Q&A: January 6th, 2020

Hammiam Asks
How did being a tester for EA change your mindset towards gaming against being an average consumer?

It taught me consumers and creators actually agree on a lot more than I think either of them believes. It's understandable to view the Gaming Industry through a glass ceiling as so much of that is imposed by leaders of companies inside it. Development cycles are kept private, blacklisting is rampant, and hierarchies silence people.

However, during my brief time there, I heard a lot of designers complaining about their tools, lack of power in 8th gen systems, and sacrifices taken just to release a game on an annual basis.

All of which are things we've heard from common users on forums for decades.

NephyrisX Asks
What are some of your favourite examples of players going to extreme creative lengths in games to gain an advantage?

Not to most creative, but definitely one of the funniest I saw were lobbies in Star Wars Battlefront II where everybody wrapped their controllers with rubberbands to gain grind for experience. Its funny because this is what we would do in QA Testing when needing to complete a game during lunch.

Ferenc Viczmandi Asks
Which game would benefit from (more) nudity?

Mass Effect.

It sounds like a punchline, but I'm actually being somewhat serious. People taking showers in their underwear is stupid, and I can't be convinced otherwise, and there's actually many opportunities for drama assisted by nudity. I've talked about this before, but I always thought seeing Shepard realize their new body in ME2 has none of the scars they've earned in battle, would've been powerful.

Nudity doesn't need to be titillating, it's a tool that can be just as versatile as anything else in storytelling, it's just often used for one thing, and even when it's not, is often still viewed by people as that one thing.

Kyle Dieleman Asks
Seeing your post on Dirt 3, whats your opinion on Dirt 4?

I've barely touched DIRT 4 so I can't comment too much on it as a game, but like so many, I'm very confused why Codemasters called it DIRT 4, because it's gimmick of endless roads sacrifices so much of the complete content the series was known for at that point. 

Maybe they didn't want to have two spin-offs back to back, but that must've been a better alternative than people no longer knowing what the DIRT brand is supposed mean, and DIRT 5 has only furthered the confusion.

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