Cory Barlog thinks bad ports should be blamed on publishers, not developers

Sony Santa Monica Studio creative director Cory Barlog has shared his thoughts on ports in the wake of the God of War launch on PC. He explained why the bad quality is usually not the developers’ fault.

God of War (PC)

Barlog opened up about it in an interview with German outlet GameStar. “When developers are criticized for a bad PC port, they probably got a very small team and very little time,” he said.

According to Barlog, any game can be ported well if the team has the right expectations and necessary expertise. However, things do not always go according to plan in reality.

“Sometimes the publisher says: ‘That is exactly the amount that we are willing to spend. That’s the maximum time you have for it. And that’s the platform we want the game on,’” the developer said. “Realistically, that’s probably not enough.”

God of War came out on PC on January 14, becoming the highest-rated PC version among all PlayStation exclusives so far (Days Gone, Horizon Zero Dawn, Death Stranding, etc.). It received 93 on Metacritic and topped Steam’s weekly top sellers chart.

The game also peaked at 73,529 concurrent players on Steam, according to SteamDB. In comparison, Horizon Zero Dawn reached 56.5k peak concurrent players and Days Gone peaked at 27.4k concurrent players.

The PC version of God of War was also praised for its technical quality and performance, with Digital Foundry calling it a “sensational port.”