Oh look it’s happened again, I’ve managed to write a headline that has upset one of the leading developers on the planet. Again.
Yes this isn’t the first time I’ve upset Cliff Bleszinski, no the first time was before Gears of War 3 was released and we posted up a story about how the campaign mode was apparently not ready for public consumption.
However this time he’s gotten upset about the story yesterday about him being disappointed on how the game came out.
According to Cliff he wasn’t disappointed in the game itself but just the tone
Wow, Lazy Gamer, that’s a sensationalist headline if I’ve ever seen one. I said I was disappointed in the *tone* of what we had.
— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) March 13, 2012
Now granted if you just read the headline of my article you may have felt that he was disappointed in the entire game, however thankfully I added some more clarification after the headline and linked to his quotes and explained that it was only certain aspects he wasn’t happy with and that weren’t part of his original vision.
It was actually a very positive article over all but that doesn’t seem to matter as developers and fanboys appear to believe that the headline must contain the entire story or not point in any direction.
Yes there are other headlines but “Cliffy B is disappointed in the tone of Gears of War” would also not be factually correct. It’s why we write articles after headlines, the headline is meant to tell you what the story is about and give you an indication of the tone / direction. It’s not an article by itself and can’t be judged independently.
Hell in bigger companies they have headline writers who’s sole job is to write headlines that capture your attention and draw you in. Take a look at the BBC website throughout the day and you’ll notice that a single story has multiple headlines throughout the day to capture the feeling of the moment while the article stays the same.
Anyway that’s my little rant in response to his, if developers keep on judging articles on headlines alone we’ll start judging games on box art alone. Seems like a fair trade.
..
For the non mensan’s amongst us, I’m joking we’re not going to start reviewing games by their box art or even negatively viewing games in the light of what a developer thinks of us. We’re not that petty.
Oh and yes it feels awesome knowing that one of my idols has read the site, even if he didn’t like it.
Last Updated: March 14, 2012
