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Bethesda wants your money before the reviews hit


Undead Wolf

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Why would I be sad that Bethesda makes money? I like Bethesda. I liked Skyrim. I want companies that make games I like to succeed. I then get to play more games by those companies.

You seem to be making a defense for the absolute lowest form of consumer. I don't get that. On the one hand, you say that peopke who research games are in the minority. I don't agree with that, but for now, let's take it as true. Why, then should Bethesda (or anyone else) give early review copies of games? What does it accomplish?

I want consumers to possess a certain amount of responsibilty and self-control. I believe they do, BTW. Thus, I see no need to protect them from themselves. If a person who hated Skyrim on the PS3 turns around and pre-buys it on the PS4, no amount of early access to info is going to save him, anyway.

 

I was talking about games that had misleading marketing, and developers/publishers who outright lied about things. You were making out like people who got fooled by that stuff and were disappointed with the final product are the ones to blame. The way I see it, they are the victims here. Your putting the blame on the wrong people. The publishers who do these things know exactly what they're doing. And yes, Bethesda have developed/published some good games (let's just forget about Brink, shall we?), but if they're that confident in their product, why can't they allow it to be criticised before launch? Do they not have faith in their own product? Sure, they have every right not to give out early copies, it's their game after all, but to me that's just cowardly. Oh, but you're allowed an early copy if you give the game nothing but praise of course.

 

I'm saying people who research games like we do. You don't have to be participating in forums, or reading up on all the latest gaming news to of heard about a review. Even if they don't read it themselves, I'm sure they have friends and what not who tell them about it. Hell, I'm sure there are people who buy Call of Duty every year who still check and see what score it receives. My point is that a review can inform people who maybe don't know about as much as games as we do.

Edited by Undead Wolf
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Look I really don't want to type out an essay about this, but all this people misunderstanding other people's point stuff is almost making me want to do so.

Now almost no one in this thread is saying reviews are bad, the main agreement I'm seeing is if pre-release reviews are worth anything at all.

I am saying they are worthless in almost all cases because of a few reasons.

1. The ingrained conflict of interest caused by the current pre-review process. Because the reviewers has to be in a good relationship with the developer to get the free pre-release review copy of the game the reviewer comes into the game with a certain amount of bias in favor of the game and developer. This bias will not stop the reviewer from critically reviewing the game, but the bias it will slant the review.

2. Nowadays most games have a day one patch. Because of these day one patches the game that is being pre-release reviewed could be radically different from the game with a day one patch. This is a huge hurdle that pre-release reviews have to overcome and lately they haven't done so very well.

3. Because of the day one patch problem the question of who pre-release reviews are for arises. If these reviews can't accurately tell people what the game they will be playing on release day is like then they don't really help people who buy games day one. So if they are not for day one buyer and all the other people who use reviews can wait for all the post release reviews who are these reviews for?

IMO these reviews only help the developers and reviewers. Since most of the reviews for AAA games are positively slanted all they do give the developer relatively free advertising and the reviewers get that sweet ad revenue money.

Because of these reasons and more a lot of people don't trust reviewer that do pre-release reviews based on a free early copy of a game. This is why when people like Angry Joe and Jim Sterling say a game is good or bad people trust their opinion because 8 times out of 10 they buy the games they review with their own money which put them on the same the level as the other consumers. This simple action causes people to trust in their opinion on games.

As for is this anti consumer or not. I say no it's not because nothing is forcing the consumer to do anything. The last time something was truly anti consumer in the game industry, was when Ubisoft and Capcom locked the true ending of Prince of Persia and Asura's Wrath behind DLC.

This is the last thing I'm going to say on the matter, but to say that Bethesda did something wrong for taking a step in the right direction towards ending the pre-order pre-release hype train BS seems weird to me.

Also stop assuming that normal game consumers are stupid. That has come up a lot in this thread and it's kind of ridiculous to assume people will keep being burned by hype trains over and over again. Eventually they will learn in they won't do it anymore.

I think that problem only affects independent critics. Publications like Edge who are pretty harsh on games still get review copies whenever available; publishers can't really get away with bullying those people and when they try to like the Kane & Lynch debuckle word gets out and its more trouble than it is worth.

 

If a game is genuinely broken without a day one patch then yes actually, a review should talk about that. May seem backwards in this day and age but a sizable group of people have very slow connections or even no internet at all on their consoles.

 

A day 1 patch doesn't flip the game upside down its usually a stabilization patch for performance and the like. If it needs to be something more that's a flaw in the game that needs to be pointed out.

 

Jim Sterling and Angry Joe *do* get review copies, a lot of the time. Jim's been black listed by Konami and EA think he's too much of a wild card but for most of the games they review they're no different than IGN or GS. Their opinion is not mitigated by monetary investment [well unless its a CoI but it isn't]

 

That's not what anti consumer means.

 

Lol this FEEDS the pre-release hype train BS. No early reviews means people are less likely to tone down their expectations once the reviews hit and more likely to just gobble it all up then get gob smacked when the game comes out.

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Bethesda didn't develop Brink. Splash Damage did. If you're going to slam adeveloper, at least slam the right one.

 

I didn't say they developed it. lol xD They published it, and I clearly stated that...

 

And yes, Bethesda have developed/published some good games (let's just forget about Brink, shall we?)

 

Maybe get your facts straight before going off on one? ;)

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Just because DOOM was amazing doesn't really give them a free pass.

 

Don't pre-order games

People are obsessed with having the newest thing. I think for many people it's part of the social atmosphere, where you get to brag that you just got the newest bombastic game to your coworkers or your friends. For others, they get baited into this hype train that developers dream of creating, because games are their most profitable when they first come out. Shocking, I know, but nonetheless true.

 

People want to fit in. I think that's why games like Overwatch do so well. Everybody wants to play what everyone else is playing. I kind of miss the independence that the mass majority of gamers had when I was growing up. Like, I was a Nintendo kid, and my best friend was a Sony guy, so we would go over to each other's houses and play the exclusives that we couldn't play any other way, and I loved it. Nowadays though? Fuck that, you get what your friend gets, or what everybody on the internet praises.

 

Preorders will never die. Especially when the generation of gamer today isn't very intelligent. Marketing for games today is aimed at naive people, or children, because they're the most easily influenced. And they'll always convince their parents to get that Call of Duty or that Battlefield.

 

I'm happy that for the first time in over 2 years, I am looking forward to not one, but two games that I have preordered next month. I only preorder when I have a confident feeling that I will love the game, and I need to have it right away. Can't say I feel that about games very often anymore. 

The perks of getting old, I guess...

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what i'm trying to point out is that they said DOOM got good reviews due to the way they handed the review copies to the reviewers, and now they're going to do the same with Dishonored 2 and Skyrim Remaster.

I believe even without the " hold on the reviews until the game is out " DOOM will gonna receive well, what if Dishonored 2 didn't score higher than the first game with that practice? what if Skyrim Remaster scored lower than the original last gen due to a bug that pushed people away from the game before been patched out, these game ranking reviews are just numbers you want the best review? play the game yourself.

see the issue with reviews is in the end, its someones opinion. now while i may take some reviewers opinions to heart like Angry Joe. In the end i do decide for myself if ill play the game. Joe gave dying light 6/10 and called it mediocre and nothing to special. I enjoyed it enough to pay $60 for the game and DLC all in one package and i almost have the plat :). Sometimes they say a game is a 10/10 and a must own like MGS V and i hated that game.

so yes your right, make your own decisions

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see the issue with reviews is in the end, its someones opinion. now while i may take some reviewers opinions to heart like Angry Joe. In the end i do decide for myself if ill play the game. Joe gave dying light 6/10 and called it mediocre and nothing to special. I enjoyed it enough to pay $60 for the game and DLC all in one package and i almost have the plat :). Sometimes they say a game is a 10/10 and a must own like MGS V and i hated that game.

so yes your right, make your own decisions

glad that you understand my point :)

now i do respect everyone's opinion some other people just stick to what they said even if they been proven wrong.

same here, I 'm also a fan of angry Joe reviews, he's one of the very few reviewers out there that is honest, even if he point out that it's just his opinion he do highlight at things right that it dose or does not happen in the game no matter who's playing it.

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I was talking about games that had misleading marketing, and developers/publishers who outright lied about things. You were making out like people who got fooled by that stuff and were disappointed with the final product are the ones to blame. The way I see it, they are the victims here. Your putting the blame on the wrong people. The publishers who do these things know exactly what they're doing. And yes, Bethesda have developed/published some good games (let's just forget about Brink, shall we?), but if they're that confident in their product, why can't they allow it to be criticised before launch? Do they not have faith in their own product? Sure, they have every right not to give out early copies, it's their game after all, but to me that's just cowardly. Oh, but you're allowed an early copy if you give the game nothing but praise of course.

 

I'm saying people who research games like we do. You don't have to be participating in forums, or reading up on all the latest gaming news to of heard about a review. Even if they don't read it themselves, I'm sure they have friends and what not who tell them about it. Hell, I'm sure there are people who buy Call of Duty every year who still check and see what score it receives. My point is that a review can inform people who maybe don't know about as much as games as we do.

 

This will be my last post in the thread, because, well, I think I've said what I want. But I do want to mention one thing.

 

What you describe above (lying about what's in a game, etc.) would constitute fraud in my opinion, and that absolutely should be punished. If Skyrim, e.g., advertises a robust multiplayer on the PS4, and then doesn't have it, Bethesda should be punished. A victim of fraud is never at fault (no victim of a crime ever is).

 

However, the only "crime" I see here is high expectations not being met. For example, one poster mentioned that Skyrim was "flat-out broken" on PS3. It wasn't. It had performance issues, certainly (the one I remember most was heavy slowdown after extended play, although I know others existed because of the youtubes), but it did work. I know, because I played it. That is a very different problem to me.

 

Also, you mention that Bethesda might only release games to those reviewers who will give it a favorable review. That's certainly true, but I don't even blame Bethesda for that. Rather, I blame "gaming journalism", which is indeed a joke (as yet another poster said), though not for the reasons given. 

 

At the end of the day, Bethesda can't keep reviewers from reviewing games. They can limit early access; that is their right, as it is their product. But, in doing so, all they have done (at least in my case) is kept me from buying their game early (if at all).

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This will be my last post in the thread, because, well, I think I've said what I want. But I do want to mention one thing.

 

What you describe above (lying about what's in a game, etc.) would constitute fraud in my opinion, and that absolutely should be punished. If Skyrim, e.g., advertises a robust multiplayer on the PS4, and then doesn't have it, Bethesda should be punished. A victim of fraud is never at fault (no victim of a crime ever is).

 

However, the only "crime" I see here is high expectations not being met. For example, one poster mentioned that Skyrim was "flat-out broken" on PS3. It wasn't. It had performance issues, certainly (the one I remember most was heavy slowdown after extended play, although I know others existed because of the youtubes), but it did work. I know, because I played it. That is a very different problem to me.

 

Also, you mention that Bethesda might only release games to those reviewers who will give it a favorable review. That's certainly true, but I don't even blame Bethesda for that. Rather, I blame "gaming journalism", which is indeed a joke (as yet another poster said), though not for the reasons given. 

 

At the end of the day, Bethesda can't keep reviewers from reviewing games. They can limit early access; that is their right, as it is their product. But, in doing so, all they have done (at least in my case) is kept me from buying their game early (if at all).

 

Plenty of publishers/developers stretch the truth about what exactly is in their game. We'll often see extremely impressive E3 demos that either show entire sections or features that aren't in the final game, or obvious visual downgrades in the final release. Now of course a game is going to change over the course of development, but they know full well that these vertical slices are of much higher quality than what the actual game will be. Ubisoft is especially guilty of this as you can see in this video.

 

 

Now we know to take these demos with a pinch of salt, but the average Joe doesn't know any better. It's because of previews like this that these games get hyped up in the first place. It's less about them setting their expectations too high (although this does happen), and more about them expecting the game they were shown.

 

As for Skyrim on PS3, it WAS pretty much broken on release when the save file went over a certain size. I don't know about you, but I don't think a game that fluctuates between 0-25 fps is playable. If you don't believe me, I have a video for that too. :P

 

 

Now it was patched later down the road, but it still doesn't change the fact that it was released in such a bad shape. If their games aren't allowed to be criticised before release, how will we know if similar issues occur in their future games? Bethesda are known to make buggy games after all.

 

Anyway, thanks for the discussion. It was enjoyable. No hard feelings, mate. :highfive:

Edited by Undead Wolf
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Annoying guy number 1 previously from IGN tells you what you should already know. I'd throw in, don't listen to professional swindlers and form your own opinion. 

 

Someone clearly isn't a fan of one of the coolest dudes in video games. ;)

If you actually read what I've been saying throughout this thread, you'd know I did already form my own opinion. xD

Edited by Undead Wolf
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People want to fit in. I think that's why games like Overwatch do so well. Everybody wants to play what everyone else is playing. I kind of miss the independence that the mass majority of gamers had when I was growing up. Like, I was a Nintendo kid, and my best friend was a Sony guy, so we would go over to each other's houses and play the exclusives that we couldn't play any other way, and I loved it. Nowadays though? Fuck that, you get what your friend gets, or what everybody on the internet praises.

 

 

So essentially your diagnosing the mass market through one pointless anecdote? 

The anecdote doesn't particularly prove your point either considering that people still own different consoles and like different things. Console wars were a thing because of those ''individual'' gamers and their love of one brand over anything.

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Someone clearly isn't a fan of one of the coolest dudes in video games. ;)

If you actually read what I've been saying throughout this thread, you'd know I did already form my own opinion. xD

lol indeed :D. I wasn't saying you personally, just as a whole. I never fully trust a reviewers opinion, even if I like them. 

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So essentially your diagnosing the mass market through one pointless anecdote? 

The anecdote doesn't particularly prove your point either considering that people still own different consoles and like different things. Console wars were a thing because of those ''individual'' gamers and their love of one brand over anything.

Console wars happen because people make a big deal about fucking anything.

 

Case in point? Pokemon, where you've got people saying GO TEAM MYSTIC FUCK THE OTHER TWO. Like... the only thing that makes each team different is a colour and a different legendary Pokemon... there's literally no other difference. But of course losers have to take everything and put their own little spin.

Competition is fun, but not when you're arguing over goddamn colours.

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