“Snake Oil Salesmen”: Ori Director Criticizes Cyberpunk 2077, No Man’s Sky, and Fable Makers for Overhyping Games

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Image: Moon Studios



Moon Studios CEO and Ori game director Thomas Malher has posted an extensive rant on the ResetEra forums accusing game developers of overhyping their products and baiting gamers into purchasing their half-baked releases. Among those named are CD PROJEKT RED and Hello Games, whose Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man’s Sky titles have been criticized for lacking marketed features and/or playing shoddily upon release. Malher also blasted Lionhead Studios founder Peter Molyneux, claiming that the Fable creator was the one who started it all.



“He was the master of ‘Instead of telling you what my product is, let me just go wild with what I think it could be and get you all excited!’ – And that was fine, until you actually put your money down and then the game was nothing like what Peter was hyping it up to be,” Mahler...
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I read this what he's really doing is damning anyone that releases content that was promised but releases it only later after getting a lot of preorders. And he does have a point. There are very FEW industries where that would be allowed.

But most other industries are not pure entertainment. Sure a incomplete movie would be scoffed at but look at what DC is doing? ;)
 
I'm buying less and less games at release, releasing half done buggy betas on launch day is the new normal.

NMS was a terrible mess, I bought it almost a year after the PC release and that worked out well for me.
 
He is saying we should castrate and string up developers when games do not meet expectations despite being good games still.

Except that already happened with Mass Effect Andromeda. And what good did that do? We didn't get any extra content for the game, and the story was left half told, the game support ending very fast. Basically a vocal group has ruined it for all of us. And he wants the same to happen with CP2077, not if I can help it.

It's obvious that he is just butthurt that CDPR's relative failure to deliver on CP2077 still dwarves his biggest successes.
 
MadMummy76 said:
He is saying we should castrate and string up developers when games do not meet expectations despite being good games still.

Except that already happened with Mass Effect Andromeda. And what good did that do? We didn't get any extra content for the game, and the story was left half told, the game support ending very fast. Basically a vocal group has ruined it for all of us. And he wants the same to happen with CP2077, not if I can help it.

It's obvious that he is just butthurt that CDPR's relative failure to deliver on CP2077 still dwarves his biggest successes.
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This is true. The game was actually financially successful according to the EA shareholder's call that year it released. EA/BioWare spent six months patching the game and tuning the animations to fix the issues and did a good job. There are still a couple of outstanding bugs, but overall the game is excellent on a technical level as it stands today. But, because of the memes and the backlash, the game's planned DLC was cancelled and the game really left unfinished with stories left unresolved.

It's a shame. Andromeda wasn't perfect by any means, but we missed out because of the insane backlash the game received. Some of it I felt was largely undeserved. Especially since most of the memes were about that preview version we had a few days prior to the actual game's release.

And yes, failing as hard as CDPR did is still successful by most standards. At least, financially speaking.
 
Mahler is already trying to claw back that article. The forum equivalent of 'sorry, my bad, got a little drunk last night'

"Now, a day later, I realise I wasn't thoughtful in the way I presented my thoughts, not did I choose the right tone or platform for it. "

www.pcgamer.com

Moon Studios director apologises for rant about Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man's Sky

"We should all agree that this **** is not okay," Moon Studios director Thomas Mahler originally wrote in a thread about "gaming snake oil salesmen."
www.pcgamer.com www.pcgamer.com
 
Burticus said:
Mahler is already trying to claw back that article. The forum equivalent of 'sorry, my bad, got a little drunk last night'

"Now, a day later, I realise I wasn't thoughtful in the way I presented my thoughts, not did I choose the right tone or platform for it. "

[/URL][/URL]
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i can respect when someone admits they were out of line.
That's a lot better than what Adrian Chimleraz did. Editing his OP, making the people reacting to it seem like the jerks.
 
I see where he's coming from but don't totally agree either. Perfect Day 1 launches rarely happen anymore. When it comes to online multiplayer games, server issues can happen. When it comes to offline games, day 1 patches are usually only the beginning and it often seems to take around 30-60 days before most major bugs are dealt with, and for some it can be closer to a year.

Not trying to defend anyone out there but we all also know how much more complex the overall ecosystem is out there these days as well and it will only continue to be so down the road. That does put a lot more on the developers for QA. Content missing at launch is always a bummer but sometimes understood if the scope of the game is big enough. I just think that in those situations that DLC ought to be free and CDPR has been good about that as was Hello Games. I bought NMS at launch, didn't really enjoy it but kept it. I got the many updates and so on and still haven't really gotten into it but I do commend them for the effort. I think the ones who deserve the most criticism are those who release a bare-bones game and have already laid out a paid DLC schedule making it obvious what their intentions were for the launch.

Meanwhile, the whole social ranting doesn't always help either. Sometimes it can but it can also just ruin things instead. I'm sure we've all got games, or movies, or T.V. shows, we wanted more from, or just to be released, only to have one special group fuel a dumpster fire that burns the whole project down.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
I see where he's coming from but don't totally agree either. Perfect Day 1 launches rarely happen anymore. When it comes to online multiplayer games, server issues can happen. When it comes to offline games, day 1 patches are usually only the beginning and it often seems to take around 30-60 days before most major bugs are dealt with, and for some it can be closer to a year.

Not trying to defend anyone out there but we all also know how much more complex the overall ecosystem is out there these days as well and it will only continue to be so down the road. That does put a lot more on the developers for QA. Content missing at launch is always a bummer but sometimes understood if the scope of the game is big enough. I just think that in those situations that DLC ought to be free and CDPR has been good about that as was Hello Games. I bought NMS at launch, didn't really enjoy it but kept it. I got the many updates and so on and still haven't really gotten into it but I do commend them for the effort. I think the ones who deserve the most criticism are those who release a bare-bones game and have already laid out a paid DLC schedule making it obvious what their intentions were for the launch.

Meanwhile, the whole social ranting doesn't always help either. Sometimes it can but it can also just ruin things instead. I'm sure we've all got games, or movies, or T.V. shows, we wanted more from, or just to be released, only to have one special group fuel a dumpster fire that burns the whole project down.
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Bug fixes are one thing. Cyberpunk 2077 is literally incomplete.
 
Dan_D said:
Bug fixes are one thing. Cyberpunk 2077 is literally incomplete.
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Too true. I forgot that missing content being included as part of the free DLC has been debunked. I have to admit, it's difficult keeping up with all the stories that come out for this game anymore. At this point if I had a dollar for each one I could probably buy a RTX 3080 or 3090 lol!
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
Too true. I forgot that missing content being included as part of the free DLC has been debunked. I have to admit, it's difficult keeping up with all the stories that come out for this game anymore. At this point if I had a dollar for each one I could probably buy a RTX 3080 or 3090 lol!
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Not the inclusion, but even the notion that they actually ever planned those things mentioned.

I wish they'd include car customization in the dlc, and a continuation for some of the unfinished questlines But I don't have confidence in either. Most likely the free DLC will only include completely unrelated throw-away side missions that you must play before the point of no return. It'd take much more than that to redeem the game for me.
 
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All they need to do is figure out a way to retool the ending to allow continuation. If I knew I could do the main content then tool around night city doing all of the other side mission work. Maybe get a sex change if I HAD to keep the same character and do the female only content as well. I'd be down for that. (Or male only as the case may be.)

Give me an expansive list of things to do in a game and I will come back and do them. Even after the 'end' of the game especially if you just tool it so the game can play on!
 
It's bit hard to make the game play on without seriously modifying the endings. I'm sure any additional content will be inserted mid game, like in ME3. Games with controversial endings always do that.
 
Sounds like I should push my first playthrough back until around March when the DLC comes out. I've got other things to finish but was looking forward to it. Game looks amazing on the CRG9 and LG C9. That article I linked previously didn't completely rule out the DLC might not include some of the missing content. It just had a statement from the official CDPR forum regarding someone else saying it would and them repying "That simply is not true". I'll hold out hope something might happen. Man, the more I hear, the harder it is to believe this is the same team that made Witcher 3.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
Sounds like I should push my first playthrough back until around March when the DLC comes out. I've got other things to finish but was looking forward to it. Game looks amazing on the CRG9 and LG C9. That article I linked previously didn't completely rule out the DLC might not include some of the missing content. It just had a statement from the official CDPR forum regarding someone else saying it would and them repying "That simply is not true". I'll hold out hope something might happen. Man, the more I hear, the harder it is to believe this is the same team that made Witcher 3.
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The second major bugfix patch should be rolled out the last week of this month. I'd almost bet money we won't be seeing DLC in March or anytime soon. We might see it this year, but I doubt it will be in the first half.
 
Dan_D said:
The second major bugfix patch should be rolled out the last week of this month. I'd almost bet money we won't be seeing DLC in March or anytime soon. We might see it this year, but I doubt it will be in the first half.
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Well maybe I'll just focus on a basic run through. Save exploration for later when it does get fleshed out.
 
Dan_D said:
The second major bugfix patch should be rolled out the last week of this month. I'd almost bet money we won't be seeing DLC in March or anytime soon. We might see it this year, but I doubt it will be in the first half.
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I said it a while ago, that I expect the first DLC no sooner than september, and the second one to be pushed to 2022.
 
Auer said:
I'm buying less and less games at release, releasing half done buggy betas on launch day is the new normal.

NMS was a terrible mess, I bought it almost a year after the PC release and that worked out well for me.
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The same here. Most games don't feel finished upon release. The last game I bought at release (or close to) was Cyber Punk. I ended up getting a refund on that game.
 
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