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Wednesday, February 2, 2011





Josh Olin, Community Manager at Call of Duty: Black Ops developers Treyarch, thinks that "pundits" and "angry entitled fans" are ruining creativity in video games. They're not.

In an interview with NowGamer, Olin - who admittedly must wade knee-deep through stupid questions from assholes as part of his job - says the following:


Personally, as a community manager who lives in the media or social media world every day, I think the social culture of video games is moving in a more negative direction as technology and social media continues to grow. Rather than growing with it, the trend seems to be devolving. More and more gamers seem to forget what this industry is all about.

It's a creative industry – the most creative form of entertainment in existence. Too many developers who try new things are getting burned by "pundits" and angry entitled fans who look to be contrarian, sometimes simply for the sake of being contrarian. The only thing this attitude aims to achieve is stunt that creativity and innovation even further, which is something that no rational gamer looking to be entertained would want to do.

He's right about the sentiment that's out there. The kind of people who actively comment as part of a video game community are, sadly, often prone to focus on the negatives, and can often be quite rude when doing so. It's enough to get a man down and make him think the world is out to get him.

But to say that's the reason creativity is being stunted? Come on. Haters Gonna Hate, Josh! If a video game developer designs its games according to the whims of the squeaky wheels, then it deserves to have its creativity stunted, because true innovation takes guts.

The audience doesn't know what it wants before it has it. It never asked for Ico, or Katamari Damacy, or Deus Ex, or BioShock ahead of time. Those games were dropped on them, from creative developers who weren't afraid to roll the dice and take a few risks, and became much-loved classics because of that.

 From Kotaku

22 comments:

  1. excellent point sir. Awesome pic too! Angry Birds is rather addicting btw! >:3

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  2. True words. You're right when you say innovation requires guts, and there's nothing that will satisfy every single person. Josh needs to let the haters be.

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  3. And you should really cut off your captcha. Go to the posting tab on your dashboard to do so.

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  4. I didn't realize it was on. I'll turn it off

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  5. lol angry nerds

    blundersfrom6foot2.blogspot.com

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  6. tl;dr : too many nerds live by the mantra "worst. game. ever."

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  7. Making games is just like making art. Some people will love it, others will despite it.

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  8. who doesnt love nerds? I love nerds!

    following and supporting

    http://812photography.blogspot.com/
    http://ducks2nucks.blogspot.com

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  9. "The audience doesn't know what it wants before it has it. It never asked for Ico, or Katamari Damacy, or Deus Ex, or BioShock ahead of time. Those games were dropped on them, from creative developers who weren't afraid to roll the dice and take a few risks, and became much-loved classics because of that."

    This!

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  10. cod seriously redefined the genre, you cant deny that

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  11. I totally agree. Just because there are whingers out there complaining, doesn't mean that the developers are forced to corrupt themselves and bend to the wishes of said whingers.

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  12. Totally agree man. Great blog. Followed.

    psychedelicaemphatica.blogspot.com

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  13. Gotta agree with this guy. Some of the best games out there have been developed through sheer risks that developers took.

    http://breakinmiceandkeyboards.blogspot.com/

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  14. agree with you!

    http://all-around-toto.blogspot.com/

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  15. A well written article. Hope to read more soon, Following.

    juju-paintballer.blogspot.com

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  16. Bioshock and Dues Ex. Truer words never spoken. I've played hundreds of games and never had a more enjoyable experience than playing Dues Ex.

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  17. People don't come on the internet to talk about how great something is or how good it's working, they only post when they have a complaint.

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  18. Awesome blog, i learned something here :)
    Help me out, at the moment i am a small fish :)
    http://the-waytosuccess.blogspot.com/

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  19. Im completely addicted to angry birds.

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  20. The orange on your profile reminds me of a peach I once craved a face into while bored

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