Why do people continue to do this?
A question I ask myself nearly every game released that I have been following or have had interest in. For some reason there is always “that one person” or in this case “that group of people” who really like to take anything positive and shit all over it. The newest item they’re targeting is Quantic Dream’s new Interactive Drama, Detroit: Become Human.
Drama will sell regardless
It appears that when people say drama sells they aren’t lying. Seems if there is anything in life to get enjoyment out of in any way, simply make a video or an article shitting on it and you are sure to get views and clicks and with ad space these days that’s a sure-fire way to generate revenue. It seems that YouTube channel Cycu1 with over 16,000 subscribers knows this all to well. He recently uploaded a video entitled Detroit Become Human 2016 vs 2017 vs 2018 Graphics Comparison, in this video the images for the 2018 portion appear to have blurry images and flat textures which do in fact make the characters and environment look noticeably worse. Upon digging through the interwebs we have discovered that the source for the 2018 footage seems to be from a video titled “Detroit Become Human – Official Release Date Trailer”. Now with that title you may ask yourself, “seems that there is nothing malicious or off about this then”. Well, you would be wrong and let me explain why. The video footage has been uploaded to several YouTube channels and all, but there is one very striking point. It’s NEVER been uploaded to the official PlayStation channel. In fact, the latest video regarding Detroit uploaded to the PlayStation channel is the trailer from Paris Games Week, which is the trailer posted above. It seems the video in question originated from the PlayStation store itself. Yes, you heard that right, it appears that someone recorded the footage off of the PlayStation Store and then rendered the video and uploaded it to YouTube in an effort to either get the “trailer” on to the internet or to knowingly mislead people as the quality of the videos on the Store aren’t the best and then to add all the other compression it went through before finally landing on YouTube as you see below.
Now if you will, take the opening scene of the trailer posted above and pause it right when it says “PEGI 18”. Now look to the bottom left of the screen and you will notice something very similar to what you’ve seen before especially if you are an owner of a PlayStation 4. You will see the button prompts that you would see on a trailer posted in the Store.
Malicious Intent or Honest Mistake?
This is the impossible portion to know. There is no way to know the intent behind these YouTube channels and their uploads but what we can know for sure is that they have created a lot of buzz around the internet and specifically within gaming twitter. There are people genuinely concerned that this game has been downgraded due to these videos. There are of course those that are using these videos to feed the narrative that the game has been visually downgraded and to say that gamers have been lied to. All of those concerns and false outrage can rest assure that this game has not been downgraded and that it’s simply either something that has been uploaded without a thought of what it could cause or uploaded knowing full well how the internet would react. I’m not in the department of pretending to know people’s motives so I just felt it was necessary to set the record straight and ease peoples fears regarding this game.
Make sure if you are interested in this title that you either look to preorder it through your local retailer if you are a physical media type of gamer or take a look at the digital deluxe edition on the PlayStation store where you can get the game, a dynamic theme, avatars, digital art book, digital game soundtrack, along with Heavy Rain playable immediately after preorder digitally on PlayStation 4. Detroit: Become Human is set to release on May 25, 2018.
