This is the worst “interview” I’ve read in a long, long time. And GameDaily is partly to blame, but not as much as Dusty Welch at RedOctane, who has apparently mistaken his actual voice for that of a robotic press release generator.
How is it GameDaily’s partial fault? It looks like an e-mail interview. I have gotten burned on e-mail interviews in the past so I can sympathize (Stan Lee, by god, if I ever catch up with you…). E-nterviews come off feeling very dead, because some good questions were asked and there is no follow-up; it’s literally a list of Qs and a list of As that may or may not have any relevance or interconnectivity. And the “Thanks, Dusty” garbage at the end is appalling. It’s like we’re watching two people performing a high school play and they think nobody else knows it’s a high school play. So yeah, GameDaily plays along instead of calling bullshit, or reworking the content into something you might mistake for news reporting. There’s no filter here, no making sense of the data, no “um, this looks plastic, but we’re going to pass it along as we got it and let you decide” sense of TRUTH to the thing. But hey, it says “exclusive” and I know there’s always pressure online to get the info first. Even if it’s pathetic.
But really, it’s a Dusty Welch embarrassment parade here. Every robotic answer made me cringe — moreso because I genuinely like RedOctane, Neversoft, and Guitar Hero. But I hate it when people refuse to communicate like human beings. I expect press release quotes in press releases, not in personal interviews. If you are not ready to speak to the press about something this important, say nothing. Say “No comment.” Say “We’ll have a statement in a few weeks.” But don’t spool off a carefully worded press release, full of finely crafted, committee-approved PR speak, and expect the rest of the world to accept your sales pitch instead of an honest answer. We are smarter than this. And if you underestimate your audience (or just the public at large) this much, then it gets me thinking that maybe I’ve given you too much credit and respect.
Seriously, I’m disgusted. I’m angry and a little sick at just how blatant, insulting, and disrespectful this is.
Dusty Welch has a long list of successful Activision games to his credit; he clearly knows what he’s doing in other respects of his career. He’s good at marketing his products and I can respect that. But next time I see a quote from him…I can’t say I won’t filter my interpretation through this experience.
I got something out of it. Apparently they want to take the next guitar hero game to a “new level†and they plan to “vastly enrich the consumer experienceâ€.
If you don’t mind me asking, exactly what did Stan Lee say?
Not much. I sent him 10 questions for an old GamePro article and he responded with one-line unsatisfying answers. The questions were big things intended to let him ramble, like “If you could change one thing in Spider-Man history, what would it be?” And he answered with one-liners. Meh.