Drama in indy gaming and games journalism part 2

[Ganrich]

To answer the question, "Tell me about a game you bought from a 'false' review?" ME3, DA2, Gears of War: Ascension, and there are probably more. I wish I could add alien colonial marines and duke nukem forever to that list for poetic irony, but they were so bad that they couldn't get overinflated reviews without looking blatantly corrupt.

 

I enjoy the goofiness of Borderlands, but those tweets just lost them a customer. They don't have anything else I want to play anyway.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

What a prick. These people ain't getting a cent of my money.

[Ganrich]

This is a pretty good article on the subject I think.

 

http://www.viralglobalnews.com/technology/gamergate-anita-sarkeesian-video-games-journalism-time-change/17327/

[Meshugger]

[HoonDing]

[Orogun01]

Apparently the Mighty No. 9 has began censorship, speculation is already high about which community manager that was involved on a controversy is behind it.

[kirottu]

Apparently the Mighty No. 9 has began censorship, speculation is already high about which community manager that was involved on a controversy is behind it.

 

https://twitter.com/FortesSnC/status/513488629264416768

 

First guy who noticed it. According to reddit thread not all who tweet under #GamerGate have been blocked so it might be something unrelated.

 

Though, this is the poorest time ever to start censoring whatever the reason might be. 

[Gorgon]

To answer the question, "Tell me about a game you bought from a 'false' review?" ME3, DA2, Gears of War: Ascension, and there are probably more. I wish I could add alien colonial marines and duke nukem forever to that list for poetic irony, but they were so bad that they couldn't get overinflated reviews without looking blatantly corrupt.

 

I enjoy the goofiness of Borderlands, but those tweets just lost them a customer. They don't have anything else I want to play anyway.

Borderlands doesn't have propper multiplayer, only co-op. Not even a PVP arena. So it gets old pretty fast. I like the visuals though.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

 

 

The first part I can fully empathize with, actually. They're running a business, not a charity. The second? Wow, that's dickish. 

[Nonek]

I think i've reached a point where the censorship, hate mongering, blanket demonisation, determined lack of ethics and clumsy attempts by the social justice fascists to still pretend they occupy a higher moral ground has become somewhat expected. Might I say even boring. Sarkeesian with her cherry picking and taking out of context, while defecating on the few games which have features she supposedly wants included in game design, was amusing in that she was revealing her real agenda with every smug declaration. But the SJF's are just too predictably rabid, they're beginning to bore me.

[BruceVC]

I think i've reached a point where the censorship, hate mongering, blanket demonisation, determined lack of ethics and clumsy attempts by the social justice fascists to still pretend they occupy a higher moral ground has become somewhat expected. Might I say even boring. Sarkeesian with her cherry picking and taking out of context, while defecating on the few games which have features she supposedly wants included in game design, was amusing in that she was revealing her real agenda with every smug declaration. But the SJF's are just too predictably rabid, they're beginning to bore me.

 

Good, so you are accepting defeat. Don't feel like you have let yourself down, it was inevitable. You were effectively fighting against the forces of righteousness and honour....you never really had a chance 

[Nonek]

You see, utterly predictable and boring. It's like they can't produce anything original, I wonder if it's the effects of their zealotry, and parroting of others opinions as their own?

[Lexx]

I am just surprised that this thing is still going on.

[kirottu]

Hatred breeds hate. It is the gift that keeps on giving.

[Longknife]

I think i've reached a point where the censorship, hate mongering, blanket demonisation, determined lack of ethics and clumsy attempts by the social justice fascists to still pretend they occupy a higher moral ground has become somewhat expected. Might I say even boring. Sarkeesian with her cherry picking and taking out of context, while defecating on the few games which have features she supposedly wants included in game design, was amusing in that she was revealing her real agenda with every smug declaration. But the SJF's are just too predictably rabid, they're beginning to bore me.

 

 

I just don't see the point of sitting around all day being shocked by terrible things they do.

 

They do terrible things. Case Closed. And none of them are exactly a cornerstone of my ability to live a happy life, while ALL of them depend on my viewership to make money...

....So don't watch their vids or read their articles. GG.

[pmp10]

They do terrible things. Case Closed. And none of them are exactly a cornerstone of my ability to live a happy life, while ALL of them depend on my viewership to make money...

I'm pretty sure that they care very little for the average consumer.

Both sides have been driven by extremists for a while now.

[Fighter]

As long as they try to "fight back" by banning and censoring this thing will keep going. These abuses of power are endless ammunition. This thing might have been forgotten by now had some people not gone on a massive deletion of threads and posts spree.

 

But since we are where we are. They've managed -- and I don't really care how, through actual collusion or just some hive mind logic -- to censor this thing, to deny exposure, across some pretty major places around the web. Neogaf, reddit, 4chan, etc. We've been told for a long time by these people, "There is no censorship," "No one is coming for your games," etc. Now what?

 

Who is going to guarantee after what we are witnessing that they will never do this to a video game on the basis of some similar social justice reasons? They wont get away with doing it to a major publisher but a smaller game that has a trope that does not suit their world view? They can talk all they want about how they are not trying to police games' content. But an indie dev who relies on these people for exposure is going to have to think very hard before deciding if they are going to do what they want to do or try to please the thought police of the games' industry. And pleasing them isn't even as simple as being pro social justice, just look at TFYC.

Edited September 21, 2014 by Fighter

[Ganrich]

It was streamed on twitch, and I can't link it atm, but someone asked John Carmack during Q & A of his keynote speech today if he feels Oculus has solid sexual/minority representation. Carmack responded by saying (paraphrasing) something along the lines of "we have a hard enough time finding qualified people. So we really don't care what you look like."

 

I love John Carmack.

 

Edit: here is the video on YouTube. I am trying to find the time of the question if they didn't edit it out.

 

 

Yeah, I can't find it, but I am not on my pc. It may have been edited out. I can't blame them that.

Edited September 21, 2014 by Ganrich

[Longknife]

Here, minor update on that last vid about him. Just popped up in my recommended vids list right next to "Baby reaction to 2 girls 1 cup" and "Spy Sapping my Everything."  Thought I'd share it with you guys:

 

[Volourn]

"To answer the question, "Tell me about a game you bought from a 'false' review?" ME3, DA2, Gears of War: Ascension, and there are probably more."

 

Define 'false review'. And, it better be more than 'review said game was good/bad but I thought different'.

[Ganrich]

I am assuming you want detailed reasons? I can do that, but it is still "me thinking different" in regards to the review given.

 

ME3:

 

1). Conversation system was more or less gutted and has half the nodes as in previous titles. So dialogue became much more cinematic.

2). Multiplayer system was shoe horned into the game, and required one to participate to see everything in the single player ending.

3). Many reviews said that it was more narratively focused, but the narrative was easily weaker than 1, and IMHO weaker than 2 (but arguments can be had there).

4). Ending - which wasn't mentioned in any review. As the backlash that ensued would have been avoided if the media had gotten to play it and not lynched the dissenters for their opinions.

 

Metacritic critic average of 9? Please...

 

On a further note of the ending... Original Bioware videos discussing ME1 prior to launch said decisions you made in the first 2 games would impact how everything ended. In the end you had red, green, or blue and none of your decisions mattered. So, this false advertising from Bioware cost me $120 for the first 2 games, and the lack of a mention of the ending being railroaded from media cost me another $60. After ME2 I was debating buying the title, but the 9/10s on every website made me go buy it anyway. I should have known better. I am now out $180.

 

DA2:

 

1). Story was convoluted.

2). Item systems were terrible (armoring companions was worse).

3). Enemy waves became terrible and boring. Which would work in an aRPG, but DA2 was still too much of a cRPG for it to be fun.

4). Boss battles were just bloated HP balloons.

 

The critic's metacritic average was 82. I'd give it a 7 at best, and more likely a 6.

 

GoW4:

 

I realized I said ascension in my above post, and I did mean Judgment. I meant Gears of War and not God of War. My issue here is they gutted everything interesting about multiplayer. Action Reload is a prime example. In the sea of Halo, CoD, and Battlefield type shooters in the world GoW had a mechanic that took skill to perform, and it was something you had to play for a while to get right. They removed the learning curve, and made another generic shooter. This is why I love the old Arena style shooters. If you played them, you learned the spawn times and locations of the power ups and weapons, and you got better from that knowledge. This taught you to stay alive with crappier weapons. In GoW you had to do that plus learn the timing of Actin reload to be good at it. They also reduced the number of guns you could carry to 2. They removed Down but not Out. So, in essence they removed everything that made gears unique outside of it being 3rd person. It was turned into a 3rd person CoD or Halo to appease a larger audience, but wasn't nearly interesting enough without those mechanics because of the Stop and Pop nature of the cover system. Also, it had 8 maps, and only 4 were worthwhile to the competitive seen but they were crappy. Somehow this got them a critic metacritic average of 79 when it should have been much lower.

 

I am much harder on sequels than original titles FYI. When you have a sequel and start gutting systems from the previous title to make a date or to streamline a product I see it as an issue. Especially when the reviews, more less, gloss over those changes. Then in turn and give it praise... That is where the term "false" comes into play. We can say they were ignorant of some of these issues, but someone that is ignorant of a product shouldn't do the reviews.

 

I know you are an advocate of DA2, and that is fine. I am sure there are games I like that you dislike. We can have differing opinions, but I am not derailing this thread further to have this debate here after this post.

[Fighter]

Yeah, I can't find it, but I am not on my pc. It may have been edited out. I can't blame them that.

 

[Volourn]

Ganrich you are full of crap. None of those prove a 'false review'. It only proves that you 'disagree' with said review. And, that is coming from someone who didn't care for ME3 overall. Heck, it's the only BIO non S:RPG RPG that I didn't bother to finish.

 

And, whining that you'd give it a 6/7 but they gave it an 8. COME. ON.

 

 

"I know you are an advocate of DA2, and that is fine. I am sure there are games I like that you dislike. We can have differing opinions, but I am not derailing this thread further to have this debate here after this post."

 

It has nothing to do with liking/disliking a game. See my comments about ME3 above. It's just that your points mainly come down to 'i disagree with review'. Which is fine but it doesn't mean the review was 'lies or false' in the sense they were purposefull trying to mislead you. You'd have to prove that the actual reviewer wrote stuff they didn't actually beleive at the time they wrote it. Good luck with that.

 

Having a different opinion doesn't mean nothing.

[Gromnir]

I am assuming you want detailed reasons? I can do that, but it is still "me thinking different" in regards to the review given.

 

ME3:

 

1). Conversation system was more or less gutted and has half the nodes as in previous titles. So dialogue became much more cinematic.

2). Multiplayer system was shoe horned into the game, and required one to participate to see everything in the single player ending.

3). Many reviews said that it was more narratively focused, but the narrative was easily weaker than 1, and IMHO weaker than 2 (but arguments can be had there).

4). Ending - which wasn't mentioned in any review. As the backlash that ensued would have been avoided if the media had gotten to play it and not lynched the dissenters for their opinions.

 

Metacritic critic average of 9? Please...

 

On a further note of the ending... Original Bioware videos discussing ME1 prior to launch said decisions you made in the first 2 games would impact how everything ended. In the end you had red, green, or blue and none of your decisions mattered. So, this false advertising from Bioware cost me $120 for the first 2 games, and the lack of a mention of the ending being railroaded from media cost me another $60. After ME2 I was debating buying the title, but the 9/10s on every website made me go buy it anyway. I should have known better. I am now out $180.

 

DA2:

 

1). Story was convoluted.

2). Item systems were terrible (armoring companions was worse).

3). Enemy waves became terrible and boring. Which would work in an aRPG, but DA2 was still too much of a cRPG for it to be fun.

4). Boss battles were just bloated HP balloons.

 

The critic's metacritic average was 82. I'd give it a 7 at best, and more likely a 6.

 

GoW4:

 

I realized I said ascension in my above post, and I did mean Judgment. I meant Gears of War and not God of War. My issue here is they gutted everything interesting about multiplayer. Action Reload is a prime example. In the sea of Halo, CoD, and Battlefield type shooters in the world GoW had a mechanic that took skill to perform, and it was something you had to play for a while to get right. They removed the learning curve, and made another generic shooter. This is why I love the old Arena style shooters. If you played them, you learned the spawn times and locations of the power ups and weapons, and you got better from that knowledge. This taught you to stay alive with crappier weapons. In GoW you had to do that plus learn the timing of Actin reload to be good at it. They also reduced the number of guns you could carry to 2. They removed Down but not Out. So, in essence they removed everything that made gears unique outside of it being 3rd person. It was turned into a 3rd person CoD or Halo to appease a larger audience, but wasn't nearly interesting enough without those mechanics because of the Stop and Pop nature of the cover system. Also, it had 8 maps, and only 4 were worthwhile to the competitive seen but they were crappy. Somehow this got them a critic metacritic average of 79 when it should have been much lower.

 

I am much harder on sequels than original titles FYI. When you have a sequel and start gutting systems from the previous title to make a date or to streamline a product I see it as an issue. Especially when the reviews, more less, gloss over those changes. Then in turn and give it praise... That is where the term "false" comes into play. We can say they were ignorant of some of these issues, but someone that is ignorant of a product shouldn't do the reviews.

 

I know you are an advocate of DA2, and that is fine. I am sure there are games I like that you dislike. We can have differing opinions, but I am not derailing this thread further to have this debate here after this post.

we noted earlier that we don't pay much attention to game journalists, or reviews... and use metacritic as a guideline is just silly. is possible you might be offended, but only an idiot would rely on metacritic to make a game purchase. the way most o' us use critics, if we do such a thing, is we find a critic who appears to have tastes similar to ourselves and then we rely on their judgement. is similar to how we use this board as a kinda game review source.

 

we think mc is an okie dokie guy, but he likes fighting, in tunnels. if mc gives 5 stars or 9/10 to a game, that ain't gonna convince us that we would like such a game. if  mc lauds a game 'cause it it is thankfully abstaining from tedious dialog and unnecessary story elements and instead is nothing but 40 hours of fighting in tunnels, am unlikely to be convinced that we will give the game a similar 9/10 rating. sure, we like fighting too, so his comments about combat will resonate, but we know enough to largely ignore his comments about story or writing. is not 'cause mc doesn't know what good is... because good is different for mc than it is for Gromnir. guess what, mc ain't any different than the typical professional game journalist. those clowns got identifiable preferences as well.  you find a critic you is sympatico with, yes? you don't honestly use meatcritic to be making game purchases, do you? that is just... silly.

 

the thing is, reviews from various sources helped convince Gromnir NOT to purchase me3 at release. there were so much negative feedback about that game that regardless o' metacritic, we were forewarned about me3 quite effective. 

 

da2? well, we don't understand the "convoluted" criticism, but the rest is fair. even so, we followed da2 enough to know far in advance that the game were being rushed and that the developers were making some shortcuts. between a few news drops and our own sources, Gromnir were knowing that da2 development were facing an uphill battle. that being said, it actual turned out better than we expected in spite of all its flaws and all the handicaps the developers were facing... but again, the point is that we were Not surprised or shocked.

 

and let's be honest, if you actual believed that you got burned by metacritic for da2, then why did you continue reliance for future games? that is just... wacky. 

 

dunno. obviously Gromnir is the wrong example to be using if you wanna make a stand against the evils o' gaming journalism. am wondering how a person could follow game developments for more than a couple o' years and not share Gromnir's dismissive opinion o' gaming journalism. *gasp*, gaming journalists are biased and unreliable? welcome to 1994... no, 1999, 2001, 2005, 2012, 2014, etc. 

 

regardless, am understanding how somebody naive could get burned by metacritic... once, maybe. honestly. metacritic is a horrible measure for an INDIVIDUAL to use to make a game purchase. you wanna find a game that the mythical Average Gamer will enjoy? which one o' us is the Average Gamer? we use game criticism the same way we use movie and food critics. we find feedback from folks who seems to have similar tastes as does Gromnir. in the absence o' such a wonderful and enlightened personage being available, we looks for patterns amongst folks with known similar and dissimilar tastes to be making an educated decision, but we sure as heck don't rely on metacritic.

 

and if ganrich didn't rely on metacritic but instead relied on previously trustworthy reviewers and still got screwed, then say so, but use metacritic to bolster is confusing us.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited September 21, 2014 by Gromnir

[Ganrich]

@Fighter - Thanks Fighter.

 

@Volourn - cool.