Re: [Josh] Friday, March 9, 2018
Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2018 2:51 pm
Essentially this just comes down to whether you think Josh will behave like "early" Josh or "late" Josh once the game comes out.
My belief is that he'll revert to the Josh that routinely engaged with the community, wrote daily devlogs, released LTP and produced regular update videos - all the things that built the community in the first place. I think that because releasing the game will lift such a massive psychological weight from his shoulders, and generate such a wave of positive engagement from the community, that the crippling anxiety that has resulted in his self-imposed isolation will just melt away. (Of course, I'm assuming that the game delivers on the KS promises and is half-decent, which I expect it to be or he wouldn't have released it.)
You clearly think that he'll remain as "late" Josh, who finds doing what's necessary to rebuild the community very difficult, even once the game is released. I agree that it will be harder if Josh isn't front and centre during and immediately after release, but it's still not obviously clear to me that it'll be terminal. After all, the game will be out by then, and the community will probably swell enough to be self-sustaining, especially if the game is as moddable as promised.
In any event, I don't see any need for all the doom and gloom, and assertions that Josh has forever damaged his image/brand/whatever. Yes, missing deadlines isn't a good look, but he's hardly the first game developer to do that, and it's not like we don't know why. And whilst there is truth in the view that "everything you do is PR", I can't see that sternly pushing that angle is going to yield the result that we surely all want - the return of "early" Josh. More likely is that updates will become vaguer, and arrive without warning, since no deadlines or promises of any kind will be issued or made. All communications will become more circumspect, and our interactions will be with the corporate entity of Procedural Reality, and not the open young lad with boundless enthusiasm and obvious talent that brought us - and kept the few of us - here.
My belief is that he'll revert to the Josh that routinely engaged with the community, wrote daily devlogs, released LTP and produced regular update videos - all the things that built the community in the first place. I think that because releasing the game will lift such a massive psychological weight from his shoulders, and generate such a wave of positive engagement from the community, that the crippling anxiety that has resulted in his self-imposed isolation will just melt away. (Of course, I'm assuming that the game delivers on the KS promises and is half-decent, which I expect it to be or he wouldn't have released it.)
You clearly think that he'll remain as "late" Josh, who finds doing what's necessary to rebuild the community very difficult, even once the game is released. I agree that it will be harder if Josh isn't front and centre during and immediately after release, but it's still not obviously clear to me that it'll be terminal. After all, the game will be out by then, and the community will probably swell enough to be self-sustaining, especially if the game is as moddable as promised.
In any event, I don't see any need for all the doom and gloom, and assertions that Josh has forever damaged his image/brand/whatever. Yes, missing deadlines isn't a good look, but he's hardly the first game developer to do that, and it's not like we don't know why. And whilst there is truth in the view that "everything you do is PR", I can't see that sternly pushing that angle is going to yield the result that we surely all want - the return of "early" Josh. More likely is that updates will become vaguer, and arrive without warning, since no deadlines or promises of any kind will be issued or made. All communications will become more circumspect, and our interactions will be with the corporate entity of Procedural Reality, and not the open young lad with boundless enthusiasm and obvious talent that brought us - and kept the few of us - here.