author: Bart Swiatek
„If You Love a Game, Buy It at Full Price,” Says Days Gone Dev
Days Gone creative director and writer John Garvin addressed the issue of gamers supporting games they like during a recent podcast.
IN A NUTSHELL:
- John Garvin - director of Days Gone - believes that gamers should buy the games they love on release day or shortly thereafter at full price;
- You can't blame the publisher for not creating a sequel to a game if you bought it on a sale.
John Garvin - Days Gone's creative director and writer - was a guest on David Jaffe's podcast. The developer referred to the issue of player supporting the games they love. In his opinion, if we really like a title, we should buy it at full price instead of waiting for sales.
“If you love a game, buy it at f****** full price. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen gamers say ‘yeah, I got that on sale, I got it through PS Plus, whatever'," said Garvin.
Jaffe added that players have no right to complain that a game doesn't get a sequel if they didn't support it with their wallets at launch.
"Don’t complain if a game doesn’t get a sequel if it wasn’t supported at launch. It’s like, God of War got whatever number millions of sales at launch and, you know, Days Gone didn’t. [I’m] just speaking for me personally as a developer, I don’t work for Sony, I don’t know what the numbers are," the developer stated.
It's hard not to agree with Garvin, at least to some degree - if a game a studio has been working on for years sells millions of copies, but bought mostly for a few pennies on a sale (and/or with the use of twisted methods like VPNs and changing regions in the online store), it's hardly a great success and there's nothing strange in the fact that the publisher isn't interested in making a sequel.
Of course, there's also the other side of the coin. Not every game interests us enough to purchase it at full price, and not every game is likely to sell as well as the publisher hopes. This is especially true in situations where the budget has been inflated, and the final effect simply does not show all that money at work.
It's also worth noting that there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of sales. What's more, buying games on launch day is all too often like sprinting through a minefield these days - many titles are released in terrible condition, with bugs making them impossible to complete or performance that cries for vengeance. Buying a game a little later is more likely to spare us a frustrating experience. The fact that we can often buy them cheaper is just an added bonus.
Days Gone is available on PlayStation 4 (it also works on PlayStation 5). In May this year the PC edition of the game will also be released.
