The curious case of Catly, the game that left a cheshire grimace on its audience
Purr and dump.
Per an incisive investigation on r/games, Geoff Keighley’s circus of corporate consolidation in The Game Awards may have enmeshed itself in the perilous plight of the blockchain - to the aghast of all and the surprise of none. Though the concurrent audience of 4 million were treated to a veritable smörgåsbord of coveted announcements, from Naughty Dog’s minor brand showcase unto itself in Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet to a characteristically dour cinematic for The Witcher IV, the presence of a trailer light on concept, gameplay, or indications of a human touch heaved an unwelcome hairball onto the biggest stage of the year. If Catly’s vagaries were too misty, the studio behind its development, amusingly named SuperAuthenti, hoped to remedy concern through a richly illustrated Steam page.
Oh, this helpful synopsis mystified you further? You may be wondering how robots play into its concept, or how one may “collect stories”. The answer may be found on your Apple Watch - sorry, Catly will be available on an Apple Watch?
The absence of a defined creative direction for this project is as apparent as its oil-and-water blend of AI-generated buzzwords. Catly’s promise of creation is in opposition to its emphasis upon escape; the latter sounds quite intense for a presumed playpen of paradise. Even to the naked eye, this project appears to be a brazen scam - not a particularly well engineered one, either. The lack of information upon its mechanics suggests the team may not be working with the Unreal Engine to render their “breathtakingly beautiful cats”. Indeed, art is subjective; these cats are unremarkable. Compared to Stray, a gorgeous fusion of environmental stylisation against photorealistic fur and silken animations, Catly’s trailer fails to capture feline behaviour, delivering a ghastly candyland populated by abrasive tones shared by their cats. The trailer’s elements were not consciously separated, indicating that its creators relied upon image generation to convey their malignant desires.
Crucially, SuperAuthenti - again, without a “c” at its end - delivered a game in 2022 named Plantly: Mindful Gardening. That the team returned to the “ly” suffix for their latest grift is both damning and hilarious, as though they were Homer Simpson naming his pet lobster “Pinchy”, or Itchy and Scratchy introducing a character called “Poochie”. Plantly’s synopsis used the same roundabout terms as Catly, greatly exaggerating its modest concerns - though its reliance upon the blockchain was not as sheathed as its successor.
Evidently, the folks at SuperAuthenti (or Shanghai Binmao Technology, as they were credited on Plantly) wanted to qualify their legitimacy through a splashy announcement at The Game Awards; I doubt their intentions were to deliver a competent product for Steam or the Nintendo Switch. The Apple Watch page is their actual pitch: an NFT gallery to sport on your wrist. Unfortunately, to all ailurophiles who had hoped for a genuine Triple A experience featuring a collection of classy cats, you may have to hold onto that dream for the time being.
On a night where a genial, chummy artificial intelligence in Astro Bot won Game of the Year, Catly’s standing amidst the festivities is as though a Terminator emerged from a time vortex and sent Astro Bot into lower orbit. Thus, should Geoff Keighley and his team be held responsible for his lack of scrutiny on this particular presentation? As their commercial apparatus has become increasingly complex, the need for unconditional capital has become essential to maintaining The Game Awards’ authority within the industry. As major studios command their own centre of gravity - Rockstar, Valve, Nintendo - their announcements will be made on their own terms. If a cryptic crypto studio offers a tidy sum to support your bid for an exclusive unveiling of Naughty Dog’s next title, it is a straightforward decision to make.
Ultimately, though The Game Awards are being fairly raked over the coals for this, this case should not be recognised as a moral failing within the industry. They are a private organisation; their constituency can associate with whoever pays to be showcased upon platform.
However, they should not be taken seriously.