How much blow could a blowhard blow if a blowhard could blow blow?
Sorry, but seriously, this is too good to be true. Peter Molyneux, of Fable/Populous/Black and White/sounding like he should be French but is actually British fame, has just done an interview and praised David Cage, of Indigo Prophecy/Heavy Rain/sounding like he should be British but is actually French fame, for leading videogames into "the future" with Heavy Rain. Specifically, with its most mocked feature, the Quick-Time Event.
Both Molyneux and Cage are Big Idea types; they generate a lot of hype for their games and generally make a lot of money, even when those games fail to deliver. We've seen it time and time again from both of them (i.e., "Fable wasn't any good! Fable 2 is here to fix that!" followed by, "Fable 2 sucked! Fable 3 is the real deal!" Or how about this gem: "These are real-time animations from Heavy Rain. We're going to change the way games are perceived" to, well, the actual release of Heavy Rain, where everyone kind of realized how full of shit he was), and yet the public still seems to get sucked in.
I'm personally more of a fan of affable developer who downplays their achievements (like Warren Spector, who could proclaim himself a genius but instead just makes fantastic games), but it's just too funny to me that Molyneux and Cage are apparently on the same page. You can read the article here for a chuckle.
In other news, internet media conglomerate IGN (owned by News Corp. You know, the one that Rupert Murdoch, billionaire tyrant, owns) has announced massive, far-reaching layoffs. Here's the official statement:
We're doing this to reduce costs. While we've been doing well — we're profitable and our audience continues to grow — we're still feeling the effects of the economy, and we need to make sure we can invest where there is opportunity. Over the past couple of years, we have been focusing IGN on areas where we can not only grow, but be best in the world: serving gamers online, and serving advertisers looking to reach men. To do that successfully, we have to be as efficient as possible in our core businesses. The difficult actions we're taking today get us to where we need to be.
There's a couple of things that stick out to me. One is that if you're profitable and your audience continues to grow, then what's the point of slashing and burning your editorial staff? This smacks of the whole Variety boondoggle with Todd McCarthy, actually (although I obviously wouldn't put anyone from IGN on the same planet as McCarthy in terms of quality of writing or critical analysis).
The other more troubling thing is something that's been in the back of my mind, I guess, but something I never really considered – IGN's advertisers are "looking to reach men." How much does that influence their editorial content? Seriously! That's terrible. You can't expect anyone to take your reviews seriously when your advertising is both your main source of revenue and your reviews almost always skew towards a traditional man's point of view. I mean, is this why there's so much hate on for the "casual" gamer? Because they're not primarily men and can't be targeted with your sexist Evony ads or what have you?
I'm going to do it: I vow to never collect a dime from ad revenue on this site. I couldn't do it in good conscience. Advertising needs to stay as far away from serious game journalism as it can.