Earlier this week, Days Gone’s writer and director John Garvin went on a social media rant, blaming “woke reviewers” for the open worlder’s softer than expected Metacritic score. Those messages, after going viral, have since been set to private. And now Sony Bend, the game’s developer, has released a statement, distancing itself from its ex-employee.
In a public message on Twitter, the studio said: “We are aware of the comments made by our previous Creative Director on Days Gone regarding his critical reception of our intellectual property. Bend Studio does not share his sentiment, nor does it reflect the views of our team. Our studio is immensely proud of the work we accomplished on Days Gone, and are thankful to every developer who poured their heart and soul into it.”
The statement continued: “We are incredibly humbled by the support of our Days Gone community and we will continue to share your enthusiasm for our world and characters as we look toward the future.”
In a Twitter tirade, Garvin – a former veteran at the studio, who also played a key role in the creation of the Syphon Filter series – appeared to plant the blame for Days Gone’s critical reception at his programming team, and also alleged that “woke reviewers” simply “couldn’t handle” the contents of the release.
Garvin departed the developer a couple of years ago, and Sony Bend is currently working on a new intellectual property for PS5 which will “build on the deep open world systems” first explored in Days Gone.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 37
This is pretty hilarious, not going to lie 🤣
I think that they actually got humbled by the reviews they got.
I feel bad for Bend Studios having to deal with this. But glad to see they are making it clear they have nothing to do with those ridiculous and stupid tweets.
Good. It’s not a good look for anyone involved.
@rawzeku I do agree that the tweets are very unprofessional and immature. But there's definitely been alot worse said in tweets from people in the industry, with no penalty.
I don't understand the outrage. This a typical case of a an ex-employee giving in a very awkward way the results of his reflection on what he see as a failure.
Part self-criticism (the game being buggy), part criticism of what he perceived as a lack of professionalism (in 2 different ways) of some reviewers who influenced the critical reception.
What is so outrageous to warrant such a negative response? It's just his opinion. And it's not offensive nor even weird, it's simply an opinion. Couldn't everyone just calm down and let the tweet disappear into oblivion, as most tweets do by themselves?
I find it so funny when people use the word "woke" in a negative context
Similar moaning that Jeff Ross has done, when GoT reached a sales miles stone. They just make it about themselves and moan moan.
Days gone is good but it's not amazing.
Sure Sony and Bend are glad he's gone
So unnecessary... Why can't Twitter posts simply be ignored? Why do companies always need to put out public statements addressing something as if they are representing the sentiment of every individual team member, when in reality they only represent the people in the positions of power? When an individual makes a statement, we know that person is speaking for his/herself. It's even more obvious in this case since John is no longer with the company.
Removed - unconstructive
Hey Bend, all has been said and done, the day's gone.
This game is a magnet for drama. It's time to move on from Days Gone for all involved. Period.
@Kidfried I stay away from Twitter so I wouldn't know, but I don't think the outrage mob ever deserves a reaction or even an acknowledgement. Better left ignored.
@JudgeDredd How is this any more pandering than using the word ‘woke’ to generate faux-outrage from a specific group of people?
Stop lying, it wasn't a rant. Way to fan the flames. 🙄
they were hardly going to say they agree are they?
Bought the game but it didn't have a very good launch. That said, now, I would recommend it! Time to let go and move on!
This guy just needs to come to terms that the game just wasn't that good.
I gave up on it about 5 hours in, it just wasn't fun.
I loved Days Gone. And I do remember a fair few reviews mentioned, in a negative way, about how Deacon was white and a biker. I think that a lot of the reviewers took the game as an opportunity to vent some anger towards certain political parties, or show they're support for diversity. Places like Polygon and Eurogamer often seem like they're embarrassed to be gaming sites, so they like to prove they're real writers and get too full of themselves.
But ignore everything outside of the actual finished game, and it's a very fun game.
@Smiffy01 Bravo!!!
@Jackpaza0508 have you ever heard it said in a positive context ?
I do not know what woke means as it seems to mean a lot of things, I am just going to auto translate it to poop a la mad libs.
The game had performance issues and earned the middling reviews for that part.
Don't really see the problem here. So what Reviewers have a right to judge and talk crap about someone's hard work but the Creator has no right to also talk crap...I never really believed Days Gone would be big seeing as TLOU had already done it. That said this director has every right to vent, not everyone takes criticism well, it's not like his tweets are published on Metacritic with a 97 score to be referred to at anytime. You criticize his work, allow him to criticize reviews too.
@DarthAmmii I remember it too.
@Olmaz
A sane reply?
Pack it up boys. Close the comments section. All that needed to be said has been said.
(Although what was so "edgy or based" about Days Gone that was criticized about by woke reviewers? I do agree that lots of sites go around virtue signalling for easy points, but not sure I saw anything in the game that warranted such a reaction
Best game last gen. Days gone > tlou2
@TheArt stop talking with common sense or the horde will come after you.
@aj21009 lol you def did not play it. I hit the progress bug 80%in and restarted it from scratch and still went for the platinum
Everyone is such a snowflake these days. So some dude blamed "woke" reviewers. How so? What made them woke? Is it just his opinion? Did the reviewers say "Hey, I'm Woke!". The game was middling to me, but I can understand how it meant a lot to the studio - it was their biggest game so far. They should feel proud of that kind of accomplishment. It's hard to be a God of War or a Uncharted or anything else that big, so be proud of such a big release. But just because it wasn't a GoW or Uncharted doesn't mean it was crap. It was okay and that's fine to be okay.
And despite this Garvin fellow having his own little pouty face opinion on this.. in the grand scheme of things it's a eye-rolling comment at best. You liked your game you made and that's cool. Some others out there didn't and that's fine - not everyone is happy about everything so just shut up and move on.
Much to do about nothing.
And all this ending up in an article about a 3 year old game we've all forgotten about.
@Luiscarlosciudad With the limited time I have to play games, after 5 hours if it isn't fun, I'm moving on.
I pretty much agree with everything he said. Plus has there ever been a profession as useless as that of a video game reviewer.
@Jackpaza0508 especially when the people they're referring to couldn't be anymore asleep if they tried.
I still need to play this game, one of these days I'll finally go thru with it.
@Party_Cannon I love how everyone who uses the word snowflake is using it because they're annoyed that someone is getting criticised by others. The guy posted something on twitter, its totally valid for people to respond to it. If he doesn't want to hear the response, don't post on Twitter.
The game dev was thin skinned and has taken mild criticism of his game badly (Days Gone wasn't getting slated, it was getting called middle of the road at a time when we were tired of zombie games), other people called this dumb. Nothing about this warrants a lot of attention
Reviewers suck for the most part, there isn't a whole lot of integrity by a large portion of them, there are no real requirements to be one and thus that leads to people who will say what ever someone pays them to, and yeah woke morons are a part of that, the "oh think of the children" crowd, the games make kids violent argument peeps, reviews are basically useless these days, if you wanna know what a game is like go find a youtuber you like, watch them play it, then you'll most likely get unbiased opinions, thing is you gotta find a youtuber who hasn't sold out and that's hard given how YouTube treats creators these days.
He is right about most video game reviewers not actually fully playing games though and most suck at games. Days gone was solid and one of the best games to ever come from a Sony studio
@ThomasHL so its ok for people to have an opinion on his thoughts but not ok for him to have an opinion. Lol the irony
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