Ori Director Calls Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man’s Sky Devs 'Snake Oil Salesmen' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 September 2021 / 5,189 Views
Thomas Mahler, the creative director at Ori developer Moon Studios, has posted a strongly worded message on ResetEra calling out the Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man’s Sky developers as "snake oil salesmen."
Mahler said it started with Peter Molyneux where he would hype up his games by saying what he thinks it could be, rather than what was possible. Many claimed features in Molyneux's games never came to fruition in the final release. Mahler said this is what happened with Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man’s Sky.
"[Molyneux] 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," said Mahler.
"He pulled this shit for a good decade or more with journalists and gamers loving listening to Uncle Peter and the amazing things he's doing for the industry. It took him to release some pretty damn shoddy games for press and gamers to finally not listen to the lies anymore."
Read more of Mahler's post below:
Then came Sean Murray, who apparently had learned straight from the Peter Molyneux handbook. This guy apparently just loooooved the spotlight. Even days before No Man's Sky released, he hyped up the Multiplayer that didn't even exist and was all too happy to let people think that No Man's Sky was 'Minecraft in Space', where you could literally do everything (you being able to do everything is generally a common theme behind the gaming snake oil salesmen, cause hey, that sorta attracts everybody!). Obviously there was massive backlash when No Man's Sky finally released and the product being nothing like what Murray hyped it up to be. But what happened then? They released a bunch of updates, so let's forget about the initial lies and deception and hey, let's actually shower him with awards again, cause he finally kinda sorta delivered on what he said the game would be years earlier. Thanks, Geoff Keighley. Rewarding that kinda behavior will surely help the industry grow stronger.
And then came Cyberpunk. Made by the guys that made Witcher 3, so this shit had to be good. Here's our Cyberpunk universe and - trust us - you can do fucking everything! Here the entire CDPR PR department took all the cues from what worked for Molyneux and Murray and just went completely apeshit with it. Gamers were to believe that this is "Sci-Fi GTA in First Person". What's not to love? Every video released by CDPR was carefully crafted to create a picture in players minds that was just insanely compelling. They stopped just short of outright saying that this thing would cure cancer. This strategy resulted in a sensational 8 million pre-orders. What happened then was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CymqHdNYkg&ab_channel=BeatEmUps. The product was a fraction of what the developer hyped it up to be and on top of that it barely even ran on consoles that it was supposed to 'run surprisingly well on!'.
I'd argue that all 3 of those are clear examples of you folks all being made fools of. And even the 'journalists' in this industry happily played along, each and every single time.
And let me also say, from the perspective of a developer, all of this just sucks. Back in 2014, I remember some journalist from some big publication telling us that Ori almost got the cover article of some magazine I read frequently, but ultimately they had to pick No Man's Sky cause it was the 'bigger game'. I kinda agreed back then, thinking to myself: "Ok, I get it, they have to promote the bigger game, they obviously have to go for the clicks. Sucks, but that's how the game is played." But then I really felt bamboozled once No Man's Sky came out and it became clear that all this hype was really just built on lies and the honest guy who just showed his actual product really got kicked in the balls because the lying guy was able to make up some tall tales that held absolutely no substance.
I know this whole thread might come off as me sounding bitter and I'm sure there'll be some people that see this as me shitting on other devs. No, I'm not. I'm shitting on liars and people that are okay with openly deceiving others. I'd argue that we should all agree that this shit is not okay. If I go and buy a car and the car salesman sells me a car that supposedly has 300 horse power, but on the drive home after the purchase I notice that he switched out the motor when I wasn't looking, I'd be rightfully pissed off, cause I was deceived.
And yet, gamers and journalists don't really seem to mind all that much. Yeah, the backlash is coming, but usually you see a ton of people then arguing that they like the game that came out of it anyway. That is so not the point. It doesn't matter if the snake oil actually tastes fine. Don't sell me on features that don't exist. Don't paint a picture that you'll not be able to deliver. Just don't fucking lie to me. You're fucking over gamers, you're fucking over journalists (that should know better, so shame on you!) and you're fucking over other developers.
There, I said my piece, felt like a chip I needed to get off my shoulder and I think this is a wrong that we should set right so that this won't happen anymore.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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He's not wrong.
He is just telling the truth. I like that.
I like a guy who has guts to tell it like it is.
Also urnalists need to stop chasing the golden trail and actually be more alert to lies and deception.
Lol, the downvotes on anyone that agrees with a man pointing out that lies and deception is bad, is nothing short of hilarious.
I like this guy.
Amen ?
spot on Molyneux went from a great designer to a conman.
Well said.
The underlying problem is that gaming journalism is devoid of professionalism. Nearly all "journalists" in the space act more like fans than the impartial information disseminators that they're supposed to be.
They should be demanding that people making big claims show real footage to prove those claims. And, when a game launches that doesn't live up to the claims, they need to be all over those devs, calling them out on their lies, knocking on the door of their home when they refuse to do interviews and answer real questions, and other things that proper journalists covering other industries do.
He hits different points. On the "you can do anything" fantasy, I honestly question why that is really held up as goal or ideal for a game. That's not really a game, it's just "realism" or a "simulation". AAA has been chasing this for some decades now, raising question what if they had just focused on the game aspect? I'm not even sure chasing realism is the best usage of graphics "power" which after all could also create beautiful and engaging unrealistic graphics. Regardless, there is clearly a displacement there which is conducive to snake oil salesmen, since they are cultivating audience to focusing on unattainable fantasy rather than engage with actual product, except in the end the actual product is what exists to engage with.
Then there is the idea that CP77 was promised or imagened to be "scifi GTA in 1st person". That's an entirely different matter, because that is a completely realistic goal. Shifting the locale and genre isn't a radical change, so that was entirely realistic outcome to expect. That they couldn't really deliver on that entirely reasonable expectation is really the core problem with the game (besides performance problems mostly on console). Everybody recognizes the limits of GTA re: "doing anything" and "realism" etc, but at least it is supple engaging fabric to play with, and CP77 just shatters there without even being pushed.
Then there is the gaming media angle, specifically his sour grapes about how NMS "stole" Ori's coverage or media spotlight because it was believed to be "the bigger game" based on circular logic of hype. Not to put down anybody who now enjoys NMS after many patches, but I think it's fair to say Ori was a great game that deserved it's own time in the spotlight that it didn't really get at first. I don't know what the solution is, possibly the commerciality of gaming media is itself inherently problematic, and people should seek out and create gaming media of fully volunteer writers who never expect to gain professional rewards from their writing, there are plenty of people who can write well and might have the time to write about what they are interested in while holding down their day job. That also tends to create a different scope of media, without pretensions of comprehensivity since it's driven by writer interest, but also not under compulsion to follow the current PR hype. That can also cultivate a genre of game reviews for OLD games, after the patches are sorted thru and after it's dropped in price: i.e. when it's actually a better deal for people to buy it, and readers attuned to this can unplug from buying into the latest and greatest (buggy) games at full price. Obviously industry doesn't want that, but in the long term nobody actually plays less games just because they wait, there is a limited amount of delay but there is always plenty of older games. Why should an honest community driven media focus on hyping the latest full price games which isn't even in consumer interest? Likewise, more interesting interviews with developers are possible when it's not attached to the current marketing campaign for a new or upcoming game which will be under PR constraints, whereas those people are mostly happy to share deeper and honest insight about past games which the PR isn't focused on anymore.
People in that thread started arguing with him about the performance of Ori and the Will of the Wisps on the base Xbox One, lol.
Can't disagree with that. It's more and more that I am waiting time a game is released and updated before buying. I think Star Citizen is turning into this as well, luckily I've no invested in that. I never took No Man's Sky to be the Minecraft of space. My expectation for the game was a survival exploration, visiting planets, finding cool things etc. It was this but after the first few hour I realised it was too repetitive. The idea of building my own adventure didn't really exist, which I guess is what I wanted with it. I ended up finding some of this with Elite Dangerous.
Fck yes ori director ffck yes!
Wholeheartedly wawesomely agree!
People don’t like to admit they’ve been duped, and many will double down on their support with fanatical fervour to avoid the fictional shame of not having a crystal ball. That said, this is on the studio heads, not the dev teams.
Additionally, honesty is the best policy because it doesn’t push the honest devs to the background in the hype-land, when their product may in fact be superior. We don’t want a world where dishonesty is the policy of game promotion, we already got enough of that crap in the 16 and 32/64 hit generations.
He's right, the game is a mess and there are many missing features that were promised.
This guy delivered the goods with Ori.
Everyone is always all buddy buddy right before they are about to screw you.
Essay Pro