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.
MICKY17
How does someone misspell TSA!! ;) On topic though, some of the so called ‘journalists’ out there really are a disgrace to the websites try post in and to the gaming industry as a whole. Thankfully TSA is one such place where this doesn’t happen, hence why I and many others choose to stick around.
MICKY17
Meant to say ‘they post on’ . Oops
XisTG
this is sad.
anyjungleinguy
The reason why TSA is always my first port of call for news.
And is that hard to get the name right? There’s no spaces! And “TheSixAxis”? C’mon.
quinkill
Thats why TSA is my only gaming website. All the others seem obsessed in becoming a “tabloid” news source. CVG and IGN can both suck it!
ray_gillespie
When you run an exclusive story with the headline ‘Developer: “Lack Of Trophies Is Probably The Single Biggest Turn-off For Most Gamers’ you can’t blame other websites for picking up on that aspect of the story.
Jakster123x
Really sick of publications spinning quotes in all of journalism, not just games journalism. It really is a terrible habit for some people and needs to stop, but it won’t.
Headlines sell, but the actual article has to be balanced and actually true.
Lord_Gremlin
Matter of fact: trophies alone can sell a game or prevent it from selling well.
Sitorimon
“blasts” – oh get stuffed. I do find it constantly disheartening lazy journalism makes it way to the masses that way.