Editorial: Stop Treating Us Like Idiots, Microsoft and EA

[John Keefer]

Editorial: Stop Treating Us Like Idiots, Microsoft and EA

The E3 press conferences showed that a couple publishers have not learned to read their audience.

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[J Tyran]

No offence intended and I am only trying to be objectively critical but why is this news? Its obviously an opinion piece that contains no news and is more suited to being posted as a feature or article rather than news.

 

[Piorn]

But will these new and revolutionary games, that aren't just iterations of past releases, let us feel real emotions?


Also, maybe I never noticed it before, but all the narrations were severely uncanny.
"Greetings, humans, I am a human man just like you! Let us play videogames together, and feel real excitement and emotions, because that is what humans do! Epic!"

 

[SilverUchiha]

I'm failing to see how Sony's conference was better than Microsoft's. Not going to lie, didn't think either one was spectacular, but the games shown at the MS conference were a wider range and a bit more interesting than Sony's. It was easy to tell MS was trying hard to make up for last years stupidity while Sony, to me, felt like it was phoning it in, high of last year's victory and not really caring if it did well this year or not. Nintendo, to me, felt like the only one making both a concerted effort and having fun with it.

 

[Nimzabaat]

No offence intended and I am only trying to be objectively critical but why is this news? Its obviously an opinion piece that contains no news and is more suited to being posted as a feature or article rather than news.

A massively biased opinion piece at that. I mean, reading the article I can't really tell what Microsoft did differently than Sony other than being Microsoft. They're both teasing games that are coming out this year and next. They both have some titles that are expected and some that aren't. Maybe this is supposed to be satire?

 

[Vivi22]

Honestly, I agree with Yahtzee's take in that E3 is a few days of media and triple A companies getting into one big circle jerk while trying to pretend that their segment of the industry isn't incredibly dysfunctional and paying the most attention to the games and companies that least need (and often least deserve given their state of development) the publicity.

The gaming world would be a much better place if E3 ceased to exist and we put this much time and energy into spot lighting the games and developers that might actually need and deserve the attention.

 

[balfore]

While I've loved what I've seen from Ubisoft (even though its starting to look a lot like Online FPS everywhere)they genuinely got me excited. And Nintendo underwhelmed me. While I'll say I'm not a huge Nintendo fan but they are just releasing sequels to a console I don't have, or don't want to purchase for sequels.

 

[klaynexas3]

Sony's conference wasn't amazing. The speakers could really use a class on public speaking, but I enjoyed the look of the games, and it was nice to see some new stuff, even if some of the new stuff may have not been as new as it could have been if some companies just kept their mouths shut for a little bit to wait for E3. As for Microsoft and EA's presentations, I saw neither of them, and I can't say I care much about a fair amount of the games they talked about, but if you liked that kind of thing, I'm sure you probably enjoyed it more than last year. There wasn't anything truly big this year, so there's little reason to have gotten so hyped.

With Nintendo, I'll give them props for finally giving me a new look at one of the two reasons why I might actually get my own Wii U if my brother ever moved out, the lovely Xenoblade game. Also, the new Zelda looks kind of cool, I just hope the writting is better for that one than the ones I've played so far. And that about covers my feelings for E3 for me so far. It wasn't a big year, but hey, now that it's over we might see some actual news for games again instead of teases about E3.

 

[TheMadJack]

EA's press conference was abysmal. Microsoft's wasn't a complete waste, but it was definitively better than EA's. As far as Sony and Nintendo, they were pretty good.

It's obvious EA has lost touch with their customers and is more interested in the marketing dudes' opinions and ideas than the vast majority of gamers. I've written them off a long time ago and I don't think they can redeem themselves. I have stopped counting the games I would've bought if they were on Steam. But no, corporate greed is more important than customer satisfaction in their eyes, so no thanks EA.

/rantoff

 

[WarpedLord]

No offence intended and I am only trying to be objectively critical but why is this news? Its obviously an opinion piece that contains no news and is more suited to being posted as a feature or article rather than news.

A massively biased opinion piece at that. I mean, reading the article I can't really tell what Microsoft did differently than Sony other than being Microsoft. They're both teasing games that are coming out this year and next. They both have some titles that are expected and some that aren't. Maybe this is supposed to be satire?

I'm in total agreement.

Both had games I was really excited about, and games that made me just go "meh".

Acting like one or the other was somehow "a clear winner" pretty much stinks of bias or "fanboyism" as usual. (Other than, of course, last year. Christ, Microsoft...)

 

[JonB]

No offence intended and I am only trying to be objectively critical but why is this news? Its obviously an opinion piece that contains no news and is more suited to being posted as a feature or article rather than news.

Sorry! All of our E3 content is automatically pushed into news room. Our bad.

 

[TheMadJack]

Sony's conference wasn't amazing. The speakers could really use a class on public speaking,

For the most part they're devs. I don't care about that, it's mostly irrelevant. If they were good speakers that would only be icing on the cake. Totally not a requirement.

As for Microsoft and EA's presentations, I saw neither of them, and I can't say I care much about a fair amount of the games they talked about, but if you liked that kind of thing, I'm sure you probably enjoyed it more than last year.

Microsoft's was better than last year, yes. But not EA's. Oh no. Don't assume if you haven't seen it.

 

[Andy Shandy]

I assume we're just forgetting the half an hour nonsense of Sony talking about boring boardroom and TV shit that everyone complained about last year then? I mean, I wish I could, but it still happened. And I'd hardly describe much of what Sony did as surprises. Grim Fandango remake? Sure. But who wasn't expecting a Little Big Planet on PS4? Suda's exclusive was revealed last year (as Lily Bergamo) and everyone already knew about Project Beast too. Oh, and The Order was Sony too, whether that's a plus or a negative. So I'd hardly describe Sony's conference as a great end. If they'd ended after 45 minutes, it would have been a great end to (in my opinion) a pretty great day all round. They didn't though, and it turned into a middling end.

Ubisoft's conference was varying in quality. EA's was pretty bad (that's one thing I can agree with). Nintendo's and Microsoft's were both great with games pretty much constant. Nintendo edges it as my "winner" on sheer numbers overall, but Scalebound and Crackdown were my personal favourites.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

More MS bashing, well ok, so is Sony giving you a few quid to bad mouth the competition, you are sounding overly biased - when, as an article writer, you need to be equal and open to all systems. Still dont hear anyone bashing Sony for the last part of their show....TV really? I remember MS doing that and even now people bring that up as a reason to hate MS. Sony and MS were about the same, both had some good titles, and both used third party multi-platform games to advertise their system (MS had a better show). In my opinion both MS and Sony should only be able to show exclusive titles.

 

[Alek The Great]

I really don't understand what the author's angry about. There's a wide variety of ways someone could treat you like an idiot, but what was it that Microsoft did (I didn't have time to watch the EA conference in full so I can't say anything about them) that made you feel like you were being treated like a simpleton?

Was it that Master Chief wasn't trotted out first? Why does the order of announcements anger you? The entire conference was an hour and a half long so surely it should make no difference where an announcement is placed in the presentation. What's more, Halo got a hefty chunk of screentime - ome of which I felt could have been used for other games, even if I am really excited about the collection and playing Halo 2 multiplayer again.

Or was it that COD was shown first? I'll admit it wasn't the opening for me either, but it's the bestselling franchise on Xbox so I imagine they want it on the stage to assure COD fans.

Or was it that Sunset Overdrive and Forza Horizon 2 were announced? Sunset Overdrive looked amazing and incredibly fun to play. Its style and the fact that its sole focus seems to be on fun is what I miss the most from many modern games. The original Horizon on the other hand was one of the best open world racing games I played so a sequel set in beautiful southern Europe has me interested.

All of the gameplay (aside maybe from the COD demo) at the Microsoft conference looked great to me. The CG trailers didn't do much from me because I prefer seeing some gameplay but that was the same for CG trailers of games in the Sony conference. That said, Little Big Planet 3 left me grinning from ear to ear and I'm happy to see No Man's Sky progressing in such an exciting direction.

All in all though, I really don't understand the purpose of this article. If the games shown didn't tickle your fancy, why does this somehow make you feel like you are being treated like an idiot? And why does a developer diary anger you so much? If you find it boring that's fair enough (I personally like seeing the design process), but I don't get the anger. This piece seems like (as much as I hate the term) "flame bait" to me. Apologies if that wasn't the intention, but I feel there are other issues with E3 that warrant more discussion (although this was article was more of an open letter complaint it seems) than the order of game announcements in a conference or whether or not developer diaries are appropriate use of screen time.

 

[Hdawger]

The fact that you liked Sony's Televisi- Err, I mean Games presentation more than Microsoft's tells me a lot. Personally, I care about the games, not about corporate suits coming out and talking about their new BS entertainment stuff, but to each their own I guess.

 

[Vivi22]

The fact that you liked Sony's Televisi- Err, I mean Games presentation more than Microsoft's tells me a lot. Personally, I care about the games, not about corporate suits coming out and talking about their new BS entertainment stuff, but to each their own I guess.

Anyone who cares about games is just going to ignore the shitty conferences and find out what was announced that's more than just empty promises and a shitty pre-rendered trailer anyway. E3 in general is a waste of time that can usually be summed up in about a half page summary once it's all over. None of these companies gives a good presentation, so why would anyone waste their time watching?

 

[Ticklefist]

Is there even one example of either of these two treating us like idiots? I didn't have the patience to read the entire article. Was just a raged out journalist having a go at a couple punching bags.

 

[whycantijustdeletemyaccount]

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