Bethesda Announces They're Not Giving Out Reivew Copies Anymore...

mavkiel

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I just look at how badly screwed over I got with civ 6. That is a game that gave out loads of copies to people, and I actually watched more then a few videos.

They didn't mention the terrible diplomacy, lack of alert on enemy contact, no restart map with previous settings. So, if they can't mention those sort of issues, whats the damn point? Generating hype? Those might seem like small gripes, but for people who only play single player it would have been enough for me to cancel.
 

G00N3R7883

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At the end of the day, I guess this doesn't really make that much difference to me. I already have zero trust in the games industry (AAA or indie). Aliens Colonial Marines was the last game I preordered. I won't buy a game until I've researched it thoroughly after release. This includes reading professional reviews, steam reviews, forum comments and watching youtube videos.

If a developer wants to delay the reviews, all it will do is delay my research, and delay my purchase. They're not going to trick me into buying a broken piece of shit, because I've got lots of patience, and lots of other games to play from my backlog.
 

one squirrel

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I find it really hard to care. This is going to hurt people who lack impulse control and cannot be bothered to do proper research before puchasing a product. Maybe If they get burned repeatedly, they might even learn a valuable lession.
 

Erttheking

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DudeistBelieve said:
As a consumer, I liked Mafia 3 right? It has flaws and shit, but I'm able to put up with them and enjoy the game. Now, why should I... the person that actually wants to play and enjoy the game and have a good time have to pay full price for it but the critic- who doesn't care if they enjoy it or not -gets it for free and a week early to boot?
Because it's his fucking job. As someone who has dabbled in writing game reviews with developer provided review copies, it's hardly sunshine and rainbows. But I'm glad you think that reviewers should have to pay for all the games they review, something that's far more than they can afford.

As for living in an age of streaming, some people, myself included, prefer well constructed opinions by professionals as opposed to having do to all the research myself. It a little thing called "convenience."

Seriously, there is no fucking upside to a lack of review copies. No one gains anything. It's you not being happy that you actually have to pay for games and that you don't think anyone else should ever get them for free. Should I not give gifts of Mafia III to my friends because it might offend you? There's less coverage of games, less information for consumers to absorb, but you don't like that someone who doesn't like the game that you do getting it for free, so that makes it all ok.

Look up "Slicing off your nose to spite your face." But don't worry. Next time I get something for free, I'll set it on fire because you didn't get one.
 

DudeistBelieve

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erttheking said:
DudeistBelieve said:
As a consumer, I liked Mafia 3 right? It has flaws and shit, but I'm able to put up with them and enjoy the game. Now, why should I... the person that actually wants to play and enjoy the game and have a good time have to pay full price for it but the critic- who doesn't care if they enjoy it or not -gets it for free and a week early to boot?
Because it's his fucking job. As someone who has dabbled in writing game reviews with developer provided review copies, it's hardly sunshine and rainbows. But I'm glad you think that reviewers should have to pay for all the games they review, something that's far more than they can afford.

As for living in an age of streaming, some people, myself included, prefer well constructed opinions by professionals as opposed to having do to all the research myself. It a little thing called "convenience."

Seriously, there is no fucking upside to a lack of review copies. No one gains anything. It's you not being happy that you actually have to pay for games and that you don't think anyone else should ever get them for free. Should I not give gifts of Mafia III to my friends because it might offend you? There's less coverage of games, less information for consumers to absorb, but you don't like that someone who doesn't like the game that you do getting it for free, so that makes it all ok.

Look up "Slicing off your nose to spite your face." But don't worry. Next time I get something for free, I'll set it on fire because you didn't get one.
I'm not saying their job is easy.

I don't like someone getting something for free that I have to work for, and I don't like the justification that they should get it because they somehow play this vital role in the transaction between Artist and Consumer. I don't feel game critcism is relevant in the world of AAA gaming.

Game Criticism belongs to the Niche now, and should stick to highlighting good indy games out of the sea of shovelware crap that is on Steam like Jim Sterling does.
 

Erttheking

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DudeistBelieve said:
Then maybe cut them a little slack and not act like they should make their lives harder just so you don't feel jealous.

Well, fucking get over it. I got review codes for Concealed Intent, Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander, Huntsman the Winter's Curse, Heart&Slash, Assault Suit Leynos, and Prog.1. But apparently you think I should've had to pay for every single one because you feel like I don't actually contribute to anything. Yeah, I should've shilled out over a hundred dollars for shit games that I review at the job that doesn't pay me a penny. Because you don't use reviewers. Because you personally don't use them, that means they're irrelevant. And you call THEM arrogant.

Hm....no. Not really. Plenty of people still read reviews of AAA games. The review of the latest Ace Attorney game on the Escapist is why I haven't bought it yet. But what do I know. I'm just someone who has ACTUALLY FUCKING WORKED in writing gaming reviews. Clearly you know much better than I do.

Can you do me a favor? Can you just be blunt and say that you want a service that countless people use to crash and burn just because you don't like it and don't use it? Can you just be honest about what you want?
 

DudeistBelieve

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Gundam GP01 said:
DudeistBelieve said:
I don't like someone getting something for free that I have to work for
They work for it too.

It's literally their job.
No they don't. It something that comes consequence of doing the job.

My ability to get access to my companies' car isn't something I work for, it's part of my job.

erttheking said:
DudeistBelieve said:
Then maybe cut them a little slack and not act like they should make their lives harder just so you don't feel jealous.

Well, fucking get over it. I got review codes for Concealed Intent, Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander, Huntsman the Winter's Curse, Heart&Slash, Assault Suit Leynos, and Prog.1. But apparently you think I should've had to pay for every single one because you feel like I don't actually contribute to anything. Yeah, I should've shilled out over a hundred dollars for shit games that I review at the job that doesn't pay me a penny. Because you don't use reviewers. Because you personally don't use them, that means they're irrelevant. And you call THEM arrogant.

Hm....no. Not really. Plenty of people still read reviews of AAA games. The review of the latest Ace Attorney game on the Escapist is why I haven't bought it yet. But what do I know. I'm just someone who has ACTUALLY FUCKING WORKED in writing gaming reviews. Clearly you know much better than I do.

Can you do me a favor? Can you just be blunt and say that you want a service that countless people use to crash and burn just because you don't like it and don't use it? Can you just be honest about what you want?
No Ert, I'm not going to get over it because no one, including you has given me a decent argument as to why game critics are relevent and not niche what with the advent of the livestream and Lets Play. About the best Ive gotten is that "We need reviews because they're quicker than actually doing the research ourselves"

Technology has changed the NEED of this job being done. Also for fucks sakes, put down your damn pitch fork just because you disagree with me, telling me to get over it IS NOT a counter arguement.
 

NPC009

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Technology has changed the NEED of this job being done. Also for fucks sakes, put down your damn pitch fork just because you disagree with me, telling me to get over it IS NOT a counter arguement.
Tell that to the people who still use reviews. Wait, you did so here, but I recall others than me coming up with pretty good reasons why reviews still have a place in the world. Things like convenience, opinions based on the whole games rather than the first hour or so... I haven't seen you try to explain why these people, including me, are wrong.

Anyway... How is it supposed to work according to you? Depending on the publication and game, I might get 50 bucks for a review. Some of those games cost 50+ new. Am I just supposed to take on those jobs for free because I might offend some tribal whiny bitches on the internet if I don't? Dude, a game is not a badge of honor, it's a piece of entertainment that's relatively affordable and widely available in unlimited quantities (reviewers rarely get physical copies nowadays, 99% of the time it's a downloadcode).

Hey, you know what, I might have some unused downloadcodes lying around. I could give you one, but you have to play through whatever game I give you and write a 300 word review within a week. How does that sound?
 

Zhukov

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DudeistBelieve said:
Jealousy.... annoyed at the sheer arrogance in overvaluing their place and role in the games industry.... more or less, I'll take it. Whats fueling my argument isn't as important to me as much as my argument making sense, and I can sense you at least understand my view and that's enough. /Thread
You argument has now boiled down to "those guys overvalue themselves so fuck them and hooray for something that makes their job harder".

Still petty.

If you're dropping "/thread" then I presume you don't particularly wish to continue this exchange.
 

DudeistBelieve

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Zhukov said:
DudeistBelieve said:
Jealousy.... annoyed at the sheer arrogance in overvaluing their place and role in the games industry.... more or less, I'll take it. Whats fueling my argument isn't as important to me as much as my argument making sense, and I can sense you at least understand my view and that's enough. /Thread
You argument has now boiled down to "those guys overvalue themselves so fuck them and hooray for something that makes their job harder".

Still petty.

If you're dropping "/thread" then I presume you don't particularly wish to continue this exchange.
I mean I'll continue it, but I understand your point and I feel you understand mine, I don't know where else to take it from there... and I am personally satisfied leaving it where it is cause I've kinda exhausting proving my point.

I don't care if it's petty. Fine, I'm a petty small person, but that's all emotions and bullshit and it doesn't invalidate my point. I'm waiting for someone wiser than me who knows a thing about a thing that will present me with something to go "Aight, hadn't thought of that. I concede my point."

I don't care about being right, I care about if I'm wrong someone correcting me. I don't make these threads just to have a the joy of a back and forth, this is how I learn ************ :p
 

stroopwafel

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Re. the topic.

It's their prerogative but it's probably also a change in strategy considering many youtube 'influencers' did receive an early copy of Skyrim remastered(probably also the case for any other future Beth game). I'm not surprised many 'professional' reviewers are butthurt about this. Sign of the times I guess.
 

DudeistBelieve

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NPC009 said:
Technology has changed the NEED of this job being done. Also for fucks sakes, put down your damn pitch fork just because you disagree with me, telling me to get over it IS NOT a counter arguement.
Tell that to the people who still use reviews. Wait, you did so here, but I recall others than me coming up with pretty good reasons why reviews still have a place in the world. Things like convenience, opinions based on the whole games rather than the first hour or so... I haven't seen you try to explain why these people, including me, are wrong.

Anyway... How is it supposed to work according to you? Depending on the publication and game, I might get 50 bucks for a review. Some of those games cost 50+ new. Am I just supposed to take on those jobs for free because I might offend some tribal whiny bitches on the internet if I don't? Dude, a game is not a badge of honor, it's a piece of entertainment that's relatively affordable and widely available in unlimited quantities (reviewers rarely get physical copies nowadays, 99% of the time it's a downloadcode).

Hey, you know what, I might have some unused downloadcodes lying around. I could give you one, but you have to play through whatever game I give you and write a 300 word review within a week. How does that sound?
Convience/Time was litterally the only good thing I heard towards reviews. Everything else is this very broad "It'll hurt consumers! They're only out for money!" completely ignoring the fact the last Bethesda game released was DOOM, it didn't have any review copies and it turned out to be a GOTY candidate.

I think it should work thusly: AAA Games? They don't need your ink. They don't need you to hype the audience to buying them. They don't give you the free review copies. The indie publishers on the other hand? The ones scrapping and clawing trying to escape the crab bucket? They do.

My feelings on Games Criticism stems all the way back to the days of reading magazines like GamePro. Those rags weren't about protecting the consumer, how many preview articles did I read about "X Game looks so good... we noticed some camera issues but if they're resolved by release this will be a good game" and then release comes and look at that, the game is shit. Games Journalism only ever spawned out of this need to help advertise and promote upcoming games, nothing more and nothing less.

I suppose I'm saying the industry needs to adapt to change. AAA publishers don't need the ink, the good indie developers do.
 

hermes

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DudeistBelieve said:
Gundam GP01 said:
DudeistBelieve said:
I don't like someone getting something for free that I have to work for
They work for it too.

It's literally their job.
No they don't. It something that comes consequence of doing the job.

My ability to get access to my companies' car isn't something I work for, it's part of my job.
Wait... you get a car? WHY WOULD THEY GIVE YOU A CAR? It is not like I didn't have to work hard to buy and maintain a car.

I am sure you should not get access to a car. It is unfair for the people like me, that actually have to work to get a car, and therefore appreciate it. I had to spend hours looking at ads and comments to see if it was right. You didn't, so I am sure you don't deserve the special privilege. I think it should be deduced from your salary.

I don't know who you work for, what is your job, or even what your working conditions are, but since I am pretty sure I never interacted with your company, I think your job doesn't affect me, so I guess its pretty redundant and could be replaced by robots or something.


And that is how you have been sounding like for pretty much all the thread...
 

Zhukov

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DudeistBelieve said:
I don't care if it's petty. Fine, I'm a petty small person, but that's all emotions and bullshit and it doesn't invalidate my point.
Emotions and bullshit? Dude, your entire point is emotive.

"Fuck critics and reviewers, I think they're arrogant, I'm happy Bethesda has decided to make their jobs a bit harder."

Take out the resentment and there's nothing left:

"Critics and reviewers exist. Bethesda has decided to make their jobs a bit harder."

That's not a point, it's just a statement of two facts.
 

DudeistBelieve

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hermes said:
DudeistBelieve said:
Gundam GP01 said:
DudeistBelieve said:
I don't like someone getting something for free that I have to work for
They work for it too.

It's literally their job.
No they don't. It something that comes consequence of doing the job.

My ability to get access to my companies' car isn't something I work for, it's part of my job.
Wait... you get a car? WHY WOULD THEY GIVE YOU A CAR? It is not like I didn't have to work hard to buy and maintain a car.

I am sure you should not get access to a car. It is unfair for the people like me, that actually have to work to get a car, and therefore appreciate it. I had to spend hours looking at ads and comments to see if it was right. You didn't, so I am sure you don't deserve the special privilege. I think it should be deduced from your salary.

I don't know who you work for, what is your job, or even what your working conditions are, but since I am pretty sure I never interacted with your company, I think your job doesn't affect me, so I guess its pretty redundant and could be replaced by robots or something.


And that is how you have been sounding like for pretty much all the thread...
When I clock out at the end of the day, who owns the car? When the review is done, who still has access to the game?
 

Potjeslatinist

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While I do not endorse Bethesda's move as beneficial to anyone save Bethesda themselves, I can rest assured none of this will affect me. The only game I ever purchased on launch day was The Witcher 3 and should that have proven a dud (it hasn't), that would be in no small part on me.

One hopes practices such as this will motivate the average gamer towards a more cautious way of consumption.
 

ScrabbitRabbit

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Gameplay videos don't tell you anything about how a game feels to play. You don't gain any insight into how responsive the controls are, how the game holds up over the long term. In turn based or strategy games you only get the most basic idea of what kind of strategic depth there might be. In fighting games you might see how good the animation and sound is but you won't have any idea if the game has any lasting depth or if it controls well.

Many of my favourite ever games are slow turn based RPGs , strategy games, story-driven puzzle games, management sims, etc. Gameplay footage might give you a shallow idea of how an action game plays but there are entire genres that simply cannot be evaluated that way. I mean fuck, Bethesda-style sandbox RPGs can't be, really. All two hours of gameplay is gonna show you is shitty combat and busywork.

A good critic can give you an insightful analysis of a game's systems and, if relevant, its themes. If you can find an insightful critic whose opinions line up with your own then you can get a lot more information in a lot less time. I'll still sometimes look up 10 minutes of gameplay for certain genres every so often, but it's with the context that a review can give.

Not to mention that, without early review copies, those early warnings about how a game is borked or just shit are coming from actual players who bought the game. Anyone that's laying the blame for a broken product on the consumers who buy them for not doing their research is literally relying on the people they condemn to inform them. And I say that as someone who buys games with a 6 month - 1 year delay.
 

hermes

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DudeistBelieve said:
NPC009 said:
Technology has changed the NEED of this job being done. Also for fucks sakes, put down your damn pitch fork just because you disagree with me, telling me to get over it IS NOT a counter arguement.
Tell that to the people who still use reviews. Wait, you did so here, but I recall others than me coming up with pretty good reasons why reviews still have a place in the world. Things like convenience, opinions based on the whole games rather than the first hour or so... I haven't seen you try to explain why these people, including me, are wrong.

Anyway... How is it supposed to work according to you? Depending on the publication and game, I might get 50 bucks for a review. Some of those games cost 50+ new. Am I just supposed to take on those jobs for free because I might offend some tribal whiny bitches on the internet if I don't? Dude, a game is not a badge of honor, it's a piece of entertainment that's relatively affordable and widely available in unlimited quantities (reviewers rarely get physical copies nowadays, 99% of the time it's a downloadcode).

Hey, you know what, I might have some unused downloadcodes lying around. I could give you one, but you have to play through whatever game I give you and write a 300 word review within a week. How does that sound?
Convience/Time was litterally the only good thing I heard towards reviews. Everything else is this very broad "It'll hurt consumers! They're only out for money!" completely ignoring the fact the last Bethesda game released was DOOM, it didn't have any review copies and it turned out to be a GOTY candidate.

I think it should work thusly: AAA Games? They don't need your ink. They don't need you to hype the audience to buying them. They don't give you the free review copies. The indie publishers on the other hand? The ones scrapping and clawing trying to escape the crab bucket? They do.

My feelings on Games Criticism stems all the way back to the days of reading magazines like GamePro. Those rags weren't about protecting the consumer, how many preview articles did I read about "X Game looks so good... we noticed some camera issues but if they're resolved by release this will be a good game" and then release comes and look at that, the game is shit. Games Journalism only ever spawned out of this need to help advertise and promote upcoming games, nothing more and nothing less.

I suppose I'm saying the industry needs to adapt to change. AAA publishers don't need the ink, the good indie developers do.
So your "facts" to remove an entire section of the industry is that sometimes, a good game will come out of it, regardless? That is a pretty good position. Maybe we could go back to the Hollywood monopoly times. It was full of shitty practices, including studios having veto power over published content, determining which theaters could show what and when, who could or couldn't work in movies, and arranged marriages only to generate hype for the movies; but The Ten Commandments come out at that time, so it can't be all that bad.

And you are pointing out at the reason why reviews should exist in the first place. When you read Gamepro's preview and mistake it for a review, you felt cheated because you didn't notice the difference. One is promotional material heavily oversaw by the company, sometimes even paid by them (in money or in favors, how did you thought Gamepro assured future exclusive content?), and the other is a relatively independent process, where the writer don't send the content for "approval", or is not playing next to a PR representative talking about it.

You know there are studies that show that most content related to a game release is consulted in a 2 or 3 days window to the release? There is a spike in most sites around the release of some mayor game, regardless of its quality. In a future (that companies would love) where the publishers control the entire conversation up to release and everything you get to see has been approved by them, where reviews are not existent until several days after the release and everything you have are previews (but they are not called "previews", mind you. they are called "exclusive sneak peek"), who are you going to trust to tell you about the issues with No Man's Sky, Star Fox Zero or Street Fighter 5? The publishers (jajaja)? Unedited video? The youtubers (allow me to laugh again... jaaaaaa)?

Most of them has no idea what professionalism is, or no interest in it. They just like to play games and have an audience. They are mostly kids with a webcam, and their only metric are eyeballs. If a publisher gives them free access to a game they were waiting and they can guarantee it will increase their audience, much better. And if the conditions are they can't say anything bad about it, they just don't care.