93% vs 77% doesn’t strike me as polarized. 16% difference?
77% doesn’t even seem that bad if it’s a style of game I like. From about 2001 I used to see sci fi movies that looked interesting as long as they had at least a 25% Rotten Tomatoes score because my tastes were different.
Is there something I’m missing? I haven’t played either game and I haven’t looked at reviews. Won’t buy KCD (no character creation) and probably will eventually buy Avowed.
The thing is, those reviews must be left by someone who purchased it. It’s got a self-selection bias. People purchased it presumably expecting to like it. They thought it would be a style of game they enjoyed. Most people who think it isn’t something they’ll like will just pass over it and not buy it, and obviously not effect the score.
Makes me appreciate reviews that are able to give pros and cons to the game, and the ones that are able to say an opinion between “best game ever” and “absolute trash”. Which I still often see on the Steam reviews, usually voted as one of the Most Helpful!
The only problem is that people are idiots, especially online. Go to any comment section and you’ll find people angry at the content, no matter what the content is. And you’re taking them seriously, for some reason. Laugh at them and move on, no more polarization problem. As you’ve said, 77% of people enjoyed avowed. Probably even more, as people are a lot more likely to leave a bad review than a good one.
Brother, picking on your example, Avowed had the gall to charge 11€ more than KCD2 while offering a facsimile of what it promised while KCD2 improved upon their past game in every way. The polarisation stems from a game published by one of the richest companies in the world and in production for over 6y delivering a mediocre experience (at best) when compared to CHEAPER offerings that do much more. In truth, it’s not polarisation, it’s requiring a modicum of quality for your money. I returned it because I was advertised an Obsidian RPG and got a linear shooter with barely any choices and performance issues that would not be foreign in a mobile marketplace. That’s the future gamepass brings, slop. Luckily, there’s US indie, Asian and European developers making good games, KCD2 or BG3 being such examples. Shit, even Lords of the Fallen is a better experience than Avowed as people were delivered the experience that was promised in the promotional materials at less than 70€.
Edit: Dragon Age was technically well executed, but, again, as an RPG, it had little to offer. Would be another game perfect for a mobile app store. The total sales of that game and predicted sales of avowed confirm as much, it’s shovelware capitalising on a franchise name to drive sales while having no craft or passion behind it. If you read the reviews for avowed, the overwhelming majority of the thumbs up reviews complain the game is not worth the price of admission and it’s a mid game at best.
I am sorry, but it seems your Avowed is different from the one I am playing. I agree with your comment, but I am enjoying Avowed like I haven’t enjoyed any game in years! And barely any choices? Really? I just finished the first area (not the tutorial), and there were LOTS of meaningful choices! But speaking of the tutorial, there was a choice there that impacted certain future interactions. The R is definitely there in this RPG. I haven’t played a game where even the little choices matter as much as in this game!
People engage in absolutes. They either love a thing or hate a thing. There’s no nuance.
And it must be made to cater for them, there’s no expectation that it will contain choices they don’t approve of.
And this stance, this modern relationship with the world permeates everything, especially forms of media.
You see it in films and books… Fans and stans and folk trying to take it down. There is no nuance or middle ground.
People don’t accept that, perhaps, something isn’t just “not for them”. That’s why you get grown men complaining about the direction of children’s shows they used to watch.
And this is compounded with social media where polarisation, blunt takes and contradiction are the primary drivers of engagement.
It’s absolutely not just a gaming problem. Movie reviews are getting more and more bandwagon-y. Only a few reviewers post in the first day or two, and everyone else says “okay, they hated it, now I have to hate it too or I’m going to lose credibility”. I think it’s the inevitable outcome of having less famous reviewers, a NYT columnist can post what they feel, but a small blog can fall into obscurity if they have one contrarian review.
The only part that’s unique to gaming is that gamers are the most toxic community in the internet.
Don’t forget the vocal minority problem. The subset of people who comment on things is much smaller than the set of people who consume them. And while the threshold of effort for making comment is low, it isn’t zero, so people who hold more extreme views are going to be more prevalent in the selection because the people with moderate views aren’t going to have the motivation to spend 20 minutes explaining the nuanced position they have, while the ‘love’ and ‘hate’ camps will gladly spend 10 seconds on posting their simplistic view.
Add on the way modern systems work, focusing on likes, upvotes, etc. and you get short form responses getting greater engagement purely because they don’t take as long to read. It’s always easier to get traction with a short, maybe amusing, rehash of a common opinion than with a long dissertation on niche, complex views.
That cycles back in at the top to create a visibility bias so the people making the next round of commentary/content see the wave of love/hate and try to ride it. The result is a feedback loop with a terrible signal to noise ratio.
i don’t think they are polarising. imo, 77% is mid. nothing bad with a “just okay” game. sometimes you just want to play the experience of a new familiar world and this is it.
with tiktokers though, a mid game has less to talk about and so their narratives make what little or so difference sound like a big deal. sensationalism is where the money is for them.
i guess a good list of fair and reliable sources would help out here.
A game is also more than the aggregate of its review scores. An average of 81 on Open Critic is derived from those who rated it a 6 and those who loved it enough to give it a 9 or a 10.
I’ve learned a long time ago that if you just wait a few years these games will go on sale for $20 and will have enough informed reviews to help make a solid purchasing decision. Gamers need to get off this new release hype train and be patient. I personally won’t play KCD 2, I disliked the first one. I will probably try Avowed in a few years after I get through my existing backlog of ~100 unplayed games in Steam. We are spoiled for choice and the market is filled with good indie games.
Sure but the cheap market would not exist if a majority of people would not buy the game at full price. Sure there are a lot of smart people who don’t fall for the FOMO and hype but if a AAA game would only sell for 30€ it would not offset its development cost and no new game would be made.
With recent big game releases, it’s become obvious that a game is either a resounding success, or complete shit. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground.
You’re saying this from a player opinion perspective which is accurate, but it’s also interesting that companies act the same way. If a big game doesn’t make 10 zillion dollars now there’s a good chance the entire company gets shut down.
What if I from time to time really love some basic gameplay done well? I’ll think avowed is straight up my alley. Not every game I play needs to innovate. There is also a lot of comfort in the preexisting.
Yep. Most AAA gaming is too afraid to appeal to a specific segment of the market. They make games that everyone is supposed to like, which often ends up being uninteresting at best.
Smaller games can target a smaller audience and still be successful. They take risks and do new things, and it’ll push some people away but many will enjoy it a lot more for it.
Why emulate ? The Master Chief Collection is available on PC. It’s missing Halo 5 though. And then Infinite went ahead and cancelled this whole storyline.
True, I forgot that I bought that myself. My mind went to XBox emulation because I’ve been messing around with it. It’d be interesting to hear a comparison between what runs smoother: Halo 1-4 emulated or through the MCC.
The OG Xbox version made by Bungie was ported to PC by Gearbox back in the day, and the port made some changes to the game in the process. More visual than gameplay oriented changes, but purists will say they ruined the game. The Gearbox port is what they built Halo Anniversary (the Xbox 360 remaster) and the TMMC version off of.
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