Making a bad game is usually death for a game developer. If it doesn’t destroy the company, most will either quietly pretend such a disaster never happened, or make into the butt of a joke if it comes up at all. Not Randy Pitchford, however. Randy doubles down.
Aliens: Colonial Marines is a widely scorned game. My review of it was incredibly unkind, and after the interview I’m about to share with you, I actually revisited it on the PS3 and stand by every word, short of one or two tasteless jokes. That said, Randy Pitchford is the CEO of Gearbox, who put out that game, and Eurogamer wanted to make him admit it sucked. They failed, and it’s stunning.
To give you an idea of just why this interview is a must-read, almost a thriller in interview form, this is how Wesley Yin-Poole opens, and how Pitchford counters:
Eurogamer: In the case of Aliens, you must accept it’s not as good as Borderlands. Surely you accept that.
Randy Pitchford: It depends on what criteria you’re using to define good.
This becomes almost mesmerizing, beyond a certain point. Pitchford admits up front Aliens: Colonial Marines lost money for Gearbox. He will admit that critics put it in a sack and kicked it down the Gemonian Stairs. But he won’t say it’s a bad game, no matter what. He’ll even defend his studio’s other notoriously bad game while defending this bad game.
It’s almost like they want to hear me say, yeah, it was rubbish. But it would be a lie for me to say it. I actually like, f**k, I like Duke Nukem Forever. I thought it was brilliant. I did! I know I’m not objective. But when I say that you should go, that guy’s clearly not objective. Why would you expect me to be objective? Have you ever seen weird, bizarre art you don’t even understand? The artist who created it clearly did it for a reason and loved it, you know.
Did… did he just say it was outsider art?
(via Eurogamer)