At E3 2015, many gamers were surprised and elated that a trailer for The Last Guardian started off Sony’s press conference. It has been a long time coming, with little to no information on if Team Ico’s next project was still in production or even going to be a reality.
However, it seems that The Last Guardian is alive and well and coming to the PS4 in 2016.
Recently Shuhei Yoshida, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, was interviewed about the process of moving The Last Guardian project from the PS3 to the PS4. Despite all the technical difficulties and problems with development, Yoshida stated “having so many people asking us about the game was great encouragement for us to continue the development.”
It seems that the desire and support of the fan base helped spur The Last Guardian into reality. Yoshida further confirmed this by saying that if people had stopped asking about the game, Sony probably would have canceled the game.
These statements from Yoshida are one of many signs that various gaming companies have started to take the gaming communities’ opinions and interests into consideration. During Sony’s E3 Press Conference many people were ecstatic when the Kickstarter for the next installation in the Shenmue series. This worldwide broadcast was enough to get Shenmue 3 funded in less than 24 hours.
During an interview with Bill Gardner, the creative director of The Deep Side Games, on his recently funded horror game, Perception, the topic of fan critique and feedback kept on popping up.
Gardner made it very clear that the reason he used Kickstarter was to be able to listen to fans and backers of Perception, to see what they wanted and what they didn’t like. Gardner insisted multiple times that “bringing value and quality” to his fans was his top priority.
With all these games, many of which seem very novel and fascinating, it seems that fan support and feedback is really becoming important. However, it could also be said that these companies and games are very small and focus on indie games, that none of them are huge big shot corporations.
How do you feel about this new trend? Do you think this is just the beginning of a new wave of appreciation for the gaming fanbase or just a small ephemeral blip in the gaming world?
