That Kotaku article has gotten under Dyack’s skin.
If you’ve been following Precursor Games’ Shadow of the Eternals Kickstarter then you’re probably already aware of a Kotaku article concerning Silicon Knight’s X-Men: Destiny implosion, if only because it comes up so often in the comments threads. Denis Dyack, formerly of Silicon Knights and now working at Precursor, has responded to the Kotaku piece with a lengthy video rebuttal, provoked by Precursor’s struggling crowdfunding effort. As of time of writing Precursor’s own Shadows campaign has raised $156,825, and its Kickstarter – running in parallel with Precursor’s effort – has raised $81,511 of its $1.35 million ask. “The problem that we’re facing,” says Dyack, “is that [the Kotaku allegations] are affecting everyone here at Precursor Games.”
“We are really sorry how [X-Men: Destiny] turned out,” says Dyack. “I would think that there were some mistakes made, but all I can tell you is we did nothing but put our best efforts into this project.” Also a substantial amount of Silicon’s cash, according to Dyack. Because “we wanted our next game to be as good as possible,” Dyack says, Silicon put into development $2 million more than Activision gave it, to make X-Men: Destiny a success. One of the claims made in the Kotaku article was that resources were diverted from X-Men development to other Silicon projects; Dyack hopes that his response to the Kotaku piece will be enough to put that particular allegation to rest.
Dyack rebuts the Kotaku piece pretty much in toto. Lack of facts and reliance on anonymous sources, Dyack alleges, make the article unreliable. However Dyack apologizes, not just for the game itself, but also for his reaction to press criticism at the time. “I’ve learned my lesson,” he says, “I’ve learned it so much that, at Precursor, I’m not making business decisions like that.” Other people run Precursor, not him, and if you want to know what they think of him, have a look at the segment from about 30 minutes in, to the end.
Whether or not the video rebuttal will be enough to save Precursor’s Kickstarter is something we’ll know in 29 days. And counting.
Source: Eurogamer
