Gollum Publisher Nacon Used ChatGPT AI To Write Awful Apology, Claim Former Daedalic Devs
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- PATREON: / yongyea
TWITTER: / yongyea
INSTAGRAM: / yong_yea
TIKTOK: / yongyea
SOURCES
1: www.metacritic...
2: opencritic.com...
3: / 1661709572447391745
4: / 1661689649708912642
5: / 1661688855806767106
6: store.steampow...
7: store.steampow...
8: www.xbox.com/e...
9: steamdb.info/a...
10: • I paid 59.00$ for this...
11: • The Lord of the Rings:...
12: / 1661857558645096448
13: / 1661699608324591616
14: / 1662124108614717448
15: pbs.twimg.com/...
16: pbs.twimg.com/...
17: / 1662138185789456385
18: www.eurogamer....
19: www.polygon.co...
20: www.videogames...
21: / 1710647947757596780
22: • Report: Warum Gollum s...
23: www.videogames...
24: en.wikipedia.o...
25: en.wikipedia.o...
26: / 1710971304277430554
TOP PATRONS
[CIPHER]
- Waning Zane
[BIG BOSS]
- Devon B
- Jonathan Ball
[BOSS]
- Gerardo Andrade
- Michael Redmond
- Peter Vrba
[LEGENDARY]
- BattleBladeWar
Just when I thought corporate apologies couldn't feel less personal, they start using robots to write their apologies now.
PATREON: www.patreon.com/yongyea
TWITTER: twitter.com/yongyea
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/yong_yea
TIKTOK: www.tiktok.com/@yongyea
TOP PATRONS
[CIPHER]
- Waning Zane
[BIG BOSS]
- Devon B
- Jonathan Ball
[BOSS]
- Gerardo Andrade
- Michael Redmond
- Peter Vrba
[LEGENDARY]
- BattleBladeWar
. (Never forget)
I agree completely, .
.
same.
.
Really makes you think how awful the human written apology could have been if they didn't rely on a robot.
The human one was to honest
"We're so sorry but we actually don't care"
The human version would’ve gaslit the fanbase
Any dev with the emotional sincerity and writing talent to make a real apology would be barred from social media for making the higher-ups look bad
YongYea uses AI to write is scripts
@@ronnieDaking Source?
The only thing worse than a non-apology is a non-apology written by AI.
A non-apology written by an AI that they didn't even know about or have any intention of making.
You know the game was not that bad for something made by AI.😂
Not really, I'm surprised Nacon went so far as to make an AI instead of just copy-pasting the apology from every other corporate apology ever.
Non apology from a non human
I mean this is pretty good use of AI. It gives the reader pretty good idea how lazy and dishonest the authors are better than any normal non-apology. With regular non-apologies, you may hope that maybe this time they mean it at least a little. But with AI written non-apology there can be no doubt.
Weirdly enough this doesnt shock me. Feels like a primitive AI made the game mechanics too
Bang on the money
All we ever wanted is a Gollum Game storyline written by A.I. and boy, do I think we got it? 😂
It’s alright people got little time for whole heart apology.
LMAO
Heeey, don't insult AI THAT badly lmao
We apologize again for the fault in the apology letter. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked.
And now for something completely different.
...the larch.
À MØØŞÈ ØÑĆÈ BÏȚ MÝ ŚÎŠŢËŔ
Mind you, moose bites can be pretty deadly. @@BananaHoovyJ.Rabbit
Haha love that Monty Python movie
I love how they didn’t realize they just played themselves and proved how insincere their “apology” really was 😂
Agree
At this point I don't think they really care anymore.
This is what happens when the people up top simply don't give a shit.
They laundered the budget and are probably making preperations to jump ship as we speak.
They scammed investors for millions and basically won. They don't care about the fallout because they already got their money.
@@CidGuerreiro1234At this point? They never cared in the first place. Otherwise this fucken monstrosity of a game would have never been "made"
They should have dressed the CEO as Gollum to roleplay the apology as Smeagol and Gollum, where every other word the Smeagol apologizes while the Gollum insults the players 😂
Honestly I might have considered forgiving them if they did that.
“FILTHY LITTLE PLAYERSES! WE HATES THEM! WE HATES THEM FOREVER!!!”
I'm pretty sure if they did that and you edited that down to just the Gollum lines, it would still come across as more sincere than what they actually did...
15 million isn't an indie-level budget.
It's AA-budget.
Nacon is also famously known for their "The Sinking City" controversy where they basically stole the game from the actual devs and released a scuffed pirated version of an early build on steam, which lacks patches and DLC.
How Nacon stayed alive after that whole incident still boggles my mind.
When you charge a AAA price tag, it's judged according to AAA standards.
@@justaguyonyoutube4592 Speaking of money laundering, considering the state Gollum is in, how much of that budget was just being laundered by Nacon? Gotta be at least a chunk of it
I was wondering where I remembered nacon from its their debacle with frogwears how the utter f*** are they still around I thought they where sued to hell and back.
Knowing this, it makes it pretty easy to believe that this shitty apology letter is made by them. But about The Sinking City.. how things are going for the ACTUAL devs, who got fucked over by these assholes of Nacon ? Please, tell me that Nacon got fucked over and that the real devs won the battle against these morons.
Honestly, the fact that there were enough apology letters for the AI to learn from is a lot more worrisome.
Ehh from what I understand these AI programs take from hundreds of thousands of text based sources, I'm sure there are plenty of random written apologies online. Using AI for an apology is atrocious but it's not that surprising the AI has a vague idea of how to make an apology.
@@rachelmayes3064an Ai has more emotion than a Human
Have the AI train on corporate marketing apologies or even college course materials and you will have a pretty good basis to have the AI recreate the boilerplate marketing speak.
The AI would have had more honesty and would have meant the apology FAR more than any exec would have though
@@emma6648Keep in mind AI is trained by a human using databases of references, and all responses are done by a mathematical formula. There is no emotion or consciousness. The emotion you see it expressed that you claim is better than a human, was done by a human! 😂
Imagine not even having the balls to write an apology as a human.
Imagine giving so little of a fuck for ones' customers and not having gone out of business YEARS ago.
They really one upted themselves compared to the litany of apologies that were out there at the time.
@@Grogeous_Maximusto be completely fair, how are you going to make *_ALL_* the money if morals keep getting in the way?
Their balls really got locked it seems.
@@justaguyonyoutube4592a great example is the developers of terraria, they go above & beyond giving free content and I recently heard they are giving a lotta money to other game engines to stick it to unity despite them not using unity in the first place
Using AI to write a half-assed apology letter to give the illusion of regret is so scummy that I'm surprised Bobby Kotick didn't do it first.
Edit: Damn typos.
Bobby has been doing it for a long time. He's a professional when it comes to non-apologies. They should've rang him up to get some pointers, honestly.
Illillusions???
.
Illilusion
Seems we found the AI comment to lol
And they didn't even bother to proofread the apology letter either.
Given what I’ve already heard of Nacon and their absolute steamrolling of Frogware’s The Sinking City, this seems on brand for such a morally bankrupt company.
I agree, this is karma for what they tried to pull on Frogwares and nearly run them out of business. For anyone who doesn't know Frogwares is a Ukranian dev team most famous for the Sherlock Holmes games.
Yeah, i remember that scam story too. Yet Nacon is still publishing a lot of games on Steam.
Yup, I'm boycotting anything that Nacon touches since Sinking City. They have no morals and don't deserve a cent for anything.
If anything I'll try to buy the games from the developer themselves if possible.
But Nacon can burn in hell for their scummy behaviors.
Just business as usual for nacon, they're literally the worst scumbags in gaming and more people need to be made aware of their comic book villain tier schemes.
Hey, does anyone know? When this came up, the dev, frogware, asked people not to buy their game until this is resolved bc all money would go to Nacon (or along those lines)
Can I now finally buy Sinking city and their other games and support the dev or is Nacon still getting al the revenue?
Honestly, over the years every corporate apology sounds practically the same, I'm not going to be surprised if AI-generated apologies become the norm because honestly, most of the apologies from these companies don't sound like they were written by human.
Because they arnt they are written by a corporation.
@@Pocket_Sized_SatanBut didn't you hear from the Supreme Court? Corporations are totally people. /s
Until proven otherwise I will assume ALL APOLOGIES are AI from this point forward. Certainly not what Kurt had in mind.
Nice Nirvana reference.
Maybe a certain OTHER Kurt foresaw this, though.
@@CarbonRollerCacoKurt Vonnegut?
@justaguyonyoutube4592 It's not about his take on AI. I think it was a reference to how AI is regularly used to recreate his voice for covers.
They all use the same phraes ie "this is not who I am" "we aplogize" but not sorry, etc. PR statements may as well be algorithm-written.
I wouldn't be surprised if parts of the game were AI generated. Gollum giving birth to a bird using paint and an oven, bashing an elf's skull open with a rock out of jealousy and honestly the entire story Gollum goes through feels like a bizarre, early AI Dungeon story.
That's a great point! I'm enjoying everything all the way back to the publisher Nacon being founded and run by Ai
HE GAVE BIRTH TO A BIRD?
@@Wolf-sh9ze AND BY USING PAINT AND AN OVEN?
He did what to what now
Imagine failing to apologize twice on the same game
But it's a different game actually - "Lord of Ring: Gollum" xD
There was a lot to unpack in that Game Two documentary:
- a lot about crunch
- first outright ignoring German minimum wage laws, then trying to circumvent them with a legal loophole
- the first gameplay trailer being published without the team having seen it
The whole game looks like it was made using ChatGPT.
@@justaguyonyoutube4592lmfao yeah. Base off stolen data hahahahah what a joke ass fantasy. It's always gonna spit out shit quality
If AI made this game it probably would have been better than this. Goes to show you how sad the final product really is.
@@14supersonic"it probably would have been than this"..... nice....
@@slowmercy69 ur one of the of all time bud
@@slowmercy69 🤣 bro ur wild
I just feel horrible for the developers. You can see glimmers of skill and care here or there; it's not like these are bad artists or programmers behind the scenes, I'm sure they could have made a good game if given the funds and time. I bet many of them just gave up with this project and didn't give their best either. It must really suck to finally work on a large international title, only to be forced to rush out some trash and see the entire internet piss on it; and then probably be made a scapegoat for the failure inside the company and get fired, while the people who were in charge of the decisions got to just shrug and move on.
They have made many decent games before, almost entirely point and click adventures.
They were forced to make something that they had no experience making, in a VERY short time, with an overbearing and useless management who were clearly only interested in the money.
Frankly, it's a miracle that it even plays with the multi-level of corporate sabotage from the publisher
Same, not exactly a shining example to put on your resume, but really like you said there probably is some talented people that could be extracted from this, and with more time and experience they could be a real asset.
There should be an awards show for worst apologies, at this point
right? maybe someone might do that
There would be a lot of stiff competition out there, when you think about it. 🤔
Honestly, at this point there needs to be a video-game version of the Razzies... (I think that's the "anti Oscars," right?)
Ukulele girl wouldn't even make it top 5.
I would watch that. Lmao
The german exposé video has excellent ENG subtitles, Yong. I strongly suggest you watch it, the "apology written by AI" is only the tip of the iceberg at what happened at Daedelic.
When I first saw the apology, I went to Bing Chat and asked it to write me an apology for this game. The results were so similar that I was kinda suspicious if they also used AI or whether all corpo lingo became so similar that it's hard to distinguish a real corpo apology vs AI ones. Turns out, I was right in suspecting them using AI.
Though you ARE right that it's all so same-y, receiving an apology letter from any corporation is totally meaningless.
At least the Dev came clear and just said it, it’s like EVEN THE DEVS HATE THIS GAME.
This game screams of mismanagement. So yeah, they would be rightfully pissed.
People have to understand that devs always want to make the best games possible, sometimes it doesn't pan out that way for several reasons, but game devs from my experience are very passionate people. They don't like half assing stuff if they have a slight modicum of respect for what they are doing. The thing that usually gets in the way of that however is time and money.
And from what I've learned from this game, they barely had any time. They switched engines and expected the devs to make the whole game in like a year and a half... I would hate the game too if I was in that position.
The devs probably did hate it, they are a huge point and click game dev, but that's all they usually do. They were forced to make a game type they usually don't in short time on short budget, honestly it's crazy they did as well as they did
@@GrimViridianAnd their old games are actually really good. They’re creative, funny and charming and just everything that Gollum isn’t.
Nacon published this? Nacon threw the developers under the bus too?? really?!
I would like to refer people to the video "The Sinking City - What Happened?" by Matt McMuscles. it's a great video exploring the troubled development of the sinking city - an okay game that was severely harmed by none other than Nacon - who tried to steal it from it's developers basically (it's a long story and better told in the video).
How the publisher and developer haven't been hit with a class action lawsuit for fraud is beyond me.
Trust me, the blame lies with Nacon. Google them
Because they didn't to any fraud
The gameplay shown was real gameplay unless stated otherwise (which it was always stated otherwise)
They never lied unless they said they were lying
Fraud would have been showing an entirely different game, or showing real gameplay of a better version of the game without the disclaimer "subject to change"
the minute "subject to change" is used it's not fraud
They were upfront and honest, the game may not stay like this
The game isn't good, but they never said it without a shadow of a doubt would be, if they said it was going to be good it was under the pretense of "subject to change" which includes going from good to bad, which means them saying it will be good is "subject to change"
TLDR: The only time companies are sued for fraud is when they do something they have no way of actually saying is being done in a legal way, them lying isn't fraud as long as they say "everything we say could end up all being a lie so don't sue us if it does because it's your fault for taking what we say as the cold hard truth"
People need to be taught not to pre-order. I learnt that lesson in the 2000s.
I have absolutely zero experience in laws or legalities, however Internet Historian taught me that "Fraud" has a very specific definition, it's not like they didn't put out a game, they did in fact release a supremely shitty game, it's bad, REALLY bad, but not quite unplayable like say Fallout 76 at launch, so I doubt it will get a Class Action Lawsuit, however the price range was absolutely insane for what is an obvious beta so I may be wrong. Also the fact that Daedalic is no longer a developer but a publisher probably will shield them for a bit, again, I can be wrong, let's see how this unfolds.
@@carlost856 I can make the point that, if the game looks solid and the preorder bonuses are sweet enough, you could buy them one day before launch (digitally only) but yeah, preorders are the worst, basically allowing them to get their earnings in advance.
As a german its so sad to have this happen to daedelic. They have made some really influencial games like deponia, harveys and two games about the german pen and paper system DSA. They have always been a shining example of german game developement beloved by alot of people and just threw all of that away.
Doesn't seem like they did that on their own. Seems like a lot of that was forced onto them by the extremely shifty Publisher.
Didnt even know company was german
@@soirema they are known for great Point & Click adventures in germany. Not so much known outside of it i guess and they never did a 3D game like Gollum before. It's truly shocking how this project came to light at all.
they always seemed scummy and did this to themselves.
There should be a new segment on the Games Awards. Showing all the "devs apologies" of the year and ranking them and the worst one gets the chance to bring home a box full of feces. From now on, I feel like there's more and more of them, and they're all terrible.
The full documentary is really insightful on what went wrong and how bad the work culture was at Daedalic. The creator's said that English subtitles will be available soon
Nothing wrong with an AI apology, it lets you know how sincere the user is.
what makes this ai? i cant see anything ai about the apology... i didnt see evidence somebody prompted ai and got the same thing back... it's just a well worded apology from a large business with likely 10+ people reading and writing the apology to approve it... i could be wrong cuz i didnt sit through this boring video but i didnt see anything come up on the screen looking like evidence of ai use.
@@Legomanshorts-c5o It's a claim by an ex-dev and yongyea voicing his opinion based on the claim. I am not really sure what 'evidence' you are expecting? This might or might not be true as it's simply a claim.
@@Legomanshorts-c5o 5:36 there i point the source that he get claiming the apology written by ai since your lazy ass dont wanna watch the video.
@@ronnieDakingthis comment is written by AI
@@jamesjiao when the video title fails to say that it leads me to believe he has some solid evidence. title is clickbaited "they did do this" but its speculation. allegedly did it would be a better title and i wouldnt have clicked. he knows what hes doing.
As you can see, the publisher is the trashy ones, not the devs. Respect to the devs who tried their best with such low time and budget.
And the fact that they're a point and click game company
@@GrimViridianid say they did alright, yeah the game sucked but for a point and click team it’s not that horrible
Why was a point and click developer hired to make this?
@@elio7610 who knows, but I feel bad for them
@@GrimViridian Well, they chose to accept the challenge.
The apology letter reflects the product and the product reflects the company.
It sounds like the development team were set up to fail by the publisher
The company, at least Daedalic, used to put out really good games. Mostly point and click. Like the user above me, it seemed like they were set up to fail.
@@CartoonHangout this is worse PR than Jared Leto had to do for suicide squad
An AI generated apology is as good as no apology at all. It's basically the equivalent of scripted automatic voice response on your phone service provider
It's the same as a form letter, but one you don't even bother to fill in the blanks on
This is as embarrassing as the PR Jared Leto had to do for suicide squad
An Apology? Words can't explain how hilarious that is
Honestly they may have been in a better position staying quiet
@@EJ_Redtrue that
An AI-pology.
@@Argumemnon Nice 😉
I admit when I first saw the apology I felt a bit bad for the Gollum devs. It was a big brand they were very clearly unprepared to take reigns on developing a game for, with WB more or less throwing them under the bus for the problems…
… anyways thanks for letting me know that pity was horrifically misplaced.
No, I think that pity was still right. The devs at Daedalic made great games prior to this (look up Deponia). I think the heads of Daedalic on the other hand are the real assholes here, Nacom specifically, because it was them making the AI apology not Daedalic's devs.
@@atomickaiser1934I bet for you all games are mediocre, lmao.
Daedalic were a solid indie developer who made good games and published through an in-house publishing team. They tried to develop a big AAA price point game in a genre they're not familiar with, working under a third-party publisher instead of their own in-house team, and appear to have been screwed over by the publisher, as much as their own inability to deliver a product in a genre they don't understand on a scale they aren't used to.
Pretty clear evidence, for those that need it, that publishers don't care, and significant portions of the AAA gaming industry don't care, hence what we have been seeing for some years. Granted, I'm not sure I'd call Daedelic AAA, and this isn't representative of everyone, but it puts fascinating perspectives on releases like Redfall, Cycberpunk and others.
They did release well-known point n click adventures but even calling them a AA-studio would be a stretch in my opinion.
They are well-known in the German landscape at least.
They'd certainly be classed as a AA level studio, but it's VERY clear that Nacon are the ones actually responsible for the shit show
The thought that they're such psychopaths they need AI to apologize is hilarious.
Execs for you
They put more effort in that AI generated apology than the game!
Methinks Nacon got "impatient" and "forced" Daedalic to release a build as the finished game, remember that Nacon is also behind the whole The Sinking City debacle
"wE TrEndY!"
we don't want apologies from bad games, we want our money back
Please note, that the apology was not written by Daedelic nor were they informed about it before it was published by the mother company Nacon.
I recently saw a (German) report by the YT channel GameTwo about the disaster of Gollum. The devs saw the outcome for some time but couldn't prevent it.
I'm only sorry, that the best German 2D studio that brought us Edna, the Breakout, Harvey's New Eyes, and the Deponia series is no more.
I can’t say I’m surprised. Publishers are taking phoney apologies to strange new places!
More than anything, I'm shocked it took this long for a company to get caught doing that
5:50 - The German report (cause Daedalic was a small but kinda beloved German point&click dev until ~2015) got proper English subtitles very recently, if you're interested - and interesting it for sure is, if you'd like to hear the devs insider perspective, why and how this disaster was inevitable.
(Edit: it's cited/linked in source #22 in the description)
gotta love how they trusted a AI to sound more heartfelt and human then themselves.
Did they also use AI to make this game?
I dont think they used any kind of inteligence to make this game, artificial or otherwise
More like Nacon got "impatient" and forcefully took a build and released it as is
Back then I already heard there was over 90% chance the apology was written by AI, now it's confirmed.. only thing I thank Gollum for is that because of it, there is a video where I go back from time to time to laugh while I'm at work
This is the level of creative writing that shows the AAA development companies are unable to even make a good story let alone an apology.
Daedalic is not a AAA developer
@@Thomas_ThielAAA price means it's judged by AAA standards
Plus, people who have no money and work on games on and off for a couple months are better made than this
@@deadboyo2773 Well it's not the devs fault, up to that point Daedalic had only made 2D point and click adventure games on a completely different engine, yes it's niche but they were good at it and obviously made a profit seeing as they did it for quite a while.
Then either Nacon or some new management at Daedalic decided they could totally make a AAA Lord of the Rings game and forced them to do that instead. You can practically feel the convo behind it.
"What genre would you like it in?"
"Lord of the Rings."
"What's the story about?"
"Lord of the Rings."
"How does it fit into the already dense story of-"
"Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings. Lord of the FUCKING Rings. I don't know, that "Goblin" creature that goes on about his puppy in his time in middle class. Precious! That's her name! Now back to tasting cocaine, sexually abusing children and eating babies! You know! The things that FUCKING MATTER! DIPSHIT!" And the only reason the dev doesn't report it is because they're already worked to the bone and too tired to listen.
@@Thomas_ThielWhat is a "AAA" developer? We should probably just stop using the term altogether.
I’d say this was a half-hearted apology but that would imply someone even made half the effort to apologize on their own, even if it was our begrudging obligation. The fact that they had to use ChatGPT to type an apology can’t even be considered a quarter of actual human effort. This person could’ve written “I’m sorry” enough times to fill up an entire chalkboard and it would’ve shown more sincerity than using an AI program to write an apology letter.
I’m convinced AI made the entire game, but it was initially called The Lord of Gollums Ring until the devs stepped in and altered the algorithm 0.01%
I really cant get over the fact that this game cost people $70. It's like something you would get from a box of cereal
And all gaming companies will learn from this is a big fat nothing, i fear
Laziness has reached a whole new level if a publisher used ChatGPT to write an apology (it also shows they don't care at all)
I’d say I’m shocked but let’s be honest with ourselves…..we can’t say we didn’t see this coming
If I had a nickel for every official apology written by ChatGPT that I've seen, I'd have 2 nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice. 🤨
Who's the other coward that didn't have the balls to write an apology themselves?
@@toblerone1729 If you've ever heard of a vtuber agency called AkioAIR within the last few weeks, you might of heard about their lonely man-child of a "CEO" Jason releasing an official apology for mistreatment of talents because he got forced to. He didn't feel sorry about any of what he did so he just used ChatGPT to write it for him. There's an exodus of talents happening along with their personal experiences about how he behaves. He basically started up the agency to try to get himself a friend group/harem to play Overwatch with him. There's quite a bit more, but this'll be way longer of a comment than it is now.
I'll say this again, it's sad to see Daedalic stop making games because before Gollum they made some of the best point and click games like Edna and Harvey, Anna, and Deponia.
I play desponia trilogy and pillar of earth . Really good story telling
Just when Gollum couldn’t get any worse, they knew they were putting out garbage, it likely had to ship broken or not, it feels like a game that was cancelled part way through development or had its budget severely slashed, there’s evidence of this because the alpha build looked completely different from the final product.
I guess this solidifies Gollum's position as "Worst game of 2023" if they couldn't even get their apology letter right (or rather to use Chat GPT to make a half-baked apology letter). Just blows the mind how it feels like everything connected with Gollum just belled up.
I'm not sure what's worse:
The Letter being AI written
or
The letter being made by the publisher as if the devs made it
Both are bad for the same reason.
I wouldn't be surprised if they probably used ai to make parts of the game too
Parts? more like the entire thing
Oh wait, AI could probably make a better game from scratch
Its the natural evolution of the uncaring corporate, soon it will just be an ai apology button on their desk they can press
and you're sure they didn't also use an ai to make the game itself
I really appreciate how thorough YongYea is about listing his sources in the description. That takes a lot of time that some channels don't care to take. Good stuff, my man!
This Industry is getting worse and worse
At least retro games will always exist to go back to
@@nekonomicon2983 thankful for backwards compatibility on Xbox
@@nekonomicon2983MMBN legacy collection eating good rn
We had a lot of good games this year, the bad ones don't erase that
I disagree. Gollum was one of the best games I played this year
Considering how many 'solemn jpegs' we've had in the past few years, I'd imagine ChatGPT will soon be able to write those purely with the prompt 'video game launch bad'.
If they used AI to write the apology, you KNOW they used it to write the game.
i can almost guarantee those 4 players are just speedrunners doing their best to break the game lol
You saying as if the game isn't broken already...
It's sad to see what happened with Daedalic. Their older games, mostly Point-and-Click adventures were mostly awesome and well received..
if things keep up this way, the video game market is going to suffer real bad! we've had TOO many video games with STUPID high expectations and STUPID low results, these publishers and game developers are ROBBING everyone of our money, this is straight up FUCKED UP
And then at the same time we got Baldur's Gate three, which is (despite a weak ending) an absolute marvel of a game. It's just embarrassing comparing BG3 with some of the absolute stinkers that have been released recently.
The sooner AAA companies crash and burn the better.
We'd still have the great devs like Larian and all the other indies that make superb games, and all the AAA trash that exists merely to steal our money though cons would be gone. It's long overdue to happen anyway, and could only improve the games industry
Considering that all the other AAA "apology" letters are similar, it makes me wonder if EVERYONE does it, but the rest all spellcheck their shit before releasing them.
AI could make a better CEO than whoever they had.
I'm thoroughly disappointed in this apology...
I don't see one single mention of an extra finger for it being written by A.I.
😎😉😏☠️🤣😘
Oh, that's just perfect. It fits. They put as much effort into the apology as they did the game.
It wouldn't surprise me, but detecting AI writing is never 100% accurate and can report human written copy incorrectly often enough to cast doubt.
At this point, I wouldn't be surprised - really, I wouldn't - that triple A publishers would resort to putting a gun to our heads or blackmailing us to buy their games.
Embarrassed to say that I've been actively looking forward to Nacon's release of the next Test Drive Unlimited 3
I guess it makes sense to have the lead programmer of your game also write the apology
This game genuinely feels like it was aborted mid-development but the publisher thought shipping it was a good idea
To be honest... I'm sick of apologies from gaming companies no matter how they write it or how sincere they are...
"Do not be sorry, be better" - Kratos.
Dead Space 2 allegedly also had a 60 million dollar production cost (not counting marketing), which was a full, high production AAA singleplayer game with amazing quality presentation, gameplay and content. Thus saying that 60 million is not enough for a single player game like Gollum, makes the Gollum devs look even worse and talentless.
I've played some Daedalic games a while ago. They mostly made/produced weak point and click games or other adventure games that were mid at best. I was surprised they decided to take on Gollum, they should have really stuck in their lane.
say what you will, but the dark eye series was beautiful and well written. I will say that a lot of their library was kind of mid though
I'm German and watched the Game Two report on this, thank you for bringing this to the non-German gamer crowd!!
The whole video is full of baffling things about the ongoings behind the scene, I'd be willing to help translate things!
The fact that they used AI to write an apology letter and posted it publicly without even checking beforehand ... 😐 It's no surprise the development studio shut down. They don't know what they're doing and they don't care.
It wasn't the devs, it was Nacon, the publishers who forced the devs to make something outside of their experience, in a severely short time, and didn't allow proper Q&A
Gollum is the perfect game to play a drinking game to, drink every time a bug happens, if you want to get drunk really fast with a group of people and i will say the more drunk you get the more hilarious the game is. Ive never drank or laughed as much with friends doing this.
So after inputting a transcript of the apology letter in a GPT detector I got a 47% likelihood of it being written by AI
boy does this not look good for them
The thing with this game, from what I've seen (I ain't paying for this lmao), is that there's just no good game under the botched launch state. It's not like No Man's Sky or Cyberpunk, the latter of which I enjoyed from the start, where these games had legit potential and were at least playable up to a point. Gollum lord of ring looked just broken and pointless
The GameTwo video has English Subtitles, so I can higly recommend anyone to watch everything to understand what happend. It's Episode 307
I just want to add that Daedelic Entertainment is known for point & click adventures, which they did great. I have no idea why they were forced (?) to do a 3D game with the Lord of the Rings IP in the first place. It's baffling to say the least.
Given the laziness of this apology they might as well have just put this out.
"The state of the release of Gollum is something that should never have happened. So from all of us at Daedalic Entertainment, we just want to say, We are deeply sorry"
"We're sorry"
"Sorry"
It's a statement from a PR department. Yes, hilarious that AI might've had a hand in writing this generic garbage. But a potentially meaningful apology comes from human, towards one or more humans. Meaningful anything does not originate from a company. Come on. Catch up.
Still my heart goes out to the developers and artists that against all odds poured their souls into this shitshow.
Going forward Daedalic published games aren't getting a dime from me I don't care who the developer is. Justice would be this publisher going under, and disappearing all together.
$15M for this???? Ive seen better indie games. This has to be money laundering
15 mil may be low by AAA standards, but it is not "indie-level."
That's also a pretty bad example, when indie games are often significantly better, in every way.
Damn, was surprised to learn this game was made by Daedalic, they put some pretty great point and click games out, but they are very much a developer for smaller indie like games.
This had to be the epitome of biting off more then you can chew.
If anyone want to see what they are capable of, the Deponia trilogy goes on sale often for dirt cheap. It's a really fun set of games if you like old school point and click
You... Are all aware this is a uwe boll grift right ? Like getting the millions of dollars in cultural grant IS is the objective. your game and its quality or sales are strictly secondary... Right?
Sorry, but lack of budget should not be an excuse. This should promote creativity within the company by having limitations.
The one thing I will say is that studio had some balls to release that game for $60, $70. 😅
Isn't this the same AI that made the game itself? 😂
That moment when you realize that "the 'apology' letter was written by AI" is the most favorable-to-the-developer take possible
"We aren't really sorry but it sucks that we had to close down our studio because of this" - New apology letter written after karma took a swing at them.