Victor Lucas' response on Recon:
Victor Lucas said:We never meant to offend anyone with our first taste of Recon. We knew our teaser clip was uncomfortable, but the subject matter itself is uncomfortable and I believed that Ellie Pyle's struggle to express herself after the PR person she was working with encouraged her to be honest and open was a remarkable unfiltered look at how painful something like Riot's abuse scandal is. It affects everyone. It is a more powerful clip because of that rawness and the effort to find the words.
But it's also true that we are too close to this material and we have erred with our first release of out-of-context footage. I am deeply sorry for this. To Ellie Pyle most of all, to all of our friends at Riot, and to anyone we've hurt with the release of this material, I'm sorry. That was never the intention.
Recon is not a "gotcha" show. It's a show about people with extraordinary passion working hard in interesting places to make art. It's a celebration of the human desire to entertain through games, and the effort that entails.
Riot was a unique stop for us in our first season. We knew that in in addition to the cool work being done within the interesting and creative space, there was something dark that we had to discuss. It's a small part of the conversation we had at Riot, but it was a powerful part.
So what do we do from here? We launch the show. If you've seen the teaser, you've seen the most uncomfortable couple of minutes in the hours of interviews we shot. The material you'll see in Recon is made up of studio visits and casual conversations about the culture and people that work together to make incredible things. The process of traveling to these studios and conducting these interviews has been some of the most gratifying work I've been able to do in my 25 years in this industry. I'm hoping you'll watch and enjoy the first season.
Thank you,
Victor Lucas
Executive Producer/Host – Recon