Ubisoft's Ben Mattes could stand to have a few more "virtual pats on the back," guys. The producer of the new Prince of Persia, while happy with his new title, felt it wasn't sufficiently lauded.
Mattes tells IGN that the Ubisoft Montreal team took complaints about a lack of innovation and "taking risks" to heart. And no one seemed to care.
"What surprises me is how little these high level risks seem to be noticed and appreciated as attempts to shake up the industry and push things forward," Mattes said. "Perhaps I'm an idealist, but I think perhaps I was expecting a few more virtual pats-on-the-back for our attempts to do something new."
The PoP producer doesn't think that Ubisoft's the only one suffering from trying to listen to detractors of game design homogenization. He namechecks the competition, specifically the under-purchased Dead Space and Mirror's Edge, as some of this year's risk takers.
Perhaps some out of the box thinking about release dates is in order a little higher up the chain.