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Game Previews Just Game Marketing?
Kotaku has a feature up today written by James Wagner Au, formerly embedded reporter in the world of Second Life. He's now doing his own thing, and he's got a fairly cynical discussion over at the Kotaku site about the real purpose behind game previews in industry rags. From the article: "For the thing of it is, game magazine previews are almost uniformly positive, even for the most undistinguished titles. So it unrolls thus: publisher makes mediocre game; press previews depict mediocre game as being good or at least worth a look; excited gamers read previews, foolishly believe them, start making pre-sale orders of mediocre game; driven by preview press and pre-sale numbers based on that press, retailers stock up on mediocre game; publisher makes money from mediocre game, keeps making more games like it."
... surprised
I'm telling you, everything this guy says is gold. :)
It wouldn't make sense to say many bad things about a game before it's even finished; it wouldn't be fair. It does make sense that game writers would tell the eager fans everything they do have to be excited about. Should they write me an article telling me that some budgetware paintball game will have no features and the core gameplay will suck? No. That can be saved for a review. When something rad like Oblivion is being developed, it does make quite a bit of sense to tell me what'll make it so interesting beforehand. If they didn't, nobody would buy the magazine. It's not selling games, it's selling magazines.
Would you base your opinion of a car on a video of a test drive of a prototype version? No?
Then why would you do it with a game?
This is non-obvious?
Can you imagine a world where journalists were objective and direct about unfinished games? "This game sucks, it's full of bugs and there's only two levels!!"
But you have to bear in mind that they're trying to fight two of the mightiest forces in history: Marketing and Money.
That said, as a gamer I'd describe it as the 'good fight', and I'm behind them on this one. (The most disappointing game i've played recently has been Star Wars: Empire At War - proof enough for me that even the Star Wars name can't save a mediocre title. And no, I never played Galaxies.)
That's why previews are largely worthless. To paraphrase H.J.Simpson, "(More) Tomb Raider? How can I lose?!"
Why do games, for the most part, unrelentingly suck such ass?
..
.. but that's simply not the case. Thinking up something original is exceedingly tricky. Games cross a bridge between technical innovation and creativity .. that makes them doubly difficult. And on top of that it's (perceived to be) a big money, big profit, prestigious part of the IT industry .. and that attracts just about everyone regardless of their level of capability.
Because making games is hard.
See also: Websites, records, television programmes
Anything that involves a creative input is difficult because thats the way we're made. We love to think of ourselves as wonderfully creative creatures all very capable of coming up with brilliant new ideas day and night
So you have a difficult creative process blending with some hardcore technical requirements being worked on by just about everyone who wants fame and money.
To be brutally honest, the article should be asking how the hell any games are any good, not why most are bad.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Who pays £40 or whatever for a game without reading several reviews about it, or having played it first? I don't get it, but apparantly it must be lots and lots of people.
No problem though - hang back a little, and you get to buy a game once the reviews are out, the servers are up and the patches are released.
Don't most manufacturers of most any product try to influence reviews? Even to the extreme of bribery and/or psuedonyms?
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Have the masses really become so media illiterate that it needs to be explained to them that crap is crap?
Tune in next week for evidence that no real women look like TV weatherpersons, global warming might actually be happening, and that Bush is lying about that, too.
Christ on a flatbed.
Also reported today the sky is blue, foods give you gas, and hitting the ground from a fall hurts.
Hard to get a solution.
Here are your options:
1) Gamers get positive previews and find out what games will look like, how they will play, but will not hear any of the negatives.
2) Gamers hear nothing of new games and have to wait for reviews of the games after they are released. Or worse: purchase based on number of TV ads they see.
Given those, i'll take option #1 anyday. It's not fair to game developers if they will get ripped for framerate issues when they let editors take an early playtest. There's lots wrong with the video-game industry (such as bought REVIEWS). However, overly-positive "previews" are not one of them. They're par for the course and an acceptable trade-off.
Really, I don't expect anything from a game preview other than to get an idea of what an upcoming game is going to be about, what it might look like, what kind of gameplay or innovations it will feature, etc. Granted, some of the hyperbole can be distracting (i.e. "this game is going to REDEFINE FPS's!!!!"), but it's not generally something I read a game preview for. Honestly, the biggest thing I care about is screenshots and online videos (something which is of course handled much better online than in magazines)..... I don't think I'd ever pre-order a game though or even buy it on the first day though (unless I was reasonably confident it would be good) until I read more final reviews, and also read more user reviews and impressions.
"the circle jerk is complete"
This is how I feel about World of Warcraft, AKA FactionQuest AKA World of PVEcraft, AKA one of the most unambitious mediocre games ever published.
In WOW, endgame content basically consists of endless faction farming, nonstop instance grinding, and totally shitty PVP based primarily on gear.
I'd give my left nut for a revamp back to the original Ultima Online (which, strangely, had far superior endgame to most of the modern MMORPGs).
Gaming companies now are just going to follow Blizzard's lead for the next 5 years churning out shit games with polished UIs and somewhat decent netcode, instead of making something novel, inspiring and nonrepetitive.
That article hits the money.
...that people that post about video games are shills.
That said, Madden NFL 06 is pure engineering genious. The new QB Vision Control and QB Precision Placement really brings you into the game. NFL superstar mode brings you into the world of top talent.
Overall, Madden NFL 06 will totally change the way we think about console NFL games.
Remember the good old days where we had unbiased gaming previews and reviews with none of those terrible corporate sponsorship problems? Wait, that's right I grew up on Nintendo Power. Their review of "The Wizard" was dead-on. That was the greatest film ever!
Reviews ensure that developers have a reason to make the game as good as possible. If previews drive sales too, then it allows developers to take more risks -- because an ambitious game that ultimately fails will have a good preview writeup and sell enough not to be a total loss.
The author is trying to posit an implied (but untrue) connection between previews allowing mediocre games to sell and all games 'sucking.' Mediocre stuff sells in every entertainment industry that exists -- if only the best games sold then the market would be too risky to enter.
Water is wet.
The sky is blue.
Politicians are crooks.
How is this news?
This is a sig. Deal with it.
Is it just me, or does this read more like pimpage for a new upcoming feature on their (Kotaku's) website? The fact is very well known that the bulk of the videogame press - EDGE excluded - shill for publishers, especially when high profile, high budget titles are delayed or don't meet development expectations. Actually, I'm surprised that the normally-sane Kotaku is making a big thing of it. That /. is interested does not surprise me.
Next on Slashdot: Movie critics shill for movie studios, film at 11.
neuro at well dot com (when I post, it's my opinions, no-one elses)
Hello. Did you just wake from 3000 years of cryogenic suspension?
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.
He missed out "???" before "Profit."
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
You might notice that a lot of reviews rate the games out of 100. I think people already have a slant about that sort of system based upon school. At school, when your efforts are rated out of 100, it feels like there's very little difference between somebody who's gotten 20 and somebody who's gotten 45. I think it's similar with how people look at games. Look at some of the reviews that fanboys put out for their games. They'll say it's worth a 78, for instance. Try to get them to explain exactly what it is that merits that exact score. What kept it from getting a 79, for instance, or what made it four points better than a 74. Chances are they probably can't, but fanboys, being what they are, like the supposed sophistication about rating something out of 100 and have to choose a number that feels right, rather than one that reflects accurately what the game deserves.
As for reviews being overwhelmingly positive, many trade publications operate on this principle, too. Even if you want to say something sucks, you want to put a slightly positive spin on it to keep people spending money on your industry. Besides, you can't always be honest about how you feel when part of the funding for your journal or website comes from advertising, and those advertisers also happen to produce products that you're reviewing.
I wish more places would just adopt a star rating. Rate something between 0 and 5 stars, with 2 stars being an average game. That way, we're talking about the equivalent of an average game getting close to 50%, but the stigma of failing isn't always there.
I always rate the credibility of a game reviewer on the INVERSE of their score for the game Master of Orion III, which was widely acknowledged to be an awful title.
e cted=0303moo3 "4.3 out of 5"e =moo3&page=3 "3 out of 5"3 /review.html?q=master%20of%20orion
Yet you'll find reviewers who give it quite a good score "4.3/5". And they'll wax poetic about some of the worst and repetitive features of the game. "I always turn up the speakers when I've gotten a diplomatic message to hear the wonderful alien voices."
Compare/Contrast the following reviews. Who would YOU go to for the truth next time?
#1: http://www.stratosgroup.com/reviews/games.php?sel
#2: http://pc.ign.com/articles/386/386281p6.html "9.2 out of 10 and Editor's Choice Award"
#3: http://www.avault.com/reviews/review_temp.asp?gam
#4: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/masteroforion
"6.7 out of 10"
the entirety of /. says "No duuuuuuh!"
Man, that does bring back memories... memories which, in hindsight, are both sad and frightening. "Nintendo Power" was the first magazine which was actually delivered to me, addressed to my own name, as opposed to "family" or a parent. I was pretty proud.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
the movie industry for the past few decades (or any other big media outlet), and now they're melding closer and closer together, big surprise that anyone that has an interest in the industry would say anything bad, then they'll never get a free-preview of the publishers next big game. Yeah, pardon my cynicysm....
Read the rest of this rant...
With the advent of the massive multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMORPG, a crossroads has been reached in regards to relations between the developing company and the customer. Specifically, the controversy centers around the companies Sony Online Entertainment and Lucasarts, and their online world of "Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided." In the fabled saga of the "Star Wars" Universe, there exists an evil Empire bent on oppressing the free denizens of the galaxy through the means of cruelty, totalitarianism, and sheer force. The only people standing in their way are the Rebellion, a small group of intrepid freedom fighters who battle on against seemingly insurmountable odds. When Sony Online Entertainment, "a recognized worldwide leader in MMO games," purchased a smaller company, Verant, it also acquired the project to bring this saga to life in the form of SWG (Business 2). Originally launched with great promise, though lacking in many of the features that were advertised for launch, SWG held the title of the fastest growing MMORPG to date. Then, rival company Blizzard released World of Warcraft, which quickly rocketed to five million subscriptions. That, coupled with the added pressure of gradually declining subscriptions, other competing games, and severe problems with the in-game mechanics led to both companies feeling pressed for success. SOE/LA decided to revamp SWG, first through the Combat Upgrade (CU), then through the New Game Enhancements (NGE). SOE/LA specifically misled their online community throughout the launch, Combat Upgrade, and New Game Enhancements to Star Wars Galaxies, leading to a breach of contract between the customer and the corporation.
One of the major problems with SWG since its inception has been that it was released early, when it was not ready. Initially, customers were promised space travel, battlefields, player vehicles, and player cities, amongst other things. It is important to note that SOE/LA did not deliver these things as promised when the game was launched, and even charged customers to pay for an expansion for space travel, when it was promised as a feature at the outset. When SWG went live, it included only the battlefields, which were disabled shortly thereafter due to technical problems, and were never reactivated again. Other aspects like space travel were added later in SWG's first year. Another blatant lie to customers was that they would be able to begin the path to becoming a Jedi Knight, the fabled protectors of the galaxy, at launch. Jedi in the game were an Alpha-class character, meaning that they were superior to other characters in their skills. Balance was achieved by making the path to the class secret, making it extremely difficult to become. However, after months of people searching for the path to become a Jedi, SOE/LA announced that they had not included Jedi in the original launch and were doing so in the next scheduled publish. SOE/LA left out an important advertised feature and misled their customers into thinking that it did exist. Also, a monthly story arc that promised customer's participation in the fate of the galaxy was also advertised as one of the game's features, and it did indeed run for several months. But, SOE/LA decided to suspend the story arc, and have not reinstituted it since.
Despite all these issues, Star Wars Galaxies was initially a success, and attracted large amounts of customers to its' unique style of gameplay, coupled with the experience of being part of the Star Wars saga. Business Wire wrote that "Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided quickly became the fastest growing MMORPG in North America" (Business 1). The players of the game were especially devoted to it, defending it against it's early critics. The initial success of SWG was due largely in part to three things.
The first was that the game was extremely unique and complicated in its mechanics. Seth Schiesel of the New York Times wrote that "Previously [before the subsequent changes], the game was unabashedly complicated, appealing to mature, refle
To fill pages.
No kidding. When you start the month, you have anything between 100 to 164 pages to fill. (Certainly where I worked, the editor had no say in the total number of pages - that was decided based on projected advertising revenue and the whim of the publishing director.) The advertising department says they expect to need X pages. You know fairly well how many games will come in for review based on the release schedules, and can allocate pages based on that. You have all the standing pages - news, letters, cheats and guides, house ads, subscriptions, etc.
Anything left over has to be filled. And the nature of the games business means they either have to be filled by either wacky filler features (which the magazine writers love because it gives them a chance to be self-indulgent, but the readers generally couldn't give a shit about)... or you have to talk about games that haven't come out yet. They might be lengthy interview-based stories, or they might be based entirely around the latest set of screenshots that have become avilable. Either way, they're previews.
And the sad fact is, if you preview a game that's still some months from release and get all snarky about the lame concept, the horrible control system or the blatant swipes from other games, even if it's deservedly so... the publisher is likely to tell you to fuck off when you ask for final review code down the line. Which will leave a hole in your predicted number of pages for the review section. You can fill that either by extending other reviews, even if the games aren't worth the extra space, or throw in another last-minute filler feature... or add another preview. Either way, you quickly learn to walk the fine line between gentle mockery and actual criticism, and to keep the latter until you actually have the game in your hand.
Jerry Seinfeld said it best. "Magazines are another medium I love, because 95% is simply based on 'How the hell are we going to fill all this blank space?'"
You must think in Russian.
This comic says it all :-)
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/01/20
There's a great penny arcade on this very subject
Arrrrrrr
Marketing. And here in America. I am shocked.
I dont do meaning of life questions.
This is some new discovery? Hasnt this been f-ing obvious since day one? Geesh..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I wholeheartedly agree. Two occuriences in the recent past confirmed this.: after downloading game demos of: "Bet on soldier" and the recent "Starship troopers" game, I was appalled to find that no online magazine or game portal had felt a need to express the lack of quality in both products; granted; demos are not final releases.. but they are supposed to hit at the quality of the final product. These two product demos were inexcusably poor, and yet noone noted that, spare a few users in game portal forums. It is time to waver the stinkers high early, to stop encouraging this evil cycle.
- Mad, ingenous - they've both left you puzzled -
It's not just games magazines. It's all magazines. A large portion of their content is made from press releases. They have a magazine to fill up, and regurgitating press releases is a cheap easy way to do it. When all the papers were waxing lyrical about the Segway, did the journalists think "Wow, that's a cool toy. Let's find out about it"? The papers want you to think that, but what most likely happened was a P.R company sent a load of photos and bumph, and the editor got an office junior to rewrite it into an article.
But these are only previews. The purpose of a preview isn't to tell you what a games like. The sole purpose of a preview is to inform you that a game exists. This is not a bad thing. Gamers want to know what's coming. They just have to understand that a preview is not an opinion peice, but a promotional piece. To find out whether a game is any good, wait for the review.
Woah woah woah. Slow down there, Mr. Cynical...
Previews are the best way to get a hype machine going. If respectable magazine X says that a game is going to be great, people will think it will be great. The payoff on this is enormous. But are games reviewers really that corruptable? Music magazines hardly even require this anymore, as people are already too far sucked into the "machine" of the music industry to say anything bad about it. I don't think the games industry is in near as bad a state(and isn't as comparable due to the fact that "underground" games are rarely as good) but it could be a sign of it worsening if it is.
EpiAdv - if you like Pokey the Penguin, try this comic!
When the game isn't out yet......, reviewers have nothing to go on except what the developer lets them see/tells them. Now....if you were the developer do you think you'd be saying "we have some concerns over our gameplay being mediocre.....so I'd hold off on buying our title until we see what the whole thing comes together as"? I mean, I can't exactly blame them. What I CAN do is blame the people who write previews and judge things to be the best thing since sliced bread without analyzing some of the features and seeing how similar it is to whats out there.
A perfect example of this was the farce of those supposed "Video Game Awards" that just happened....I don't even remember what they were called, but what I do remember happening is that games that weren't even released yet were winning awards like Game of the Year and other such nonsense. If you thought written previews were bad....man...it was scary how much of a marketing spectacle it was. They should have called it "Crap we're going to lie to you about and ram down your throats Awards".
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I did some writing for a couple of print magazines in the UK. As the new guy, I'd be handed the stuff no-one else liked writing, and that included previews.
Every editor I spoke to told me to be positive. This is not the same as jacking up hype from the PR guys: I never even spoke to them. Most of the time they'll talk to someone higher up because they don't know who I am, and then I'd get the preview handed off to me. Most of the PR junk we recieved was exactly that: junk. I found it difficult to make any more favourable words simply because I had a Spiderman Web-Shooting Gun.
The reason I was told to be positive is that there is no reason to be overly critical of preview code. Most preview code looks like ass, plays like crap and has some show-stopping bugs. That's because it isn't finished. The idea of preview code is to show ideas and direction to the journalist. Exciting games get more column inches because they show better ideas and promise, *not* because their code didn't suck. And a lot of games that have very poor preview code brush up. Development is organic. You can't be critical of every piece of code that comes through the door: it's all crap. You pick out the good bits, show it to the reader and say "you might like this when it comes out." Some games are of interest to more people than others, and might get more column inches.
Until a game ships, it never deserves derision, just encouragement. It would be very ego-centric to kick the shit out of every game that I recieved just because I could in the name of "truth".
Imagine there are 2 game mags at the store. One has a preview of the Ultimate New Game you've been waiting for. One doesn't. Which one do you buy?
Right.
Now, how do you get a preview? Unless it's available for download (well, if it is, every mag's gonna have it, so let's ignore those for now), the game company has to send you the necessary goodies.
And now the big question: Will they send you their next preview if you write "This sucks! Bugs, flaws and no interesting gameplay, even if they spend another year on it it will STILL suck!"?
No. They'll send it to a magazine that hypes it into heavens and back. And the magazine that has the article about the preview sells more copies than the one that doesn't.
Sipmle as that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What magazines lack is a "crap" column. Most reviews rate games with 70-100%, but most of these games deserve this rating. It's just that games rating lower don't get reviewed - they get very little press at all. The editors play a little, decide this is a shit, don't bother writing a review and taking up space in the magazine, then move on to the next title that is more interesting.
People complain about how many bad games are released nowadays but they forget shitty games were like 80% of the market ALWAYS. Thing it, they got forgotten and we don't remember them anymore. You remember Zork and HHGTTG from Infocom, but you forget a dozen of more medicore games they released. You remember Revenge Of The Mutant Camels, but where's Herbert's Dummy Run? Quake is there, a dozen of Quake knockoffs is forgotten. And press rarely bothered to mention them too.
Though I agree - we're at a crisis moment. Making a game to be of quality comparable with the market leaders is way out of reach of small developer groups. And big players want to play it safe, so they dump innovation. There's fewer good new games than there would be at any moment of the gaming history in the past. And magazines write reviews comparing games to the average. Quake 4 is still at upper 95% of the quality of currently available titles, it's just the quality of currently available titles is at about half the level the quality was in times of Quake 3.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
"Once bitten, twice shy."
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
I'm sure there's more but I'm not a native english speaker. If people believe in that crap, let them. It's their own bloody fault if they do.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Could you imagine if the software or auto industry did this, then we'd... ohh wait... never mind.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Doh!
As a lot of posters have already said, it's not really fair to trash a beta version of a game as you can't tell what will or won't be fixed before the gold code release. But I have found Edge magazine (I am not affiliated in any way) to be quite good on this front. They will often mention buggy code/poor framerates/poor gameplay in the beta, but always mention the fact that they hope this will be fixed before full release. I think this is the best we can hope for.
I work in the software industry as well (not games), and we send out 'press kits' that include detailed product reviews, and all the rights to use the content without attribution. I've seen on more than one occasion a "real" review that was the exact copy of the reviewer's guide. I'd be surprised if the game previews didn't come with the same sorts of materials.
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
Xander: "Mom, Dad... the previews for my game 'Xander III' in the game magazines are just marketing!" Dad: "Well, son, I think I speak for both your mother and I when I say..." Parents: "a-DDUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
I'll just let Old Man Murray do my talking.
Or just read this - I challenge you to make it past the first page.
Just don't pre-order games. If no one pre-ordered any games (or pre-ordered anything, for that matter), the overall quality of all games would go up. The need to have any game "right now" is a primary reason why games are released too early. If people generally didn't care when a product was released, then we'd all be better off.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
This problem isn't just specific to the games industry. Media outlets are increasingly directed by their coporate owners and have become more of a pre-sale hype machine than anything else. This is why it is all the more important that we have bloggers; individuals who don't have financial ties to the development companies and who will offer a more objective opinion. -- Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/
They're in a race that cannot be won. Game development cycle stretches into years with budget into millions, but has six to twelve months of shelf life and price point of about $40 a copy. A dud can bankrupt a company Application software (think M$ Office) on the other hand has shelf life of up to three years and price point of at least a hundred dollars.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
This guy is just saying what every gamer with a clue knows already. I think it is good to rant about this because he has a good point: those web reviews sites don't wanna lose their jobs. So they play along with the devs, not the people. Theres really good reviews sites out there that needs to be discovered. Unfortunately, peeple don't visit them because those site don't have the 'privileges' other prostitutes sites have(screenshots, gameplay info, interviews and whatnot). I,m just glad i read a lot of stuff before buying game, otherwise, man i would be soooo fooled.
I work for a 'large' game company, so I am really getting a kick out of most of these replies. Some of you guys are very good at making it sound like you know what you are talking about.
But trust me.... You don't.
I think you just want to make yourself sound smart, when in reality you don't know what you are talking about. This is how bad info gets passed around. If you don't know about the topic....Don't make yourself sound like you do.
Heck, look at Oblivion. I'm eagerly awaiting it to be released, and see if the screenshots really captured the visual aspect of the game. This will be one game that I'll commit to before the first reviews come up mainly based on the strength of their previous titles.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
"We haven't played this game yet but we can tell it's going to suck so we're not going to be subjective about it."
It seems that this Wagner James Au character hasn't become any more qualified to write about games since Old Man Murray used to tear his clueless, self-absorbed drivel to pieces five years ago.
Most previews are positive? Holy shit! Previews help to sell games? Bring me the fucking Bat-phone!
Publishers are interested in publicity, not critical acclaim in reviews that are six weeks late and which nobody reads. Magazines want as much repeat business as they can, so if they know that readers want to hear about a certain game, they can string out their coverage for months on end. Previews have never, ever, in over 20 years of games magazine publishing, served as a forum for criticism. NOBODY has EVER claimed otherwise.
This proposterous swaggering about "naming and shaming" of journalists DOING THEIR JOBS serves no purpose other than to make it painfully obvious that WJA hasn't the faintest idea of how the specialist press works.
The simple fact is that if you still buy games magazines in 2006 then your judgment is already in question; if you pre-order games based on fucking previews then God help you: you are part of Wagner James Au's audience, you are probably part of (rumour-mongering tabloid vermin) Kotaku's regular readership and YOU, not the publishers, not the magazines, are the fucking problem.
Preferences > Homepage > Customize stories on homepage > Authors > Zonk > Uncheck
If you read the article he mentions the Black and White thing and admits to having been part of the problem himself in the past, he is proposing a way to fix it though.
researchers discover that paid television advertisements often present overly optimistic views of products. Very few instances of advertisements by companies urging customers not to use their products were found. Extensive discussions of a products flaws were also lacking.
Later, our conservative commentator argues that this is further evidence of the moral breakdown of our society, and the coming apocalypse, which he says should happen, "any day now."
What possible incentive is there for a publisher to tell the truth?
Journalism? Good reporters are expensive, so why hire them if you can sell more magazines by copy-and-pasting the contents of a press release and get more advertiser revenue too?
Honesty? Most games suck. Why admit this obvious fact if you're going to lose advertisers and get cut off from pre-releases that are vital for making your magazine appear to be on the cutting edge?
Audience? Will fanboys keep buying your magazine if you keep saying how games suck? Wouldn't they prefer to live vicariously in a fantasy world of shiny things, innovation and wonder? Isn't this illusion what they're paying for?
Credibility? If the readers keep buying the magazine, despite it's obvious bias, then they obviously don't care. Why worry?
Memory? Won't readers eventually realize they're being fooled into buying crap eventually? You honestly think those pimply-faced kids with too much of mommy's money will suddenly stop throwing cash around if they end up with a lemon? Ha!
This guy mentions the word "Mediocre" a whole lot, and I'm trying to figure out which games he's trying to say were that good.
Oh, well, I suppose maybe he means WoW, since that's the only game people are playing anyway.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
He forgot the part that the GAME MAGAZINES are part of the hype / marketing gig in and of themselves! Same with hardware review sites... (Tom's Hardware, etc..) They may or may not get compensated for doing a review, but without them there would be NO MARKETING for some products... How many times on slashdot has a "cool product" been mentioned, then point back the hardware hacking website... If it is truly great, why not banner ad it, like some select hardware is?
.02 worth...
Word of mouth(mouse) = hype (good/bad) = sales.
just my
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
They have an agreement with the Marketing/PR guys so that they can buy a system (like anyone else) and then get a RMA when they've finished reviewing the system.
Either the deal works, and they get a random system like anyone else would, or the PR/Marketing guys intervene and the reviewer + several other lucky folks get computers that received a little extra attention.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Yep, this is called marketing. One might even call it sleazy marketing, but it's not a patch on what goes on in most other industries.
Have you ever seen an entertainment show (Entertainment Tonight, etc.) claim that an upcoming movie is going to suck? Or that an actor can't act?
Have you read a BAD review of any audio equipment? The high-end audio industry is probably the single biggest collection of criminal liars in the world.
This is so old that it's not even non-news. It's just par for the course. Assume that this behaviour runs every industry and business you interact with, and you'll have a fairly clear view of the western world.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
This is just another good reason to warez the game... try before you buy.
Does it go on forever?
Previews are horribly positive. Until today, that didn't upset me. If there's ever the proper space for a lovefest in a gaming mag, it's right there, in the previews. Developers are more likely to spill the good beans if you're being positive, and since the games aren't done, why not continue to give them irrationally large boats full of benefit from your doubts?
... the opinion of a top exec from a major publisher was decidedly bottom line.
This is called journaltisement -- the magazine gets inside access because they provide a service, "free" advertisement. Your journal is giving its readers what they want (the designer's biggest dreams, aka "something colorful to read") and the gaming companies get what they'd like as well (um, advertisements!).
It's all a big happy family right? That's what I used to think before I read this story. Here's an important quote.
"Press previews are very important to our sales," he casually mentioned to me over martinis, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Retailers don't know anything about games. So we show them previews of our titles from the game press, and they reserve shelf space for our games on the strength of those [previews].
I knew I was naive, but I was trying so danged hard to stay positive about the previews in magazines. The problem is the Catch-22 -- without the lovefest, there is no inside access and no review. With the lovefest, retailers may be making horribly misinformed decisions about which games to stock for us to buy.
Ultimately, I don't guess I've changed much. For the common reader, journaltisement-style previews still don't bother me as long as the reviews are legit. I guess the question is how intelligent a set of readers are the people making the decisions of what to stock at retailers, and do they know journaltisement when they see it?
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Articles like this remind me of the (software) patents debacle. This is as non-obvious as Amazon's one-click.
I have an Xbox and I get Official Xbox Magazine, mostly for the demo discs but the reviews are useful too. Now admittedly, anything MS or Halo does is pure platinum and that you just have to accept/ignore. It's also true that when games first hit the scene they are almost always written up in a positive light. However, when they actually test the games for review purposes they have ripped on many of them pretty hard, even A list titles. I'm sure the makers of Sudeki spent a fortune advertising but when the game hit, it didn't get much respect.
/.ers are shocked at this.
The magazine is far from perfect and you can pick on some of their choices but it sure isn't as bad as this guy makes out.
It's all about the source. Do you think MotorTrend, Gartner, CycleWorld, Times Automotive section in the newspaper is any different? Actually, I'd be surprised if too many
I used to have a subscription to PC Gamer. I remember reading some reviews of games where they trashed the game. I even remember one game getting an 8% rating. They said something like, "avoid this game at all costs".
Looking at the PC Gamer database of reviews, I looked up a review summaries. Here's what they look like:
20th Century Trivia Challenge - Rating: 23% Highs: Some good questions; pretty interface. Lows: British-related questions and humor will be lost on American audiences; questions and too-short video clips repeat quickly. Bottom Line: Not worth your time or mony, even if you are British. It's just plain bad.
3-D Ultra Mini-Golf Deluxe - Rating: 43% Highs: Great-looking graphics, cool animations and effects; True Putt mouse swing Lows: Can't change views; once you win, there's no reason to play again. Bottom Line: Even if you are desperate for some mini-golf, you can find something better.
3D Ultra Radio Control Racers - Rating: 25% Highs: Inexpensive; some potential appeal to the young-uns. Lows: Monotonous gameplay; terrible grinding noise instead of soundtrack. Bottom Line: Shovelware best suited for a last-minute stocking stuffer gift for the kiddies.
And a list of ratings for the first 30 games in the PC Gamer database of reviews: 80%, 68%, 76%, 78%, 57%, 80%, 56%, 23%, 43%, 86%, 91%, 47%, 85%, 45%, 25%, 60%, 52%, 78%, 85%, 85%, 72%, 66%, 52%, 30%, 34%, 68%, 34%, 61%, 88%, 82%
So, they do give some bad reviews. Although, it may be true that game ratings are overinflated, or that game ratings have begun to be overinflated lately.
http://www.empiresofsteel.com/
Don't I know it. Used to have a job reviewing games. They started by saying that we were fair here and wrote what we really thought about the games, but naturally that turned out the be complete BS cause when I did do that the first time the editor kindly explained to me that I probably didn't know the genre and that this was infact a pretty ok game so they had another guy go over it and make some editorial changes to it, they also pumped up the grades I had set on the game a bit.
The next time I did that it apparently slid by the editor cause the deadline was short and it actually got printed exactlly like I wrote it. So they had a giant fit afterwards, the publishers gave them grief, which they basically passed down to me cause now they wouldn't be getting all them publisher freestuff, trips, preview, etcetera.
So even the most mediocre or crappy game is going to get giant thumbs up. They could be rereleasing any old crap and they are going to find something that is good with it and just focus the entire review on that.
Me and my friends run a fairly successful gaming site in spanish (alkon.com.ar, 250.000 visitors a month) and the reason why we make game previews is to give our users insights of how a game is going to look like.
Example, let's say we got a letter from Game Developer X about a game called Y. We test it and then we post our thoughts about it, for instance. "We like the weapon models and the stages, but there's something about the story that made us feel like we are playing yet another first person shooter like Half Life. This game would totally rock if they relate A to B".
We never say anything about the bugs we find because, after all, it's a preview, not the final release.
We usually turn down the offers of Company X that pays us to make really good comments about an upcoming game, but that's just us. Other companies may follow more greedy philosophies.
Andy.
I remember people making fun of James Wagner Au about something a long-ass time ago.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Here's my "assume no wrong" take on it. A preview of a game can show what technologies and features might be in the game. A preview has had more time on adding neat things than cleaning up problems, therefore it is a more reliable indicator of what neat things might be in the game (and proof that they are even possible), but not as reliable an indicator of what might be wrong with the game, since fixing problems doesn't require as much (unpredictable) creative inspiration.
Thus, you can reliably determine that a game will have some cool new idea, but not as reliably determine whether it will still have the problems you encounter in the preview.
If you can stomach the profanity, check out this site . There are no ifs, ands, or buts on where these people stand on a game. I don't think the industry uses these guys for marketing, but honest reviews abound. Check out this tasty review of HL2 for a sample. ***WARNING*** NOT FOR THE EASILY OFFENDED!!
Because teenage pranks are fun when you're about to die!
He's not the only one to recognize the problems with gaming becoming mainstream. There's still sources of innovation in gaming. I find myself more and more turning to freeware games and small developers to find innovation. Games like this usually lack in graphics or music, but if that's what you look for in a game you're screwed. Also, some big names are still looking to be somewhat creative. A few good examples currently in development are Spore(developed by Will Wright) and Tabula Rasa(Developed by Richard Garriot). It's just too bad that people are willing to pay for games that suck because they don't realize that they've been playing the same game with different names for years.
The way I see it is like this. The owners of the magazines want to sell copies, that much is pretty much a give fact. So first of all attacking the journalists for not having the integrity to write the truth (whatever that might be perceived to be) is a serious misfire. They do what they get paid like most people who work for a living, they can not eat their integrity and I feel confident that if they try to stand on principle that is exactly what they will have to do. So as a journalist you either conform to the system or you will be removed from that system. The same goes for basically everyone from the lowest low or the highest high within the structure of a magazine. The owners want to sell copies; you either get this done or you get another job.
Second point on the agenda is that when you release a magazine, lets for the sake of argument say that it is released once a month, you have a certain amount of pages to fill. One month you might have lots of interesting things to write and manage to fill the pages quite expertly with eye candy and yummy news. But then there might be three months when there is nothing interesting to write about, yet the consumers still expect to buy their magazine every month. At which point you'll have to either talk something to death or make stuff up.
The third and most important point is that hype works. People buy the magazines, the read the articles and buy into the hype, done so myself on more than one occasion. So the owners of the publishing companies see that good media gives higher sales. And then they realize that the media is dependant on actually seeing the product before they can write anything, and the product is firmly in their control. So they use what leverage they have to pressure the magazines into neglecting to mention the worst and only focusing on the bad. And the owners of the magazines realize that, as stated earlier, they are dependant on the publishers giving them a peak in order for them to have an article.
So that covers the circle of information between the media and the publishers. They are dependant on each other and therefore will always have a fuzzy relationship. Of course if there was some type of legislation that forced all game developers to give their codes to magazines on request we might see a different scenario altogether, but that is highly unrealistic.
So the bottom line here is that as long as we remain creatures of impulse and buy stuff without actually doing some research; we will continue to be exploited by the media and the game industry. However if people read the reviews and previews with a bit of healthy scepticism, and actually tried out demos and did all that they could to ensure that the game they bought was the game that they hoped it would be this would not be an issue. If you read more than one review, get more than one opinion, and test whatever demos are available you might save a bit of money in the long run and many undeserving games would see their sales drop. Which a cynical person might say would lead to less money invested in games in the future and might ultimately lead to a decline in the diversity (more than what has already happened) of video games in general.
So for now keep buying trash, and hopefully every once in a while a lump of dirt might prove to be diamond.
1. Previews are by their nature incomplete and journalists hold their fire because it's not entirely fair to trash a work-in-progress.
2. Readers want previews, and their desire for previews can be a decision maker at the newsstand.
The bigger question is this: why even do previews at all? Consumers always want to know what hot products are coming down the pike. But journalists in many industries resist the urge to make previews a core component of their coverage, because it leaves them vulnerable to manipulation by puiblishers. They recognize that reviewing an unfinished product is fundamentally a bad idea, and serves readers poorly. Unfortunately, it's too late for the games industry to put that cat back in the bag. Readers expect previews, and so they're stuck with sucky ones.
The solution is to build new game journalism models in the blogosphere, and for gamers/readers to support them, so whatever new models emerge don't get corrupted by publisher advertising cash.
RichM
Data Center Knowledge
Might I comment from the PoV of an actual game reviewer?
I used to write for a number of media, from computer game sites like www.strategy-gaming.com to Computer Gaming Monthly magazine.
Previews are simply that, PREVIEWS.
Someone hands you something that isn't finished, and basically says "hey, it's still got some rough edges, but what do you think?".
Would it be fair to take them to task for things that are wrong? It's NOT DONE.
Personally, I would tend to be positive (or at least optimistic) on previews, but was also willing to make pointed comments about what I thought might indicate that they were going down a wrong path, for example.
So no, I didn't expect some sort of tit-for-tat, although I suppose there may have been one implied. Yes, if I'd be a harsh ass about things, I doubt they'd have let me get early peeks at their products.
Is that some sort of great conspiracy? Not really.
-Styopa
So why is it that games alone have this problem, and not other media? Why are film reviews not always positive? Likewise with book reviews, TV reviews, music reviews, theater reviews, and reviews of every other art form and creative project?
One difference, it seems to me, is that none of these fields have the equivalent of "gaming magazines", at least not that have any significance or popularity. Yes, you can find magazines about movie stars and TV shows, and they are filled with promotional puff pieces about upcoming projects, but nobody takes them seriously. They are only read by starry-eyed teenagers and bored housewives.
Real movie reviews come out at the same time as the movie. And the same with the other art forms listed above. They review the work which the user will experience, and they give honest, tough, objective assessments of the quality of the work.
Why isn't the gaming world like this? Why do people still care about gaming magazines? I am amazed in this day and age that anybody still buys paper products. I would expect that, as with other creative works, games would be reviewed when they are published, and those would be the reviews that count. Yes, they could still publish fanboy promotional pieces for upcoming games, but nobody would care about that any more than they care because some magazine shows George Clooney or Brad Pitt in an adoring light.
I don't follow the gaming world, so I don't know why exactly they have fallen into this trap. Maybe it's because so many gamers are still children. Perhaps as the field matures, gamers will realize that these promotional magazines are as insignificant as Soap Opera Digest and will not pay them any more attention.
The sky is blue !!
See that's why PC Games Addict magazine was good here in Australia, they reviewed games with almost the same venom usually reserved for use by Penny Arcade. Which, in the context of this story, is probably why the magazine got shut down. *sigh*
"For the thing of it is, game magazine previews are almost uniformly positive, even for the most undistinguished titles. So it unrolls thus: publisher makes mediocre game; press previews depict mediocre game as being good or at least worth a look; excited gamers read previews, foolishly believe them, start making pre-sale orders of mediocre game; driven by preview press and pre-sale numbers based on that press, retailers stock up on mediocre game; publisher makes money from mediocre game, keeps making more games like it."
Gamer gets pissed at mediocre game, turns to magazines for reviews.
that most games are crap ( relative to what they are promised to be ) ignores demos as they are often crippled betas ,waits until at least the first patch has been release
( including a crack for the dumb ass system screwing cd protections used to harass players )
downloads game via p2p network has a play.
reviews it himself and deletes a peace of crap glad to
have saved himself being ripped off.
or determines the game appears to be close to ok and buys it and encourages mates to do like.
I now use the later. been stung to often by games which cost close to a days pay to me now.
Oh, I get it! It's a profit deal.
"never met a Microsoft zealot"
For me, the arrival of the "user reviews" were truly the best thing for the gaming public. I rarely ever read the actual review gamespot conducts on games, but I usually read the worst of the user reviews because most of the time the positive ones are just there to say "This gam3 r0cks!!!!", however the negative reviews aside from the 6-year old's "this gam3 sux0rs!" typically give me an accurate view of the title in question.
Same thing with movies, I never read critic's reviews on yahoo, or go by their average rating, I always check out the user reviews and overall user rating of the movie, which is much more accurate in my opinion.
I think it is good to rant about this because he has a good point: those web reviews sites don't wanna lose their jobs. So they play along with the devs, not the people.
*sigh* PC Gamer, PC Gamer, wherefore art thou PC Gamer? Thoust were taken over by PC Accelerator, forever to be changed into a mediocre magazine. The PC Gamer thy once were is forever dead. Dead, and floating upon the winds of time. Farewell pointy stick and coconut monkey, I knewest thou well.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
-1, Obvious.
Sort of like Marilyn Manson singing a cover of "Personal Jesus."
Cynicism, like dogmatism, can be an excuse for intellectual laziness. - Susan Shirk
I hate doing previews. It's a moral issue, I guess--if I'm holding in my hand something extremely beta, not remotely a release candidate, but so primitive that it's virtually unplayable, do I ransack it in the name of "objectivity", or do I take it as what it is and tell readers what I see now and what could possibly come from it, best case scenario? I've called a couple of previews as bad with no good future, but usually it's a case of "eh, it's bad now, but it's got no release date and it could get better".
It's unfair to even bother with previews unless you're looking at a release candidate or finalized product, and you're harping it for an upcoming review in the next issue. It really serves no purpose other than a free spat of advertising, and the four-colour glossy ad on the next page does that better.
It's not the voices in my head that annoy me. It's the psychosies they invite over for parties that annoy me.
That's why I loved X-play on TechTV. They weren't afraid to tell people to avoid games like they came with free samples of anthrax. They actually rated games 2 out of 5! (There might have even been some ones here and there.) I really felt that a game in a genre that I liked that rated 4 out 5 would be a good buy when it was on sale, and a 3 would be a mostly entertaining waste of time, but not something to actually purchase. I haven't been able to watch them in almost a year, so I've only seen about two of the G4 produced episodes.
This is of course in contrast with the other video game review shows on G4 now, which suck so hard that they were studied by Dyson and Oreck. Their shows suffer from score inflation as much as any magazine. Even if they spend the whole time saying that the game was pretty much OK, the games still get a 7 or 8 our of 10.
I think more so, the point he was trying to make is that reviewers get a gushy over *previews* of the game in question. The problem being, if they don't get "positive gushy," the publisher won't get any more juicy advertiseing dollars.
So, the bad previews get editorialized into something positive about game X, despite the fact that they were using alpha code, or maybe just pre-rendered screenshots, or even just the design document. Then, readers get geeked up about the game, wait 6 months for preview number 2, which is even more sugary sweetly positive, pre-oder, which convinces the retailers that the game will be a hit, so they get prepped to stock up.
Then, the game comes out, and sucks. Happens on the PC, happens on the consoles (maybe worse there?) Happens with hardware (oh look! This video card that isn't even in engineering samples will have 6 quintillion transistors, 1 million pixel pipelines, and support DirectX25, plus full Linux and DOS support! Lets write a positive preview of it to get a sample when it actually goes to silicon!)
One of the hardware sites a couple months back did a power-supply test. However, they didn't request samples from the manufacturers, they went shopping on the web, and ordered from retailers. They did get permission to use a power supply manufacturers test lab, but still bought and brought in a retail package from a web store, of that manufacturers brand. And also managed to convince said company to leave them alone with the test equipment...
Not sure how they managed that one...
I've gotten more and more un-impressed with previews. Either they preview goes on about great new features, that don't make the final release (BF2s dynamically re-sizeing maps), or there is just no "meat" to the article, to give a taste of what might be good about the game...
Do you see the FNORDS? I refuse to post anonymously, as I am fireproof!
Apparently You have never read a review for Big Rig Racing. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/driving/bigrigsotrr/rev iew.html/
Well, there's always interviews with the game creators, but that has its own set of problems...
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/01/20
the sky is blue, and jellyfish stings hurt....
I was never an editor for a mag. But I can say as a consumer that if there is a hotly awaited game, and a magazine does a cover stating they have a scoop on it ("exclusive screenshots!"), then people will see the magazine and buy it. It will increase sales of that issue.
So more than just being cheap filler, previews can cause people to buy mags that they wouldn't otherwise buy. At least that's what I've noticed as a magazine buyer.
Yeah, the previews are usually useless fluff, but you've already bought the magazine, what are you going to do, return it?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Why should game publications have a go at an unfinished game, possibly even before they have had a chance to play it? It's only fair to save the negative stuff for the review.
chinnese guy discovers america.
hero of the day.
good job Sherlock.
Captain Obvious strikes again!
Thanks for the fascinating conversation, Slashdotters. Two quick corrections:
- My name is actually "Wagner James Au".
- I'm still blogging about Second Life as an embedded journalist at http://nwn.blogs.com/, though now on a commercial basis with Federated Media, the kids what bring you Boing Boing, Metafilter, and other juicy goodness.
Lot of worthwhile points worth discussing, but rather than wade in too deep, let me hit at one in particular:
> The author is trying to posit an implied (but untrue) connection between previews
> allowing mediocre games to sell and all games 'sucking.' Mediocre stuff sells in
> every entertainment industry that exists -- if only the best games sold then the
> market would be too risky to enter.
Actually, I didn't say all games sucked. What I did say is that due to previews, the few games which don't suck have to compete for shelf space with the 95% of games that do. Preview hype, not game quality, is what guarantees retail store shelf space--especially if the game is backed by a large publisher and/or it's connected to a known brand. And since the average consumer only buys the games that are on the retail shelf, they are far more prone to walk away with a shitty game. This means good games are artificially disadvantaged on the market, which is not open, and it's substantially different in this sense from all the other mediums. A good book or movie can cut through the clutter by word of mouth or good reviews, while it's far more difficult for the same thing to happen with a game, because all the good reviews in the world won't help a game that isn't even on the shelf in the first place.
"And really? Truth be told, who wants to read any more than the rare preview to say "omg this game is gonna sucks bad?""
Well, I, for one, wish someone gave me the full, honest picture for a start. If I'm gonna blow my money on a product, be it a game or a watch or a TV or whatever, I'd like to have the full picture, not just a lopsided hype-only half of of the story. I'd very much like to know the good _and_ the bad, so I can make an informed decision if it's the kind of game I'm looking for.
Frankly, I never got the seemingly rampant point of view that if you dare say anything bad about a game, or even admit that you read negative reviews, then you're a horrible person, an anti-gamer or game-hater, a troll, and/or a fanboy of the competition. There's this idiotic notion that if it's a game, we should all treat it nicely and say only the nicest stuff. God forbid that someone would be so inconsiderate and hurt the poor developpers' feelings by saying that a game sucks.
Why? It's a product I'm buying, and not even a cheap product. Why is it so fundamentally wrong to make an informed decision about buying it? Why is it so wrong to give me the whole picture instead of a sweetened sales-pitch?
It's the same as any other product. If I buy a TV, I want to know if this model's image looks kinda fuzzy or the de-interlacing makes it laggy for console gaming. (Some HDTV models do just that, for example.) I _don't_ want the reviewer to carefully skip all the bad parts. If I buy something as cheap as, dunno, a pair of cheap computer speaker, it would be nice if someone told me in advance "dude, playing anything through these, sounds like playing it through an old Casio watch stuck in an empty plastic barrel". (Don't laugh, I have some speakers that sound just like that.) Etc. All I'm asking is the same for games. It's not that unreasonable a request.
And on the topic of previews, I don't expect them to predict the future and say "omg, this game is gonna suck". But it would be nice to tell me what works now and what _doesn't_ work now. Does the AI actually do yet what the developpers said it would do? Do the graphics actually look like in the developpers screenshots, or maybe in practice do you have to turn the graphics quality to a _lot_ lower to get more than a slide-show? Does the game system and resource system make any sense, or do you "mine for fish" like in the VG Cats comic strip and get bone by cutting wood? Does the story, as much of it as you can preview, make any sense? How's the balance so far? Does one class kill everything by just repeatedly clicking the left mouse button, while the other needs 15 mana potions per fight? Etc.
(BTW, the above are not even exaggerations, sadly, but actual examples from games I've played.)
It doesn't even have to be the meat of the preview, you know. It can just be a "stuff that doesn't work yet" section at the end.
Yes, we all know that it could get better before release, and feel free to even include a reminder if you wish. But ffs, don't make it sound like it _already_ _is_ better anything that ever happened before, sex included, and so perfectly realistic and detailed that God himself is taking notes for the next time he creates a world.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
As someone who works in journalism (not a gaming rag though) I know the laziness that sometimes permeates through the industry. Mostly these previews are just rehashed press releases and the screenshots have been ready-completed by the publisher, and generally look far better than the game actually does (Age of Empires III anyone?) I'd love to know what happened to the "investigative" reporting that made this profession so great instead of acting as a free marketing channel for these companies?
most companies dont set out to made mediocre games, nor are there too many really bad games anymore; they arent economically viable (Xtreme Paintbrawl wasnt a financial success, was it?)
But let's face it: companies have to get the games out the door. They can't all spend decades in development, polishing the turd like DNF or Daikatana. They don't all have a Peter Molineaux to overhype a game, then leave disappointed gamers playing some crappy game that didnt have any features he claimed.
So most games have a decent premise, and are hopefully able to get a stable game out the door (yes, Trioka, I'm looking at you). And hopefully, the game resonates with enough gamers to where a sequel can be made. Look at how many sequels end up surpassing the original in terms of the overall experience. It's because the first game forms the base, and the company can build on that. But too many devs try shooting for the moon right at the start, and never focus on doing any one thing good by the time their game is forced out the door.
I embedded these same complaints in a less-than optimistic as this guys article about 20 days ago.
schild
editor, f13.net
http://www.quartertothree.com/reviews/moo3/moo3-1. shtml
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Many stinkers have been talked up as great games and given good reviews in these magazines. It seems directly related to how much advertising was done before the game was released.
As most of us have learned, the last place you look for insight into a game is the magazines, those are only for pictures.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
that in same gamepro, gamespy or any other print media/online gaming mag/any other product review mag that when they preview something they will never say "game doesnt have X, game doesnt have Y". What they will say is "looking forward to this game having X and Y, that will be a blast". It's the polite way of saying, please add this or your game will suck, and the reader will never know whether the product was originally designed to have it or if the previewers just think it should be that way,
The only good games are free software. That way, if the game is buggy or does not do what you want, you can get the source code to change it until it does what you want. You can also change the graphics and sound files. The whole problem with the game industry, is you do not get the source code with those games and they often do not run on a free operating system. This makes it very difficult to fix the bugs yourself after the game has come out. The other reason games cost so much to make is because they do not share the source code with each other like they should. They are being too competitive to their collective detriment. Here is a good game. http://www.wesnoth.org/
To be honest, I really hate previews. But then, I grew up reading game reviews without a final rating (that long ago - horrors)! However, for the most part, readers value previews over almost any other feature, and they their not big fans of negative reviews.
They read previews to be excited for a few months, enjoying the anticipation of playing the greatest game ever. They're reading the magazine to get a little lift. In short, most readers *aren't* curmudgeons.
With positive previews everybody wins. Pages are filled, publishers get free publicity, stores pre-order more games, magazines get a closer relationship with the publisher, advertisers (who want happy game-buying readers) are happier, and readers get their thrill of anticipation (which takes their mind off the game they're playing now...)
Outside of a few curmugeons like me (and many of the previous posters), people no more want honesty in gaming magazines than they do in health magazines ("forget special diets - simply eat less calories and get moderate exercise" doesn't benefit anyone. The advertisers don't want it, and neither do the readers). The magazines give people what they want, and the one's that chose different paths have all gone bankrupt.
If you want *real* reviews by people who paste games that "deserve it", smaller websites that don't depend on readers or game advertising for financing (i.e. labors of love) are the only viable medium.
Any good game review sites out there that try to be honest; possibly run by game enthusiasts rather than magazines helping companies to promote their products? Sure, such sites may not be allowed/able to review the beta versions and post marketing previews, but merely decent review sites would be interesting to hear about.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
yeah well done mate, it was pretty obvious that was the case
"Preview Ho" will be a compilation of the most egregious, blatant promotion for unreleased games from across the gaming press. We will challenge the editors of these magazines and websites to justify their hype on behalf of their advertisers' products
....
Help us find the biggest Hos and win public praise--and the satisfaction of knowing you helped create a future of better games.
Translation: Flock to my site, drive up my web clicks for my advertisers as I tell you with my """special""" feature about the cd coaster of the month
Only, it been done. CGW gives bad ratings. I'm sure others do, and I'm sure there are those that are exactly like the author said, pure proganda machines. The problems is not glowing press reviews (what, you don't think they can hire marketing types to write drivel for their shiny boxes anyhow?) it's not enough people going back to the store and saying "This sucks". And that includes the bad magazine.
More to the point, making games that takes advantage of "bleeding edge" hardware is hard. The typical development cycle for a FPS or similarly complex game is between 2 and 4 years. The authors have a choice: design the game using existing technology in which case it will "suck ass" by the time it's released, or design the game with Moore's Law in mind in anticipation of hardware or software capabilities that simply don't exist. The latter course makes for much better games assuming you can afford the financial risk of having a tosser if the hardware never appears or is significantly over-priced, and also means that most of the testing doesn't happen until the very late stages of development at which point it can be very hard to work around incorrect assumptions in the rendering engine.
People who develop for consoles like the X-Box will tell you that trying to put together a release-day package is almost impossible because the hardware and OS change on a daily basis right up until the assembly line starts rolling (and beyond).
Let me be one of the first to suggest James Wagner Au take on the role of Captain Obvious.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
Consumer Reports does this, but of course they don't review games. Tom's always seems to be on the lookout for fast ones the manufacturers might play, though as they've scaled up I don't think all the new staff is as sharp as it used to be.
Some time ago I recall an auto magaize (Motor Trend, or Car & Driver), that went back and looked at their reviews of some of the classic automotive duds, such as the Yugo and the Chevette. The called it "Damning with Faint Praise", but it gave you an idea of how reviewers struggle to find something positive to say about the worst duds.
Again and again these signs precede games that suck:
-Multiple "fan" sites appear before the game is released (usually the company offers fan site templates as well)
-Previews focus on the amazing graphics but little else, especially specific things like shadows, lighting, water effects.
-Most previews are in fact NOT "hands-on", demonstrating that the publisher won't risk objective criticism. If they're really so proud of the great game, why not invite everyone 15 year old webmaster to play it instead of just releasing new screen shots?
And finally I seriously believe the next one is a shocking new sign that will become more common:
-a large number of hired fanboys in the official forum, most of whom do not write or spell English well at all. I hate to say this but go look at the Morrowind Oblivion official forums and try to convince yourself that most of those posts aren't being made by hired keys in India. I'm serious.
Games that I can recall having the above signs were Deus Ex 2, Dungeon Siege 1 and 2, Daikatana, and, sadly, Morrowind Oblivion.