I “get” that developers have relationships to maintain. I also “get” that there are people on the internet that hang on each and every word a game developer might (or might not) say. One thing I don’t get though, is the art of so carefully picking and crafting your words such that they’re as far from partisan or opinionated as possible; almost sterilized. Who gains anything from quips and quotes still steaming from the editorial pasteurization they went through before being given the “okay” for release?

More carefully picked words after the jump…

It seems like there are a few different categories we can best group developers into when referencing how they communicate to the public.

• First party (always platform exclusive) – These guys tend to tow the company line. Whatever their platform, you can expect quotes and examples of why their platform (and in particular their project) are the best of the best. It’s often hard to separate the truth from the wishfulness in what they say. You will almost never see them say anything remotely negative about their company, game, or platform and if you do, it’s a “positive negative” like Nintendo apologizing for the poor job they’re doing keeping up with consumer demand, or Microsoft tempering their Live outages with “Gee golly” quips about underestimating how popular they were.
• Second Party (platform exclusive by choice not force) – These guys are almost identical to the First Party guys with just a little additional hint of CYA-ness. Think Insomniac Games. They’re not “officially” tied to Sony and have only developed for Sony, but you won’t catch these guys burning any bridges in the other camps either. One could easily mistake the CYA attitude for class and I’m certainly not going to say developer’s can’t be classy (or that Insomniac isn’t classy), but you have to be aware that the two can come off quite similar.
• Third party (multi-platform developer Type 1) – Third party developers have the straightest line to walk. They don’t “belong” to a single platform so they can’t be too careful in what they say. I’ve broken this category three types to points to best describe them all. Type 1 is the multi-platform developer that does wrong by nobody. They’ll never make a disparaging comment about any platform and at most will make individual non-competitive comments about strengths on platforms.
• Third party (multi-platform developer Type 2) – Type 2 multi-platform developers will base comments on the performance(s) of their previous titles. If they’ve had success with a certain title on one platform over the other, they will offer feedback why and it will rarely amount to anything in their control (expect mention of programmer tools, install base, competing against a significantly better title, etc.) They are the developer equivalent of a fair weather fan. When things are going great on a platform, they’ve got nothing to say but great things, but if things go south… the blame always goes to someone else.
• Third party (multi-platform developer Type 3) – Type 3 multi-platform developers are the “do the job you have to do with the tools you have to do it with” developers. While other developers may be taking time off their project to make scathing remarks or sue tool providers, these guys are hard at work making the magic happen. They really make Type 2 multi-platform developers look like prima donnas at times by pulling off what others thought impossible. These are developers like Infinity Ward and Epic Games.

Now that we’ve got them categorized, how about some examples of what I’m ranting about…

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