Note: This Is Not A "Bash Gamespot In A Juvenile Way" Thread
There's a lot than can be discussed in regards to Kane & Lynch and the events that followed immediately afterwards. An interview with one of the developers is up on GamesRadar. Here's the text:
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http://www.gamesradar.com/f/kane-lynch-how-it-feels-to-be-critically-panned/a-20080908102911734000
GamesRadar: On a personal level, how does it feel to have a game which you’ve put so much time and effort into be critically maligned upon release?
Jens Peter Kurup: I’ve had several sets of emotions in the last year. Just around launch I felt pretty confident and okay. The review scores that we had already seen at IO looked to be a tad lower than expected – some 8/10, some 7/10, but some 5/5’s as well. We also had a good feeling about some of the bigger sites because it seemed that the latest hands-on sessions had gone well, especially with the Fragile Alliance element of the game.
Even though we received nice scores in a lot of the mainstream and lifestyle press, the more specific gaming press started to give it mediocre scores, and we knew that we wouldn’t hit our Metacritic mark. That felt confusing and unfulfilling, but by and large I was still emotionally unaffected by the criticism. I agreed with the existence of most of the game's issues and I knew that it was all something we could deal with professionally when the team took the franchise forward.
Then GameSpot reviewed the game. And they didn’t like it one bit.
I’m not quite sure why, but I remember that review hit the team like a hammer. You can just 'absorb' a bad score but there was something in the tone of that review that was tough on people, and on me.
It’s a review that I would like to forget (like GamesRadar's, by the way) , but unfortunately the GameSpot review had its own wicked little life and Eidos, GameSpot and of course the game got entangled in what I guess is best described as a conspiracy theory. And if there’s anything the 'net loves, it’s a good conspiracy.
It was surreal to sit in Copenhagen and watch the game get shredded in forums for reasons and feelings that didn’t all seem entirely based on the game itself. I know this might sound like a sissy song of “Boo-hoo! This isn’t fair” and other unproductive thoughts, but you asked me how I felt and I did feel like that for a couple of weeks after the GameSpot review. Pathetic I know, but in glimpses I still feel it, because when I meet somebody who hasn’t played the game, I can be fairly sure that his or her opinion is based on the GameSpot review. It just won't go away.
Except for that, I feel fine today, and the franchise is doing well. Sales have been okay, the movie deal is moving along nicely, and most importantly we’ve learned a lot from K&L, and it seems that it’s all being put to use in our future products.
GR: How fair do you feel critic and gamer reactions were to Kane & Lynch? Were there any points you particularly agreed or disagreed with?
JPK: Critic reactions to the game have been harder than the gamer reactions, but in general I’ll call it fair. I do agree on most issues raised on the control scheme. In production the quality went up and down and it required daily maintenance, a sure telltale that some core mechanics need to be changed instead of tweaked. I regret that I wasn’t clear-sighted enough to make the design changes when we had the time. This experience has dramatically changed the way we review code internally. We test the products harder and earlier.
I do however not agree with the critics that simply just didn’t like the characters or the story. They didn’t like the characters as people and had problems relating to them. If you want to mirror your happy face in shining knight's armour then Kane and Lynch 1 isn’t the place to look, and people have every right to dislike that. I just don’t agree. I’m sick of likeable characters. I like Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. I’m done with Mel Gibson in the Lethal Weapons.
That said, I would have liked to introduce a few redeeming moments earlier in the game. In K&L it doesn’t really happen until the last level, which is too late for most people.
I do think we received some unfair flack for a few weeks, and that it did taint the perception of the game somewhat, but that’s just how it is. It’s also a bit painful when a review thinks that a bug is a design decision. I know the player won’t know the difference and that the point is valid, but it still annoys me as a developer, maybe because it’s something that we could have done better.
On a boring number note, the Nielsen agency ran an online survey with some 900 participants or so after the release. The report is fairly critical on some of the same issues like control etc., but it’s worth noticing that the players enjoyed the game more than reviewers did. Of the buyers of the game, 2% did rate it as a poor game, 3% as fair, 25% as good, 44% as very good and 25% as excellent. Players rated it slightly more realistically but still way more positively than the reviews, and also more positively than I perceive the game personally.
GR: Do you feel there are any fundamental problems with the way games are reviewed? Is there anything that could be improved on the media side of things to make games reviews fairer?
JPK: I think most reviewers are doing a great job, and there are several who I trust when I buy games.
However there are a few tendencies in most reviews which are problematic. The first is the obvious problem of a grown-up reviewing a game for kids, or a hardcore gamer reviewing a game for the mass market. I think journalists should have the opportunity to see a focus group playing games, especially kids' games. They really do play some games in dramatically different manners than a 25-30 year-old game fanatic.
A second problem can be that just under the journalistic surface, reviews are not only business but also entertainment, and business and entertainment haven’t got a track record of being fair.
I personally like reviews written by (not just approved by) more than one journalist. Not sure it provokes a fairer review, but it’ll carry different opinions at least.
GR: The internet is obviously a powerful tool for building pre-release hype and awareness of a title, but it can also facilitate backlash bandwagons very easily. How positive and negative a factor do you think the internet is overall, and how careful do you feel you have to be about treading a line with it?
JPK: It did feel like K&L received some kind of backlash effect on being hyped a lot before release, but I can’t really judge to be honest.
To me, the positive sides of the 'net far outweigh the problems. It’s an incredibly important factor for us when we produce games since it gives us some bearing as to what catches peoples' imagination in a given concept. Having forums and fansites also accumulates an enormous amount of knowledge.
GR: How does negative criticism inform your design decisions on subsequent projects?
JPK: A lot. Unfortunately it affects it more than positive feedback I think, but it can be a great productive process.
It’s worth noticing that negative criticism has to be filtered very carefully before you start to act on it. Which parts should we fix to make the game better for the player and which parts should we fix to get better reviews? They’re not always the same, but unfortunately almost as important.
I think you’ll see IO as a very listening developer in the next releases, but keeping an edge to our products too. Because there’s a danger to reacting to negative criticism primarily; if you want to cook something that nobody dislikes, it’s going to be nobody’s favourite. It won’t be a Surf 'N' Turf, it’ll probably be a loaf of white bread. Very sellable, very boring, but I sure don’t dislike it.
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