Velocity developers Futurlab, after their interview with TheSixthAxis on Monday, have reacted publicly to the way some sites are covering the story. Or at least, half of the story.
“We’re still struggling to gain exposure from some of the biggest gaming sites out there, at a time when the shiny new PS Vita – who everyone wants to succeed – desperately needs games like Velocity,” says the developer.
“Despite all the things we’ve done right with the game, it seems we’re still not worth writing about. That is until we say something negative.”
It wasn’t even really terribly negative – we’d asked Marsden whether he thought trophies would boost the sales of the minis range and he agreed. As would (I’m guessing) almost any developer or gamer we’d ask the same question to. It’s hardly rocket science.
- “Dev blasts Sony for lack of Minis Trophies, demos” said CVG, who spelled both TSA and Futurlab incorrectly. Marsden didn’t blast anyone, let alone Sony, but that’s headlines for you.
- IGN suggested that the lack of trophies was a “major problem” – again, not words that Marsden said to us. They also messed up the link to the first part of the interview.
- At least Eurogamer covered the story with some grace.
It’s a slightly odd situation, because naturally the quote’s coming from TSA and whilst we normally try to balance out our reports as well as we can, Alex did pre-empt the main interview with a smaller teaser that most of this content is coming from.
We don’t normally do this, and probably shouldn’t have done so in this case. But the quote’s accurate and it’s technically the truth – and that can be seen from the hundreds of comments around the ‘net after the publication of the article – gamers do want trophies, and that’s how it’s always been since they were first introduced.
But it’s also an interesting slice of just how this industry works – as James says, negativity sells and every one of the above articles seems to have missed the full interview where the studio sings the praises of Sony and how good it is working with them on the platform.
To re-iterate: yes, James would like trophies on minis games – and yes, them being there would probably improve sales. But he never said their absence was a “major problem” and certainly wasn’t shitting on Sony.
But that’s the internet for you.
FigmentedReality
I have no respect for IGN
Tarbun84
I concur. They are like The Sun of the gaming world
LTG Davey
Can’t spell ignorant without IGN :D
igotmy9milli
Nor can you spell Gin. I prefer Gin to IGN.
hol
And yet another reason to ignore those other sites & shows you guys are honest & trustworthy reporters :)
bigbaldwolf
I read your article first and then I saw the same article on other sites but the headlines were so out of context it was untrue. They are just trying to grab people with over the top headlines
Izorpo
will agree there are some top mini games on the psn – same goes for some of the indie games on xbox
to be honest i wish trophies and achievements had never seen the light of day because a lot of games get pushed to the wayside as they lack trophies or achievements. worse thing that could have ever happened for gaming
mrfodder
It’s like Mediawatch on Football365.com, newspaper headline is X actual quote is Y.
Bilbo_bobbins
Don’t bother with IGN or CVG because they are rubbish. TSA is where its at. A good respectable site that I will carry on using.
sg
TSA is the only site i use tbh.
jikomanzoku
Wow, this really is rather disheartening, still I hope it works out to be “any publicity is good publicity” for Futurlab. Velocity is a top game and I couldn’t give a toss about trophies personally.
The Lone Steven
So shouting about their game result in not a single major site covering their game but a small quote about trophies results in the major sites covering them? That’s the internet for ya folks.
He didn’t blast Sony for not including trophies on Minis, he was suggesting it may be one of the reasons why people don’t buy minis. Well, that is my interpertation of it.
Alex C
Yep, that’s mine too. Frustrating.
The Lone Steven
It’s disgraceful that the major sites(EG excluded as they did handle it with grace and included the actual uneditied quote) took it out of context just for some easy hits. I’m glad that TSA never stoops that low. :)
JesseDeya
But don’t you know, it’s cool to hate on Sony apparently. It’s a shame how this came about but it doesn’t surprise me to be honest.
Full credit to TSA for trying to set the record straight here.
hazelam
“never let the facts get in the way of a good story”
that’s how the saying goes isn’t it? o_O