Today, February 18th, I'm writing the last post in the Heavy Rain blog where I have shared my feelings for several months now. A final post in the form of a summary, recounting the promotion, the previews, reviews, meetings that conclude a human adventure that lasted four years.

My plane from Madrid has just landed. Tomorrow I'm off to the Alps for a week's skiing with my family after two years with no holidays. The last presentation in Madrid marks the end of the Heavy Rain promotion, a week before the game is released. For the last month I've travelled the length and breadth of Europe meeting the press and doing presentations. Milan, Oslo, London, Paris, Madrid, with Guillaume filling in for Vienna and Copenhagen.
I must have given hundreds of interviews over the last few months, explained my inspiration at least a thousand times, why Heavy Rain is different and why I'm not afraid of player reactions. No, I'm not afraid. I crossed that hurdle a long time ago.


Game presentation in Madrid

PREVIEWS

A few weeks earlier the previews set the tone for how the game would be received all over the world. And I have to admit that there were really no surprises between the previews and the reviews. Along with Sony we had decided to send the first eleven scenes of the game to the world press for previews. The first eleven scenes are expository. They introduce the player to the story and characters. I was quite surprised by the reactions of some of the journalists who had previously been fairly cautious if not downright wary. A lot of them really enjoyed the experience and wanted nothing better than to continue the game beyond the preview. Others talked about a slow start and wondered what the future held in store, though they were curious rather than apprehensive. Yet others, who were fortunately in a minority, had definitively chosen their camp and condemned the game to the hellish torments of commercial failure because of a lack of guns, monsters, adrenaline and testosterone. Predictable. Nothing to worry about.

I was particularly touched by two previews, one by Eurogame.net and the other by the French magazine Joypad. In the first one the author described the scene between Ethan and his son and explained how it reminded him of his own childhood, commenting he experienced profound depression in a video game for the first time. The article was touching and well written and I found it particularly moving. I said to myself if the game can provoke this kind of reaction, it has a good chance of succeeding. I also think that Heavy Rain offers talented journalists an opportunity to demonstrate their talent by writing sensitive and intelligent articles that reflect on the medium, beyond the usual descriptions of levels, enemies, weapons, bosses and end of levels.
In the second article, published in Joypad, the author is surprised to find himself appreciating the slow beginning and experiencing previously unknown emotions in a video game. He also explained that "David Cage's Fahrenheit succeeds second time round". It's a bit hard on Fahrenheit. But I take it as a compliment.

I was only half reassured by this first feedback. Apart from a few enthusiastic journalists who were already convinced of the quality of the game, most of them gave a reserved appreciation of the game but without any indication of their final evaluation. I retained two things from these previews. The slow beginning had a greater impact than I expected. Of course this was no accident, rather a deliberate and conscious design choice that I had discussed at length with Sony. No, Heavy Rain would not start out with explosions and spectacular stunts. The game would begin by building up the story and the player's attachment for the characters, so that when the story takes off, the players will be emotionally involved and will experience the same feelings as the characters they have become attached to. By asking players to become involved with the characters, I was counting on amplifying their emotions at a later stage and rewarding them for their patience.

I was also surprised by the impact on the journalists of the simple actions that stud the early part of the game. Here again, I was relying on the role play, the fact that the players "become" the character by experiencing his everyday life. By asking players to look after their son when he came home from school, my idea was to make the players into fathers, to make them responsible, to build up the relationship with the character and between the character and his son, not by means of a cut scene but directly via the interactivity. The player plays the role of the father, he becomes the father, the one he chooses to be, exhausted but trying to re-establish bonds with his son and face up to the situation, or a father who is prostrate with grief and guilt and self-absorbed.

Most of the press seems to have understood this approach. I already know that overall the game will be a success because of the position it takes and its groundbreaking approach. I also know that it will meet with profound incomprehension on the part of others. Everything depends on how substantial each of these reactions is.

REVIEWS

The first review came from England in January, before the end of the embargo, as a result of a mysterious misunderstanding in England. It came out on its own before everybody else and gave the game 9/10.  Still under the effect of the embargo, I begin to receive other scores and other reviews, all of them located 9/10 and 10/10. I was moved by some reviews, like the one in The Official PlayStation US magazine that devotes two pages to describing what the reviewer felt as he played.  Not a word about the technology, the interface, the graphics, no descriptions, just the emotions experienced. The article gives the game a 5/5 score.

The end of the embargo comes along and I'm not even thinking about it. I'm too taken up by promotion, keeping track of the latest details for the patch and the first DLC and reorganizing the team for the post-Heavy Rain phase (and there's lots of work, analysing post-mortems, necessary restructuring, new technical orientations, and all this in the absence of most of the management staff who have taken six weeks holidays at the end of the project).

On the stroke of 5:00 p.m. I feel a certain tension in the studio though I don't pay any attention to it… until groups form around a desk and exclamations begin to crack the air. End of embargo: all the reviews land at the same time. Pressing F5 to refresh the information in real time, scores come rushing in from all over the world at the same time, articles tumbling in on top of each other in a variety of languages.

The scores are closer together than I expected. I was expecting a wide range of scores, given the "non-consensus" nature of Heavy Rain, but overall they turn out to be either 9/10 or 10/10, just like the first reviews. The articles vary in their content and are more or less interesting in their analyses, more or less superficial, but overall, they all say the same thing: Heavy Rain has met its target. The story holds together, the emotion is there, the interface is surprising but fits the format pretty well. Relief.

I have exposed myself to an enormous amount of flack over the last two years for this game. I knew that if it didn't measure up to my promises, I would probably have had enormous difficulty recovering my credibility. When you try to develop ambitious and atypical projects, credibility is your main trump card, the only thing that enables you to keep working.

More good news: the QTE sequences, that I spent the best part of two years defending, were well received. Most of the articles explain that the player is in control of the character most of the time and that the action sequences are gripping and intense. In short, exactly what I had been trying to explain for months, but it's always better when someone else says it.

In the end of the day, the unpleasant articles can be counted on the fingers of one hand, which is pretty unexpected. The two main French video game sites are among the most vociferous objectors (a prophet is never accepted in his own land). Most of the French press gave the game a very positive reception, as did other countries, but curiously enough these two sites seem to have missed the whole point. Apart from the mediocre scores (the worst score from any country being three points below the world average), I was struck by the mediocrity of the articles. An absence of reflection and analysis, the kind of article you'd expect from a fourteen-year-old in a schoolyard. Developers and publishers are trying to get video games to evolve. One of these days some of the Internet press is going to have to have a good hard look at itself. 

The English magazine EDGE deserves special attention, another international exception. This magazine used to be a thoughtful avant-garde magazine but it just isn't what it used to be. After three months of unpleasant articles on Heavy Rain (two of them before the preview, so without getting their hands on the game), the review was predictable. A strange article in the form of a settling of scores and in which my name appears in every other sentence, as if the review was about me and not about the game. Here again, no analysis, no reflection, no detachment, just a load of pseudo-intellectual waffle devoid of content.

Of course there were also a few negative articles with reasoned arguments that defended a point of view in a coherent fashion, as there were positive articles without any real analysis, but overall, Heavy Rain enabled us to see where the last outposts of stubborn conservativism lie, the ones where they think that the last thing video games should do is try to change, just stay where they've been for the last twenty years while improving a little (though not too much). In the end of the day, this resistance is extremely marginal, much more so than I expected. The vast majority of the international press is avid for change.

I have to admit that I awaited the results of the reviews with a certain degree of nervousness over the last few weeks. I know that the survival of my studio depended on these scores, as did my own survival. They are the best guarantee of my artistic freedom for my next project, the level of confidence I can demand, my legitimacy.
The scores were a relief to me. I know that lots of people were waiting to see me fall. I feel that I've fulfilled at least one part of my contract. I have always believed that a good critical reception was the least I had to achieve in order to continue working. I'm happy to have achieved that target.
The second part of my prediction now remains to be fulfilled: to see the game finding its public and selling.

PLAYABLE DEMO

At the end of a competition organized by Sony, a certain number of players were given access to the playable demo a week before its official release. This demo was an enormous preoccupation over the last few months and the subject of many discussions with Sony. The original idea was to use the HASSAN SHOP scene, which had already been presented to the public, particularly to illustrate the fact that it could be replayed in several different ways.
I wasn't really convinced that this scene was the best one to showcase the game. We finally agreed to show two scenes instead of one, SLEAZY PLACE and CRIME SCENE, in order to illustrate the diversity of the game play and to convince the remaining players who still thought the game was just a succession of QTEs and show the gripping atmosphere of the game.
ad always remained hesitant declared that they were convinced by the demo and had decided to buy the game. Others preferred not to play the demo in order to avoid discovering the game and buy it as soon as it was released.

The first feedback from the players proved that we had made the right choice. A lot of players who h



Outside and inside the German bus that promotes Heavy Rain

Great expectations seem to have built up around the game. I have been seeing this for several months in the media coverage the game received, of course, but also in the course of meetings with journalists and players, from our gamestatistics score (which measures the number of pages visited and therefore the level of interest for any given game, a score that placed us in a leading position in recent weeks with 98-99%).
The expectations are there, the reviews are good. Everything looks good. But this doesn't stop me getting stressed out about sales.

END OF THE PROMOTION

Fortunately, Sony doesn't leave me much time for soul searching. A presentation to the Italian press in Milan, then one in Oslo to the Norwegian press in a cinema, followed by a preview in London.
Lastly, and the biggest of all, a preview in Paris.


Game presentation by David


I have to admit that I was particularly apprehensive about this stage. A big cinema on the Champs-Elysées where film previews are usually shown. Red carpet, limousine, several hundred journalists, players, VIPs, the game's actors. On the agenda: a projection of the making-of, one hour of gameplay edited as a film, a roundtable discussion with film directors. I invited the team management and my parents. In other words, the kind of event where you don't want to put a foot wrong.

Heavy Rain’s Paris’ premiere

Guillaume has been working on the editing for several weeks in order to get one hour's film out of the first game scenes, obviously without spoiling the story. I spent the day doing interviews, with Heavy Rain's six main characters who will be present on stage for the first time this evening, along with set designer Thierry Flamand and the man behind the music score, Normand Corbeil, who has come from Canada for the occasion.
The day with the actors went particularly well. It's always an immense pleasure to see them, with the strange impression of seeing them as the characters in the game rather than real actors.

Having spent the day in interviews, I set out for the cinema. An enormous crowd in front of the cinema, you couldn't miss it. The show begins in thirty minutes… and nothing works. The projector can't read the video compression format correctly. We've spent two years freaking out at every demo that doesn't work and end up freaking out for the preview that shows the game in video.
Fortunately, it was all worked out at the last moment, much to everyone's relief as we were beginning to wonder what we could show instead.

Two packed cinema theatres, one in French, the other in English with international journalists from all over Europe (a special hello to the German journalists with their Heavy Rain bus!).

We get the actors up on the stage and I can feel the audience shudder as they note their resemblance to the characters. A special word for Jaqui Ainsley with whom it is difficult to pass unnoticed (I know from experience). I take advantage of this scene to get my son up on the stage (he did the Motion Capture animations for Shaun). A moment of pure pleasure. The kind of moment that makes us do this job. We accept having no life for two years, spending nights in the office, ruining our health in pursuit of chimerical illusions.

After the film, Neil Labute's documentary on the game is projected, with the collaboration of Stephen Frears, Samuel L. Jackson, Jean-Marc Barr and other famous actors, directors and artists.

The big moment of the evening for me was the roundtable discussion with Neil Labute, Mathieu Kassowitz and the immense Terry Gilliam. They have all played Heavy Rain and hearing Mathieu and Terry discussing it was a moment of sheer pleasure. Terry Gilliam, one of the old Monty Python team, director of the fantastic Brazil (one of the films that most marked me) and the amazing 12 Monkeys, to mention only two. The fact that he appreciated Heavy Rain is an immense honour for me.
I am also surprised by Mathieu's and Terry's analysis of the game and I feel we are speaking the same language, I feel that the medium fascinates them. With these people there's no need to discuss things like whether the emotion is important, whether telling a story is worthwhile, whether having sensitive and credible characters serves any purpose. All that goes without saying. In many ways, I feel much closer to them than to many game designers. I envy their talent, but I also feel that the fact of telling a story where the spectator is the hero is something that attracts them.
Now I know that it will be possible to build bridges between our media, not based on economic reasoning but on a creative desire, a joint project. People as talented as Mathieu and Terry don't exist in our industry. Perhaps Heavy Rain will provide unique opportunities to convince actors and directors to come and teach us what they know and help us to grow, evolve and develop.

The main cast on the scene

After the projections I speak with other famous directors who have come to see the presentation and they all tell me how extraordinarily interested they are in the medium. It may be possible to overcome another hurdle and enable interactivity to reach adulthood and find the talent and creativity to grow and become what it is: a fantastic means of expression.

An extraordinary evening of meeting and sharing. Sharing with the actors and the team who worked hard for nearly four years and now sees its efforts recompensed in the course of the evening. Sharing with players who have come to meet us. Meeting with directors and artists who came to see this strange video game that everyone is talking about.
When you come to the end of project, there are times when you feel at one with the world. It's a very fugitive moment, a sort of feeling of accomplishment. That's what I feel right now.

AND NOW…

The next day, more interviews, then a presentation and a preview in a large Paris store (the FNAC at Les Halles). A weird coincidence: it was in this store that I bought my first video game with my own money (BARBARIAN by PSYGNOSIS on ATARI ST) at a time when it was difficult to find two game boxes in the midst of the accountancy software. It was also here that I came for the first time to talk with a creator of video games (Hervé Lange, programmer of B.A.T) without dreaming that I might one day become one myself.
Also, and most of all, it was here that I lost my son one Saturday afternoon, a misadventure that was to inspire me to create Heavy Rain.
So, a presentation, signing autographs, photos with fans, then off to Madrid for interviews, a presentation, more autographs, more photos with fans.

And this evening I end this strange adventure that has lasted four years. The game came out in Japan today. Our sources tell us it sold out in several stores on the first day. In a few days Heavy Rain will be released in the rest of the world. The game will then have ceased to be our baby and will belong to the players.

Presentation of the game in a shop in Tokyo

I know the whole games industry will have its eyes riveted on the sales figures to see if the completely crazy adventure that Sony and Quantic Dream embarked on four years ago will pay off. I know that a commercial success can have a profound impact on the industry. Just as a failure would have negative consequences on desires to get the medium to evolve.

In more prosaic terms, I know the minimum number of sales I want to reach, below which I will consider that the game failed to find its public. The worldwide Day 1 is of great importance. The pre-orders are there, targets per country are ambitious but realistic. All the elements are there to make Heavy Rain more than just another critical success. Response in one week. I'll try not to think about it during my vacation. In any case, there's not much that I can do at this stage. In a few days we'll be able to count one by one the players who believe in the approach we used in Heavy Rain, the ones who believe that video games can be more than just a toy, that they can become a means of expression and perhaps, one day, an art form.
I'm sure of just one thing. I don't want to make any more toys.

Thank you for following my life and moods over the last few months on this blog. I hope I have managed to share my passion with you but also my doubts, without which there is no progress. Perhaps you will appreciate Heavy Rain differently having shared the moments that went into its creation. As you read these lines, you may already know whether Heavy Rain has found its public or not. Spare a thought for me ;-)