Prey’s 2017 creative director and founder, Raphael Colantonio, has alleged Bethesda compelled developers to link their game to an already-existing intellectual property.
According to Colantonio, the first-person shooter‘s creators never intended for it to be a “creative reinvention” of the 2006 game of the same name.
Colantonio said in a statement to the Academy Of Interactive Arts & Sciences, “I was a touch at war with parts of the management over the choice to call Prey, Prey. I was significantly, highly hurt by that. So even if I didn’t want to label this game Prey, I had to admit it in front of the media.
He continued, “I hate lying, and those are sales lies, not personal lies, but it still felt horrible. “I was required to back a message I did not desire. Not only myself, but no one on the team preferred the term “prey” to describe this game. Although there was no connection between our game and Prey (2006), there was some similarity.
I’m appreciative that a corporation will trust my ability with so many millions of dollars and provide me the resources to build a game, he continued. However, when you inform an artist that their game will be called Prey, a small part of the artist, the creative side, feels offended. You say I don’t think that should happen. I believe that was a mistake.
Colantonio continued by calling it a miscalculation on the part of the business to link Prey to a piece of intellectual property that was already in existence but not well understood. “I hate to be right in this case, but this name should never have been the game’s name,” I said.
Additionally, Colantonio said, “it was a slap in the face to the Prey’s original creators.” “I often felt the need to apologize to them. We did not intend to ” steal their IP” and claim it as our own. It stinks. I didn’t intend to do that. Prey’s sales were terrible as a result of everyone losing.
