Expectations In Action: Razorfist on the Mad Max Videogame

While I addressed last week's video about Beyond Thunderdome at the Study (see "Other Blogs" above), since Razorfist gave me a great opportunity to talk about storytelling, this is about the videogame prequel to Fury Road so it's here.

I've watch Razorfist and Oliver Campbell livestream playthroughs of this game. I think it's better, as a story, than Fury Road. As a game, it is much as Razorfist says: clunky, glicthy, and otherwise unfinished copies of mechanics seen in better games previous to this one.

That usually means two things: Executive Meddling and Unrealistic Expectations. Further, it's usually the former that builds upon the latter which creates shitshows like this game. Remember what I'd been hammering all week? Here it is, in action, again. Had the team been properly managed (they weren't), this would've been a fantastic hit and not only benefited from the associated film's release, but also returned the favor by making the film look better by being so good itself. (Instead, both were deeply flawed fuckups.)

You don't do a Mad Max game without knowing what the audience, without you promising a damned thing, expects. You should already be familiar with the existing films, and in this case with the new film you're intended to tie into, and therefore know what is already expected of you before writing a single bit of code. That's what we have here: a game made by people who don't comprehend what is expected by the audience. That they managed to make it good enough to compare favorably its movie is significant on multiple levels.

Go watch some playthrough videos, such as Razorfist's recent ones, and see for yourself. Fulfilling the expectations set is key to success, and that did not happen here. Had that been the case, we would have seen a huge hit. Learn from these examples, and adjust yourself accordingly in all things.