Days Gone director blames "woke reviewers" for poor sales and reception
After claiming that game piracy was leading to "money out of [his] pocket" and that gamers shouldn't complain about games not getting sequels if they don't buy them at launch for full price, the director of Days Gone has gone on to make another amusing statement. In a response to a fan who was "blown away" by how much he enjoyed Days Gone and confused why it wasn't universally praised, the game's writer and director John Garvin claimed that there were three reasons why the game didn't do well, commercially or critically.
Three reasons:
1. it had tech issues like bugs, streaming and frame rate;
2. it had reviewers who couldn’t be bothered to actually play the game
3. And three, it had woke reviewers who couldn’t handle a gruff white biker looking at his date's ass
He blamed reviewers for either not actually playing his game, or on reviewers for being too woke to understand the story of Days Gone, which consisted of a guy trying to reunite with his wife after a zombie apocalypse. In GBAtemp's own, possibly woke opinion, after not playing the game at all, we found it to have a tired, generic take on a genre that had already been done to death, and that, "Days Gone sits at the cusp between good and bad. It exists as a wholly mediocre game, relying so much on its inspiration that it never feels unique. When compared to Sony's recent first-party successes in the form of Spider-Man and God of War, it only makes Days Gone that much blander".
According to Sony, the game managed to sell 8 million copies total, following its PC port, which led to somewhat of a small cult following, though the game remains at a middling 71 Metacritic score. Days Gone was never greenlit for a sequel, and Garvin left Sony to work for Crystal Dynamics, and is currently assisting in the development of an "NFT-themed game".
when i think cool outlaw biker, i think 'guy who does things he doesn't want to on behalf of people he doesn't like while complaining about it like a moody teenager asked to take the trash out'
— Shaun (shaunvids on bsky) (@shaun_vids) December 7, 2022
He deleted his Tweet and privated his account after gamers and reviewers criticized him for his comment, though the remark is archived, here.