Shawn Layden may not be the most interesting man ever on an E3 stage, but he comes across differently in this interview with IGN. The new SCEA boss was asked about the disastrous state of DriveClub, and he defended Evolution Studios, indicating that he’d rather they attempted to push the boundaries than play things safe – even if there’s a chance of a snag or two along the way.
“In the development cycle, we try to test against every possibility,” he said. “You do a beta test, you scope against that. But now, in a connected world, you can't effectively test in your house or in your beta group what it means to have 50,000, 100,000, 200,000 users hit your service. And the guys [at the studio] are struggling with that. It's throwing up things that they had not anticipated.”
For those out of the loop, the socially connected racer’s launch has been anything but smooth – in fact, even at the time of typing the title is still not working as intended, with crucial features disabled in order to lighten the release’s server load. Layden continued, however, that he’s proud of the studio’s ambition, and is confident that the issues will be resolved in due time.
“I get reports from them every day on the progress that they're making, and it is going forward,” he concluded. “It’s going slowly, but, you know, they tried to do the best, newest, greatest thing ever to happen in the driving genre and they hit a hiccup. I prefer people to have the ambition to try that, though. It's no fun being safe all of the time.”
We suspect that Layden’s going to get battered by some corners of the gaming community for seemingly condoning the dire state that DriveClub launched in, but that may be a little unfair. It’s clearly unacceptable to launch a product that doesn’t work as advertised – but we do agree with the executive that it’s important to push boundaries in everything that you do.
Unfortunately, while we like the racer a lot, we’re just not convinced that Evolution Studios’ inaugural PS4 exclusive is quite as innovative as everyone’s constantly trying to make out – but then again, this author still hasn’t seen everything working as intended...
[source uk.ign.com]
Comments 17
I also try and be the greatest thing ever, I challenge myself that very thing every morning, so far, nope. Seriously though 200,000 is nothing.
I can imagine the brainstorming meeting in their studio: "hey guys, we don't usually do multiplayer only games, but what about we just do one and call it the greatest game of all times and give away part for free?! What could go wrong?"
please watch the language -Tasuki-
"Greatest thing ever"
Oh good grief! What's so new and groundbreaking?? What a joke..
Of course, who is going to admit they are doing an average game?
Another one in a long list of overhyped games.
@MadAngryGamer
Why do these fools come out with silly comments like, "im sure theyll resolve the issue in due time"?
Ok buddy, its cool I spent a load of money on your product that doesnt work, because youre sure theyll fix it at some point.
Like that makes it ok?
Inept fool.
I still can't believe they still messed up after getting an extra year...and hearing about all those other failed AAA "online" game launches...
Pushing boundaries? Doing something new?
Shawn, it's a racing game. Not a revolutionary piece of software. You guys had an extra year to make it, and you STILL screwed it up.
@ToOGoodOfAPlaya exactly. The reason i had money to purchase your product was because at my job i hit the agreed deadlines and satisfactory quality levels and therefore the client was happy to pay for the product. Learn this game devs and publishers, its age old and expected...
What is it with Evolution, every launch by them seems to be hit with some disaster (natural or otherwise).
Yea this game single handedly made me go buy an xboxOne and get forza horizon 2. I love my ps4 more but driveclub Sucked. No real customizations and it's boring.
After a year of extra development, I really hate to think what the game was like prior to the ps4 launch.
@MadAngryGamer
I was just going to say, 'hiccup' is probably the understatement of the year given the way Evolution and Sony f'ed this one up. Like @SupaColeMan, I had to go with Forza Horizon 2, which seemed like the much better game from the day it was announced, on X1 to get my racing fix this year, but I wasn't too bothered by that because I was always going to get an X1 at some point anyway, that along with Sunset Overdrive just sped up my purchase. Anyway, at this point GT 7 can't come out soon enough to wipe away the stain of DriveClub, but hopefully Polyphony takes the time it needs to create the ultimate racing game, I feel like the more recent entries, while still great and better than the vast majority of the competition, aren't quite up to par with 1-4.
I have Drive club and think its a great racer. Once the challenges a are fixed even better. What Evo did wrong was to depend to much on Sims to load and stress test the game! Now pre-paid consumers have become the beta testers.
I understand glitches poping up and a couple weeks of patches needed but the amount of them needed to fix DriveClub makes me think major errors that even sims should have shown. Thats old news and we need to focus on repairs now and getting this game repaired! When it is fixed and the problem are in the past DriveClub will be the best raceing game out.
For now everyone just knows it as them most broke and delayed game half out.
@JohnKarnes Best racing game out?? You have got to be kidding..? It's the call of duty of racing games. I have all these unlockable options for customizing my club logo, but not a single option to customize the car itself..except for hideous paint jobs that I would never put on a car to begin with. It has a vanilla driving physics model on par with arcade style racing games like NFS or any other low-skill-requirement racer. The best thing about the game is the graphics, which on closer inspection isn't as impressive as I first thought either. Sorry, this game is a total joke!
@Fenriswolf That's your opinion and thats cool. But this game is not a driving Sim nor is it all arcade. It's also not a low skill game I don't know how you can say that unless you are at the top of the ladder online. Grand Turismo is a great Sim but many don't like it for that fact. I am waiting on the new PS4 game. Whats your pick for a great racing game??
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