Rubin was ”the only THQ President” to visit them in their 10-year relationship with the publisher, and did so on his ”second week” as the new boss. 4A strives to ‘earn’ better conditions.
Prokhorov and his studio are ”thankful to Jason” for his article but believes ”the final consumer doesn’t care about our conditions. And this is RIGHT. We need no indulgence.”
Jason Rubin was formerly from Naughty Dog and given the unenviable task of trying to save THQ, but sadly it just had too much stacked against it financially. Rubin felt that Metro: Last Light’s 4A Games deserved to have their plight heard about by the wider community and so published an article.
”We’ve worked with THQ for 10 years (as we are the guys who made Stalker, too), and Jason is the only THQ President who visited us in Ukraine. And he did this on his second week in THQ. Keep in mind that he only had few months to somehow fix the situation. Alas, that didn’t work out,” began Andrew Prokhorov’s response.
”It is a fact that our work conditions are worse than those of other developers outside Ukraine. I don’t think anyone can doubt that - yes, it’s true that American and most of European developers operate in a country far more comfortable than Ukraine. And yes, the publishers pay them more. This is clear: the more “reasonable” the country the less the risks.”
”And we don’t want to be all dramatic about that - after all, better conditions are earned, and we strive to do this as soon as possible :)…” Rubin recounted times that 4A was forced to work with no heating in sub-zero temperatures, and even bring in construction generators to power their systems to keep working.
4A is ”thankful to Jason for his article.”
There was a small spat between Rubin and 4A’s new publisher for Metro: Last Light which involved the developer’s logo not being present on the Metro: Last Light website, but Prokhorov asks him not to lay all the blame on Deep Silver.
”Jason, please don’t blame Deep Silver for not having our logo on the game site… just like us, they ended up in a harsh situation and had to do a lot of things in two months, which was definitely a very hard task. I don’t blame them for letting the logo thing slip. They are trying hard,” he continued.
”After all, it’s our game that matters and not our logo.”
He finishes with: ”We deserve the ratings we get. After all, the final consumer doesn’t care about our conditions. And this is RIGHT. We need no indulgence.” Metro: Last Light releases this week on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Be sure to give it an extra thought or two before your next game purchase. Check out Jason Rubin’s article on 4A Games.