EA’s Jean-Charles Gaudechon responds to Boogie’s critics

Game designer Jean-Charles Gaudechon, who worked as the lead designer for Electronic Arts‘ Wii rhythm title Boogie, has responded to the beating Boogie has gotten from critics.

The game has so far elicited mostly negative reactions from critics since its release. The first review it got was a 3 out of 10. In an interview with GameFile, Gaudechon responded, “When I see a 3 out of 10, I think it’s people completely hermetic to it, just not getting it.”

Gaudechon also addressed critics’ negative reactions to Boogie‘s simplistic controls and gameplay. “My philosophy in terms of design: Controls shouldn’t be a showstopper,” Gaudechon said. “Difficultly should come from the game. It should be easy to dance. It should be tough to dance on a certain level of difficulty.”

Gaudechon defended the game’s control system by saying that it’s ideal for the game’s target audience. “When we did focus groups, we had 5-year-olds and 77-year-olds coming here. Twenty-nine-year-old hard-core gamers are not going to help us very much.”

The designer does agree with one particular criticism though: online play. “We could have pushed for it. It’s just that at one point we just made sure we could nail what was important for the game. That’s why the first version of this game is what we could do in the time we had for it.”

Via MTV

Game designer Jean-Charles Gaudechon, who worked as the lead designer for Electronic Arts‘ Wii rhythm title Boogie, has responded to the beating Boogie has gotten from critics.

The game has so far elicited mostly negative reactions from critics since its release. The first review it got was a 3 out of 10. In an interview with GameFile, Gaudechon responded, “When I see a 3 out of 10, I think it’s people completely hermetic to it, just not getting it.”

Gaudechon also addressed critics’ negative reactions to Boogie‘s simplistic controls and gameplay. “My philosophy in terms of design: Controls shouldn’t be a showstopper,” Gaudechon said. “Difficultly should come from the game. It should be easy to dance. It should be tough to dance on a certain level of difficulty.”

Gaudechon defended the game’s control system by saying that it’s ideal for the game’s target audience. “When we did focus groups, we had 5-year-olds and 77-year-olds coming here. Twenty-nine-year-old hard-core gamers are not going to help us very much.”

The designer does agree with one particular criticism though: online play. “We could have pushed for it. It’s just that at one point we just made sure we could nail what was important for the game. That’s why the first version of this game is what we could do in the time we had for it.”

Via MTV