IGN Responds.

Gooberman32 · December 3, 2002, 04:12

IGN has responded to its blooper about its preview...

A MOOing Mistake
Hey Ivan,
Trying to keeping it short here.. I don't suppose you want to answer this in the mailbag, or you should have more than enough alternate mails to answer it there, but maybe you have a minute to tell me what was the real reason why you had a certain information about MOO3 in your preview, and then had to edit it out. Did no one tell you not to say what you did? Or that previewer screwed up?

I like PC.IGN, and presently it has a pretty bad rep at certain official MOO3 discussion places for doing what it did. No doubt people are oh so eager to jump to conclusions. So if you do decide to enlighten me, please also mention if I can directly tell people there what really happened, just spread rumors about the truth, or keep it to myself.

-- Gamble

This was a nice little surprise. Basically, the MOO3 preview contained some information that the team did NOT want released. Usually in those cases, the folks who hand out the playables will tell you what you can and can't write about, but for whatever reason, no one told us that this information was off limits. So we wrote what we wanted.

The next morning the creative director for MOO3 called me and asked us to cut three sentences from the preview. He and the team had been keeping the information in question a secret for nearly three years now so he was understandably upset to see it blown so close to release. Since we're not in the habit of ruining dreams and killing children, we were a bit upset as well.

We dig the series and respect the work that Quicksilver is doing, so we were completely happy to cut the spoiler info from the article. While there are some for whom the game is a bit spoiled now, the revelation wasn't anything along the lines of "Bruce Willis realizes that HE'S the one who's dead!" or "Hey, wait! My prom date has a penis!" It sucks that the surprise is ruined for some of the fans but we're not in the habit of screwing developers just to get page views. Since this was an accident, we're just going to put it all behind us and get on with our lives.

In much the same way as the sun never set on the British Empire, there's probably not a free minute on any given day in which someone isn't posting @#!&$ about us on a message board somewhere. If you want to set them straight, feel free. But don't lose too much sleep over it. Lord knows we certainly don't.
Thanks,

-- Steve Butts

they acknowledge they screwed up...

vmxa1 · December 3, 2002, 04:19

I do not have a problem with that action, it seems reasonable to me.

Foxhound · December 3, 2002, 05:16

How do you figure IGN screwed up?

If Quicksilver and Infogrames had wanted that particular bit of information to stay out of the preview, then by all means they should have told IGN to leave it out BEFORE the preview was written. If they failed to do so, then the mistake is theirs the way I see it.

Not that it's a big deal, or anything.

Xentax · December 3, 2002, 10:06

IGN didn't screw up -- they were misinformed by whomever provided them the information used in the article (if you read it, you can tell it was a "knowledge transfer", not a summary of actual play experience by the author).

Now, the real question is whether said provider of information wilfully gave them information he knew was supposed to stay secret, or whether he was in turn misinformed, etc.

I suspect someone at Infogrames, somewhere, decided to overstep a boundary, probably thinking the publicity was worth more than keeping the secret.

It was such a person at IG's Australian branch that resulted in that pre-alpha build getting leaked; the story is probably similar this time around.

Rantz · December 3, 2002, 14:25

>>It was such a person at IG's Australian branch that resulted in that pre-alpha build getting leaked; the story is probably similar this time around.

very similar, as a matter of fact

vishniac · December 3, 2002, 16:11

the revelation wasn't anything along the lines of "Bruce Willis realizes that HE'S the one who's dead!"

GOD, NOOOOOO!!!
I hadn't watched the 6th sense!!!!!!!!!!

Hell, i just dodged the harvester spoiler but couldn't avoid this one!!
This time, it's IGN fault!

Alex-C · December 3, 2002, 16:46

I actually havn't seen it, so now by telling me that is referring to the 6th sense u have ruined it for me, you should be ashamed

dulahan · December 3, 2002, 16:52

In response to the sarcasm already displayed. How did you two know they were talking about The 6th sense to begin with? Never mentioned it was that movie.

(Yes, I know the above posts were being sarcastic)

Alex-C · December 3, 2002, 16:57

I took Vishniac's word for it, i have no idea

H Tower · December 3, 2002, 20:11

i haven't seem the IGN spoiler, and if I had, i probably wouldn't have recognized it for what it was since I know very little about the MOO universe history

Gooberman32 · December 4, 2002, 05:32

i guess it's a mistake on QS's part then either way somewhere along the line there was a screwup.

Xentax · December 9, 2002, 10:17

There was a screwup somewhere, either accidental or deliberate. But either way, I'm almost certain the person responsible is at *IG*, not QSI. IG does the PR, and that's what this is, a PR promotion gone wrong.

Grumbold · December 11, 2002, 10:22

OMG, Bruce Willis is in Sixth Sense? I thought they got his ghost double to make the film

Thankfully I missed the IGN leak so apart from the ages old backhistory I remain a MoO3 "virgin"

Kc7mxo · December 11, 2002, 14:46

Um, while its neat that they want us to be surprised by something in the game . . . . why?

I mean, it'll only be a surprise the first time. And how many times are we likely to play the game? Even those of us who don't like it will probably play a half dozen campaigns. . . I think I played civ3 at least 10 times before I decided I really didn't like it.

it just seems kinda silly. Its not like its RE or something . . .

Bleyn · December 11, 2002, 18:04

Quote:

Originally posted by Kc7mxo
Um, while its neat that they want us to be surprised by something in the game . . . . why?

I mean, it'll only be a surprise the first time. And how many times are we likely to play the game? Even those of us who don't like it will probably play a half dozen campaigns. . . I think I played civ3 at least 10 times before I decided I really didn't like it.

it just seems kinda silly. Its not like its RE or something . . .

I suspect they wanted the surprise to be there just to have the surprise there.

Its sort of like the trailers for a comedy movie. How often have you seen the trailers for a comedy movie, thought it would be pretty funny, gone to watch it, and left at the end of the movie feeling cheated and robbed because every single funny scene in the entire movie was in that trailer you saw two months previous?

I've had it happen a time or two, and personally, once is too often.

I think it can be the same way with a video game. Its nice to know enough about the game to know if I am even going to be interested in it or not. But I do not want to boot the game for the first time and within five minutes feel bored because I was bombarded with so much information prior to the release of the game I could have practically written the strategy guide including the cheat codes to let me get at the half-naked Darloks and the Hampster-dancing Silicoid.

Which is exactly what can happen if the marketing people aren't watched over with an iron fist to make sure they aren't going too far to sell the game and ruining the fun in the process.

I don't blame QSI or IGN from being upset that this happened. I'm just glad I've avoided (so far as I know) having the surprise spoiled for me.

Grumbold · December 12, 2002, 09:08

There are all sorts of games where the 'surprise' factor is a good thing. Alien Legacy is a brilliant game that is definitely best the first time or two before you achieve victory. The real sense of discovery as the plot unfolds is part of the fun. Ok with MOO you expect to be replaying dozens of times, but that shouldn't be used as an excuse to diminish the sense of discovery the first few times.

dwiggit · December 12, 2002, 13:08

"Alien Legacy is a brilliant game that is definitely best the first time or two before you achieve victory."

Wow! Alien Legacy, I loved that game. Unfortunately it doesn't work under my Win2K. Anyone know of any patches to make it work? If so, I think I'll blow the dust off the floppy disks (yes, floppies!) and give it another go!

Grumbold · December 12, 2002, 13:39

Worked fine for me on 2k so you may just have driver or config problems. Unfortunately I'm no expert on those and there's plenty of games I can't run under 2k/XP that others happily can.

Straybow · December 18, 2002, 01:24

I don't know what the big deal is. So what if it turns out that the Ithkul really are the Mrsshan…