After the release of The Lord of the Rings Gollum, the game had an extremely negative reception from critics and players, even causing the developer Daedalic to go public to apologize for the state of the title.
Many industry developers have come out to defend Daedalic employees and share their stories. One of them was Dannie Carlone, an artist at Santa Monica Studio. Although he has worked on games like God of War Ragnarok, Dannie Carlone says he also exposes his low-rated games like Sonic Boom and Marvel's Avengers, as they were part of his experience.
Games are hard to make. Regardless of the score, every project has positives/lessons learned.
I display my "lowest score" game because I'm proud of the time I had working with some of my favorite people in this industry.Some things are out of your hands. Be kind to each other. https://t.co/PNM0dlhqiR pic.twitter.com/G30l6wtRTf
—Dannie Carlone (@Corgiboltz) May 25, 2023
Games are hard to make. Regardless of the score, every project has strengths/lessons learned. I feature my “lowest score” game because I am proud of the time I spent working with some of my favorite people in this industry. Some things are out of your control. Be kind to each other.
John McKellan of No Code, who served as director on Stories Untold and the upcoming Silent Hill: Townfall, also recalled when he released APB: All Points Bulletin, which had an extremely negative reception.
Still proud of our work. Lots of 4/10s made for sobering day.
No one wants to ship a bad game, and there are thousands of reasons it can happen that are outside of anyone's control. All you can do is learn from it. https://t.co/J7NplKLpiv pic.twitter.com/2Ge4yPcpQV
— Jon McKellan (@jon_NoCode) May 25, 2023
Still proud of our work. Too many 4/10s make a sad day. No one wants to release a bad game, and there are tons of reasons why this could happen that are out of anyone's control. All you can do is learn from it.
Marcel Hatam, who worked on the Anno franchise and games such as Ryse: Son of Rome and Star Wars: The Old Republic, commented:
Really feeling bad for the Gollum team today. I never expected the game to set the world on fire (and there's definitely been some questionable decision making on this one), but seeing such a critical mauling is sad.
Clearly a bad fit for the team's experience and resources…
— Marcel Hatam (@Com_Raven) May 25, 2023
Really feeling bad for Gollum's team today. I never expected the game to be a smash hit (and there were definitely some questionable decisions in the game), but to see such a critical attack is sad.
Jeryce Dianingana, Rocksteady's ambient artist currently working on Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, also came to the studio's defense:
You know what? I'm sending a lot of support to some Devs there because sometimes you Really can't do anything about it when you're in a certain position.
As an environment artist you're not gonna change the game design you know?
Good luck people, I'm with you https://t.co/CfSCSHwEA5
— Jeryce Dianingana (@JeryceDia) May 25, 2023
I wish some of the devs there all the best, because sometimes you really can't do anything about it when you're in a certain position.
As an environment artist, you're not going to change the design of the game, you know? Good luck guys, I'm with you.
