BioWare Employee Busted in Dragon Age 2 Review Scandal - UPDATED
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
I don't see what the big deal is, just like the EA rep stated, people vote for their stuff all the time.
I'm also of the opinion that Dragon Age 2 is the best game Bioware has ever made as well.
There's 2 kinds of flawed games. Games with great content but flawed gameplay where you wish the content was compressed because the gameplay just isn't fun, and then theres the game with great gameplay and weaker content, where you enjoy every second of it and just want more and better content. Dragon Age 2 is the first Bioware game I would put in the second category. It's not as deep and rich as other Bioware games but it's much more fun to play.
I'm also of the opinion that Dragon Age 2 is the best game Bioware has ever made as well.
There's 2 kinds of flawed games. Games with great content but flawed gameplay where you wish the content was compressed because the gameplay just isn't fun, and then theres the game with great gameplay and weaker content, where you enjoy every second of it and just want more and better content. Dragon Age 2 is the first Bioware game I would put in the second category. It's not as deep and rich as other Bioware games but it's much more fun to play.
Well, this whole uproar has revealed some interesting things about this website's community.
Get a sense of perspective. It's not illegal, it's a person who liked the game and gave it a good review. If the employee in question didn't work for BioWare, but was exactly the same, would it magically become a valid review? You know, a user-review? As in not professional, but a person's opinion?
The amount of anger this has caused is deeply disturbing.
Get a sense of perspective. It's not illegal, it's a person who liked the game and gave it a good review. If the employee in question didn't work for BioWare, but was exactly the same, would it magically become a valid review? You know, a user-review? As in not professional, but a person's opinion?
The amount of anger this has caused is deeply disturbing.
Is this a big deal? IMO? No...AND yes.
To me it's kind of like letting your dog shit on someone's lawn. Dick move yes. Against the law yes. Big deal (as in, unforgivable sin). Not really. Doesn't really matter -THAT- much.
But now imagine the press catching Barack Obama letting a dog shit on someone's lawn (before his election). Dear God. You know you're in for a shitfest.
This is where Bioware finds itself in right now. A big pile of bat shit PR. And damn, this batshit is going to form a super-mutant-conglomeration with the DA2 backlash that's already there (horse shit). So now you have bat-horse shit and eh...yea sometimes it's not about right or wrong. It's about smart/lucky or stupid/damned. And right now, Bioware is getting nailed by something called reality. Either that, or just a whole pile of shit. Like, Dave Matthew's Band throwing a whole ton of shit on your boat kind of shit.
To me it's kind of like letting your dog shit on someone's lawn. Dick move yes. Against the law yes. Big deal (as in, unforgivable sin). Not really. Doesn't really matter -THAT- much.
But now imagine the press catching Barack Obama letting a dog shit on someone's lawn (before his election). Dear God. You know you're in for a shitfest.
This is where Bioware finds itself in right now. A big pile of bat shit PR. And damn, this batshit is going to form a super-mutant-conglomeration with the DA2 backlash that's already there (horse shit). So now you have bat-horse shit and eh...yea sometimes it's not about right or wrong. It's about smart/lucky or stupid/damned. And right now, Bioware is getting nailed by something called reality. Either that, or just a whole pile of shit. Like, Dave Matthew's Band throwing a whole ton of shit on your boat kind of shit.
But that's dishonest, you have a financial stake in the game. Presenting yourself as a customer doesn't give people an accurate accounting of how users are receiving the product. I can understand why people do it (and why you might do it) but at the same time those who rely on the reviews, or who run the review sources have a vested interest in the integrity of it.MetallicaRulez0 said:
Those "butthurt PC elitists" are still customers who paid for the product, and if they feel the product is lacking have every right to express that opinion. If a company is concerned about this, then they probably shouldn't have been selling to that crowd to begin with.
The thing about metacritic is that it compiles all of the user reviews accross the spectrum for an overal viewpoint of what the people buying the game think of it. If a review is diving like that, it means that a LOT of people aren't liking the product. If it's just a few trolls or elitists it's not going to do that to the ratings.
Now, for people with money invested in the product this is a bad thing. They don't care if their product is a stinking turd, or people hate it, they want returns, no matter what they have to do to get them.
For people who are in the market for a game that are looking at the metacritic scores to see what other customers liked, they want to avoid spending their money on a turd no matter how much money someone might have invested in it.
Metacritic seperates their review scores for a reason, on one hand you have the professional reviewers, the guys who can be swayed by money. Buy enough advertising from the right guys and you'll get your 10/10 rating. That's for the companies (as cynical as it is). There might be honest professionals in there, but it's generally the guys who can be bought. On the other hand you have the customer reviews, which are supposed to be untarnished by invested money, but at the same time you wind up with the trolls and troublemakers.
The end result is that by looking at Metacritic you can get a pretty good idea of how a game is being received due to seeing both scores. It's rare to see something like this where there is a huge discrepency. It's not flatterng for EA/Bioware, but the basic message here is that EA invested a ton of money in this game and paid off their reviewers, but the actual users aren't liking the game. I think that's pretty fair from what I'm seeing in various game communities. Bioware failed this time, they made a sloppy game, that was badly put together. It has nothing to do with PC elitism, as ratings like this come from bad reviews accross the spectrum. In the end I think it's that the game is so sloppy with it reusing so many maps and resources, and the way how it handles the spawning of the enemies (jumping out of the air in waves), that a lot of people are going "wow, this is really junky, especially for Bioware" beyond any consideration of the skills, interface, or whatever. Also if you pay attention a lot of people are cheezed off about the companions, not the lack of customization (though there is that), but the simple fact that your pretty much forced to use specific characters to balance the party, and that means that for a lot of players who want to play in a paticular way they have to endure a lot of whining. For example if your a warrior/templar build and playing with those sensibilities, the only way to have healer in your party is to have a guy who is militantly pro-mage and who is going to freak out every time you take the Templar side instead of the mage side. If you want to avoid listening to that...well good luck without a healer. If your playing a thief guy who wants to be mercenary and work for the underworld, your only sword and shield tank option is going to be the same way since she's a City Guard (and early on becomes the HEAD of the city guard), bribe someone, try and cajole payment (or more payment), or take quests that are illicit and you either have to listen to her bellyache and gripe at you... or experience the annoyance of playing without a dedicated tank.
Trust me, it's not PC elitism, they really made some horrible desicians with this game, a lot of the problems are NOT the ones people were talking about before the game came out. All of those issues are there, and perfectly valid causes for concern and debate, but right now the sheer sloppy game design has people on all sides of that camp upset. It's "dragon age rage" because it's not a minority of upset people, it's a situation where the only defenders are the more fanatical fanboys who would defend the game from anything. That's why the user ranking has plummeted so far.
I'm a judo coach, and I will always support the ones I train. In a match, they will always be in the right, and the judge will be in the wrong. If he judges against us.'
Point is, of course they are defending themself. Why shouldn't they be allowed to? If an author gave his book a good review would we care about it then?
Point is, of course they are defending themself. Why shouldn't they be allowed to? If an author gave his book a good review would we care about it then?
Why counter what the general pubic think about your product? How about they return to what made DAO successful instead of defending their BS? LOL dude.vrbtny said:
Whatever they screwed up no biggy. I still love Bioware. Gonna get DA2 no matter what. One bad game, and a employee's lack of foresight isn't going to ruin the great reputation they have built up, for me. I grew up on Bioware games. I plan on growing old with them as well.
Exactly. I'm getting a little sick of all of this. The only reviews I can trust these days are Zero Punctuation ffs. What does that say? I really fell like deleting myself from the internet.Popido said:
Pretty ballsy but if I was them I would have blamed /v/. I would have said that someone stole his name and posted a overly positive review just to troll knowing they would get a backlash reaction from the other users. In fact the second part of his review, the bit about negative reviews being "an overreaction of personal preference" is blatantly antagonistic.Andy Chalk said:
Seriously why go to the effort of coming clean and riding out the negative backlash when they could have just pinned the blame on a group who have a troll like inclination and were all ready on record all over the place saying they hate the game. /v/ would most likely have accepted the accusation and taken the blame as well.
Of course it could have backfired horribly but if there is one thing I have learned from sitcoms it is lie, lie and lie some more and consequences be dammed.
This has nothing to do with Metacritic. I don't care if they succeeded in kicking their rating up. What I don't and will never digest, is companies using their own workforce to try to compensate for their own lacks. DA2 has serious issues for me as a RPG fan, I disemboweled it on my personal blog and I'm sure BioWreck has read it (I could look up the IPs but I'm too lazy to do so and it also wouldn't serve crap). The thing is, they made a shoddy, fast-tracked game (we can all thank EA for that, again) that displeased many, many RPG fans. As me, several of these people were vocal and made their feelings known.rsvp42 said:
Now, because of the backlash, BioWreck whom I, for a very long time, have loved and, dare I say it, worshiped, is trying to push themselves out of the muck. Granted, it might or not work, but here it's the intent that counts.
I have nothing against them asking their user-base to go and fix the rating, although I would think that if these users loved the game so much they would've already made their thoughts known.
In one short sentence: This is unethical. It's biased, and BioWreck will reap the "benefit" of it, one way of the other.
In this day and age of Amazon bombing, there are no honest reviews anymore. Not saying that there shouldn't be, but it's naive to think that Metacritic is some sort of unbiased "pulse of the common man".
To be honest, though, I get Bioware's point-- it's not as if they sent out a memo asking everyone on staff to rate up DA2. One of their employees did it all on his own. Should he have declared that he was part of the project? Eh, in a perfect world, yes. Does that mean it's the scandal of the century? Nah.
To be honest, though, I get Bioware's point-- it's not as if they sent out a memo asking everyone on staff to rate up DA2. One of their employees did it all on his own. Should he have declared that he was part of the project? Eh, in a perfect world, yes. Does that mean it's the scandal of the century? Nah.
And that BioWare guy gave us his opinion. A chef would say "My resturant is the greatest! Come and eat here." I fail to see what your point is? That his review isn't honest? Does it really matter? Is it more dishonest than actors visting Jay Leno marketing their movie?Popido said: