Yes, most vigilantes don't like to have to reflect on or explain whether they genuinely had a good case for running some poor sap down and stringing him up.
A Game Journalist Breakdown - Rant
- Thread starter CriticalGaming
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Most of a time they do. And what the publishers should do get off their asses and give these reviewers more time. Give them at least a month and a 1/2 or something when it comes to long single player games. That way they can at least beat the deadline early. Or if there is an update, they can add a pending for their review. Let the reader know of any updates and changes they will make to the review.
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For sure.
I would love to see an outlet give a game a 2/10 score because they got the review code too late or something. Yes, it would be petty but it would certainly be reflective of our times.
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As someone who has worked in the games industry I can tell you, a month and a half out from release a lot of games are still a mess. Technically playable, but they often still have broken HUD elements, placeholder textures or models, sometimes broken or unfinished quest lines, missing sound effects, etc. Companies can't send review copies of games out to reviewers a month and a half in advance because the games literally aren't done yet.
So what you're actually asking is for developers to delay releasing their games for a month and a half until reviewers have finished reviewing them, which is never going to happen. Fans are willing to riot whenever there's a delay to a highly anticipated game, and developers aren't going to eat the cost of delaying a game for a month and a half just to please some third party that leaches off their industry.
On the other hand, review outlets are never going to delay their reviews for a month until the writer has a chance to fully experience the game because a month after release the game is no longer in the spotlight and any review is pointless because people have already bought and played the game. Late reviews don't drive clicks and don't make money.
Yes, I think that's exactly the sort of right idea: transparency. "I played X much". I guess some could lie (pretend they played more to be thought of as more reliable?) but I doubt that many would bother.
I have no idea how much game journalists get paid (I'm guessing not that much), but I figure there's a de facto notional hours played per review. I'd hope it's probably upwards of 20. 20h is plenty to "finish" some games, but in others it might only be scratching the surface.
* * *
Arguably endings are often overlooked, because games are mostly about playing, and the ending happens when the playing stops. Plus that looking at the completion rates for most games, it's something a lot of players don't experience because they never finish it.
I'm a little mixed on them. I would say that I usually don't care if the ending is little more than a "That's all, folks" screen, but on the other hand a great ending can be very powerful.
Then change the system and give some fucking leeway. It ain't that hard. This is why I prefer the AA and indie. They ain't perfect either, but they at least give themselves time to develop games, because most of them aren't beholden to share holders or are privately own. It's simply called: have the game in a finished or near finished state, and give the reviewers a month or two depending on the game and scope/size of it.
Like I give a shit. I had to wait nearly ten years for DMC5 and 26 years on Streets of Rage 4. The impatient man/woman child fans can fuck off and play something else. New games come out every day. Fill that waiting with something more meaningful or go outside. I don't care which they do.
Which is why I don't bother with the major outlets anymore in the first place. I can rely on the individuals who care about doing reviews on their own time, not beholden to advertisers, rushed deadlines, nor obvious echo chambers. The contractors and those on YouTuber are still involved in the algorithm/system in some way, but they usually make it suck less for them or get a benefit in some way depending on who they are.
I do appreciate the insider info, but most of this was already known to me by this point.
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Change what system?
How does it benefit a development studio to give an unfinished product to reviewers? How does it benefit a development studio to have a finished product sitting around for an extra month and a half before release just so reviewers have time to play it?
AA and Indie games aren't any different in this regard. Indie devs aren't sitting on their hands for a month before releasing their game just to give reviewers time to play it.
The phrase "time is money" applies here.
No shit, but they at least treat each other like humans. No soulless machines that can run 24/7. It's possible to change the system, but you have greedy bastards that won't do so otherwise, despite having all the money in the universe. Even then, that's still not enough for the greedy bitches at the top.
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I think you're completely misunderstanding the dynamic between game reviewers and developers.
Publications are the ones who request review copies from developers, developers aren't the ones going to game publications asking for their product to be reviewed.
The developers aren't setting the timelines for the review, they just say that a review can't come out before X date, and obviously developers aren't going to give reviewers a copy of a game that hasn't gone gold yet. Developers also aren't the ones overloading reviewers with work.
The fact of the matter is that game review publications just don't make that much money, therefore they have less staff, and the staff they have end up getting overworked because they need to constantly output as many reviews as possible as fast as possible to maximize the number of clicks they get from the ad revenue algorithm.
None of that has to do with developers.
"Developers should give them more time." Why? How would that benefit the developers? Why would they sit on their hands for a month+ to give reviewers time to review a product they they are ready to ship and sell?
I understand perfectly, I just don't give a shit anymore. I stopped a long time ago. Plain and simple.
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You seem to care enough to spend multiple pages of a thread blaming the wrong parties for just about everything possible.
Not really. The problems almost always come from the top when it's the AAA(A) gaming industry.
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It's quite the take to say that the AAA games industry is responsible for the inadequacies of news media organizations who they do not fund or control.
The real reason that games journalism is in the toilet is the same reason that journalism in general is dying. Advertising revenue. Google adsense is the reason for the deterioration of online journalism.
All the above. Same difference. The AAA industry did nothing to help and added to many problems. Some of which were already there, and other the AAA created themselves. Let's not absolve AAA of the shit they caused. Both parts of the industry played hand in near equal terms. Once again: Jeff, GameSpot, and the Kane & Lynch: Dead Man. All your doing is shifting blame and playing the happenstance game. It's a shitty system that's broke as fuck, and no one has guts to actually fix it.
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Again, what exactly is "the system," what about it is broken in a way that game studios are responsible for it, and what would fixing it look like?
You already know the answer and I gave it to you ages ago. Figure it out.
I am not doing this back and forth.
I got Panzer Bandit. So don't bother me right now.
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No you really haven't, all you've done is rag on reviewers you don't like over purely subjective issues, which isn't any different than what Critical was doing. If you're so well versed in the issue then surely you can easily explain why the core of my argument is incorrect instead of deflecting.
On to more interesting matters, not even Digital Foundry is immune nor exempt from this.
As much as Digital Foundry can be helpful at times, they can get too pedantic on frame rate or exaggerate when a game is sometimes not up to snuff 1000% of the time with whatever frames per seconds. Calling Shadows of the Damned: Hell Remastered a "remaster disaster" is pushing it way too hard though. Or calling it a worse problem than Lollipop Chainsaw RePop is a damn lie. Did we forget about the GTA Remake Trilogy already?
Shadows of the Damned: Hell Remastered run mostly a 60fps, but the only time it doesn't in the darkness sections. Mainly the sections where there's no light shot to use the goat heads and you're just mainly running through a hall until you get the end of a door with white light. Even then, you won't notice unless you have a frame rate counter. Which the average person is not going to have on hand. I am playing on PS5 and I definitely didn't notice until the guy pointed it out. After I had already did three playthroughs. Otherwise, the game runs fine at a smooth 60 fps when exploring, during combat, or in cut-scenes. There are no game breaking bugs nor glitches that cause the game to crash either. There's still jank (the fun kind), but that's expected from Grasshopper games that ran on Unreal Engine 3. Not really the "disaster" they're talking about. Also, Red Dead 1 Remaster came out at $50, and there's worse frame rate problems with that, when actually fucking aiming! Why don't y'all go after that? Unless you haven't yet, because Luke Stevens did your job for ya.
As much as Digital Foundry can be helpful at times, they can get too pedantic on frame rate or exaggerate when a game is sometimes not up to snuff 1000% of the time with whatever frames per seconds. Calling Shadows of the Damned: Hell Remastered a "remaster disaster" is pushing it way too hard though. Or calling it a worse problem than Lollipop Chainsaw RePop is a damn lie. Did we forget about the GTA Remake Trilogy already?
Shadows of the Damned: Hell Remastered run mostly a 60fps, but the only time it doesn't in the darkness sections. Mainly the sections where there's no light shot to use the goat heads and you're just mainly running through a hall until you get the end of a door with white light. Even then, you won't notice unless you have a frame rate counter. Which the average person is not going to have on hand. I am playing on PS5 and I definitely didn't notice until the guy pointed it out. After I had already did three playthroughs. Otherwise, the game runs fine at a smooth 60 fps when exploring, during combat, or in cut-scenes. There are no game breaking bugs nor glitches that cause the game to crash either. There's still jank (the fun kind), but that's expected from Grasshopper games that ran on Unreal Engine 3. Not really the "disaster" they're talking about. Also, Red Dead 1 Remaster came out at $50, and there's worse frame rate problems with that, when actually fucking aiming! Why don't y'all go after that? Unless you haven't yet, because Luke Stevens did your job for ya.
Fair enough.
But by endings I was also thinking about game play and structure, not just story, which I'm guessing is what you're talking about?
I'm still mad about a game I played last year called Everspace 2 where I got up to the last mission and it told me I had to faff about the open world for like another god knows how many hours even though I was getting tired of the gameplay. This HUGE spike in difficulty or tedium at the end. Or the end game side quest dump for game like FF16 which absolutely kills the momentum for players who want to do all the story missions- which are the best players you want advocating for your game!
Or when a game gives you some awesome weapon or ability right at the end to entice you to NG+ or post-credits faff abouts. Some players like that, some don't, and a good review should interrogate that.
Regarding games industry problems,
It linked this video, which further elaborates -
The difficulty in orchestrating a course correction is directly correlated to industry size. While there are some bright spots, it’s nearly impossible to efficiently weed out the dysfunctional management found in nearly every corner of it in their collective mission to feed the glut of consumers and shareholders alike.
It linked this video, which further elaborates -
The difficulty in orchestrating a course correction is directly correlated to industry size. While there are some bright spots, it’s nearly impossible to efficiently weed out the dysfunctional management found in nearly every corner of it in their collective mission to feed the glut of consumers and shareholders alike.