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Posted By Robert G. about 10 months ago
Eh…looks scary to me, sort of…
I admit that as a psuedo-jouralist (someone who has no formal training in the subject, but takes their job seriously nonetheless) it is hard to really discern truth from fact, despite doing the best I can to fact-check as much as possible regarding any news story I post. I have even had to retract several stories because of misinformation pointed out by fans of the site. It happens, and we learn from it.
But something that caught my eye is a story that spread like fire across most of the internet. Websites like the Escapist, Rock Paper Shotgun, Gamespot and countless others released a story regarding Dead Space 1 and 2, and how Electronic Arts apparently did marketing research that deemed the game “too scary” for most audiences, making them shift focus for Dead Space 3.
The original report stemmed from an article by mcvuk.com, and was penned by journalist Ben Parfitt. Parfitt goes on to quote Laura Miele, EA Games’ marketing boss, who had this to say about the product:
We were doing research coming out of Dead Space 1 and 2 and we’re really proud of those products. We received feedback to understand how we can take the game out to even more consumers,” she stated.
“We were hearing feedback that they love the thriller game, but it was pretty scary, and the obvious next step was that they wanted to play with someone. So we introduced co-op into the game.
“The horror of Dead Space is still all there. It’s still true to its roots and no less scary, but people felt far more comfortable playing it with someone else than they did doing it on their own.
“Personally, I would rather go to scary movie with my husband rather than sit at home with the lights out watching one on my own. We’re looking for that to reach out to consumers that perhaps were not open to Dead Space 1 and 2.”
Miele herself never says the title of Parfitt’s article, which is “EA Research said Dead Space 1&2 Were too Scary.” In fact, she states that the horror of Dead Space is intact, and is no less scary than the previous titles. The only aspect that seemed to be added to the game was a co-op mode, citing that people felt more comfortable playing with a friend over playing alone.
While Parfitt did report the correct information, his lead-in was completely off base. So much so, that only Penny Arcade seemed to have noticed the deceptive title initially, and wrote a lengthy editorial about the failure of Parfitt and his misleading article title. In fact, Penny Arcade writer, Ben Kuchera, went on to counter argue for EA in this situation, citing how they are building the co-op differently to cater to both single and co-op inclined players. At the very least, Parfitt should change or make a note that the title is somewhat misleading at this time.
Since then, other sites have cited the title as misleading. As for Parfitt, well, I won’t question his journalistic integrity because he did report on the story, but it is the job of the journalist to not mislead their reader-base, especially when you have a major discrepancy between both the title of an article and the content of an article.
As for Dead Space 3, if you wish to play it, both single-player and co-op, you can do so February of 2013.
Source: Penny Arcade, MCVUK
I never did like dead space, it all seemed so contrived.
As to the reporting, really bad. Generally you phrase the title so that it catches the readers eye and brings them in, but you don’t outright fabricate it. Its dishonest and lazy, though honestly I find it more concerning that when other sites were running with the title without reading the damn article or interview.
Sooooo, they turned a (in my opinion) fantastic shooter with some good innovation and creativity into something more like Gears of War because it was too scary? This makes me question the people they surveyed. Wasn’t one of the main selling points being a HORROR shooter game? I was skeptical when I saw it at E3, but now I feel (indirectly) down right insulted. Looks like I’ll be using that 60 bucks on something a little better. Like Dishonored or (hopefully good) Bioshock Infinite
you did read the article, right?
I’m halfway through my first playthrough of Dead Space.
It’s pretty scary sometimes, but also can be annoying. (getting swarmed by little spidery alien things, while bigger alien things are trying to kill me!) But I like that it’s not easy to survive getting swarmed by enemies because it shouldn’t be easy.
Though, maybe I’m just not very good at the game yet.
Anyway, I’m excited to play 2, but I’ll hold off on 3 until I read a review.
Wait… Dead Space was scary?
Its about as scare as doom 3… with god mode on.
Yeah, manipulative editing is really bad, both in a nasty and pathetic way. Ed Boon just posted an example of this on Twitter today.
https://twitter.com/noobde/status/226352112420929536
I have a “wait-and-see” approach to Dead Space 3, as I loved the first two games and what I’ve been seeing of DS3 is less than optimistic. But onto the subject of manipulative journalism, it happens more often than the media would like to admit, but it is something that we just have to deal with when wading through news stories, especially considering the numerous biases and presumptions that particular journalists or news outlets have.
So instead of one unstoppable necromorph stomping bad-ass we’ve got TWO unstoppable necromorph stomping bad-asses. I’m sure it will be fun, but I wouldn’t call it scary.
Whatever they may have meant, it doesn’t change the fact that the game just doesn’t look that good at all.