After witnessing Josef Fares’ leap beyond It Takes Two, the Hazelight boss appears on the pages of the Washington Post to harshly criticize the companies that adopt NFTs in video games and express all his opposition to the idea of ​​singleplayers proposed with the formula of games as a service.
Reflecting on the phenomenon of games supported by modern cryptocurrency and NFT token systems, the eclectic Lebanese designer, screenwriter and director says he is certain that “if you are developing a game and decide to adapt the design to ensure that users have to force pay to get what you are creating, then that’s the wrong approach. Sure, the CEO of any big company would say I’m a fool to think so because, after all, we’re all in companies that deal with make money. Yet I would still say no. For me, video games are art. “
Regarding continuous development video games or GaaS, the father of GOTY of the 2021 Game Awards It Takes Two, and equally important cooperative experiences such as Brothers a Tale of Two Sons and A Way Out, expresses less clear-cut positions while specifying how “I will not develop never play live service. I mean, people can take that approach if they want, I’m not saying replayability and GaaS are bad. oriented to a singleplayer experience (understood as disconnected from any online component and therefore also to be enjoyed in a cooperative, ed), the concept of replayability of GaaS disappears because it shouldn’t be there. And then we already have the problem of people who don’t finish single-player video games, so why waste resources on things like replay value? “.
In another interview with NME, Fares jokingly discussed his work and explained that making films is like going on vacation compared to video game development.