Ready at Dawn: The internet is the new playground for bullies

The Order: 1886 developer Ready at Dawn says that there is an uncanny ‘haterade’ for its upcoming PS4 title.

The game has this week been caught up in a bit of a storm over allegations that its single player campaign – which comprises the entirety of the game – is too brief to justify its 50 price. Reports suggest it can be completed in under six hours, while the studio says it could take as long as 12 hours.

We have this uncanny ‘haterade’ for our game no matter what,” the game’s director Dana Jan told Develop. People are looking for something to throw at our game, some reason to hate it. I’m excited to hear what people who have actually played the game think about it, how do they feel about the quality and the quantity? I think by and large that most people are going to be satisfied.

I just feel like these days it’s so easy to be negative and I think the internet is the new playground for bullies. Who goes out of their way to really go and say something positive, right? It takes a lot more effort to say something nice than to say something negative, and I think people are excited to jump on some bandwagon of negativity. It’s just for the people who are excited for this game, I feel bad for them that they have to sit through this ecosystem that the internet has created which is full of negativity, it’s really kind of gross.

I don’t think people need to go out there and be unbiased supporters of our stuff or anything either. I want them to make up their own minds about the game period. It just seems like the pendulum swings the other way so frequently. I mean, we’ll see, right?”

Jan also addressed the game length concerns, arguing that value cannot be purely judged on a pounds-per-hour basis.

I don’t think you can have a discussion of quantity without quality,” the developer added. If you pay $100 for a steak that tastes like the best steak you’ve ever had in your life but it’s only 200 grams versus paying the same price for the worst steak you could want – but it’s all-you-can-eat. There’s an argument to be made that one is better than the other depending on who you are.

Which is why for our game we targeted a very good length for the game, but it wasn’t our priority. It’s not something people are going to think is short. A lot of what we’re hearing about is a case of it either being irresponsibly or inaccurately reported or putting the game on easy and skipping through and speed-running the game.

The truth is, if you’ve played other games that are in the same genre as ours, third person shooters you’re in for the same length of ride as those games, but possibly of a higher quality depending on what you’re looking for.”

Ready at Dawn’s previous games include the PS3 God of War: Origins Collection, the Wii version of Okami and PSP due God of War: Ghost of Sparta and Chains of Olympus.