Lead designer of MotorStorm: Pacific Rift says that too much is made of pre-release video renders
MotorStorm: Pacific Rift’s lead designer Nigel Kershaw has lashed out at those who criticise games for failing to match the video quality seen in pre-release video renders.
A high quality video render of a new game is a great tool to get people interested, but setting high expectations for a title can cause problems in the long-term. Speaking on the 1UP Show, Kershaw stated:
“Before you do a game, you do a test render that says ‘this is the game we want to make, now let’s go make it’. It’s just like writing a game design document. The end result might not look like the render that you did. Who gives a shit? If you’re 50, 60, 70, 80 per cent to that line you’ve succeeded.
“Also, it’s not about the visuals. If you go back and look at that movie, it was about the interaction of the vehicles. It was about lots of vehicles racing together – all that stuff that we achieved.
“But it’s this thing that haunts you, that you didn’t match your target render. Everybody makes such a big fucking deal of it. Who gives a shit? That’s how we make games. If people have got a problem with that, tough.”
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The MotorStorm franchise, along with fellow Sony title Killzone 2, was famously embroiled in fanboy-flamed internet scandal after its E3 unveiling using a truly gob-smacking video.
Well if its an internal concept video then that's fine, the issue comes when you use it to sell your game, that's called a lie.
50% "to that line" of your hi res video? Whatever. Obviously a lot of people "give a ****".
And that's not "how we make games", it's your group's decision on how you market them to the public.
I very much disagree. Although, I think MS and MS2 look very good, using Pre-Rendered/CG Trailers to represent your game is false advertisement to consumers. If you are to use such media, please label it as such. Do not attempt to pass it off as the actualy game. Look at KZ2, at a time when Sony was trying to show it had software for their system, they relied upon CG to show a game that was barely showable. This then created massive hype and very high expectations because they told us the game would look like this. Now look at where they are at, the game looks dead sexy and the freedom the artists have had has made this game very very expensive to produce graphically. They are now trying to live to the hype they created and will have to do the same thing with God of War III.
All in all, use all the pre-renderings or CG trailers you want BUT please brand the videos as such to alert the community that it is indeed CG and do not try to pass it off as something else.
A sensible approach would be to create a realistic video that is actually representative of the final game if you're going to show it to the world with a big fanfare.
Otherwise keep it internal so your failures aren't so public.
If I made a proof of concept and then later did not live up to the expectations created I would be out of a job and the company I worked for sued for breach of contract.
And if that did not happen after 'just' not living up to the expectations it certainly would happen after I gave a response like who gives a **** and big ****ing deal.
This is a completely unproffesional attitude and I would imagine a publisher thinking twice before spending a couple of millions on the next project.
I mean is this guy for real? You cant just say something like this.
Nigel Kershaw ( who seems to have dropped the 'Pig' from his name) was always a '**** You' designer. Not to say he's not talented, but who let him loose with the media?
To be somewhat fairer on the dev (though after this response why should we bother?) it was probably a lot down to Sony's attempts to exaggerate the capabilities of the PS3 at the time.
It's all lies. How can it not be about the visuals!!!! No one knew what the PS3 was going to look like, and these movies were supposed to be showing you what it was capable of. The game nowhere near hit the mark of the original movie and that is a big deal. To discard it because the game couldn't live up to it, is just an excuse. The movies should've been branded as CG marketing from the offset, the confusion should never have happened. Also Evolution studios didn't even make the movie, a company called Realtime did!!!
"We're really sorry our games didn't look as good as the video we used to persuade you to invest/back/market/buy* them. Unfortunately, our pants being on fire stopped us doing the job properly."
* delete as appropriate.
