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impertinence on 04 June 2015
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Mummelmann said:
the_dengle said:

I don't get it. His explanation of why they didn't implement voice chat is because they didn't want to. They didn't think their game would benefit from it. They didn't want to waste time or resources developing it, they didn't want it to be hogging system resources in-game.

It doesn't fit the creator's vision. That is the ONLY reason needed to justify the absence of any particular feature from a game. Criticize the game all you want for lacking that feature, but take it as it is. They do not need to give a better reason. There is no better reason.


Can't speak for anyone else, but this is what I take issue with:

"First, we put a lot of effort into every inch of the online stages, so by playing them over and over again users can get a better feel for the terrain, giving the gameplay more breadth and depth. The characteristics of the weapons and the strategies for using them vary with each weapon, and of course these will vary depending on the stage you use them in and even what combination of equipment your teammates and opponents are using."

And then the reason for leaving out voice chat:

"We think there are two reasons for wanting to use it: to play strategically, and to know what you opponent is feeling. We designed the game so that it's still possible to play strategically, while also giving due consideration so that there is no extreme advantage one way or the other. In terms of knowing what your opponent is feeling, we really do understand the fun that can be had with this, but we hope that you will also understand that it can also have a negative effect too."

So, they dose out the content so users can get familiar with it and develop and learn strategies, and then go on to say that voice chat would be desired as an additional strategic tool, so they didn't want to add it. They want people to play the maps over and over and get skilled with the various weapons but they don't want them to plan and communicate to improve strategy?
That's ridiculous.

If they had simply stated that; "We don't feel that the game would benefit from voice chat, so we didn't add it." it would be fine, but this reasoning is out of whack.
There's also the strange suggestion that "those who haven't played shooters before" would somehow mix and play with people who use voice chat and take it more seriously, and that the latter group would somehow scare the other one away.
This is is also corny reasoning seeing as how the major reason newbies would be turned away from facing experienced players would be the fact that they would get owned by them, whether or not these better players were chatting with one another on headsets is absolutely irrelevant in this context.
Deciding to not add voice chat, although a strange decision imo, is fine, but his reasoning for it is not, see the difference?

As a player who never plays shooters and not very often play online at all I am excatly the target audience for this decission  and I can tell you, they are spot on. Voice chat is a huge turn off for me, and even though it would be an option to turn on and off, knowing that I would go into battles deliberatly not enabling voice chats while some of my random team mates would expect to use that as a tool would be a reason not to get the game at all for me.

The reason why I enjoy Splatoon as much as I do is because it levels the field a bit for a player like myself and experienced shooter fanatics. And that is an absolutely essential thing if they want the game to have the kind of crossover appeal that they are hoping for.