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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[Deleted User]

Food sells, haven't met someone who doesn't eat

While I promote Empathy in my daily life, I also promote Professionalism and having pride in what you do.
None of that is evident in a Business practice that lowers quality and builds forms of Planned Obsolescence into their products, Digital and Physical.

Now while I can expect that to happen in lower tiers of a Product range, I don't on their highest.
People aspire to have the highest things that they can afford, and to ridicule that by deafening excuses is something I don't tolerate both on Professional and Personal levels.

Nobody should have to learn the Management Hierarchy Chart of a AAA Title just to buy a good game.
We have a saying for that in Asia, Kitchen Business.

In short, it means I give zero Fs to your Kitchen Business because it shouldn't affect the quality of my Meal.

 

[Deleted member 668561]

While I promote Empathy in my daily life, I also promote Professionalism and having pride in what you do.
None of that is evident in a Business practice that lowers quality and builds forms of Planned Obsolescence into their products, Digital and Physical.

Now while I can expect that to happen in lower tiers of a Product range, I don't on their highest.
People aspire to have the highest things that they can afford, and to ridicule that by deafening excuses is something I don't tolerate both on Professional and Personal levels.

Nobody should have to learn the Management Hierarchy Chart of a AAA Title just to buy a good game.
We have a saying for that in Asia, Kitchen Business.

In short, it means I give zero Fs to your Kitchen Business because it shouldn't affect the quality of my Meal.

but external factors can and will, slow business, economy, materials shortage, labor shortages, etc you cant control this

im saying that from a more unbiased pov, that most devs dont want these games and titles to be released in such a state, i guarantee they tried to delay and were simply told no, just get it functional and then fix the rest with patches, its not a matter of choice, you're talking about hundreds of thousands, or even millions in investments depending on the company and game

 

[Edgarska]

It's a for profit business, just like anything else, not a charity, also import and shipping costs are different, for physical items



You also have to account for the parent company (console manufacturer), for more of the bugs and issues, for example, Sony and M$ rushing development so they can push sales on consoles that they already sell to you at a loss so you can afford it, so they need software and services available to recoup back that cost, they have the ultimate say whether the game runs/gets released and digitally signed,

They don't care if a game has bugs or glitches, if it functions then the dev can release patches

It's not always the devs fault, external circumstance

I never said devs, I said publishers. And either way, the point is none of that is on the customer.

im saying that from a more unbiased pov, that most devs dont want these games and titles to be released in such a state, i guarantee they tried to delay and were simply told no, just get it functional and then fix the rest with patches, its not a matter of choice, you're talking about hundreds of thousands, or even millions in investments depending on the company and game

Your "unbiased pov" still fails to adequately prove how any of that is the customer's fault at all.

 

[Deleted member 668561]

I never said devs, I said publishers. And either way, the point is none of that is on the customer.



Your "unbiased pov" still fails to adequately prove how any of that is the customer's fault at all.

Welcome to running a business

 

[Edgarska]

Welcome to running a business

So you need to blame the customers for your business failing, and not your business practices? That doesn't make any sense.

 

[Deleted member 668561]

So you need to blame the customers for your business failing, and not your business practices? That doesn't make any sense.

At the end of the day they have to sell, you can say the consumer demand for constant releases also plays a role

 

[Edgarska]

At the end of the day they have to sell, you can say the consumer demand for constant releases also plays a role

Right. Again, they have to make their product appealing to the customer, it's not the customer's responsibility to support every business in the hope that a subpar product will eventually be fixed if enough people buy it.

 

[Deleted member 668561]

Right. Again, they have to make their product appealing to the customer, it's not the customer's responsibility to support every business in the hope that a subpar product will eventually be fixed if enough people buy it.

True, you don't always have to buy at day 1, wait a month or two for the first few patches, then buy it,

I remember battlefield 5 being buggy, but it was playable, after 2-3 months all the bugs were gone, but that's also a 3rd party developer, they don't have to operate under the same restrictions per se like first and second party

 

[Pipistrele]

It's a for profit business, just like anything else, not a charity, also import and shipping costs are different, for physical items

Sure thing - but inability to make your games more desirable for different income classes is something of a business failure. Clever businesses actually do stuff like adjusting their regional prices and providing affordable options for poorer people (freebies, subscriptions, etc.), rather than disregarding the market and then whining about insufficient sales numbers.

 

[Deleted member 668561]

Sure thing - but inability to make your games more desirable for different income classes is something of a business failure. Clever businesses actually do stuff like adjusting their regional prices and providing affordable options for poorer people (freebies, subscriptions, etc.), rather than disregarding the market and then whining about insufficient sales numbers.

A business is there to make money, they are not a non profit, it's economics, you have to also account the expenses of distribution and import duties, it isn't simply make gaem, and sell

There's advertising, R&D, you have artists, Musicians, programmers, writers,actors, they all have to be paid, including the parent company who will get a share

Still you don't like it dont buy it, but don't complain about a game you pirated or didn't buy or legitimately attempted to play

 

[Pipistrele]

A business is there to make money, they are not a non profit, it's economics, you have to also account the expenses of distribution and import duties, it isn't simply make gaem, and sell

There's advertising, R&D, you have artists, Musicians, programmers, writers,actors, they all have to be paid, including the parent company who will get a share

Still you don't like it dont buy it, but don't complain about a game you pirated or didn't buy or legitimately attempted to play

Unavailability and clueless pricing are valid criticisms that are absolutely worthy of complaint. Yes, cutting prices on products somewhat sucks for distributor, but such compromises are also something good businesses plan for in advance, and as practice showed many times, it's still more profitable to sell many copies for 50% price than few copies for full price. Such market cluelessness is also why a company like Nintendo failed to achieve any footing in Eastern European gaming market, while Valve dominates the hell out of it through clever price policies.

 

[Mark McDonut]

I'll pay full price once you release a finished game.
The original release only needed to be coded for a single system setup - an x86 PS4 console and they still f'd it up and had a ton of bugs.

PC developers have released less buggy content while supporting an assortment of configurations and setups.

 

[Kioku]

Buy games at full price if you so choose. However, with the onslaught of piss poor quality titles only increasing annually, it's hard to justify buying much of anything these days at full price.