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The creative director of Splitgate 2 and CEO of the development studio 1047 games, Ian Proulx, landed himself and his game in hot water after his Summer Game Fest stage appearance, which he now says "was the result of lots of brainstorming from a number of people with various crazy ideas."
Proulx wore a questionable hat, took a dig at Call of Duty, said he wanted to make something new and exciting, and then dropped a trailer for a battle royale mode.
Proulx says the whole issue was meant to be a joke that has since been taken out of context. "I stand by my intent and overall message that the state of FPS is stale, needs innovation, and isn’t what it used to be, but yes, I would have done things differently," he tells The Thumb Wars.
"Our intention was simply to express our frustration with the state of FPS. We took a swipe at Call of Duty the game, at SGF, not their developers." The official Splitgate 2 account did jab at one Call of Duty developer in a now-deleted tweet.
"We know Call of Duty is filled with talented and great people, some of whom we have hired and many of whom are our friends," Proulx continues. "We mean no disrespect to them."
He did blame the expensive $80 cosmetic bundle that players got angry about on a former Call of Duty dev who was Splitgate 2's head of monetization. Proulx describes them as "very aggressive on the pricing" and said the bundle was "news to me."
To potential fans put off by all this, Proulx says: "We hope you will reconsider. With Splitgate 2 and 1047, you are going to get authentic devs who listen, not devs who read a script their PR trained publishers tell them to read.
"Also, the game is insanely fun and unlike anything on the market. There are very few arena shooters in this day and age, and our battle royale is unlike anything out there with the way it connects multiple worlds through massive 100ft-tall portals."
Read our own Splitgate 2 review if you want to get an overview of the game.
Overall, the whole affair doesn't seem to have hurt Splitgate 2. Proulx says "our player base tripled" and that the team is "seeing substantial growth on all platforms, but especially on Xbox and PlayStation."
He does add that he didn't expect the level of controversy, and "would have tried to do something bold, but less controversial" if given the opportunity to try that SGF appearance again.
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