Pachter: Black Ops Success Hinges on Biased Press

[Fortuan]

WAW is the only COD title i've enjoyed, MW and MW2 i didn't find particular interest in. I prefer BC2. What I feel is going to make black ops better is the customization previously unseen. Making the player feel more in the character's shoes goes a long way.

 

[Irridium]

I find it hard to believe that anybody is really excited for this game.

You'd be shocked.

After MW2 everyone on the site was up in arms, now they're all pissing themselves over this.

Call of Duty has been given far too many breaks.

Agreed. Its kind of funny really, and sad.

Everyone: "WE'RE NEVER BUYING A COD GAME EVER AGAIN! Unless we have a beta or some other form of assurance that the game won't be an unbalanced piece of crap!"

Activision: "Now announcing Black-Ops! It'll be released by Treyarch!:

Treyarch: "There will be no beta, there will actually be a single player, and you'll have dedicated servers. Kind of, not really. You'll just have to go through these guys to get them. Also everyone has to use Steam."

Everyone: "ZOMG! BESTEST GAME EVAR!!"

 

[Danpascooch]

Pachter says that the press unfairly looks at Treyarch as the "other" Call of Duty studio, largely playing second fiddle to Infinity Ward, and points to lower average review scores for Treyarch's efforts than for IW's.

Cause and effect:
CAUSE: Treyarch's entries into the Call of Duty Series suck compared to Infinity Ward's
EFFECT: People expect Treyarch's newest entry to suck compared to Infinity Ward's

Gee yeah, that's TOTALLY unfair for people to expect Black Ops to not be as good as MW2, I mean what asshole judges a company by its ACTIONS anyway? We should judge them by.......oh

Case and point: Pachter's an idiot.

 

[Canid117]

In all fairness, he right with at least one example. WaW was miles better and less broken than MW2 but it did get worse reviews, whereas MW2 got rave reviews despite it's horrible brokeness simply because it was made by IW and was a sequal to the excellent (and better than both WaW and MW2) CoD 4. Still, overall he's wrong. IW games tend to get better reviews and sell better than Treyarch because they are usually better. I do like Treyarch games though and they do seem to be learning extremely quickly.

The flaws in MW2 didn't really show up until after reviews. No one had unlocked the most broken weapons and perks until after the reviews were all submitted. It looked like a glorious gift from the gods in the first two weeks until people started unlocking akimbo and combining commando with the perks that truly turn it into a game breaker.

 

[CheckD3]

I doubt sales will fall THAT much based on the press. One of the big factors will easily be that gamers have formed communities and communicate with each other good titles. And even then the CoD franchise has enough behind it that it's got a strong backing already

This is kind of a shot to the guts of reviewers out there though, saying that they're extremely biased and would lower a games score, no matter how good it is, because of who made it. While a few reviewers out there could, I doubt that's what's on the minds of reviewers when they're playing the game.

Would you, if you were a reviewer, if you were playing a perfect game made by a company that had gone through what the CoD franchise had, mark it down from 100 to 95 because it wasn't the original company? If I'm not mistaken, FO3 and NV were made by diff. comps than the original few, and reviewers didn't look down on it. Diff. scenario technically but still

CoD:BO will do as well as it's designed and how well it plays. If it's shit, the scores will read shit, if it's good, the scores will read so. And fuck, it's gotten so much hype after what's happened with IW and Activision that I'm sure the sales will be fine, but if they are down it would most likely be because people want to wait and buy used so they can give their money to gamestop and the retailers and not Activision and it's prick CEO

 

[bryteline]

And being better than MW2 isn't much of a challenge, anyway. That game was inferior to its predecessor in every way - except more create a class slots.

 

[tkioz]

No offence to the Escapist staff or any other reviewers, I generally know which games I'm buying months before they come out, so reviews, while interesting, don't really factor into my purchasing decisions.

Marketing hardly factors either, it's more previews, record of the studio (Bioware for example gets on my must buy list), interest in the genre, interest in the franchise, and if I like the look of the story.

 

[Shihoudani]

I agree marketing really doesn't effect my judgment all that much. I wait for hands on previews, explanation of features in the product and eventually a full review to find out if the game is buggy. Marketing and trailers only go so far when you're trying to decide where to spend your hard earned money.

As for Treyarch I actually liked WaW a lot more then MW2 and perhaps on par with CoD4. They did a lot better then when they handled CoD3 and I expect they will do even better this time around. It does seem like they get a bit of the shaft because they always are compared to Infinity Ward.

 

[RelexCryo]

Could we please stop quoting Pachter? He has been wrong so many times it's just not even funny anymore. His metaphorical batting average is pathetic. Hopefully if we ignore him he will just go away.

 

[bjj hero]

In all fairness, he right with at least one example. WaW was miles better and less broken than MW2 but it did get worse reviews, whereas MW2 got rave reviews despite it's horrible brokeness simply because it was made by IW and was a sequal to the excellent (and better than both WaW and MW2) CoD 4. Still, overall he's wrong. IW games tend to get better reviews and sell better than Treyarch because they are usually better. I do like Treyarch games though and they do seem to be learning extremely quickly.

You must not have played WAW at launch. People were in rocks and under the maps on most maps. It was horribly broken. Everyone cried about the over powered MP 44, last stand (forgot the name in WAW) made it so that anyone using a bolt action without a scope would be killed with pistols unless they got a headshot everytime, All the bolt actions were identical... all 6? of them. Plus all secondary grenades were useless. Only the tanks seperated it from the superior COD4 and they were scrubbed from hardcore when everyone complained. I played for about 3 months before going back to COD4 until MW2 came out.

MW2 had glitches, the care package glitch being the worst. I took a short break but they fixed it. Once the models were fixed the balance felt fine but I only play Hardcore. WAW wasn't bad, it just wasn't a patch on COD4.

Treyarch are the inferior COD developer. Having said that IW is now only IW in name only. This is their chance to prove they can provide more than just gore. IW may become the other developer with everything thats happened. I'm not overly excited but I'll get it because all my friends are getting it, its a social thing. I don't feel the press are unfair with Treyarch.

 

[frago roc]

Maybe people would stop comparing Treyarch to IW if Treyarch had a fibre of creativity. Step 1: dont make a CoD game. Step 2: design your own game mechanics, simply throwing new models over IW's work isn't how its done.

 

[Delusibeta]

Honestly? Everyone whos buys this game is stifling the industry's creativity because it'll mean even more Yet Another Realistic Man Shooter games are released. Plus, you're giving money to Kotick.

 

[Bruce Edwards]

I've asked this question before, and I guess I'm asking it again: Why does Pachter get press? He's harmless, but inevitably completely wrong about everything he says regarding the games industry.

I mean, my father is a better predictor how how something will perform in the games industry *and he does not understand or have interest in games at all*.

 

[archvile93]

In all fairness, he right with at least one example. WaW was miles better and less broken than MW2 but it did get worse reviews, whereas MW2 got rave reviews despite it's horrible brokeness simply because it was made by IW and was a sequal to the excellent (and better than both WaW and MW2) CoD 4. Still, overall he's wrong. IW games tend to get better reviews and sell better than Treyarch because they are usually better. I do like Treyarch games though and they do seem to be learning extremely quickly.

The flaws in MW2 didn't really show up until after reviews. No one had unlocked the most broken weapons and perks until after the reviews were all submitted. It looked like a glorious gift from the gods in the first two weeks until people started unlocking akimbo and combining commando with the perks that truly turn it into a game breaker.

So that's the purpose of weapon unlocks.

 

[archvile93]

For better or worse, Treyarch is the other Call of Duty studio, because the series started with Infinity Ward, and the lower review scores might be down to bias, but it's more likely to be because the games weren't as good.

That pretty much sums up what I was going to say. The games get lower scores because They're not as good. And yes, they are the other studio because they did indeed come after Infinity Ward and started off with rather lackluster titles. Finest Hour and COD 3 anyone?

While Finest Hour sucked, it was not delveloped by Treyarch.