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Alpha Protocol Devs Unmoved by Critique in Leaked Sega Document
Yesterday’s leaked document from a meeting between Sega and Sony covered a wide variety of topics relating to numerous different games and services. As such, the industry-wide ramifications could be huge. The first of many potential ripples showed up today.
A very interesting post appeared in the Alpha Protocol forums from Obsidian marketing manager Matthew Rorie. He was responding to a post referencing this portion of the leaked document:
“Michael Foster, product evaluator, said AP [Alpha Protocol] felt barely RPG. Initial level too challenging for players. ‘Mass Effect felt more RPG.’”
Rorie’s original response defended the game from the product evaluator in question:
“I believe the gentleman in the quotes works for SCEA (assuming this is legit). As for what he said, obviously we enjoy any feedback that we can get, but without knowing how much of the game he played (and I seriously doubt that someone as busy as a product evaluator for Sony is going to be playing through an entire game if it's as long as Alpha Protocol), it's hard to judge what he meant by those comments. Suffice to say that Alpha Protocol is going to tickle your RPG tastebuds when it's released.”
Of course, Rorie kind of ignores that while a Sony product evaluator is no doubt very busy, the job that he’s very busy with is…well, evaluating products. He’s right in noting that it’s unclear just how much of the game this evaluator actually played, though. Obsidian cinematic product Joseph Bulock also jumped in with his thoughts:
“The only counter point I can offer you guys is that watching and interacting with gamers who played our game for almost two hours, they clearly enjoyed the RPG experience that AP had to offer. I'm not going to comment on this particular commentary, but I can say as a general trend, people who play one level don't see the RPG experience. They see the action side of our game, without the deep character choices and reactive story.”
Hopefully this leak won’t damage Alpha Protocol’s chances too early. As for Michael Foster, he’s going to have to wait until the game’s release next month to be vindicated or proven wrong.
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