I was sitting in a coffee shop this morning, sipping my cup of joe and having sausage croissant and acting all fancy, when I stumbled across a story on Eurogamer about God of War director Cory Barlog’s reaction video to seeing the review scores for his game being posted on Metacritic.
I had actually been on the fence about purchasing God of War this morning. Sure, I would’ve gotten around to it sooner or later, but it’s been a while since I was in a place of financial comfort to purchase video games the day they launch. I’m still not, so dropping sixty bones on a game has to be something I really want to do.
I knew God of War was going be a good game. It couldn’t afford not to be. But it wasn’t until I saw Cory’s video that I realized just how badly they needed it to be great. Not financially, Sony Santa Monica wasn’t going to curl up and die if God of War didn’t sell a bajillion copies (and it was always going to sell a bajillion copies, let’s be honest.) But as a creator and an artist, he needed it to be appreciated.
The raw emotion in his video showed elation, humility, and a metric ton of relief. I could practically see a 20-ton elephant slide off his shoulders the second he realized his game was a critical success. It was then that I decided to purchase the game, and I left from the coffee shop and went straight to the closest electronics store and bought it.
There were a lot of people in line, confirming my suspicions that, despite my decision to purchase or not, Barlog and his crew would’ve been fine. But it wasn’t about voting with my wallet. It wasn’t about supporting a large publisher such as Sony instead of an indie developer. It was about supporting an artist who was finding validation in five years worth of internal and external pressure to create. I know what it’s like to create art, to search for that validation, and to not find any. From this blog, to my photography, to any of the other things I’ve done in the past that have gone largely unnoticed, I long for the day I get to have my own reaction video. So I chose to buy the game, despite the fact that there were probably other, more important things I could’ve spent the money on, because whether you love what they do or hate it, the worst thing you can do to an artist is ignore them.
I remember when God of War was first announced, I read a story about Barlog approaching Sony with the idea of creating another God of War. The series had been a dead horse at that point, being cloned and beaten to death by three console titles and what, three more PSP/Vita games? Each one successively more mundane and cut and pasted than the last. He approached them and they said, “Sure, but it’s gotta be fresh.” I’m paraphrasing, but it was something along those lines. He had to present something new that wasn’t just another Circle-mashing, Kratos-shouting, rage-inducing action game like the last six GoW’s.
So he did, and here we are, five years later, watching this man have an emotional holy shit moment in front of the world. In fact, I think he actually said, “Holy shit,” as he crossed and uncrossed his arms repeatedly, the sign of a man who wants to shout and jump up and down and scream at the top of his lungs, but is trying not to.
Go ahead and jump, Cory. I would.
