'Gears Of War' EP Blasts 'Avowed' And Art Director Matt Hansen: "Why Would You Say This?"
Gears of War Executive Producer Laura Fryer, who worked on Gears of War and Gears of War 2, blasted Avowed and its Art Director Matt Hansen after he disparaged Elon Musk.
Fryer commented on Hansen’s actions in a recent video upload titled “The Games Industry Elephant.”
In the video, she first recaps what went happened regarding Avowed and Hansen. First, she noted that it was discovered the game features pronouns.
Next, she discussed Elon Musk’s reaction to the inclusion of pronouns. He wrote on X, “Having pronouns in a fantasy video game is utterly unacceptable.”
Next, Fryer noted Hansen’s response on BlueSky, “Sickos.jpg. I wanted to badly to make him mad with my game, and I cannot believe it actually happened.”
He then threatened, “just wait until you see the default, you said little s**t.”
Fryer then commented on this saying, “I personally find this situation baffling. Does he know Elon personally? Why does he want to make Elon mad with his game? Why would you say this to someone who is easily one of the most controversial people on the planet and therefore has millions of people reading his posts?”
“This interaction may be the one impression that people will ever have of the game Avowed,” she stated.
She elaborated, “To be clear, I’m fine if Elon ends up not buying it. That’s his choice. What I’m not fine with is a leader putting his team and game at risk.”
“And this is where social media comes in,” she said. “At any point you can read something, get offended, and with one emotional outburst online you can change your game’s momentum. You can ruin years of a team’s work.”
“Of course, Avowed is likely going to be review bombed,” she predicted. “There are plenty of people that are more than happy to join in the fight. Avowed is now mired in controversy and when they launch they will have to overcome this situation.”
“And that’s the tragedy because it sounds like it might be a great game and it’s heartbreaking to think that it may never get a chance,” Fryer concluded. “I feel sorry for the team that’s working on the game because having all of this going on while you’re trying to final a game, it’s not fun.”
While Fryer rightfully questions Hansen’s actions, at the end of the day he only put oil on the fire given he and Obsidian had already included pronouns in the game, a clear sign that the game will be pushing woke ideology.
Nevertheless, she is right that the game now faces a much higher hill to climb than it likely would have. The game currently has just 53,374 followers on Steam just a month and a half out from release. It is only 31st on Steam’s wishlist and just 1360 on the Top Sellers list.
READ: EA Bans 'Apex Legends' Player For Telling Another Player To "Don't Be Gay"
For comparison, Dragon Age: The Veilguard had 61,164 followers on September 16th, about a month and a half from its release date. That game also pushed woke ideology and only managed an all-time peak concurrent player counter of just 89,418.
It was also revealed to be in the lower half of Steam’s Top 100 sellers of 2024 and was in the 68th position in Europe’s best selling games of 2024.
Games Industry Head Christopher Dring reported, “Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which came out at the end of October, that was No. 19 in the best selling new game chart, but was No. 68 overall.”
However, he noted that Black Myth: Wukong and Palworld were not included in that list because their digital sales data had not been provided.
What do you make of Fryer’s comments regarding Matt Hansen and Avowed?
It makes sense that he's the art director, because every screenshot of the game looks like bashed-together garbage. lol
There should be a way to force these people out of the studio. It's terrible for the staff who need to be associated with the project and can't Alan Smithie themselves.
At an interview:
"Oh, you worked on a game? Which one?"
"Avowed."
"We're not going to be able to move forward."
"But, I just made the trees look good."