
Last edited:
If you have a development team, or at least the management level, hand-picked from a teeny tiny minority who feel like they have to express themselves in a mass market targeting hundred+ million dollar project instead of going by market analysis metrics.......

Well, then don't be surprised if you're not getting your investment back.
 
Last edited:

Z O N E

Member
So, let me get this straight...

This Director insulted the MAJORITY of gamers and is now complaining that those gamers are criticizing the game and not buying it?

devs need to "see themselves relfected in their work"

No, they absolutely should not.

Make a good product and the product will speak for itself.

Make a bad product, and people will tell you EXACTLY why it's bad.

This Director made a bad game and they can't accept it.
 

killatopak

Member
Very self centered take. Not even I like to see myself in a game.

Personally, I want to see something I want to strive to be. This is why archetypal heroes are so popular. They are what we want to be.

I'm not saying that it always have to be archetypal heroes but people do resonate more towards those characters. A more psychological take on human characters can work, I just don't see it going well for a setting like this game especially when it's so colored by modern ideology. You automatically turn away people who aren't subscribed to the same ideology.
 

Soodanim

Member
Game developers also need to feel safe in what they do, which ultimately means being able to see themselves reflected in their work.
Needs fixing.
These specific game developers also need to feel safe in what they do, which ultimately for some reason means being able to see themselves reflected in their work at the expense of the established IP they're commandeering in order to make themselves feel better.

These IPs aren't autobiographies, they're works of fiction. The 2024 language thrown into that game was jarringly bad along with the rest of the writing I saw in footage. If your approach to established franchises is "Time to make a sequel to this, let's ignore what came before and just do our own thing" then things aren't going to go as well as you hope.

As others have said, make new IP instead of shoehorning things that don't belong into ones people like. All it does it decrease the chance of that IP getting more entries, and for what? The temporary feel-goods for the "I need to feel safe" devs?

Maybe I'm just missing something fundamental. I remain open to ideas.
 

delishcaek

Member
Lol. As if regular devs have any say in what will be in a game, you "Queerosexual Gendermancer", the game director, wanted to see yourself in the game hence you made Taash. You wanted to educate gamers to do barves when they misgender someone... and now you're mad because people are actually barfing at the shit you served them with.

Also what's this "ruler of rpgs" in the headline of the article? Never worked on single RPG in their whole career. Only The Sims and PGA tour lmao.

Get bent!
 

T4keD0wN

Member
"devs need to see themselves reflected in their work"
Costume Party Laugh GIF by Halloween Party

Yes, i am sure EA will feel the same when they look at their teams behind FIFA and Madden, which most likely arent composed of ex-premier league, nor ex-NFL players.

Then they can look at Veilguard failing to break even due to being bad by even fan fiction standards. How can anyone confidently say such bs.
 
Last edited:

Bert Big Balls

Gold Member
You can reflect yourself in your game, sure. Just create a new game and don't shoehorn it into an existing franchise. Oh wait, every time you do that the game bombs, doesn't it? Sorry, I forgot.
 

SHA

Member
I think BW is fine with the way they're if they choose different topics, honestly, I don't think it's a major issue like other failed games.
 
There is nothing wrong with making what you want to make as an artist. I saw once a plastic bag with a turd in it at an art gallery. Just don't be surprised if the plastic bag with a turd in it doesn't sell. It's the second part I don't understand. They don't have a right to anyone's money.
 

SaucyJack

Member
I 100% agree if you want to make a work of art for yourself then you should be able too.

However on the flipside since your marketing it at a product I have the right to not buy it and make sure that you understand that this is a direct consequence of you doing that.

I think the person who wrote this is a little fucking naive when it comes to products, at the end of the day I have the money and choose what to spend it on, the fact so few decided to spend it on yours despite being a well established IP should be telling you something.

There’s something fundamentally narcissistic about the attitude of the devs here. By all means create a game where it’s all about “the message” but when your message turns people off then the accountability for that is with yourself.

EA management need to find their big boy pants and remind their teams that the customer is always right. If you can’t create a product to appeal to them then you have no value to a commercial organisation.
 

Stuart360

Member
To be honest i dont give a shit WHO is making the games, i just dont want your loony agenda drivel preached to the player (and in this games case, literally preaching drivel to the player).

Games are about escapism, to let us escape this terrible reality. They shouldnt be about a bunch of leftist loonies using games to brainwash the masses into their thinking.

And it doesnt work anyway because this shit is getting so tiresome that i actually now take it as a compliment if people view someone like me as a bigot. I just dont really care anymore. So yeah good brainwashing you did there devs.
 
Last edited:

Rubim

Member
do it. Gameplay is sick, graphics are sick, there is so much detail in that game. It's a very high budget production if anything. I think you will be surprised.
I posted some video and screenshots here, so you can judge
The story writing is horrible, no?
 

Hookshot

Member
So someone finally came out and said what we all knew. They aren't making games for what most want, only for what they want and in doing so are ruining franchises, companies and legacies.
 

Humdinger

Gold Member
Take responsibility. Don't deflect blame on to gamers who roasted the awkward trans and woke insertions. That was only a small part of the game's problems. The main problems were much more fundamental than that.

The writing sucked.
The dialog sucked.
The RPG elements were nearly non-existent - in an RPG.
The characters sucked.

Take responsibility for that, lead writer.
 

kruis

Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
In Busche’s mind, not embracing the lived experiences of the development team would result in stories and worlds that feel less relatable, less alive. Game developers also need to feel safe in what they do, which ultimately means being able to see themselves reflected in their work.

What an utterly ridiculous statement. We're now at a point that when a single person on a 300 person development team doesn't see him/her/whateverself reflected in the game, his/her/whatever safety (!) is on the line and therefore it's not possible anymore to deny that.

The concept of safety has now been so hollowed out that criticizing even bad ideas can now be perceived as harassment and working in unsfafe work environment and a talk with HR. We're living in a clowns' world and the clowns are becoming more and more like the clown from IT.
 

Fbh

Member
I think when you take over an existing franchise the whole "make the game that I want to make" argument has to take a backseat as the primary focus should be to delivery a game that remains consistent with the style, tone and gameplay that fans expect and made the franchise popular to begin with.

If you want to make your game with in your face DEI crap, lighthearted almost Marvel-esque tone and writing, ugly characters and massively scaled back RPG mechanics where you are only allowed to be good then that's fine, but make your own IP if you can somehow convince some publisher to burn money on your project. But that's not Dragon Age.
 

Roberts

Member
Naaaa arts always been very political, it would boring as fuck without it. The difference here is they are not creating art (not really)

There's a huge debate about movie, television and games not being truely "art" and it's easy to see why, not every drawing is art, a fucking pie chart in Microsoft Excel with your quarterly earnings in not art. Same with other media, the News is not art, The Transformers movies are not art.

Not all games are art, but you can easily point to the ones that are. Kojima titles (heavily political too), Journey and Rez. You know this because you understand that the game is a vehicle for something much more, it makes you feel and think about things.

Vielguard is not, it's a product for the friends of the developers that wants to pretend its more than it is. The fact the people making it can't even understand that difference and gave this interview explains a lot. Just like their game, their understanding is surface level.
You make good points, but I think Transformers is art, too. It is made by a misanthrope autuer (more like idiot-auteur) with a singular vision and with a very specific hard-on for everything military related portrayed in a totally idiosyncratic way.
 

Stuart360

Member
I think AngryJoe made some good points about this game in his various rants. He talked about how soft the game was, in tone and writing. How little violence there was, while showing clips from the older games and how adult they were.

Its almost like if you imagine we lived in a world where the last 10-15 years of wokism and agenda shit hadnt happened, Veilgaurd is almost like a spin off game that they designed for a much younger audience.
I'm surprised they didnt have a campfire scene where all the 'diverse' characters, both good and bad guys, sat around the fire holding hands while singing 'kumbaya'. Maybe that was the plan for the dlc!
 
Top Bottom