Bram,
Been reading this whole exchange. A few things jump out at me. You say, "Hand on heart I haven't done a single biased review in my life". Then you say, "I have an issue with the mega aggressive marketing of WMD members in the past" and "the promises made by the SMS staff before launch of PCARS and non-delivered promises on the website".
That doesn't sound much like an honest broker, Bram. I'm genuinely curious, actually, about how you think games are made and sold out in the real world? Or any product, come to that. Do you think companies just sit quietly in a corner making games before releasing it and then praying that someone in a shop somewhere will buy it?
Seriously. It's very odd, the way you come across. You have no bias, you say, to a company that you then admit having an issue with? How does that work, Bram? Not in actuality, because clearly it doesn't, but how does that work in your own mind?
It's almost as if the idea that people would dare make a game and market it aggressively is somehow a personal insult -- to you. But Bram, what if, say, 150 human beings who are doing their very best to create great sims need those games to sell in order to have a job come Monday morning? What if, say, those same human beings have families, wives and husbands, and kids who say, "Hi, mom!" when they come home from SMS in the evening, having given their absolute best to create something they're proud of all day? You have an issue with them having a job, Bram? Is that it? Are you one of those who'd rather people were unemployed, who didn't get to chase their dreams of making games, because somehow marketing is a personal affront -- to you?
You sit here, Bram, casting judgement over people as if you were the last man on earth with a perfect soul. Honestly, though, you don't half come across as a child. Some things in Project CARS 1 didn't meet your expectations, is that right? Okay ... but how does that enrage you?
That a game doesn't come with all projected features is a normal thing, Bram. Every adult who has ever had a job in tech' has been through it; it happens every day, and not only in games. Banks roll out new multi-million dollar software with bits cut out at the very last moment, formula one cars come to the track with engines down on power, politicians roll out massive plans with half of what they projected excluded at the last second ... it's called life, Bram. It's what happens out in the real world, it's what happens when grown-ups have to make cold decisions about whether mom goes home to her kid with the promise of a job on Monday, or whether mom goes home without a job on Friday.
And yet here you are, the last man on earth who has never written a biased review apparently, the last man on earth with morality fully intact. Good for you, Bram. But the rest of us, you know, we do our best. Sometimes we hit it out of the park. Sometimes not so much. Unlike you, Bram, the rest of us are human. And being human, we are sometimes faced with hard decisions.
You seem very quick to judge. Going back to your, "give me the game without NDA otherwise people will know there's something wrong". Bram, the problem here, aside from this being a non-starter (as I seriously hope you know), is perspective. Yours.
See, you seem unaware that there are 150 people working on Project CARS. It's not just Ian Bell on a Sunday afternoon sipping his tequila sunrise on a yacht in the Med' thinking, "I've got a great idea for a game that'll really piss ol' Bram off".
Your inability to feel any kind of empathy for those people, any kind of honest appreciation for their talents, means anything you write about the game will be tainted. Tainted because you, Bram, and you alone, want perfection. You are the hammer, and every little problem is your nail. And you will joyously pound away at the errors. You don't care about the people who make the game, you don't care about the work that goes on behind the scenes, you don't care that as professionals, they too see a bug that they completely missed and feel anger and shame -- all you care about, Bram, is your god-given right to hammer away at the faults. Hammer away at the problems. Why is that, Bram? Is it because finding fault is all that brings you joy?
Perspective, Bram. Project CARS was a great sim. It had issues. Some things that were projected to be in there fell out because time and a million other more pressing issues got in the way -- life, Bram, got in the way of perfection. Something, apparently, that you've never encountered. But the sim was good, it was solid. But most of all, it was made by the passion and professionalism of many human beings, Bram. Men and women who read what you post and feel kind of sickened that anyone would be this dismissive of their work and their talent.
And there's the thing, Bram. You seem repulsed by marketing, repulsed that anyone should actually want to find ways to sell their product, enraged that a game might have been shipped with a few issues, genuinely pissed-off that some bits that were promised never made it into the final game -- all of this is somehow a personal slight to good ol' Bram, the god-like creature who alone retains untainted perfection.
Bram, as a journalist, integrity matters, but it's not the only thing. Perspective matters even more. Take a moment, Bram, to consider SMS not as an entity that fuels your rage, but 150 people with wives and husbands and kids and mortgages -- imagine them on a Sunday afternoon at the park eating ice cream with their kids, exhausted after a long week trying to make the best game they know how. Try and consider, for a moment, their lives, Bram. Try to consider people, and not just objects.
You're offended that SMS market their games? You're offended that somehow the game didn't match your expectations? You're offended that SMS won't give you their game without NDA? You're offended that the CEO comes to your website and suggests that perhaps a little better moderation on your part might be considered? You're offended that perhaps there are genuine reasons why the game Bram wanted, in all of its perfection, never came?
You're offended by so much, Bram, all this righteous indignation at things the rest of us just assume is part of every day life. I'm unsure though, whether this makes you the last perfect man on earth, Bram, or someone who just needs to grow up a little .
