Fire up Black Ops III for the first time and you’ll be presented with this message. It sticks out amongst the corporate logos and splash screens, but it’s also a nice little touch.
Like, everyone knows that games are made by large teams of human beings, but do we really? A lot of fans treat games like products to be picked apart, temporary and often flawed diversions. But for the people who made them, they’re everything, literally the only thing they have worked on for the past several years.
Being reminded of this at the very start of a game — especially one like Call of Duty, which can get heated and hostile in multiplayer (and in forums) — is a smart idea from Treyarch. It feels like I’m seeing these sorts of notes from game developers more often, be it at the start or the conclusion of a game. It takes a bit of the edge off, gets you easing into the game in a more positive state of mind. It’s not going to stop you from assessing any problems the game may have down the line, but it’s nice to start a game thinking “awww” instead of “OK what am I in for”.
And if it helps a fan or two realise that a lot of hard work has gone into stuff they might not otherwise recognise, then all the better.
Comments
13 responses to “Remember: People Made This Game, And They Want You To Have Fun With It”
Yet they release the PC version in an unacceptable state…But don’t worry, they’ll just patch it out later, they already have your money…
I’m sure every single person at that company sat around and planned to purposefully screw you over on this one.
Ugh, such jerks!
While they may not have set out with the intention of screwing him over, they certainly made a decision at some point that releasing the product and getting the customers money was MORE important than fixing the game further. Look at Arkham Knight. Same situation. It is only through the outrage of customers that they pulled the game and began offering refunds.
I’m sure BLOPS3 issues aren’t nearly as bad as those with AK, but that doesn’t change the need to not accept broken releases as ‘the norm’. Maintaining the outrage is the only way that we can get an acceptable outcome in the future.
Sure, some of the executives might have made those decisions, and that is always a problem. But it’s never the dude doing the concept art, or a coder, or the dude that runs their Twitter account. It’d be the people who don’t care about quality and fan servicing and aren’t passionate gamers. Which is what I think this article is getting at.
When the credits roll on a game and they keep going and going and you get really bored and want to skip them? Of all of those people listed, it’s a small amount that deserve the blame for things like Arkham Knight and Unity.
exactly. i highly doubt its the developers themselves. its the activisions saying “release it now so we get big $$$ then worry about patching the issue”
What’s wrong with the PC version? Granted I only managed to play about 3 hours of the Multiplayer on the weekend, but I only have 1 issue. No bugs, glitches, connection issues, hit registration issues, only thing I noticed is that every now and then I’ll get a big drop in frames (60 down to about 35-40) for no reason probably once a game that causes a bit of a stutter.
Treyarch: “Hey, CDPR are getting some nice press about the ‘We worked hard on the game’ slip they put in copies of Witcher. Can we do something like that?”
Activision: “Paper?! You want to spend money on f*cking paper?! Just put it on a f*cking splash screen and get back to your cubicle!”
My thoughts exactly. Seems far more contrived than CDPR’s little insert.
That would be fine if digital copies of games didn’t exist.
Was more the way CDPR worded it than the format itself, but fair point.
“A lot of fans treat games like products to be picked apart, temporary and often flawed diversions.”
its not picking apart a product that’s the problem. Movies, books ,music all get picked apart by critics all the time. Its the vitriol, death threats and overall juvenile nature thats the issue…
That said, from what I’ve seen BO3 is a pretty interesting and fun game so far…
Actually IIRC didn’t people at Treyarch get hit with death threats over Twitter because they rebalanced weapons in BO2? Maybe the message is try and cool things down with those particular players
I guy I work with, his brother worked on BLOPS III doing level design. He’s 50 or 51 years old but has been obsessed with creating extremely detailed levels since the days of COD 1 …
“So maybe if you wish hard enough and love long enough, anything is possible.”