Fans of the Resident Evil franchise and Capcom have not been on very good terms over the past few years because the former are not happy with the efforts of the latter in recent years.
The executive producer of Resident Evil 6 Hiroyuki Kobayashi has described the tension between the developer and fans as something similar to what exists between two parents when they have differ on how to raise their child.
According to him, the child in this scenario is the Resident Evil franchise, with both the company and fans believing that they know what is best for the game.
“The way I always think of it is that if Resident Evil represents a child, then the fans and us as creators are the two parents. The resulting games are like the children that are born between both of us,” Kobayashi said. “And just like real parents, you’re not always going to agree on what is best for raising that child.”
Kobayashi acknowledged that the fans are extremely crucial to the success of the game and thus their feedback is taken into consideration while working on a project.
However, at the end of the day it is the work of the developer to decide what really is the best thing to do and how to keep the experience fresh and exciting.
Giving more weight to what the fans consider as appropriate than what the creators feel is suitable to keep the game advancing will only result in bringing the progress to a halt.
“We do listen to the fans, but we can’t be beholden to them at every turn or I don’t think we’ll ever make progress in terms of the series’ development,” stated Kobayashi.
When the fans do not find what they were hoping to see in the game, they end up hating it. This, according to the executive producer, is not the company’s fault as it is impossible for them to please everyone.
It is indeed an unrealistic expectation from the company to listen to every single fan and create a game based on that since every gamer desire something different.
In the end, it really comes down to what the creators see as fit since it is them who are the biggest stakeholders and also most affected if the game is not perfect.
The fans have been pretty disappointed with all the Resident Evil games that followed the second title in the franchise.
The horror survival third-person shooter has already significantly lost its reputation as one of the best games in the genre.
It remains to be seen whether the latest offering by Capcom would be able to revive it or would it turn out to be yet another nail in the coffin.
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