Fire weeks for PlayStationwhich ended up in the eye of the storm after Jason Schreier’s famous report in which he talked about future projects by Sony’s internal studios.
We refresh your memory: in the report, which quickly traveled around the world, Schreier talked about some new PlayStation Studios projects, some of which have been heavily debated in recent days. It goes from the alleged remake of The Last of Us which Naughty Dog would be handling, up to cancellation of Days Gone 2a subject of which he disseminated further details in the following days.
What are the reasons behind this cancellation? We are talking about a product, Days Gone, which despite its defects has managed to carve out a good slice of the public, perhaps not enough to guarantee Sony Bend the realization of a sequel. In reality, sales would not be the main problem of Days Gone 2 production, but Metacritic and… the players themselves.
John Garvindirector of Days Gone, spoke in a recent live stream of the case that has been talked about in recent weeks, pointing the finger against the perception that the public has (and companies, rebound) towards the score of Metacritic. On closer inspection, Garvin’s reasoning has solid foundations: the metascore of Days Gone, which in its PS4 version is stopped at 71/100 (waiting for the PC version coming in May), far from the results of other impressive productions of the PlayStation Studios such as Uncharted 4, The Last of Us: Part II, and Ghost of Tsushima – which have 93, 93, and 83 on the review aggregator, respectively.
The Metacritic score is everything. If you are the creative director of a franchise and your game reaches 70 years of age, you will not be a creative director of that franchise for a long time. […] I think if you’re Disney, you can’t afford to make a shit movie even if there’s a group of people going to see it. It was up to us to create something that had a broader appeal, that avoided some of the pitfalls we somehow self-inflicted on ourselves.
Garvin says the studio did not want to bow to the growing ranks of social politically correct executioners, but acknowledges despite what Sony and the community expected a higher level of quality for Days Gone.
But that’s not all, because if Days Gone 2 does not arrive, according to Garvin, it will also be the fault of the players.
Chatting with David Jaffe, Garvin hinted between the lines that one of the reasons that caused the game to be canceled may have been the market debut of Days Gone, which saw many users stand back and wait to find it on sale or even included in services like PS Plus or PS Nowwithout guaranteeing Sony and Sony Bend the adequate return that the companies expected:
I have an opinion on something your audience might find interesting, and it might upset some of them. If you love a game, buy it at full price. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen players say “Yes, I put it on sale, I bought it through PS Plus, whatever”. […] I’m just saying you can’t buy it right away, but don’t complain if a game doesn’t get a sequel if it wasn’t supported at launch. It is like God of War has got any number of millions in sales at launch and, you know, Days Gone didn’t. [Sto] just speaking for me personally as a developer, I don’t work for anymore SonyI don’t know what the numbers are.
There is not only Sony, therefore, behind the closure of the project, but also what is an increasingly growing trend of the public, that is to avoid the full price to wait patiently for discounts or other.
Garvin also said that, being no longer at Sony, he’s not sure if the game is actually no longer in development, but judging by the statements in the last few weeks, it looks like Days Gone 2 is now dead and gone.
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