Dyack: Enthusiast Press? Bad. Downsizing Of E3? Good!

Author: by Staff

As part of an in-depth new interview with Gamasutra, Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack has condemned the enthusiast press ("I'm against the notion") and praised the downsizing of E3 ("Another step forward"), while explaining his vision of a new relationship between game creators and the media. Dyack's point, abstractly, is that the press should only see completed games, and only when finished should these games even be promoted, and he explains: "I have said this before and it seems almost hypocritical, but it’s not: the press in our industry, I believe strongly, needs to be more critical. For them to be more critical, they have to be absolutely be looking at final product, and not trying to predict the future of how a game is going to be based on the pedigree of the developer, whether the game’s going to be done on time and when it’s supposed to ship." Referencing the question: 'Why do you want to see the press becoming more critical of product?', Dyack mused: "I guess I’m really against the whole notion of the enthusiast press. Being so enthusiastic that they want things to be good. I think if our medium is going to become mainstream, and we’re going to be considered an art form, we need true critics like the movie industry or even the music industry where people go up and literally critique something, and it’s a profession to critique it. In order to critique something, it has to be done. How can you possibly try to predict the future? It’s like predicting the weather a year from now. It’s almost impossible." He also noted, of whether this whole concept was already starting to take hold in the video game media: "I think we’re probably starting to see it already – some studios are doing it already. I think it’s going to become the norm by the end of this generation and the start of the next one because of the increasing cost of games. I think, with the death of E3, for example, that’s another step forward. One of the reasons people didn’t want to do it was the downside was too high; it cost too much money, and there weren’t enough positives that would come out of that show. Take, as an example, Rockstar and GTA IV. How much do we know about it right now? The trailer is very controlled, and as far as we know, the game could be done right now." You can now read the full feature here, including more in-depth coverage of the upcoming Too Human trilogy, SK's expansion to a third team, and his vision for a game biz that finishes games and then starts promoting them, as well as two exclusive Too Human screenshots (no registration required, please feel free to link to this column from external websites).