Days Gone director says buy games at full price, otherwise don't complain if they never get sequels
The lead director and writer for Days Gone has some hot takes to share with the internet. John Garvin, who has since left Bend Studio following the release of Days Gone, appeared on a YouTube interview with fellow PlayStation game dev David Jaffe, known for his work directing the original God of War. The two spent over four hours discussing the games industry, the current direction of PlayStation, and other topics, with one such moment of which focused on Garvin's thoughts regarding the sales performance of Days Gone, and why it likely will not be getting a sequel any time soon.
He began his commentary (2:42:00 in the video) with, "I do have an opinion on something that your audience may find of interest, and it might piss some of them off. If you love a game, buy it at [expletive] full price", in response to people in the live stream chat who were expressing their love for the game, especially after having tried it on PlayStation 5, as part of the PS+ Collection. Garvin continued, stating, "I can't tell you how many times I've seen gamers say 'yeah I got that on sale, I got it through PS+, whatever", with Jaffe countered his point by asking how players would know they'd like a game before playing it, and Garvin replied by saying, "You don't, but don't complain if a game doesn't get a sequel if it wasn't supported at launch".
That exchange quickly found its way to social media infamy, as Twitter users criticized Garvin for telling gamers to buy titles at full price at launch in an industry where Cyberpunk 2077 was pulled from storefronts due to critical issues on release. He added to the debate with the following, "So, you do you. If you don't like a game? If it's buggy? If you listen to reviewers' opinions? If you think games cost too much? More power to you. Just don't buy it on sale a year later, discover you love it, then wonder why a sequel never got made".
Days Gone, which was originally a PlayStation 4 exclusive, released in 2019 to moderate and negative reviews, with critics finding the gameplay generic and dated. GBAtemp also reviewed the game at launch, and our consensus was mostly in line with the at-the-time Metacritic average of 70. It also had a rocky first few days, as the game had lots of bugs, to the point of Days Gone being patched on a daily basis for over a week, as it faced audio issues, console crashes, autosave problems, and other random glitches.
Shortly after that part of the interview (2:42:32), Garvin brings up having faced piracy, and its negative impacts on projects he'd worked on in the past. Here, he mentioned, "we were doing Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror, we got so [expletive], because piracy was a thing, and Sony wasn't really caught up on what piracy was doing to sales", and "I was pissed about it then, I was like, this is money out of my pocket". He then ends the topic by claiming, "the uptick in engagement with the game isn't as important as, did you buy the game at full price? Because if you did, then that's supporting the developers directly".
Currently, Days Gone is on track for a Windows PC release next month, on May 18th. Has this interview impacted your thoughts on whether or not you'll be picking up the game--at full price--when it launches? And do you agree with Garvin's overall thoughts on supporting and buying games at launch, if only to support the developers?
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