CD Projekt's in-house interview with co-founder Michał Kiciński
CD Projekt's in-house interview with co-founder Michał Kiciński
Interview - posted by Monolith on Fri 9 November 2007, 22:28:07
Tags: CD Projekt; Witcher, TheVery interesting and definitely a must read. He's not only mostly humble and honest, he also mentions the Codex:
The high scores given by gamers are the best reward for us. I think that everyone on the RED team is delighted when they reads gamers’ reviews and their opinions about the game on discussion boards. This is really something to be proud of. Even on RPGCodex discussion boards, which may be regarded as the most critical site of all RPG websites, the game receives highly favourable opinions, despite the fact that before the release date the site wasn’t afraid to be a bit critical.
Unfortunately, one question and the corresponding answer have been lost in translation. Here is it in Polish:
Q: Patrząc na już opublikowane recenzje, widać też kilka sporo poniżej 80%, już nie tak optymistycznych. Czytałeś je? Co o nich sądzisz?
A: Nie mnie oceniać dziennikarzy. Choć myślę, że warto pokusić się o mały komentarz, nawet z narażeniem się u niektórych przedstawicieli czwartej władzy.
Cóż, różne mogą być powody tych niskich ocen. Na pewno zdarzają się recenzje pisane niezbyt rzetelnie, po zbyt krótkim obcowaniu z grą. Powiedziałbym, że jest to zwykły brak profesjonalizmu i na szczęście czytelnikom udaje się to wyłapać. Co wiąże się często z ciężką krytyką autora w komentarzach. Dla nas autorów gry takie przypadki są szczególnie przykre. Zrobienie gry jest potwornie skomplikowane i zabiera wiele lat ciężkiej pracy. Wymaga się od nas bardzo profesjonalnego efektu końcowego. Wydaje nam się więc, że od osoby recenzującej, która ma jednak trochę prostsze zadanie niż zrobienie gry, też powinniśmy wymagać pewnego poziomu profesjonalizmu i zaangażowania z swoje zadanie.
And here's my attempt to freely translate it:
Q: When you're looking at all the reviews, you can find some with a score lower than 80% - no longer that positive. Did you read them? What do you think of them?
A: Who am I to judge journalists? However, I should dare to comment on it, even if that means endangering good relations with some representatives of the fourth branch of government.
Well, there may be many reasons for the low scores. Surely there are reviewers who didn't work thoroughly and wrote the reviews after playing the game only for a short time. I'd say that usually lack of professionalism can be held liable for that and fortunately the readers can see through this - which is shown by the many comments criticizing those reviews. For us game developers such incidents are particularly sad. Making games is unbelievably complicated and takes many years full of hard work. The final result is required to be very professional. In consequence, we think that reviewers should be required to be professional and dedicated as well, considering that they have a slightly easier job to do.Hear, hear!
The Witcher is our debut. I promise that we won’t rest on our laurels. I believe that The Witcher is just the beginning of CD Projekt making the highest quality games — games with soul and made with passion, games which are not only the result of market analysis and large marketing budgets.I'm looking forward to seeing more from these guys.
Spotted at: Gamebanshee
The high scores given by gamers are the best reward for us. I think that everyone on the RED team is delighted when they reads gamers’ reviews and their opinions about the game on discussion boards. This is really something to be proud of. Even on RPGCodex discussion boards, which may be regarded as the most critical site of all RPG websites, the game receives highly favourable opinions, despite the fact that before the release date the site wasn’t afraid to be a bit critical.
Unfortunately, one question and the corresponding answer have been lost in translation. Here is it in Polish:
Q: Patrząc na już opublikowane recenzje, widać też kilka sporo poniżej 80%, już nie tak optymistycznych. Czytałeś je? Co o nich sądzisz?
A: Nie mnie oceniać dziennikarzy. Choć myślę, że warto pokusić się o mały komentarz, nawet z narażeniem się u niektórych przedstawicieli czwartej władzy.
Cóż, różne mogą być powody tych niskich ocen. Na pewno zdarzają się recenzje pisane niezbyt rzetelnie, po zbyt krótkim obcowaniu z grą. Powiedziałbym, że jest to zwykły brak profesjonalizmu i na szczęście czytelnikom udaje się to wyłapać. Co wiąże się często z ciężką krytyką autora w komentarzach. Dla nas autorów gry takie przypadki są szczególnie przykre. Zrobienie gry jest potwornie skomplikowane i zabiera wiele lat ciężkiej pracy. Wymaga się od nas bardzo profesjonalnego efektu końcowego. Wydaje nam się więc, że od osoby recenzującej, która ma jednak trochę
prostsze zadanie niż zrobienie gry, też powinniśmy wymagać pewnego poziomu profesjonalizmu i zaangażowania z swoje zadanie.And here's my attempt to freely translate it:
Q: When you're looking at all the reviews, you can find some with a score lower than 80% - no longer that positive. Did you read them? What do you think of them?
A: Who am I to judge journalists? However, I should dare to comment on it, even if that means endangering good relations with some representatives of the fourth branch of government.
Well, there may be many reasons for the low scores. Surely there are reviewers who didn't work thoroughly and wrote the reviews after playing the game only for a short time. I'd say that usually lack of professionalism can be held liable for that and fortunately the readers can see through this - which is shown by the many comments criticizing those reviews. For us game developers such incidents are particularly sad. Making games is unbelievably complicated and takes many years full of hard work. The final result is required to be very professional. In consequence, we think that reviewers should be required to be professional and dedicated as well, considering that they have a slightly easier job to do.
The Witcher is our debut. I promise that we won’t rest on our laurels. I believe that The Witcher is just the beginning of CD Projekt making the highest quality games — games with soul and made with passion, games which are not only the result of market analysis and large marketing budgets.
Spotted at: Gamebanshee
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