In a recent AMA session on Reddit, Volition’s senior producer Jim Boone and design director Scott Phillip finally responded to comments made by Cliff Bleszinski – who criticized Saints Row The Third for including a dildo weapon in the game.
Booned stated that, “I think of this along the lines of motion pictures. I just can’t imagine Hollywood suddenly deciding that movies like The Hangover shouldn’t come out because it is immature. Sure, it may not win an Oscar, but it sure is funny as hell and amazingly entertaining. People won’t all feel the same way about that movie as I do, but that doesn’t mean the movie shouldn’t be made.
Phillip stated that, “[Bleszinski] said he felt SR would’ve been better if it had been a Michael Mann/Heat-esque bank robbery type of game. Somebody else already makes that game and spends four times as much money to make it with a staff four times our size.
“We need to make Saints Row, not a game someone else is already making. As Jim said earlier, you wouldn’t want to see the same movie over and over again; sometimes you need a drama and sometimes you need a comedy, and Saints Row delivers something that players clearly want and aren’t getting elsewhere.”
As for the PC port of the upcoming Saints Row IV, Boone said that Volition was going to deliver “the same level of quality” since they had been working on the same throughout the development cycle. Saints Row IV is set to release on August 20th in North America and August 23rd in Europe for Xbox 360, PC and PS3.