“It’s my fault, but I have no experience in marketing”

A little less than a week ago, the Blue Box Games studio was still being talked about negatively, after the deletion of certain tweets, those revealing details about upcoming communications plans. While the Prologue is still pending, this once again dubious attitude on the part of the developers caused the players to react strongly, anticipating a new cancellation of the game, the studio being customary of the fact. A new bad buzz on social networks that prompted Hasan Kahraman, the founder of the studio and game director on the game Abandoned, to speak. It was at the microphone of our American colleagues from IGN that the man justified himself, admitting that he was the author of the deletion of tweets. He did so because those messages no longer reflected the reality that Abandoned represents today, but he concedes that it was a mistake to have deleted them.

I work on the game constantly, every day. I work with colleagues but also freelancers, and some of my colleagues are also involved in other projects. It’s a game that is in full development, I’ve been working on Abandoned since 2017 and the concept of the game has changed several times during these years. The reason no one has seen anything of the game yet is simply, and I’m going to describe it in one word, yes I’m afraid, I’m not going to lie to you.

Why am I afraid? Because it’s a personal work, a project close to my heart. I don’t work for Ubisoft, or some AAA game publisher telling me what to do, or what kind of game to make. It’s something personal. And the development process, no one can really understand, because gamers don’t really know what developing a game entails.

Players don’t care, what interests them is what he sees at a given moment. And I’m torn between these two choices: choosing to show a work in progress to share the state of advancement of the game with the whole world, or wait to do a proper reveal. I am torn between the two. I’m afraid. And I’m not going to lie to you, if I haven’t shown anything yet, it’s because I don’t know how I’m going to present the game to the world. I’m still thinking if I’ll be able to do it properly.

During the 33 minutes of this interview filmed on video, Hasan Kahraman clumsily tries to justify his communication errors, such as the clues that suggested a game signed Kojima. His explanations lack clarity, he often searches for his words and the reasons which led for example to affirm that the name of his game began with the letter “S” and ended with the letter “L” is a nice balancing act that ‘he can’t manage to set up elsewhere. If he justifies the fact that he was looking for a community, we understand above all that he deliberately lied to build up a fanbase and allow him to have this spotlight that he would never have had. as a basic indie studio, while still getting significant help from PlayStation. Not sure that these next projects will be welcomed in the same way if he were to work with other manufacturers and publishers…