Daedalic wants to accept justified criticism, but also criticises video

In response to a question from GamesMarkt, Daedalic Entertainment has responded to some of the accusations made in the GameTwo report "Why Gollum had to fail". However, the Hanseatic company also criticises the authors. They say that Daedalic's requested position on the issues covered was not sufficiently taken into account.

With the report "Why Gollum had to fail", Game Two not only dealt with the failure of the ambitious production, the format produced by Rocket Beans also shed light on Daedalic's company history and brought to light behaviour of the management worthy of criticism, which provoked a corresponding reaction (we reported). At the request of GamesMarkt, Daedalic Entertainment has now commented on the report. The Hanseatic company sent the following written statement, which we publish in full

"All of us at Daedalic are very saddened that the release of Gollum, which undoubtedly fell short of expectations, is now being used as an opportunity to question Daedalic's 17-year company history with its numerous successes and awards. We are happy to accept justified criticism and will, for example, look into the allegations regarding internal communication between management and the team. However, it is far too simplistic to link Gollum's current qualitative problems with general incidents, some of which occurred many years ago. The best example is the difficulties that almost all companies had when the minimum wage was introduced at the beginning of 2015. At the time, Daedalic tried to find a fair solution for each individual case and to keep as many employees as possible in the company. That was more than 8.5 years ago, when Gollum was far from being planned - yet this is now being used as one of the reasons for the game's failure (title of GameTwo: "Why Gollum had to fail"). It is always important to Daedalic to answer questions transparently and openly. That's why we're transparently sharing GameTwo's original questions, along with our answers to them, which we feel have not been adequately addressed. Statement from Daedalic Entertainment at the request of GamesMarkt.

In summary, Daedalic takes a self-critical view of the report and promises to accept "justified criticism". However, Daedalic rejects some of the criticism. And the company criticises the authors for not "sufficiently considering" Daedalic's point of view.

For the sake of transparency, Daedalic Entertainment has sent GamesMarkt the complete list of questions, including Daedalic's answers. For the sake of clarity, however, we have refrained from publishing the twelve pages in their entirety.

Given the volume of correspondence, it is understandable that not all answers were quoted in full in the article. However, the quotes that have been included have been reproduced verbatim and, in GamesMarkt's opinion, are in no way taken out of context or exaggerated.

However, it is also true that sometimes defensive statements were not taken into account. For example, Daedalic's response to accusations of choleric and bossy behaviour began with the words: "We are very surprised by this accusation, as from our point of view Daedalic has a friendly working atmosphere and an open door policy. We can in no way confirm the behaviour described, [...]".

It is understandable that people at Deadalic are not happy about the non-use of such passages. However, it is difficult to judge objectively whether these or other omitted statements are decisive for the overall picture. From GamesMarkt's point of view, the use of individual quotations is, of course, subject to the editorial sovereignty of Game Two, as is the case with all journalistic media.