Xbox recently experienced another round of layoffs, and many former employees have begun to disclose insider information that was unknown in the past. Dan Callan, a designer who participated in the development of “Halo 4” and was recently laid off, revealed that Don Mattrick, the head of Xbox at the time, actually came up with an idea that the entire team will never forget during a development presentation. He hopes that “Halo 4” will add the “Real Money Auction House” mechanism that was criticized in “Diablo III” back then, so that players can spend real money to purchase the appearance of battle mechas.
“Diablo 3” has an overturned design, but he wants to move it into “Halo”?
Callan recalled that when the Mantis mecha came on stage during the demonstration, Mattrick suddenly raised his hand and asked everyone: “Has anyone played “Diablo 3″?” Then he suggested that “Halo 4” should imitate the cash auction of “Diablo 3” and sell mecha skins in the campaign mode. The problem is that the cash auction house in “Diablo 3” had already been scolded by players for disrupting the game balance and causing market manipulation. In the end, it was completely removed by Blizzard, making it one of the most failed commercialization cases in the history of the game.
Everyone knows this is stupid, but no one dares to object
What makes Callan even more helpless is that he said that everyone at the scene knew that this was a terrible idea, but at the same time they had to pretend that it was a “revolutionary good idea” and even pretended to start discussing the follow-up implementation plan, just because the person who made the proposal was the top person. In the end, he couldn’t help but angrily said: “The top management of the game are still a group of people who are divorced from reality and only want to make money.” He also added that he did not want to blame the laid off employees, but hoped that those who really made wrong decisions should be held accountable.
After reading the game, the player has only one sentence left: Fortunately, I didn’t do it.
After this past incident was exposed, many players expressed their gratitude. After all, if “Halo 4” really joins the cash auction field, it may become another major disaster. Now that Xbox is undergoing a new wave of restructuring and layoffs, this story that has been gathering dust for many years has once again made the outside world question whether it is the developer who ruins a game, or the people sitting in the conference room?