John Romero Apologizes for Trying to Make You His *****

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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John Romero Apologizes for Trying to Make You His *****



In discussing the failure of 2000's much-hyped Daikatana, creator John Romero has officially apologized for the "make you his *****" ad campaign.

I'm going to quote our very own Quake [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/stolen-pixels/7265-Stolen-Pixels-175-Ubisoft].

Then it came out in May of 2000, and it sucked. The arrogance and hubris that crippled Daikatana have been well chronicled over the years, but none of it is quite as infamous as the ad you see here to the right: "John Romero's About to Make You His *****. Suck it Down." It was a pretty ballsy statement in itself, but after the game's failure simply became laughable.

It was also a sentiment that Romero regrets ever becoming attached to his name. In an absolutely fantastic interview with GameSauce [http://gamesauce.org/], Romero discussed the failure of Daikatana and the infamous "*****" ad:

"You know, I never wanted to make you my *****, not you, not them, not any of the other players and, mosy importantly, not any of my fans," said Romero. "Up until that ad, I felt I had a great relationship with the gamer and the game development community and that ad changed everything ... I regret it and I apologize for it."

"I knew it was risky, and I didn't want to do it. It didn't make sense. I mean, there's the whole culture of smack talk that goes with games and especially the FPS's, and that was something I was known for."

The development of Daikatana was troubled, he said. "It's a miracle the game was even released. Everything was going wrong," and the arrogant advertising only exacerbated the problem. "The ad insulted nearly everyone who read it. It was a terrible marketing decision. I apologize for letting it loose in the first place. I should have stopped it ... While the game could have been better on a number of levels, that ad and the hype that preceded and followed it was clearly a marketing failure."

Are you getting the sense that Romero really wants to take it all back? Good, you're not the only one. Still, the catastrophic failure of Daikatana aside, Romero remains proud of the team he had at Ion Storm and their work on projects like Deus Ex [http://www.gamefly.com/game/ps2/Deus-Ex/102045/].

As for the continued laughing-stock status of Daikatana? "I'm resigned to it," said Romero. "There is no use in challenging and fighting everyone that puts the game down. I mean, it's only one of my games. I've made several games after Daikatana and a bunch before. So, it really doesn't hurt anymore when I read negative comments about the game - but sure, it did."

It's okay, John. We forgive you.

(IndustryGamers [http://gamesauce.org/])

Permalink
 

Jack and Calumon

Digimon are cool.
Dec 29, 2008
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So... now we got that cleared up, shall we force some other Game Developer to apologize for a monstrosity?

Calumon: Oooh! Ooooh! Bobby Kotick! Bobby Kotick!
 

reg42

New member
Mar 18, 2009
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Well at least he's humble. Never actually played the game (after all, I was only like 6 when it came out), but I read the premise a while back and it seemed interesting, so when I found out it sucks I was a bit disappointed.
 

oppp7

New member
Aug 29, 2009
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Wow, only 10 years late. Good to see you're quick about this kind of thing.
 

Gigano

Whose Eyes Are Those Eyes?
Oct 15, 2009
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Good for him. As long as he's learned that if you're going to talk smack to customers, you should have an excellent product to hang it on.

Or perhaps not talk smack to customers in the first place, and concentrate that harder on making an excellent product anyway. That marketing strategy might just work in the long run.

I'll take my 800.000 $ ad consultant fee now, John free piece of advice for a guy whom I've never held anything against given his otherwise pretty awesome games.
 

Erana

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Feb 28, 2008
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I was like, eight when this game came out and I still knew about it. He had a Hell of an ad campaign going on with it. It wasn't just gamer hype. How long before had they been advertising this game, anyway?
 

Blind Sight

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May 16, 2010
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Jack and Calumon said:
Calumon: Oooh! Ooooh! Bobby Kotick! Bobby Kotick!
"I'm sorry that my money-bags...I mean customers have a problem with the fact that I'm trying to take the fun out of games. This is business, kiddies, now go buy my newest $15 map pack for Modern Warfare 2."
 

Jared

The British Paladin
Jul 14, 2009
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Well that came a bit late...but better late than never I suppose
 

boholikeu

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Aug 18, 2008
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Has anyone here actually played Daikatana? I was actually old enough to be able to play it when it came out, but I didn't because people only talked about how horrible it was. They never actually explained why though...
 

Woodsey

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Aug 9, 2009
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That offended people? What a bunch of pussies. If I'd of seen that at the time and I was older (I was only 6) I'd of had a slight smirk and moved on.
 

Silver Patriot

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Aug 9, 2008
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boholikeu said:
Has anyone here actually played Daikatana? I was actually old enough to be able to play it when it came out, but I didn't because people only talked about how horrible it was. They never actually explained why though...
Ok so if you have some spare time I suggest you watch this LP of Daikatana. It's not only funny, but informative.

Lets Play Daidatana [http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Daikatana/index.html] Each section has a video link. The google ones are still up but the Vimeo ones were removed.

Daikatana Ep 1 [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2728775402731694033#] (Google Video)
 

Billion Backs

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Apr 20, 2010
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Sounds like a cool advertising campaign.

If only for the sake of moralfags whining about it.

Now if the game was any good...
 

Kanodin0

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Mar 2, 2010
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Erana said:
I was like, eight when this game came out and I still knew about it. He had a Hell of an ad campaign going on with it. It wasn't just gamer hype. How long before had they been advertising this game, anyway?
The problem was that Ion Storm fell apart throughout the development of Daikatana, Basically the entire team quit once and then after that they still hemorrhaged people. This caused them to go way past deadlines, but the marketing had to keep on going so people wouldn't lose interest. So basically Daikatana had about a year of marketing blitz to get in everyone's mind because of the problems at Ion Storm, but those same problems led to a vastly inferior product, leading to the mass mockery of it still seen today.
 

boholikeu

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Aug 18, 2008
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Silver Patriot said:
boholikeu said:
Has anyone here actually played Daikatana? I was actually old enough to be able to play it when it came out, but I didn't because people only talked about how horrible it was. They never actually explained why though...
Ok so if you have some spare time I suggest you watch this LP of Daikatana. It's not only funny, but informative.

Lets Play Daidatana [http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Daikatana/index.html] Each section has a video link. The google ones are still up but the Vimeo ones were removed.

Daikatana Ep 1 [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2728775402731694033#] (Google Video)
Ugh, okay, now I understand.
 

Nurb

Cynical bastard
Dec 9, 2008
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If only Xbox Live had been around, it'd have been seen as tame.