Developers share their failures, in support of the creators of Gollum “Nobody wants to release a bad game”
After the release of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, which received negative reviews, some game developers openly defended and shared their own stories.
One of these developers is Danny Carloun, senior artist from the GOD of War studio Santa Monica Studio. In his tweet, Carloun shared a photograph of the wall in his house, which depicts all the games that he still worked on, including God of War Ragnarok, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Marvel’s Avenges and Sonic Boom. The last game is especially important, as Carlon explains: "I put my game with "The lowest rating", Because I am proud of the time that I spent while working with some of my beloved people in this industry".
In the same tweet, Carlon shares the rating of the game Sonic Boom, which is modest 32 points, and adds:
Games are hard to do. Regardless of the assessment, each project has positive points/lessons. I put my game with the lowest rating, because I am proud of the time that I spent while working with some of my beloved people in this industry. Some things do not depend on you. Be kind to each other.
Similarly, the director of Silent Hill: Townfall John Mackellan from No Code shared an screenshot of the assessment for All Points Bulletin, adding:
Still proud of our work. Many 4/10 made [day] sobering. No one wants to release a bad game, and there are thousands of reasons why this can happen, and which no one can control. All you can do is to learn from this lessons.
Aaron Durkin from the Super Spline studio, which created John Wick Hex, also took part in discussion, sharing the screenshot of the All-Star Karate assessment for Nintendo Wii and saying:
Once upon a time I learned a lot and had a good time with a small team trying to do something funny for children. No one seeks to make a bad game. This is a hard business!.
Jack Tonder, who previously worked in Firesprite Games, also shared several wise words along with the screenshot of the 2017 game assessment of The Troll and I:
This was the first game that I worked on from beginning to end. A group of talented people tried to do something very ambitious, but for various reasons this did not work, but work on it, in fact, taught me how to be a gameplay animator.
Former Bioware and Blizzard developer Marseille Khatam wrote:
Today I really feel sorry for the Gollum team. I did not expect the game to set fire to the world (and there were definitely several dubious solutions in it), but to see such a critical defeat very sadly.
Similarly, the environmental artist Rocksteady Games, Jeris Diavingan, said the following:
You know what? I send a lot of support to some developers, because sometimes you really can’t do anything when you are in a certain position. [. ] Good luck, people, I’m with you.