Pessino: I just blame ourselves for not communicating our vision of the Order 1886

[binary solo]

Anfebious said:

 Still, recently many games have been under similar scrutiny, so I’m not entirely sure that it’s just a problem of communication – it may very well be a problem of expectations. What do you think?"

Here is the link to the article: http://www.worldsfactory.net/2015/02/18/pessino-i-blame-ourselves-for-not-communicating-vision-the-order-1886

But these 2 things are linked. If communications are poor then expectations are likely to be different to developer intent. The problem is, and it's not all that unreasonable given the expectations that have been created over the last few years, that when a shooter has no MP people expect there to be a long SP campaign (15+ hrs), or high replayability (2 or 3 playable characters, branching story line where differnt choices take you in different directions...). If a shooter has MP then people are fine with a short campaign that can only stand a single play through, if that (<10 hrs). If consumer expectation is generally along those lines, and you intend to make a SP only game that is ~10 hours long then you have to work very hard on your communications to achieve market acceptance. That means being out in front on those aspects of the game that are likely to court the most controversy: total play through length (playing at a normal expected pace, not trying for a speed run); amount of time spent in cutscenes; also QTEs in this instance. RaD's biggest failing was not communicating expected game length well in advance of anyone getting their hands on the game and trying a speed run and coming in at ~5hrs. Failing to communicate this up front and having to damage control once the 5 hr play through was up on Youtube put RaD in a difficult spot, and gave the game a lot of bad press just before launch. In January, if they'd put out press releases saying their intention was to make a game where the first playthrough of the campaign would take X hours on normal difficulty. Our play testing of first timers who played the game as intended took on average X+/- hours, but people who did speed runs took Y hours and so the game length is as intended. People can then judge RaD on it's own intentions and whether they met their own intentions.  And they can judge whether RaDs own intentions justify a AAA price tag.