New Report Makes Disturbing Allegations Against The Lord of the Rings: Gollum Developer - IGN
New Report Makes Disturbing Allegations Against The Lord of the Rings: Gollum Developer - IGN
A fresh report on The Lord of the Rings: Gollum developer Daedalic Entertainment has made a number of disturbing allegations about the company.
“ reportedly enforcing uncompensated overtime, allegedly trying to pay staff below minimum wage, and a toxic work environment cultivated by an alleged abusive leadership.”
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not only is it tragic that these devs were so mistreated, but it sucks even more that they went through all that bullshit to produce such a WET TURD
Explains why the game was so bad
The idea that only having a €15M budget is what caused this game's issues is ridiculous. It's not a game that had good ideas and just failed to execute them properly; it's fundamentally bad on a conceptual level.
The setting and story concept are bad. When the game was first announced, I don't think I heard or saw a single discussion where someone was excited to experience playing through the story of Gollum in that time period in the story. Or even playing as Gollum at all - he's a great secondary character in the books and films, but he's hardly a character you want to play as in a video game. There's no room for character development either.
The game design is bad. It's just bad. No amount of time, money or polish is going to fix the terrible basic design principles the game is built on. And even if they had 10x the budget and hired a world-class lead game designer from the start, it still would have the issues with the story and character.
The whole project is one that shouldn't have left the brainstorming session it was conceived in.
I could have seen it as a Stardew valley-esque Hobbit farming Sim, you start with simple farming, interacting with lore accurate villagers, fishing, cave gathering as Smeagol.
Then after a certain point of the game in a quest you find the Ring and your memories start getting hazy and your farming skill starts deteriorating and your cave gathering skills improve and the Ring blanks out part of your days and suddenly you find Deagols body and get flashbacks to what happened.
In the epilogue you start your usual day in the cave 'bed' instead of your Hobbit hole bed and you go gathering and meet Bilbo. Then cut to black
The first time I heard about the game, not long before it was released, I thought it was a joke.
I'm not convinced whoever pitched it wasn't joking either, and then studio execs picked it up and ran with it
What was released was a disaster that hadn't had anywhere near enough thought and consideration put into it. However, frankly if you don't think a gollum game couldn't be good I'd have to blame it on a lack of imagination.
I for one am shocked that this game was a disaster of a production. I don't think anyone could have seen this coming to light.
I mean nobody wanted this game in the first place, couple that with this sewage outlet and there ya go. They really had a follow-up game planned for this? Like it was gonna be a hit?
They spread The Hobbit out into three movies and banked $2.5B
And thats a movie based on a legendary book. Hell yeah it made that much. Now turn around and say, "hey, bud. You know the split-personality leper following the protagonist? Ever wanted to be him?" Fuck, no. And it was never advertised as anything more than that. You have to relate a little to who you are controlling in a game, otherwise it doesn't sell. Who relates to smeagol? People who wish they sold knives that don't whisper to you?
alleges publisher Nacon used AI tool ChatGPT to write the apology statement issued after Gollum’s failings became public
What? No way dude, totally fooled us, we absolutely couldn't tell!
Probably the least important of all these problems, but really, the publisher issuing a blanket chatGPT-generated apology, in the name of the studio without their knowledge, not even getting the name of the fucking game right.
Dude, maybe try to take your job a bit seriously?
Why start at exactly that point though?
Why even attempt AAA game with such a small budget/team size ratio?
It would have been a good game if they had cut the amount of developers and the scope of the game to fit the budget. I've recently tried smaller games like Dysmantle and they're great, why not even pixel/FF style Lord of the rings game? That would be awesome and cost less
Maybe having licensed such a big IP they aimed for the stars.
All this abuse to ship public haired Gollum.