Embattled developers Ready at Dawn unveiled a new build of The Order 1886 at the PlayStation Experience this past weekend, and they got generally more positive reception to it this time than they have before. Probably to capitalize on this new momentum, they also launched a new website for themselves, which explains their development philosophy.
“Ready At Dawn is a game development studio with a single mission: making fun games a lot of people want to play. We know it sounds trite and basic, but reality sometimes is much simpler than we pretend it to be.
“We could tell you that we have a “magical recipe” for making great games or we could tell you that, because we have been doing this for so long, we have somehow figured out a whole bunch of game-making “secrets” no one else has, but we’d be kidding ourselves, and you would not believe us anyhow!
“Yet, while hardly secret, there are a few things we have learned about making games. We haven’t composed that “magical recipe” just yet, still we have been able to distill our vision into a few fundamental principles… the essence of Ready At Dawn, if you will.
“We learned that making games requires a lot of hard work, a good deal of talent, and an appreciation for the complex social dynamics which emerge when a team of artists sweats on a project for months, sometimes years at a time.
“We learned that great game makers are ruled and driven by their child-like nature. To accept, even to embrace this fact is essential for any game developer hoping to let fun spill into their creations. At Ready At Dawn, we are so much in touch with our “inner child” that at times we have trouble locating our “outer adult.”
“We learned that technology is only a mean to an end. While we love the challenge and the rush of technological innovation as much as any other developer, we will not let our games become digital ego-trips. Our technology will serve the needs of our designs.
“We learned that the very best developers are those who have a variety of interests and passions, and that never let their lives be defined by a single activity or association. We will always try to encourage exploration and nurture personality. Drones and one-dimensional minds have no place at Ready At Dawn.
“We learned that the biggest obstacle between an inspired vision of a game and a shipping product is the daily grind. Like sculptors, game makers must carve, chisel, and sometimes cleave their visions out of solid nothing, and their patience is routinely put to the test by mundane or tedious tasks. Turning the grind into a tool to harness creativity is what a great team does, and what makes the difference between a game that ships by default, and one that becomes the best it could be.
“We learned that it is possible for people who work hard together to like and respect each other. That is the case with the team at Ready At Dawn, and it will be our highest priority to make sure it remains that way.”
Alright, now let’s hope The Order lives up to its promise and proves detractors (like me) wrong.