Twitter has seen its fair share of disputes and arguments. While most are nothing more than emboldened cat-fights, sometimes you can get a rare glimpse at the true passions that drive people.
Such was the case this evening, when Q-Games developer Dylan Cuthbert took IGN’s Senior Editor Daemon Hatfield to task on his review of PixelJunk Sidescroller.
This thread over at NeoGAF shows how the tale unfolded. Hatfield posted a somewhat unflattering review of PixelJunk Sidescroller on IGN, but was quickly addressed in the public forum of Twitter by Cuthbert who noted that the game clearly wasn’t played on the “normal” difficulty level.
Otherwise, the last level of the game would have been unlocked, ostensibly changing the reviewer’s opinion of the ending.
That’s not the end of the story, though. The travesty – and why this is even newsworthy – is that Hatfield then went back and re-edited his review, yanking out the part of the review that had proven Cuthbert correct.
Edited out was the following sentence:
“Finish the last stage and defeat the final boss, and what is your reward? A swift kick back to the title screen with no more than ‘congratulations.’”
Was Hatfield really trying to fool the developer of the game!?
The greatest thing about this story is that the Cuthbert didn’t hesitate to stick up for himself, his company, and his game. Hopefully other developers can realize that they have a voice, too, and defend their work in the same way.
Finding the games that are worth your time is hard enough. It doesn’t need to be complicated by reviewers seemingly looking for the easy way out – cheating the developer and the consumer out of an honest opinion.
When the developer proves that the title is worth their time, it helps consumers know that the game is worth theirs, too.