It would appear that “you didn’t get it” has officially become the popular way of developers to escape acknowledging criticism of their games. While talking about Kane & Lynch 2, IO Interactive has joined the ranks of Silicon Knight, Factor 5 and Dark Energy Digital in transferring the blame of a poor review entirely to the reviewer.
“I think it’s a game that you either love or hate,” says general manager Niels Jørgensen. “It’s interesting that we have scores ranging from 1/10 to 9/10, so we have critics that really loved it and those that didn’t really get it.”
A fairly innocuous comment at first glance, and I must voice my respect at IO for being cool and accepting of the fact that negative reviews happened without going completely insane like some people.
However, this implication of not “getting” games is starting to really disturb me, as it screams of a developer completely ignoring any and all complaints about a game, regardless of their validity. It’s not a comment I think we should let slide. I am one of the few people who could claim to be a “fan” of the original Kane & Lynch. You can’t argue I don’t “get” IO’s work.
My complaints — that IO did nothing to build upon its narrative groundwork and refused to improve fundamental gameplay/technical issues — isn’t a case of “getting” it. It’s a case of shit that needed fixing, and how can we expect IO to fix anything if it’s going to shrug off valid problems with casual indifference? Not only does it insult the intelligence of the critic, it insults the very medium of videogames, that you are so arrogant as to refuse to acknowledge your own failings.
Developers need to stop this passing of the buck if they have any respect for their own work.
Published: Oct 4, 2010 03:20 pm