Spicy Horse founder American McGee thinks gamers and the press need to relax a little over things such as SimCity’s disastrous launch.

Although customers had a right to expect that products they’d purchased performed as advertised, it was a two way street, McGee told Forbes.

“Developers and publishers face extinction if they can’t solve the piracy issue while at the same time addressing the demands gamers make regarding connected and accessible games,” he said.

“Being in China all I see are companies who have solved these issues and customers who are happy with the results. Western developers have some obstacles to overcome before they get there.

The media’s reaction when a game launch didn’t go as planned weren’t helpful, he added.

“Not sure I see how incendiary media coverage or player reactions are warranted when things don’t work as expected.

“Do gamers or the media think EA or Blizzard wanted things to go so badly at launch? Do they think all the screaming and gnashing of teeth actually helped resolve those issues more quickly?

“There’s got to be a balance to the relationship. Just because you’ve given a restaurant your business doesn’t entitle you to throwing molten cheese fries in your waiter’s face if your margarita comes out frozen instead of on the rocks.

“People need to relax a little and stop turning everything into World War III – Gamers vs. The Man. There are no winners in that scenario.”

Earlier this year McGee claimed EA tried to trick gamers regarding the tone of Alice: Madness Returns – comments which he later apologised for, sort of.

He's currently in talks with EA over acquiring the rights to the Alice franchise.

The designer also gave Forbes his opinion on the PlayStation 4 launch: “Meh.”

Seems he was hoping for innovation in control input.

“Overall, I think this generation of consoles will struggle painfully against the momentum of mobile/online games we’re seeing globally," he said.

“At present it just looks like another distribution channel with not much to differentiate from other outlets (aside from sheer horsepower).”

McGee’s studio Spicy Horse is currently working on an online and mobile collectible card game set in hell.

The story revolves around rescuing souls from hell by collecting and fighting an army of demons.

More details would be available at GDC, said McGee, and the game is due to be released around May 2013.