Dennis Dyack says nay to the enthusiast press, again
In a perfect world the press would not see a game until it was finished. Developers would have all the time in the world to enrich a product with both labor and love "until it's done." We would critique games as a legitimate form of media and wear leather clothes that will last the rest of our lives.
Dennis Dyack wants a perfect world.
The president of Silicon Knights was certainly better composed in his lengthy interview with Gamasutra compared to his now infamous appearance on the EGM Live podcast (3/12/07). His idea is this: we, the press, should not be allowed to see titles before their completed state as to foster a critical approach to games. Furthermore, said games should not be promoted until they are completed.
The idea being that if we're ever to take this absurd past time of fiddling with joysticks and turn it into a legitimate medium, we need to become more like Roger Ebert (who hates video games) and less like Tony Stark and Miss Cleo. There are a few road blocks on the way to utopia as most publishers would balk at the idea of sitting on titles and not letting the press do their marketing for them. And you? The readers? We reward you for not using your noodle and jumping straight to a score that (supposedly) proves superiority over other titles.
Some day, Mr. Dyack. Some day we may live in a perfect world. But until then it's nothing but good ol' fashioned compromise and crotch sniffing for us!
