Epic to Developers: Personal Relationship with Gamers a Waste of Time

[john2gr]

Κλασικός Mark

 

When, at yesterday's Develop Conference, Positech's Cliff Harris said indie devs have an advantage over the big studios when it comes to forming personal relationships with gamers, there was an audible snort from the front row. Turns out the man doing the snorting was Epic Games VP Mark Rein. Today Harris has a personal message for the exec: f**k off.

 

Harris, a one man studio and part of a panel of smaller developers talking about the challenges and rewards of being an indie at yesterday's conference, was shocked when Rein went on to tell anyone within earshot that forming a personal relationship with a small number of gamers was a "waste of time."

 

 

After gathering his thoughts, and discovering the identity of the man who lost control of his inner monologue, Harris did what any contemporary techie would do: he took to his blog for a good old fashioned rant (excerpted):

 

 

Mark Rein is a jerk.

 

Now I suspect this is not groundbreaking news, although it is to me, because I've never met him or even seen him before. However, this experience seems to confirm my opinions on Epic and companies like them in general. Now Mark may well look down on humble indies like me. He may well think I'm doing it wrong. He may laugh when me and Mark discuss the pitiful money our companies make, and giggle at the fact that we reply to gamers on a one-on-one basis... But fuck him. I would rather earn minimum wage making indie strategy games for the PC, as my own boss, with an original game, satisfying a hardcore niche of friendly customers (the one-thousand-true-fans-philosophy), without a publisher telling me what to do, and without having to leave my house to go to work, without having to do 'crunch time' (because, dude... its like so macho to work until 3AM and never see your family)... Than I would work at Epic for megabucks.

 

The sheer overwhelming stench of testosterone would probably give me a headcahe, combined with the dizzy excitement of exactly what shade of grey our next game's space-marine would wear as he kicked alien butt. (I feel bad working on Gratuitous Space Battles for almost 2 years, but it seems like that old 'wisecracking space marine with big muscles and chisel-jaw' idea has been stretched out longer than the hundred years war).

 

I have absolutely no doubt Mark would just naturally assume me feeling like that is jealousy, which, as anyone who knows me personally would testify, is just fucking funny. I really don't care about Epic, and their games, as they are way way too macho and 'dude' for my liking, and don't have demos, so I just assume they haven't changed since Unreal Tournament. I try not to comment on games I don't like, as each to their own tastes etc. The only reason I'm moved to give a damn enough to state my opinion, is that I resent having some triple-a studio jerk come and tell someone who's run a microstudio for thirteen years that he is doing it all wrong. If Mark from Introversion suggests I'm doing it wrong, that's cool, he does what I do, and has some serious experience, ditto anyone on that panel, or anyone with long indie experience. And I listen carefully, often over lunch.

 

But Triple-A studio bosses trying to lecture me on how to communicate better with gamers? Fuck off.

 

Και η προσπάθεια του Tim Sweeney να καλμάρει τα πράγματα:

 

Here's Sweeney's full response:

 

"Yeah, Mark Rein can jump in with guns blazing sometimes, invited or not. It's all intended to be in good fun, but I guess it didn't work out that way this time. Sorry!

 

"To the the 'Epic was nice till Mark came along' crowd, Mark's been here since 1992. He's a world-class dealmaker, and Epic would certainly not have survived to 2010 as an independent developer without his tenacity and business savvy. The ability to doggedly negotiate with publishers and platform markers has absolutely been key to retaining the freedom of our creative and technical folks.

 

"@MadTinkerer, companies like Epic and Valve retain total creative control over our games. We work with publishers who do marketing and distribution, but what we build and when we'll deliver it is up to us. The spirit is the same now as in the early days; what's really changed is size (it takes 70+ developers to build a game like Gears) and process (you need some real organization and management to run this sort of company effectively).

 

"When you have millions of customers, you can't talk to them all. Many of the Epic folks are in frequent contact with enough gamers that we have a pretty clear idea of what the community is thinking, but with this scope of product you can't respond as quickly or as pervasively. It's a nice but real problem, and one smaller teams like y'all will share when faced with a runaway success."

[EXARXEIA_CITY]

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[ScarletK]

Μ'άρεσει όταν δείχνουν ότι είναι άνθρωποι και οι developers.Όλοι το παίζουν τόσο απόμακροι και ντίβες.Λες και δεν περνάνε καμιά 10αριά ώρες τη μέρα πάνω από ένα πληκτρολόγιο(είναι δύσκολο να γράψουν μια κουβέντα σε ένα site).

Επίσης λατρεύω τα rants και το edrama!Για να τσαντίστηκε τόσο ο Cliff Harris, μάλλον είχε chargarei από τόσα χρόνια σαν indie developer και απλά ο άλλος με την ατάκα, του έριξε την σπίθα.Ή δημιουργεί hype