Earlier this week, Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke, hot off the back of the Divinity AI drama, jumped on X to defend Highguard, saying that all art "deserves respect," even suggesting in a now-deleted post that critics should be judged with their own Metacritic-style system as recompense.
Given that Vincke also said that one of the best reviewers he ever knew "refused to review games he considered failures," and that you should "be nice to people that create things," many took his thread to mean that he was against any and all criticism. Coming from someone who used TGA as a platform to call out games by committee, designed solely with trends in mind to appease shareholders, it was a bizarre sentiment.
However, he has since clarified in a lengthy post to X that he doesn't have an issue with criticism, only that "it doesn't need to be hurtful."
"I really need to learn to weigh my words more carefully," Vincke said. "I genuinely was trying to make a constructive argument but phrased it poorly. It's been bugging me so let me try again: my point wasn't that I have an issue with criticism. My point was that...
