Why was Hit Detection LLC hired for Silent Hill 2?

[Hotdog Air]

I'm genuinely curious—what was the reasoning behind bringing in Hit Detection LLC for this project? It almost feels like their involvement was deliberately kept under the radar until after release, to avoid any potential backlash that could have negatively affected sales.

It's disappointing that Konami felt the need to rely on an external consultancy rather than having full confidence in their own creative vision for such an iconic game.

What value did Hit Detection actually add to the final product?

Silent Hill 2 was already celebrated for its characters, narrative and atmosphere. Were there really any issues with these elements—or even with DEI concerns—that required outside consultancy?

[Red]

Throw your clown awards here, to the person who actually has the game

[Kennedy]

Have you looked at Konami in the recent years? They ruined everything they had, Silent Hill included and went off to make gambling games. Of course they need external consultancy for a game, they made themselves a few years ago. And it's still nowhere near the atmosphere of the Original, even though, they just had to copy-paste essentially.

[Zebedee]

The whole point of an external consultancy is that it gives an outside perspective. And whatever they suggest doesn't happen unless the leads at a studio agree.

No idea what Hit Detection did for Bloober Team with this game - their services include everything from advice on portraying sensitive issues (would have obvious relevance to a game which touches on some heavy subjects) right through to mock reviews (which is primarily used to gauge where a game is at when making decisions about release dates etc.).

But then that's probably not an answer which is as exciting as a Youtube video about someone's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on social media.)

[Coffee Addict]

Originally posted by Hotdog Air:

Why was Hit Detection LLC hired

who dat?

[Jellydrake]

If I were to guess, they were probably responsible for all the Accessibility options for the game.

They sure didn't "woke"up the storyline. It's all the same. Just fought The Abstract Daddy and that was WAAAAAAAAAY more explicit than the original. Thanks, Blooberteam. I didn't need to see that.

Everyone is still as white as milquetoast.

You just can't see Maria's bellybutton anymore and people who whine about snowflakes getting offended ruining everything are super offended.

[Marhier]

Originally posted by Kennedy:

...Of course they need external consultancy for a game, they made themselves a few years ago...

You know Konami were the publisher, right?
Team Silent made the original SH2.

[Marhier]

Hit Detection and Sweet Baby Inc. are both consulting companies, but they focus on different areas.

Hit Detection provides services such as mock reviews, and helping game developers evaluate community reactions and the portrayal of underrepresented groups.

Sweet Baby Inc., on the other hand, is also known for consultancy, particularly in narrative development. They help developers with storytelling and creating inclusive content, often focusing on representation and diverse perspectives​.

While both firms offer guidance related to diversity and representation in games, Hit Detection is more oriented towards risk assessments and media reviews, while Sweet Baby Inc. is more focused on narrative and inclusive content creation.

Sweet Baby Inc. immerses itself in the kind of DEI-driven agenda that often feels like forced inclusion, diluting creativity with their focus on representation.

[Linyos Torvoltos]

Another thing to note about consultancies is that they don't have the final say in things. To my knowledge they can only advise a company on whatever it is they've been asked to advise.

If a consultant suggests something the developers don't agree with for whatever reason, the developers can choose not to take that on board.

At the end of the day, things are the way the are because Bloober Team and Konami wanted them to be that way. Whether that was their choice or agreeing with whatever their consultants had advised them.

Anyone crying about consultants are just using them as a convenient scapegoat to push their own toxic nonsense. The biggest reason the majority of these "Woke" games flopped is because they were simply bad games. Just take a deeper look at most of the games these people cry about. Concord, Suicide Squad, Outlaws. They all have much deeper issues than "This game has ugly characters :((((".

Note how there's plenty of "Woke" games that don't get brought up because they break the argument by being successful. Games like Cyberpunk, Hogwarts and by the looks of things, this game too.

[Plasticman]

Has anyone unlocked the dilator yet?

[victorinox]

Otherwise you get bad reviews? They have consultants in all major sites, like IGN, Kotaku etc

[Kennedy]

Originally posted by Marhier:

Originally posted by Kennedy:

...Of course they need external consultancy for a game, they made themselves a few years ago...

You know Konami were the publisher, right?
Team Silent made the original SH2.

You know, Team Silent was Konami, right? They weren't external developers. Konami made Team Silent and disbanded them after Silent Hill 4, sending the franchise into a nose-dive since then, because no one afterwards understood Team Silent's Silent Hill, it's universe and meaning.

[Vanguard]

Like people somehow forgot it's a horror game.... lol you should be aware of what you're getting into going in.

[Pnume]

Originally posted by KM:

Originally posted by Jellydrake:

If I were to guess, they were probably responsible for all the Accessibility options for the game.

Hit Detection is not offering this in their service repetoire. Most of thei their work is about sensitivity/activism stuff aka woke/self inject or twitter****posting about gamers should stop existing.

The important aspect of accessibility for enabling handicapped gamers is handled by real professionals not failed gaming journos.

I would say most of their offer is about market and media analysis.


_____________

Big Picture Analysis: We weigh in on early features and zoom out to see the broader landscape, identifying trends and opportunities.

SWOT Analysis: Our strategic assessment of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Build Comparison Analysis: We offer follow up evaluations with a check-up for titles-in-progress.

Sensitive Issues Assessment: Our team assesses the risk factors for depictions of character from underrepresented groups, themes, and potential community reactions.

Media Training: Our experts coach you to shine in interviews and presentations.

Sales Forecasting: We offer data-driven predictions as an external check on our clients' internal projections.

Mock Reviews: We help our partners assess how near-final titles will fare in today's critical landscape.

Greenlight Evaluations: We provide turnkey services to help our partners make decisions on publishing titles.

Competitive Analysis: We can explore the genre landscape to help shape our clients' decision-making.

Post-Launch Research: We can deliver postmortems that surface the factors behind a title's successes and shortcomings.

[Pnume]

Originally posted by KM:

Originally posted by Pnume:

Nice Copy-Paste of Hit Detection Webpage

You don´t hire them for "average joe analysis" or for what "the fans expect". Hit Detection is operated by failed video game journos/activists.

It is common knowledge in the industry why you hire these folks. The fact that they try to dillute their work is nothing new as they likes to stick to the shadows as it is bad for marketing and hurt sales.

First mentioning in the SH2R credits is a "narrative consultant" and
here is your "what fans expect" guy, also mentioned in the SH2R credits:
https://thatparkplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Jacob-Geller1.png
Hates gamers but works in an industry dedicated to gamers. You can´t make these clowntards up.

Now fo and post your shill company ads elsewhere

Excepts there's none of that in the game

[TrialandError]

They were probably hired because a few activists have been harassing Bloober Team for "depicting mental illness poorly" and Bloober Team erroneously got the impression that there was a majority behind that assessment or at least a large group of people. This started after the launch of their game The Medium, which is actually about demonic possession and not about mental illness. It is also the common error in which people interchange is-ought, thinking that a game´s storyline is prescriptive or endorses a particular behavior when it is in fact just a story. For example, a story depicting murder does not through that condone murder, but people have a hard time understanding things like this because most are not very bright today. This might be boiled down to a combination of the reverse Flynn effect and social media-fueled outrage culture.