Thomas Mahler blames some developers for overhyping their upcoming games.

Thomas Mahler is the CEO of Moon Studios, and he also was the director of the two Ori games. He wrote a post on the ResetEra forums, and already the title caught our attention: „Why are gamers so eager to trust and even forgive the snake oil salesmen?” (Snake oil in this context is a terminology used for a bogus or fraudulent product.) Mahler particularly targeted three entities: Peter Molyneux (Fable, Populous, Black & White…), Sean Murray (No Man’s Sky), and CD Projekt RED (for Cyberpunk 2077).

Mahler accused them of „lies and deception,” selling features that don’t exist in their retail game. He also accused them of overhyping their games, fooling the players. The journalists, according to him, are „happily [playing] along, every single time.” He added that he’s not bitter, and he isn’t „sh___ing” on all the developers, only on „liars and people that are okay with openly deceiving others.”

„It all started with Molyneux. He was the master of ‘Instead of telling you what my product is, let me just go wild with what I think it could be and get you all excited!’ – And that was fine, until you actually put your money down and then the game was nothing like what Peter was hyping it up to be,” Mahler wrote. About Murray, Mahler claims that he „learned straight from the Peter Molyneux handbook”, loving the spotlight. When No Man’s Sky launched, he argued that it was „nothing like what Murray hyped it up to be.” He also called out his industry peers for forgiving Hello Games: „They released a bunch of updates, so let’s forget about the initial lies and deception and hey, let’s shower him with awards again, cause he finally kinda-sorta delivered on what he said the game would be years earlier. Thanks, Geoff Keighley. Rewarding that kinda behaviour will surely help the industry grow stronger,” Mahler wrote.

About CD Projekt RED, Mahler criticised the team for Cyberpunk 2077, which is „a fraction of what the developer hyped it up to be,” adding that the studio’s PR department „took all the cues from what worked for Molyneux and Murray and just went completely apesh_t with it. Every video released by CDPR was carefully crafted to create a picture in players’ minds that were just insanely compelling. They stopped just short of outright saying that this thing would cure cancer,” he wrote. His final words recapped his thoughts: „Don’t paint a picture that you’ll not be able to deliver. Just don’t f___ing lie to me. You’re f___ing over gamers, you’re f___ing over journalists (that should know better, so shame on you!) and you’re f_ing over other developers.” Ouch.

The story isn’t over here, though. He then sent a statement to Gamesindustry, apologizing for what he said. Let’s see what Mahler wrote: „By now a lot of you will have probably read my posting on Resetera yesterday. I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder and talked about the downsides of the current hype culture and how developers making false claims about their products hurts not only the consumers but developers as well. At least that was the intention behind it all. Now, a day later, I’ve read the responses and I realize I wasn’t thoughtful in the way I presented my thoughts, nor did I choose the right tone or platform for it. After I made this thread, we had a pretty long conversation internally about all of this and I didn’t represent Moon Studios the way I should have.

I’m a game developer, I love what I’m doing and I enjoy nothing more than to make games that surprise people, that put a smile on their faces or that might even make people cry. But I’m also a passionate gamer myself. I always enjoyed sharing my love for games on public forums and continued to be very outspoken even after Moon Studios and the ‘Ori’ series became known entities in the games industry. I always really liked the idea of gamers and developers alike having an open discourse about games, so that we could all figure out together how to improve the art form. Yesterday I used an overly aggressive tone that wasn’t suited for someone in my position. My intention was not to hurt anybody but to offer up a discussion starter on current issues the industry is facing.

We all share a common love for this art form and we should always remain respectful with each other. And I wasn’t yesterday. And for that, I am sorry, especially to those that I mentioned by name. I promise that I’ll learn from this mistake and wish no hard feelings towards anybody,” Mahler wrote.

But he does have a point, though…

Source: Gamesindustry