I feel bad for him, but really the problem is he’s made a directorial mistake and it looks like the only point it’s gonna click is when the sales numbers hit.
Will he realize his mistaken then or will he continue to blame the customer?
No, that’s not the problem. Not the problem that’s relevant to this discussion anyway. The problem is that people are either relentlessly telling him that they didn’t like the art or hatefully attacking him for choosing that art style. Hateful is what made him decide to close comments and not share stuff anymore. But relentless, even if polite, criticism also takes a toll.
And art style quality is subjective. I, for one, don’t think he made a mistake. If it does hurt sales, it is an objective evidence that it was a mistake commercially speaking. Which is just one dimension. He might still be happy with his decision.
Regardless of sales effect though, I think people feel entitled to be heard by him. They are not happy only with voting with their wallets, or just telling friends that they didn’t like the art style, that are making a point of going to him pointing fingers that he messed up. That’s not fine in my view even if they do not use hateful words, which a minority does. But the majority is still pointing fingers at him.
For me Ron is doing the right thing in managing all this. Stop sharing stuff, close comments, go back working on it silence. If, because of that, the game is a commercial failure, so be it. It is his risk to take. People are acting outraged no because Ron is screaming rude things back to them, because he is not. People are outraged that he just won’t change the art style at this point. That he is not pulling a Sonic on this. And I think the behavior of those people demanding change is just silly. And dangerous when potentialzed by the scale of the internet.
So good for Ron going back to silence. It will be better for him and the team. And, I think, better for the game as well.
"continue to blame the customer?" He's never said that folks were wrong, or blamed anyone for anything. Seems to me like he just wanted folks to not be shitty.
Take, for example, this comment by someone calling themselves _Proud Retro Fascist_:
> Nice attempt at silencing critics. The game will fail because it is
> objectively hideous and you will only have yourself to blame.
>
> Inthe end all you will have achieved is killing off Monkey Island once more.
> This time permanently.
>
> All you had to do was make a game with an art style that appeals to
> everyone, whatever it might be. Instead, you opted for the most repugnant,
> revolting and hideous TRASH art style that anybody has ever bared witness to
> in a video game. You must be out of your mind.
>
> All said, try hiring good artists next time... if there is a next time, that
> is.
>
> RIP MONKEY ISLAND
I wouldn't blame anyone for being upset after receiving this kind of vile commentary "Objectively hideous;" "repugnant, revolting and hideous TRASH art style." There's nothing constructive or even reasonable there, it's purely nastiness for nastiness' sake.
Stay strong, Ron Gilbert, don't let the assholes get you down.
Yeah, that's a very harsh comment. Nonetheless, there is something to be learnt here:
If anything, the comments of the fans show that this artstyle alienates many of the fans. So, if for example the artstyle would've been showed at the very start of the development, then the developers could've listened to the fans and changed it. But everyone's in a tough spot now because development is nearly finished (game is planned for this year) and it would be too late to change course.
As such, Ron Gilbert can only do one thing: Buckle up, release the game and let it be played by those who are not alienated by the artstyle. Maybe it will charm new fans even more; maybe not. Who knows. However, it certainly is an artstyle that is not "universal". E.g. AAA developers usually refine their main character so much that he appeals more or less universally, they want someone who is liked by everyone. They don't want a main character that is only liked by 50% of the target audience. BUT! This comes with the caveat that these games might be overoptimized for the mainstream and thus being somehow boring. That's why I love what the artists and Ron Gilbert did, even though I am torn on the style myself.
Btw. I myself was even more alienated by the artstyle of Broken Age (so much that I never played it) and that was a game where I even invested money in. However, I never could've thrown words at Tim Schafer. And neither on Ron Gilbert, for that matter.
The lead artist of Return to Monkey Island worked for Double Fine previously, so it shouldn't be a surprise that if you didn't like art style that Double Fine made a "house style" you likely wouldn't be interested in what an alumni of that art style is trying to innovate at a follow up studio.
> If anything, the comments of the fans show that this artstyle alienates many of the fans.
Vocal fans are a sampling bias. Don't forget that volume in terms of loudness of complaint does not equal volume in terms of number of complainers. It may not be that "many" fans in number just because they have been that loud/obnoxious.
Interesting, I absolutely loved the art style of Broken Age, it's original and distinctive in a way few games are. I guess you're right about that optimizing for the main stream tends to create relatively boring art.
And it's also why I like the new art style too
I understood it differently, to mean: "All you had to do was make a game with an art style that does not get in the way [of enjoying the game], whatever it might be."
I think this interpretation makes sense, since the original game is primarily story-driven.
Holding up the complaints of someone called "_Proud Retro Fascist_" shouldn't invalidate legitimate criticism just because a broke clock it right twice a day...
> Take, for example, this comment by someone calling themselves Proud Retro Fascist: [...]
For what it's worth, the person called themselves like this in jest: apparently in an earlier comment, someone referred to people skeptical of the new design as "retro fascists." Not sure if that was supposed to be sarcastic as well, since the comment has been deleted.
I could not agree more. A lot of game producers get this arrogant approach of: "Making games would be such awesome job if it wasn't for those pesky gamers".
The question here is: "Is this a really innovative graphical design that will get praised by future generations but is misunderstood now" or "Is this just a bad decision that the creator is unwilling to own". I tend to think it's the latter. Ultimately the sales will tell.
Obviously I'm not defending the minority of insane comments made my mentally unwell people, but it does feel to me that the rage-quit was prompted more by the general negative sentiment people expressed about the looks of the game rather than by the personal attacks.
We have seen the same thing happen to Star Wars where the legitimate criticism was painted as toxicity of the fandom.
To quote another HN comment I saved recently:
> “Ultimately, the reason some people get upset when a series changes isn’t because the new game is new, but because the old games get their future cut off. Getting a sequel you don’t want closes the door more definitively than creating a new IP. Nobody wants to see the corpse of something they love puppeted around when it could just be laid to rest.”
If you believe games are at all art, then they cannot ultimately be judged either by commercial or critical success, or even by whether they please their creator. There is something utterly subjective and nondeterminant in the evaluation of art.
Obviously, as humans we tend to evaluate the “success” of art on its long term impact. Commercial and critical failures in the short term can and have become treasured as masterpieces in the long term, and bestselling beloved work can turn out to be forgotten quickly.
> We have seen the same thing happen to Star Wars where the legitimate criticism was painted as toxicity of the fandom.
Hold on a minute here. Yes, the racist assholes got more attention than they deserved. But Rise of the Skywalker was thrown together by a bunch of marketing executives looking through all that “legitimate criticism”, making a big checklist, and feeding it into their lifeless movie factory to create a giant wish fulfillment fantasy for all those “real fans” who were upset someone would dare to shake up their stale, predictable franchise. It was a terrible movie. Lessons: Disney is a cancer, but also people on the internet, as plentiful as they are, have no idea what they want.
This is one area where I think Nintendo and Apple really excel at.
They hardly, if ever, cave to user "wants", because they understand that often, the user has no fucking clue what they actually want.
It's why they manage to succeed despite initial opinions being so against them. It's because often the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Looking at a thing can only tell you so much, it's only when you are able to actually experience the thing will you be able to judge whether it is good or not.
Users often don't know what they want, but they frequently know better than rando companies.
Apple's strategy worked during the era of Steve Jobs because Steve Jobs was miraculously good at intuiting what users want. Since his death, Apple has lost that ability. See: The Butterfly Keyboard, the Touchbar, the 2013 Mac Pro. Apple's recent successes have been things consumers very much said they wanted: iPhones with larger screens, Macs with better performance and incredible battery life.
Nintendo does seem to have some leaders with Steve Jobs's talent, but I'd argue they're more hit or miss than he was. The Wii U didn't go so well, and the Wii—while an initial success—was ultimately kind of mixed.
The reason I explicitly noted Nintendo and Apple is because they are not "rando companies". They are companies with explicit track records of not focus grouping every product to death.
You say the Wii was "mixed", but that's just wrong. It outsold the PS3 and XBox 360.
The Wii U was a misstep, but the Switch is essentially a Wii U/Game Boy hybrid. Because Nintendo saw what was off with the Switch and made the changes.
As for Apple, they were lambasted for removing the Home button, removing the audio jack, making their own chips. But those have all been not the major missteps people thought they were.
> You say the Wii was "mixed", but that's just wrong. It outsold the PS3 and XBox 360.
It did, but many of the people who bought it purchased few (if any) games. It's not clear to me that the Wii was more profitable than the PS360 when you take the full ecosystem into account. And even if it was, remember that those competing consoles made major technical missteps—the PS3's high initial cost and weird Cell processor, and the 360's red ring of death.
> As for Apple, they were lambasted for removing the Home button, removing the audio jack, making their own chips. But those have all been not the major missteps people thought they were.
I don't remember as much outcry about the home button's removal. But I bet if you asked a focus group what they wanted in an iPhone, "the biggest possible screen in the smallest possible body" would have been high on the list, and that ultimately necessitates removing the home button. Android phones had already been moving in this direction.
Similar situation with Apple Silicon. Normal consumers don't know what a cpu architecture is, but I'm sure a focus group would have asked for a Mac which was faster and lasted longer on battery.
The headphone jack's removal was a money grab, pure and simple. It allows Apple to exert more control over the ecosystem and receive more money in licensing fees. Consumers didn't like it, they were merely willing to put up with it.
It's not true in the case of Nintendo.
They always actively get JAPANESE feedback for games like Zelda and Pokemon.
As western and eastern tastes diverge, you'll see bigger issues.
It's one of the reasons Square Enix just sold all their western studios.
> The question here is: "Is this a really innovative graphical design that
> will get praised by future generations but is misunderstood now" or "Is this
> just a bad decision that the creator is unwilling to own". I tend to think
> it's the latter. Ultimately the sales will tell.
The question here is not "should people like a thing," it's "why are people such assholes?" To quote Ron Gilbert's linked post:
> Play it or don't play it but don't ruin it for everyone else.
It sure seems like this is a fantastic example of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory [0]: nobody would speak so awfully to Ron Gilbert if they were leaning over his shoulder watching the trailer.
> “Ultimately, the reason some people get upset when a series changes isn’t because the new game is new, but because the old games get their future cut off. Getting a sequel you don’t want closes the door more definitively than creating a new IP. Nobody wants to see the corpse of something they love puppeted around when it could just be laid to rest.”
Except in this case, my understanding is that this isn't even true. This game is an alternate sequel to MI2 (which is widely beloved), throwing out the story from MI3 (and maybe Tales? Many fans did not like the story direction of MI3. Perhaps because Ron didn't work on it.. I didn't mind it). So I guess in that case, for the really opinionated MI1&2 fans, this is another bite at the apple.
I'm sorry, but getting upset about a sequel you didn't want is an immature and entitled attitude. This is a sequel from the original creator, not some corporate cash-in, what else do you want? Ron Gilbert is not a mind reader, he can't deliver on 1000 contradictory fan expectations. This is the game they wanted to make, that's their right, if you don't like it just move along.
Top Gun 2 is great example of understanding the audience. it was a love letter to the fans.
Gilbert made it all about himself with no awareness of what other people thought. That's his biggest mistake. He keeps saying he making the game HE wants to make. He really doesn't care about the fans, and they noticed. I strongly suspect it will only get uglier between the deep monkey island fans who kept the brand alive and Gilbert.
If Ron wants to make art, then make art. But Monkey Island was never art for the sake of art. A far more successful revival that pleased the fans was Broken Sword 5.
The comments on the linked article feature a number of examples of this, despite already having had the worse stuff moderated-out. For instance:
> You are an abhorrent and miserable human being, Ron Gilbert. You should be ashamed of yourself. One can only hope that you retire from the industry and never return.
Will he realize his mistaken then or will he continue to blame the customer?