Eidos and game reviews (again)

I did just write an awesome few paragraphs, but i actually can't say anything right now. So i'll rejoin the convo in 6 months when i wont get my arse handed to me.

In the end this is still an industry to create money, and well..corporations go long ways to make money, this is just one of them. Of course it's not honest but I think those of you who thought people were honest in this world need to start waking up. It's all about the big ole' $. Especially these days where the economy is going down the shitter.

Quote from kleinluka

In the end this is still an industry to create money, and well..corporations go long ways to make money, this is just one of them. Of course it's not honest but I think those of you who thought people were honest in this world need to start waking up. It's all about the big ole' $. Especially these days where the economy is going down the shitter.

it's not so much about being honest or not, it's more about when your reputation precedes you. once this has happened a couple of times, i am hoping for sales to fall on any titles from the same publisher. not because i don't support the industry; i do, but they still need to learn their lesson. i can't just sit back and let this happen and neither should you.

Quote from dux

Do you think this method is just another incentive for people to download more instead of buy?

I wouldn't say so. Though, I can see it being one to the kind of people looking for any incentive to download instead of buy, but still want to claim the moral high-ground when they do.

All press is good press, right

Apparently journo's are allergic to that stuff we tried it once.

Quote from FrieChamp

Right on Sentura, let's start a revolution! From a business perspective one has to wonder whether this kind of PR management works in the favor of the game publisher or against it. When editors decide not to put up with this stuff and go to the public, it can create quite a backlash, as seen here.

Meh. You'd THINK Eidos and Gamestop would've suffered a backlash from the Kane and Lynch stuff, but they didn't. Only the game suffered AFAIK.

Gamers are too complacent these days...

Do you mean complacent as in easy to please? Because I can’t say I agree with that notion.

To be honest, The Kane and Lynch Scandal died so fast it doesn’t really deserve those capital letters. Not even the vocal minority really cared about it for more than a week.

Review scores are a bad idea to begin with and only feed awful inventions like Meta Critic. The amount of emphasis that's placed on that system by publishers is ridiculous, it's an aggregate total of nothing. It's self defeating for the writers as well, no one is going to bother reading your review so long as there's a score at the bottom of the second or third page. At least without one, there's a chance someone might appreciate the content of the write up and make a reasonable assessment of the game based on a coherent argument rather than a meaningless number.

But people don't want that apparently, they want to know if the game is worth the price tag and nothing else. And so the cycle continues.

To be fair, MetaCritic does a fairly good job of extracting choice quotes from the articles — I don't think it's done automatically, and in combination with the aggregate scores helps to provide context for what a game's like.

I do think MetaCritic encourages some contemptible behaviour in publishers, but I don't think it's the root of the problem. I think something like MetaCritic could very feasibly continue to exist and be useful, so long as:

[*][*:2smdspss]Industry regulations are put in place to stop publishers trying to manipulate such sites
[*:2smdspss]Readers are intelligent enough to actually read the choice quotes and maybe a few of the actual reviews rather than just look at the score[/list]I certainly find MetaCritic useful when I'm researching a new game as it gives me easy access to dozens of reviews, several of which I typically read in full and most of which I read the excerpts from. The score isn't perfect, but generally if a game's in the yellow bracket I treat it with extreme caution, and if it's in the green bracket I'm very open to it and will take a close look.

I'm guilty of jumping on Game Rankings as well the odd time but I think the bottom line is reader/player preception of those numbers, and that being fed back to publishers. Games that score less than an 8 are looked at with caution. May as well stamp a giant 'RENT' next to the score. Look at Mirror's Edge, a genuinely innovative game, and it's averaging a 75% or whatever. My guess's are because it was short and had some trial and error moments. So, basically, that number is telling you to forgo or be weary or doubtful of a fresh experience because it's not the 20hour, multiplayer heavy, mode stacked on mode, bullet point riddled juggernaut that the high 8's and 9's are reserved for. Which is kinda bullshit.

It's just a negative cycle in almost every sense. It's not just the score of course, but it's certainly a starting point for bad decision making.

Quote from FrieChamp

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/

Is it wrong when I find this whole thing 'hilarious'? I imagine it was CrazyMAC on the phone and then it just comes over me

haha, oh man.

on a more serious note, why the hell is barrington harvey getting the blame for this? eidos made the call in the first place...

You are all a bunch of fuckers (<3 Frie)

Sent: Because everyone blames the PR company. Were paid to take the shit and make the client look awesome

It's rather intresting seeing it from the otherside at least. Anyway, nothing i can say on that perticual topic...but most of you know me and the things i do for Barrington Harvey. The company has been around 20 years, we 'aint' some delboy outfit thats just appeared on the scene. I hope what came about on Friday wont be pinned against the companys name.

Review scores are a good idea on paper and an okay idea in execution; they are basically a no-frills, statistical summary of the text in the article. Inaccurate, yes, but slightly faster to gauge than 5 columns of text over two pages of A4. It’s often actually the incentive to read it in the first place.

Film, music and book reviews all have review scores and I’ve yet to see anyone say those are an out-dated concept on a crutch, or that everyone should be forced to read the authors musings instead, as they transcend a few soul-less stars.

They are far from perfect but that doesn’t mean they don’t have their own merits. I would imagine the amount of people who are using purely a number as the basis for their purchase is rather low.