By now, you can probably guess that I like the occasional deep-thoughts, behind-the-scenes developer’s interview. However, I’m a little dumbfounded by this particular Afterthoughts piece with Scott Blackwood, the exec producer of EA’s Tony Hawk killer, Skate.
The whole interview is in this month’s Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine. I think they send you this magazine as long as you have a mailbox, ’cause I’ve never ordered it, but it just shows up. My favorite tidbits made it to the online edition, in all their I-can’t-believe-he-actually-said-that glory:
“[We're] not planning any new content for Skate 1 … We didn’t want to go back and ask [people] for more money to get more shoes and shirts.” I know there’s a certain expectation for franchise games, especially when EA is involved. But isn’t it a little presumptuous to refer to your game as “Skate 1?”
Even better than that, I love how he positions the lack of downloadable content in Skate as a way to avoid seeming greedy. Believe it or not, there actually IS such a thing as DLC that adds value to a game. Oh right, but they’ll be too busy working on Skate 2…
On the much bemoaned lack of women avatars in Skate, Scott says, “We really wanted women to be in there and have all sorts of cool stuff to wear and hairstyles… I will say, however, that was the hardest decision on this project. But we are going to make it up to you. When we do it — and we will — it’s going to be done very well.” Awesome! This guy’s actually saying, a month after his game shipped, that they’ll make up for all of it’s shortcomings in the next go-round. I mean, good to know they WANTED to add cool options for customizing the characters.
Everyone loves a closer look into the development process, myself included. But if you can’t show a little more commitment to a game that hasn’t even been on shelves for a month, maybe it’s better to keep quiet on what’ll be better for the sequel.
