I could understand putting this kind of time in for a passion project of your own, but for like, a job for somebody else? Worse, a salaried job? That’s way too much.
When it comes to movies and audience scores, sure, look at the rotten tomatoes score or whatever. But everyone should realize that the average score of EVERY CRITIC is just going to be a useless number.
Not only that but reviewers who represent entire companies like the people at IGN and elsewhere aren’t giving an honest opinion. I know this because a few of them have given their honest opinion before. They got fired for low scores.
This is the reason that I enjoy watching reviews from people like ACG or SkillUp. They don’t need to give a score because their opinion isn’t a number. Enjoyability isn’t a number. Both of those reviewers enjoy games slightly different than I do, but when I watch their reviews I get a sense of if I will enjoy them.
Seriously if you go to outlets who give scores on games commonly, stop. Very little time is put into choosing these numbers and they reflect nothing about enjoying a game for you personally. Go watch a review from ACG or SkillUp. Outlets like IGN or PCGamer can’t hold a candle to these guys.
They could easily all be giving their honest opinion at IGN: if the reviewers who tend to like everything are the ones who don’t get fired, the output of mostly positive (or sometimes groupthink negative) reviews would be the same, even if individual reviewers never lied.
Take a read of this summary (by IGN) of their Madden 22 review:
“ Madden NFL 22 is a grab bag of decent – if frequently underwhelming – ideas hurt by poor execution. Face of the Franchise, to put it mildly, is a mess. Homefield advantage is a solid addition, but it doesn’t quite capture the true extent of real on-field momentum swings. The new interface is an eyesore, and the new presentation is cast in a strange and unflattering shade of sickly green. It’s smoother and marginally more refined, but in so many ways it’s the same old Madden. In short, if you’re hoping for a massive leap forward for the series on the new generation of consoles (or on the old ones), you’re apt to be disappointed”
Now, I want you to read that and ask what you’d rate it based on this info (or the whole review).
IGN has a scale approximately this: 10. Masterpiece 9. Excellent 8. Great 7. Good 6. Okay 5. Mediocre
I don’t think I need to tell you that the user reviews for this game don’t even reach mediocre. Not to mention the gambling inclusion that IGN doesn’t take seriously in any sports game it reviews. But IGN still called Madden 22 a 6 or an “okay” game.
I’m not saying they’re lying necessarily but the result is the same. The honest critiques are ignored to keep receiving review codes. That score should be left out entirely but they refuse because it drives clicks. It’s a joke.
This is just one example of how boiling down a review to a number is flawed. My favorite reviewers of games in general have been Matthewmatosis and Mandalore Gaming. IIRC neither of them provides a final score of any sort. Even whether a game is “recommended” or not may come with some caveats depending on what you’re looking for in a game.
Wouldn’t that make McDonald’s happy meals also gambling? If not explain the franchises that will absolutely refuse to swap toys during certain promotions (Bionics and TY I can think of off the top of my head).
I don’t think people buy happy meals for the toys. You know what you’re getting to eat, which is the purpose of the chain. It is a food service company, not a toy manufacturing company and the toys are only tokens of appreciation for the customer.
EA is a video game company and your experience and ability to play the game basically depends on these loot boxes. In fact, you play or pay to increase the chances to get a good deck, but nothing is guaranteed. It is random or perhaps even more perverse, it is programmed to deny or condition good players on your decks to keep you playing for the next loot box.
The only way this is not gambling, is that you don’t win money at the end of the day. Just satisfaction.
Fifa loot boxes contain different players, so you could either get Messi or a 3rd grade soccer player, with the 3rd grader being weighted more heavily in terms of being acquired.
Those cards still hold value and the game is made to be played with multiple of the same cards. But you’re right, trading cards are a gamble.
You pay for a mystery pack
You either get good or bad cards
You’ll keep buying to get better stuff
It has all the checks.
But I think it’s important you don’t need to buy booster packs to enjoy the game. I can buy multiple pre-made decks and I know exactly what I get and still can enjoy the game.
Some games (now not talking about FIFA) even rely on loot boxes to make the game more enjoyable. You even can get timed stuff you can only use an X amount of days and poof… it’s gone.
Also digital purchases might be considered “too easy”. With cards you at least get something physical.
Not sure though… all I personally think is that micro transactions and loot boxes are killing the fun and quality of games.
My parents refused to enable me to get into the glorified gambling of trading card games and frankly I was better off for this. I’ve seen people waking up realizing they had spent hundreds to thousands on cardboard designed to be replaced and deeply regretting it. That is while having cardboard to regret buying. Imagine what happens to these kids if the game they spent all their gift cards on closes down and takes it all down the drain.
Meanwhile there were gifts like games and D&D books that let me have fun for a long time as complete packages without needing additional expenditures to enjoy.
There are things kids can like and dislike, and we should keep that in mind. But as adults we should also take some responsibility for cutting through the bulshit of manipulative marketing. They aim these things at children because children only see their immediate excitement and wonder, but not the sleazy business behind it.
Meanwhile there were gifts like games and D&D books that let me have fun for a long time as complete packages without needing additional expenditures to enjoy.
I see that kid-you never got into the world of gaming accessories.
When I bought dice sets there was never the risk of missing out on the Ultra Rare d4 and being unable to use Magic Missile because of that. I might not have always gotten everything I wanted, but I got what I needed and I didn’t need to pay a subscrption to continue playing.
Studios being bought up like this usually means stuff from them will degrade in quality fast. The last thing from Blizzard I liked was Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 so for me no big loss. I’m more upset about Obsidian and InXile.
After Baldur's Gate 3, contrasted against what EA's Bioware has output lately, I'll bet Microsoft is happy to let their RPG studios continue doing what made them a success in the first place.
I can’t think of a single exception to a big company buying up a game studio and that studio’s quality absolutely plummeting. EA has been buying up good studios and gutting them for decades, I doubt Microsoft is any better, they already have a history of doing that to different software.
Nether Realm Studios, Naughty Dog, Angel Studios (Rockstar San Diego), and Relic, without thinking about it too long, but there are also all kinds of reasons why a studio's quality would struggle to hold up over long periods of time regardless of being purchased, and even then it can be very subjective.
Hasn’t modern Mortal Kombat been absolutely crap? And Rockstar games have felt worse ever since GTA 4 and they are currently just focused on milking online content.
Relic I only know for Impossible Creatures and Naughty Dog isn’t ringing any bells for me so can’t say anything about that.
Alright, no offense, but I think you need to expand your horizons, lol.
The last 5 games (all of which were post-acquisition) Nether Realm put out have all been multi-million sellers in a genre that struggles to do that, and their past 2 games are only second fiddle to Smash for number of copies sold. They're the only ones who figured out how to do single player content in a fighting game that interests people enough to buy those games for that content, and while Capcom and Bandai Namco both tried, I think you'll be hard pressed to find someone who thinks they did it better.
Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 were both post-acquisition, and regardless of my feelings of RDR2 (which is still that it is not a bad game by any means), both games are critical and commercial smash hits.
Relic has had very successful Warhammer 40k and Company of Heroes releases over the past 20 years.
Naughty Dog has made far more games post-acquisition than pre-acquisition, and some of their best-selling, highest-rated games have been on the more recent end of things. Perhaps you've heard of Uncharted and The Last of Us?
I havent owned a console so that explains why I don’t recognise Naughty Dog. I vaguely recognise Uncharted and the last of us but I know nothing of the games themselves.
I haven’t played either of the RDR games or any Company of Heroes games and the last Warhammer I played was Soulstorm so I can’t comment on those.
I have played quite a few fighting games and the genre is definitely quite stale when it comes to single player. The only ones I can think of where I enjoyed the single player was the new Smash and Skullgirls. Mortal Kombat hasn’t had a new idea in like decades, they seem to be content with milking the franchise without doing anything new.
I don’t think commercial success is a good indicator of what makes a good game though, like all the Call of Duty games released every year are not good but they are successful. Not to mention the sport games that rake in obscene amounts of money while nothing much changes between releases. Or mobile games…
There's a reason I mentioned critical and commercial success, because the two combined are the closest we can get to an objective measure of quality. If the game is selling well and reviewing well, it's very difficult to make an argument besides your own personal taste that the quality has declined.
I havent owned a console so that explains why I don’t recognise Naughty Dog.
There's never been a better time to play video games and not own a console, because there's hardly such a thing as a console exclusive anymore, but you'd really have to live under a rock to be unaware of Naughty Dog if you've ever paid attention to E3/summer announcements, game of the year awards, or just what other people are saying on forums.
I have played quite a few fighting games and the genre is definitely quite stale when it comes to single player. The only ones I can think of where I enjoyed the single player was the new Smash and Skullgirls. Mortal Kombat hasn’t had a new idea in like decades, they seem to be content with milking the franchise without doing anything new.
This is a very strange paragraph. NRS are the fighting game studio for single player content, and they were even during the 6th gen era when people generally didn't like Mortal Kombat games. If you think they haven't had a new idea in decades, you definitely haven't been paying attention for at least one of those decades...the past ten years. The most recent game added kameo fighters, which shook up the way those games play quite a lot, plus up blocking and a way to convert down 2 into air combos if you've got the meter for it.
Don’t all the sports games and Call of Duties also review and sell well? I don’t think many would call them good games.
Yea, I don’t follow any gaming media or forum. I pretty much get new things to play from either Steam’s recommended list or Humble Bundle.
I haven’t played the last Mortal Kombat, that’s true. All previous ones, which I did play, including the 2 Injustice games, felt too samey for me to bother with another one.
Call of Duties are trending down but still generally seen as good games. Sports games are doing worse. Since the exclusivity contracts were signed in the mid 00s, the quality among critics and fans has been seen as declining, but if you're a basketball fan, you've got no real option besides the casino disguised as an NBA game, for instance.
Yea, I don’t follow any gaming media or forum.
You're on one right now.
As for Mortal Kombat, this is where we just get back to accounting for personal taste. They're immensely popular, review well, and they've been doing measurably better with critics and fans since the acquisition. (Hit me up in Skullgirls though.)
I didn’t even bought the 3rd SC2 expansion, I bought the 2nd one and not even playing through half of it. I did play a bit of overwatch due to friends asking me to play with them, but quickly drop it cause I really don’t have time to grind or play that game and keep up with the meta.
They also bought out ZeniMax in the same deal, which means they also have ESO under their rap sheet.
The only thing that effectively changed in ESO since the acquisition in 2020 is that they added the endeavor system to the game, so there was an excuse to sustain loot crates and give people a means to get the loot crate items in the game… though that system is frankly still BS since the amount of endeavor and gems needed for that fluff is in real world dollars ridiculous. As is, I dumped ESO completely after High Isle and went back to only playing GW2 (I have been in both games since beta), since the nonsense happening in ESO was enough for me to see that Microsoft running into the ground was not an issue - ZoS already managed that themselves…
I imagine it will be the same for WoW. Zero sum game.
Obsidian and InXile had just started getting some new promising franchises up and running (Wasteland & Outer Worlds). It’d be a shame if they went ‘Storefront Exclusive’ already.
The last minute EGS timed-exclusive deal already screwed with the first TOW game’s launch.
The concept of Storefront Exclusivity just shouldn’t be a thing at all.
I don’t even care about exclusive. Obsidian, CDProject, InXile and Larian are like the only studios left that make really good RPGs and whenever a studio gets bought out their quality absolutely plummets, I can’t think of a single exception to that. I do like Larian’s and CDProject’s stuff but Obsidian RPGs have been my favourites and it just feels like I won’t get another amazing Obsidian RPG. Like I already saw Bioware, Bethesda, Troika and Black Isle either disappear or have their quality go to absolute shit.
I agree. It’s just one of those things that starts things off badly.
And MS has been pushing a bit for it, like EGS.
Also I’m painfully aware of the age of the OG Wasteland as I grew up with it. I was thinking more in the line of the crowdfunded ones, 2 & 3. InXile seemed well on track with 'em.
Didn't Troika and Black Isle essentially lead to the creation of Obsidian and InXile? You're basically listing the same studios multiple times. Plus there has been a lot of communication between Bioware and CD Projekt, leading to talent moving between those studios, and I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true for Larian.
Like 5 developers of Black Isle founded Obsidian but as far as I know Troika just disappeared along with it’s developers. I can’t find anything about Bioware and CD Project or Larian collaborating though.
Bioware and CD Projekt worked together on the first Witcher, because that game ran on Bioware's engine. The new director for Phantom Liberty and Cyberpunk's sequel came from Bioware, and he said in an interview that that past relationship is why they reached out to him for the position, insinuating it's not the first time it's happened and that the two companies had continued to be in contact over the years. Given CD Projekt's last two games' similarities to Bethesda's formula, it wouldn't surprise me if there was overlap with the developers of those studios as well; and the same extends to Larian and the inspirations they've clearly taken from old Bioware.
as far as I know Troika just disappeared along with it’s developers
It's possible that all but about 5 developers from Troika left the industry after the company folded, but I'd call that the least likely scenario. In my own career (only briefly in games), people who liked working with me have reached out to hire me from previous working relationships between companies, and you tend to see a lot of the same people from job to job as a result.
Some things you can’t take back, especially when as CEO you don’t even try to take it back but just indicate that they might scale some of its extremes back. For now.
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