Q&A with Slightly Mad Studios: Ian Bell [Read OP]

  • Thread starter Kitten
  • 3,687 comments
  • 410,666 views
I agree with Brandon on the mouse issue. It's OK, mind you. Until you need to scroll through a list and then it stops behaving intuitively... There are worse problems to have, though, I'll admit.
 
And this is why developers hesitate to interact with the community. I'm surprised Ian and the rest still do time to time ( and this is with development of the game and post release patches.

Is there a dislike button? Should be.
While I somewhat agree with you, I also feel when developers continue to interact ( especially @IanBell ) in the face of criticism, it shows great character. Anyone can hide when things are challenging. Confronting your critics takes heart. We'll see more of Ian, I'm sure of it. I'm quite sure better things are on the horizon.
 
And this is why developers hesitate to interact with the community. I'm surprised Ian and the rest still do time to time ( and this is with development of the game and post release patches.

Is there a dislike button? Should be.
Or maybe this was just a prefect example how this game gets under your skin, people even approaching community such a way, showing their frustration.

Comment might be taken with slight sarcasm or bit harsh joke, but both are in line with product so I liked comment. :lol:
 
To be honest I lost a bit of heart after giving GT Planet so much of our time to get a review 15% below the average. I took that though, noting our surprise and nothing more.

Then I read a thread here where our game, currently rating decimals above Forza and massively above GT Sport, has been referred to the UK government and petition started in said thread to get us into legal trouble (and 5 people 'liked' it! and voted!) for delivering 'the best Sim ever'. I lost a lot more heart at that.

But the kicker was to be accused of not communicating on four separate threads :) I was all over forums everywhere answering every question I legally could for months, both before and after release, to be told that SMS doesn't communicate with their users and takes them for fools etc etc..

So I decided to take a couple of weeks easier than normal...

i don't blame you for feeling that way, it's pretty unique for the big boss to spend so much time with the community, especially on a third party forum.

I think the game is a masterpiece. Loved PCars 1, streets ahead of other racers and i wondered how it could be improved upon, i expected the next game to be similar but somehow it is even better again in every way.you can tell how much time and effort has gone into the game, your team must be pretty talented. there's so much content it's hard to know where to start, i just love GT3.
 
I think the problem with the disappointment of the release, at least for me, is that they had everything about the concept right. Everything a racer could want was promised. They should be fully commended for that. Not many developers take a look at the customer base and design something to fit it. Usually it's the other way around.

The only real problem was the disappointment of the sheer number of problems with the initial release and still even in patch 2.0. The way it was clearly rushed. If only they could've only delayed and released until it was actually ready rather than be forced to take short-cuts. Sure some minor bugs would still be there but they would be on the glitch level instead of the game-ruining level, and easily ironed out, but at least it would have represented what they promised... nay, bragged about.

One sure way to disappoint people is to promise the Earth and deliver an asteroid.
 
Last edited:
But the Earth is just a combination of asteroids formed together to create a core for which gravity can be increased to gather more asteroids to become larger and eventually a planet.

Sorry I had to nerd out for a second.
 
But the Earth is just a combination of asteroids formed together to create a core for which gravity can be increased to gather more asteroids to become larger and eventually a planet.

Sorry I had to nerd out for a second.
Well played sir.
 
Have no sympathy whats so ever....."you reap what you sow"
Leave Ian alone. I'd like to see you try & create a better game.

After reading all this, I have high hopes for PC2. Of course it's going to have bugs & glitches right now, but in the long run, I'm sure that everything that is wrong with the game now, will be sorted later. That's how I see things anyway.
 
But the Earth is just a combination of asteroids formed together to create a core for which gravity can be increased to gather more asteroids to become larger and eventually a planet.

Sorry I had to nerd out for a second.

So does that mean we have to wait a few million years for PCbug2 to be PCcomplete2? :P

Leave Ian alone. I'd like to see you try & create a better game.

Such a kop-out that comment. The reverse is to see Ian do a better job than he does, whatever that may be. Or see this guy create a better game having spent years in the same business building up his craft. All you can be is as good as you can be.

edit; [retracted]
 
Last edited:
So does that mean we have to wait a few million years for PCbug2 to be PCcomplete2? :P



Such a kop-out that comment. The reverse is to see Ian do a better job than he does, whatever that may be. Or see this guy create a better game having spent years in the same business building up his craft. All you can be is as good as you can be.

And yet we know experience, enthusiasm and will has nothing to do with it. It was the way it was all handled. For whatever the finer detail (cough publishers cough), it was wilfully malignant and exploitative of consumers.
Are you familiar with the phrase “arm chair quarterback”? You’re make some bold statements here on gtplanet which almost always degrade SMS and Ian in particular.
 
it was wilfully malignant and exploitative of consumers.
That's a rather bold claim to make, and is effectively accusing them of an illegal act.

Given the AUP here at GTP I would strongly suggest you support that with something other than conjecture or withdraw it.

The AUP here allows for quite a bit of leaway, and normally I would put this down to hyperbole, but given that you have also started a petition to the UK government you are now getting very close to statements that unless you can support them could be considered Libel. Something that GT Planet has no wish or desire to be involved in at all.

Now unless you are able to provide documentation that shows that any of you claims were done
willfully by either party I would strongly suggest that you start to moderate the manner in which you make such claims.
 
Last edited:
That's a rather bold claim to make, and is effectively accusing them of an illegal act.

Given the AUP here at GTP I would strongly suggest you support that with something other than conjecture or withdraw it.

The AUP here allows for quite a bit of leaway, and normally I would put this down to hyperbole, but given that you have also started a petition to the UK government you are now getting very close to statements that unless you can support them could be considered Libel. Something that GT Planet has no wish or desire to be involved in at all.

Now unless you are able to provide documentation that shows that any of you claims were done
willfully by either party I would strongly suggest that you start to moderate the manner in which you make such claims.
Just a quick temporary reply from my phone. Yes I have a folder on my desktop full of evidence that this was willfull abuse. I wouldn't have put in the cases to the authorities I have if I didn't think I could prove so (one with the US dept of justice I'm still waiting to hear back from). So I *should* just see what's on my pc before retracting that statement.

However, I accept that it's probably not what you want on gtplanet. Whether or not it is libel or truth, so may just rephrase it anyway.

...oooh wouldn't that be an awesome story if I were dragged through a court by a company to explain myself about exposing the truth?

Btw such exploitation of consumers is not actually illegal... re: petition to government. So I can't accuse them of an illegal act in that way but there are other areas where civil illegal actions have been taken.
 
Just a quick temporary reply from my phone. Yes I have a folder on my desktop full of evidence that this was willfull abuse. I wouldn't have put in the cases to the authorities I have if I didn't think I could prove so (one with the US dept of justice I'm still waiting to hear back from). So I *should* just see what's on my pc before retracting that statement.

However, I accept that it's probably not what you want on gtplanet. Whether or not it is libel or truth, so may just rephrase it anyway.

...oooh wouldn't that be an awesome story if I were dragged through a court by a company to explain myself about exposing the truth?
You have internal documents from the developer and publisher?
 
You have internal documents from the developer and publisher?
I don't need them. I have saved evidence of false advertising (and tenuous comments of admission of internal operational intent) - with some consumer regulations exemptions for the gaming industry, this is easily provable willful abuse.

But don't get bogged down on that. I will delete all this I expect.
 
I don't need them. I have saved evidence of false advertising (and tenuous comments of admission of internal operational intent) - with some consumer regulations exemptions for the gaming industry, this is easily provable willful abuse.

But don't get bogged down on that. I will delete all this I expect.
That's not proof that it was a willful act, for that you would need to an internal document showing that the developer, publishers or both deliberately set out to do this. That it was a part of a calculated and planned program to mislead the buyers.

If you don't have that, then congratulations you have just libeled a company.
 
False advertising is easy to prove and has no need for supporting evidence. It stands by itself. False advertising is a willful act and can, but not always, be judged a civil or criminal offence. Obviously depending on the detail of the case.

Anyway in the interests of appeasement, I have retracted the statement, although you may need to edit other posts. I have other things to do today instead of get bogged down on this.
 
Last edited:
So does that mean we have to wait a few million years for PCbug2 to be PCcomplete2? :P



Such a kop-out that comment. The reverse is to see Ian do a better job than he does, whatever that may be. Or see this guy create a better game having spent years in the same business building up his craft. All you can be is as good as you can be.

And yet we know experience, enthusiasm and will has nothing to do with it. It was the way it was all handled. For whatever the finer detail (cough publishers cough), it was wilfully malignant and exploitative of consumers.
Ian to do a better job? You are so disrespectful towards Ian & the team. If you don't like the game, don't play it. If you still don't like it, but you do play it or won't play it until they fix some of the bugs, then why not just explain the faults/bugs that are in game in a respectful way so they can work on fixing them?

I agree with everything @Scaff is saying here by the way.
 
Ian to do a better job? You are so disrespectful towards Ian & the team. If you don't like the game, don't play it. If you still don't like it, but you do play it or won't play it until they fix some of the bugs, then why not just explain the faults/bugs that are in game in a respectful way so they can work on fixing them?

Respect is only earned based on ones actions.

I am reporting and documenting bugs. Tonnes of them! Some respectful... some only reported as I caught them live, which means there is often an emotional astonishment attached.
 
Respect is only earned based on ones actions.

I am reporting and documenting bugs. Tonnes of them! Some respectful... some only reported as I caught them live, which means there is often an emotional astonishment attached.
Ian & the Development team earned my respect with Project Cars 1. Of course a newly released game is going to have faults, it's 2017. Besides I thought this was a Q&A not a PC2 bugs thread? Am I lost or something?
 
False advertising is easy to prove and has no need for supporting evidence. It stands by itself. False advertising is a willful act and can, but not always, be judged a civil or criminal offence. Obviously depending on the detail of the case.

Anyway in the interests of appeasement, I have retracted the statement, although you may need to edit other posts. I have other things to do today instead of get bogged down on this.
That wasn't the claim you made.

You stated (as fact) that this was willful, you haven't proven that.

It doesn't make it a willful act, as quite clearly demonstrated by the Hoover Flights case, which was an advertising campaign that offered a promotion that the company could not afford to meet the demand for. It wasn't willfully missleading, it was a result of poor planning, underestimating demand and incompetence. Given your basis just about every title on the market was willfully miss-sold, why are you not making the same claims about them?

Did they say that the HQ part of COD WW2 would not be working at launch and still not be working a week later?

Did they say that the FIA races in GTS would crash and remove people progress?

Did they say that Battlefield 4 would not connect you to lobbies at all and regularly crash out?

That would be a no to all of these things, in fact in every case these products were advertised with these features being a part of the core offering of the title, were all of these willful as well?

So no it doesn't automatically make it willful, that a quite different bar to reach, and one you had made without evidence.
 
Last edited:
Ian to do a better job? You are so disrespectful towards Ian & the team.
Can you explain what's difference with Kaz and Ian?
From my point of view those are pretty much on level, only exception at seems like it's ok to mock Kaz and make memes and videos of it, big threads which start on even mocking topic against Kaz, this happening here on GTP.
Not even speaking how many direct harsh worded threads/posts comments against Polyphony Digital and Sony.
Then why sudden this all is so forbidden when there's SMS and Ian Bell instead of PD and Kazunori Yamauchi?
Don't see any comments from Kaz where he complains his customers bad worded comments, or any comparable thing.
 
Can you explain what's difference with Kaz and Ian?
From my point of view those are pretty much on level, only exception at seems like it's ok to mock Kaz and make memes and videos of it, big threads which start on even mocking topic against Kaz, this happening here on GTP.
Not even speaking how many direct harsh worded threads/posts comments against Polyphony Digital and Sony.
Then why sudden this all is so forbidden when there's SMS and Ian Bell instead of PD and Kazunori Yamauchi?
Its not forbidden, that's why posts compalining about SMS and Ian are still here, as long as they follow the AUP then the staff are not going to remove them. I can assure you that when they do they get removed and I can assure you that more have been removed that targeted Kaz that all other devs and studio heads combined.

And just as you are allowed to take issue (within the AUP) about people doing so about Kaz, others are allowed to do so for other studio heads and devs.

As such please don't infer a form of censorship that doesn't exist.

Don't see any comments from Kaz where he complains his customers bad worded comments, or any comparable thing.
That's because we don't hear from Kaz period. He doesn't post as GTP, as such its a false comparison to make.
 
Back