Interviews// Too Human's Denis Dyack

SPOnG: So, what about that NeoGAF story? There seem to be two schools of thought on that one. One the one side you have people advising “don’t feed the trolls, just ignore it” and on the other side you have people applauding you for taking a stand to defend something you have put a long time into creating.

Denis Dyack: Yeah… that’s not why I did it though. Too Human is about the effects of technology on society. People think, or believe, that technology improves our communication; by and large, that’s not true. It’s changed the way we communicate. We can post in forums, we can call people on the telephone, we can use video conferencing…


SPOnG: It also increases the amount of ‘noise’ surrounding us as well…

Denis Dyack: It does! And it reduces reciprocity. Today’s society is based on 4,000 years of face-to-face communication (Questionable, given that NASA dates human kind to half a million years. There has also been Aboriginal rock art dated at 20,000 years old Ed.). Only over the last 75 years have we gotten these new communication technologies – people post in forums and the facial expression (that we have right now) is lost.

People can ignore that change. So, I posted there [on NeoGAF] to say “Okay, there is a significant loss of reciprocity, accuracy, there is no responsibility for some of these posts that are occurring” and it was effecting things. It was being picked up by the press and it does have an effect. Most of the stuff that’s posted on these forums has no basis in reality or fact.

Most of these people haven’t even played the game. They’re looking at screenshots and determining framerate! It’s completely nonsensical! But it’s affecting us and if it’s affecting us then we need to understand it and appreciating what it means. If the medium is the message, then shouldn’t we try to understand the medium?


SPOnG: Going back to what you’re suggesting are the problems with previews and the way the industry works [with previews] – just to play devil’s advocate on this - there are many that would say that you are fighting a losing battle?

Denis Dyack: Sure, there are many people that will say that. At the end of the day, is it more important to stand up for something that you believe in and potentially lose? I mean, I don’t know if we’ve lost. I don’t think we have, actually, I think we’ve won. I think our point was well received. Getting people to talk about it was all that really mattered.

Isn’t it better than just saying “Okay forums don’t matter, they don’t have an affect, let’s just not talk about it?”

Silicon Knights has been a company that often, more than anything else, if we see that there is something wrong, we will take a stand. We’re the type of company, (that) as an example if we saw some woman being hit on the street by someone else, we’ll step in and try to break it up; despite the fact that we might get stabbed or whatever. At the end of the day we’re going to try to do the right thing.


SPOnG: There’s a huge amount of marketing budget behind Too Human – is it going to appeal to the mass market that went out in their hordes to buy Halo 3 last year?

Denis Dyack: Do I think Too Human will be as successful as Halo 3 – I hope so! Though what we have done is broke new ground and established a kind of beach-head for the type of game that’s going to come in the future. The mass market is really very tough to define.

When you make a game – make a game that you want to play yourself. I personally love Too Human and I think it’s the best game we’ve ever made. We’re happy and comfortable with the results. If Too Human 3 is as popular as Halo 3, then we’ll be happy!!

SPOnG: Thank you for you time Denis.