Who Do You Trust?

Sean Sands

Optimistic Cynic
Sep 14, 2006
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Who Do You Trust?

As game companies put more and more pressure on publications to only run positive reviews, Sean Sands suggests gamers should stop taking the review process so seriously.

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josh797

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Nov 20, 2007
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wow well said. i agree with the sentiments of the article but the evidence you bring is somewhat lacking. i agree that never in a million years should you trust exclusive reviews but non exclusicves are trust worthy because reviewers have a responsibility towards their readers also. if their readers buy a crappy game cause the reviewer said it was good, the audience will leave, and the reviewer wont make any money without an audience. id also like to add that reviews are not numbers. i rarely even read the numbers for a game, its all about what is actually written in the article. a 435 bananas out of 612 car tires really doesnt help me at all. knwo why? its arbitrary.
 

Cousin_IT

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Feb 6, 2008
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wish I had the disposable income & time to draw my own conclusions on whether I like every released game or not.
 

captkeano

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Jun 27, 2008
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I think that it's a BS attitude to take, suggesting we should accept reviews as entertainment and not place any stock in them. As a person who lives month to month, has a home and a posse of animals to take care of, I rely on reviews to help me make an informed choice about what I'm blowing 60+ bucks on. Now, I never expect for them to choice for me, but I use the suggestions to help vet what I want, and when rave reviews abound, I actually find myself getting excited for something I may not have considered in the first place. Which is pretty much the same attitude I would take with a film review.

If this industry and its customers want to be taken seriously, for people to consider it in any way a form of art beyond commerce, we'd better not accept this situation rather than writing it off as glibly as you've done.

- CK
 

Sean Sands

Optimistic Cynic
Sep 14, 2006
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"As a person who lives month to month, has a home and a posse of animals to take care of, I rely on reviews to help me make an informed choice about what I'm blowing 60+ bucks on."

I sympathize, but I don't think that necessarily means that reviews are going to be of any more value. Relying on them as informed and reliable sources doesn't mean they are.

"If this industry and its customers want to be taken seriously, for people to consider it in any way a form of art beyond commerce, we'd better not accept this situation rather than writing it off as glibly as you've done."

I'm not sure I'm that interested anymore on how "seriously" the gaming industry is taken. I don't see who they are supposed to be trying to impress. They are an entertainment medium. How serious is that supposed to be?
 

ccesarano

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Oct 3, 2007
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Sean Sands said:
I'm not sure I'm that interested anymore on how "seriously" the gaming industry is taken. I don't see who they are supposed to be trying to impress. They are an entertainment medium. How serious is that supposed to be?
It depends on how you view your entertainment, or if you yourself are an entertainer. Myself, I have no problem with the majority of entertainment being simple fun, though I believe games are making a serious push to have the majority evolve beyond simple fun. This has both good and bad things, and most people insist that the industry is in a state of mediocrity (seriously, if you played most of what was on Genesis and SNES, you'd see the industry was on an uphill scale...and PC's have a very fair share of trash as well. We have a very selective memory of the past).

I like to create ideas and such, and have studied things like game design, so I myself take the industry very seriously. Having looked into game design and tried tackling it, I also feel that my critique is going to differ from your average gamer's. As such, when I look at reviewers, I see a major problem. The people that review games shouldn't just be gamers that can write well, they should be gamers that have an understanding of what design is, as well as the industry as a whole.

Unfortunately, just look at the "most over-hyped game" thread and you'll see most people don't even understand that a game that disappoints you isn't the same as a game advertised to be amazing and ends up being complete trash. You really can't top E.T. or Daikatana in this industry, but people are only focusing on what they felt wasn't the greatest game of all time. And yet that's the kind of jerk we have writing reviews, trying to tell you which games are great and which aren't. Those kinds of assholes saying Grand Theft Auto gets a 10/10 no matter how many bugs it has, while an ambitious title like Alone in the Dark, which tries a lot of new ideas, gets nitpicked for every small issue and games like Too Human often go on people's "eh, maybe" lists.

I take the games industry very seriously. However, you're right. Most people aren't going to take it seriously. To most people, they are just another way to cool off. There's no difference from playing Gears of War after work than checking out the latest episode of Heroes, Lost or Battlestar Galactica. These people need games that are just simple and fun as well, and I don't mean in the Mario Party sense. These guys also need someone to tell them what to think about the games they are buying, and honestly, the best reviewer for them may not be in a gaming magazine at all. They may be better off getting their game review from Maxim or Playboy, to be honest.

Sorry, I've totally rambled, and if I keep going I'll only ramble further.

Now, don't get me wrong, I read reviews and enjoy ZP. ZP is the only reason I found out about this site in the first place. But I like to form my own opinion based on a personal experience with the game and I think that I speak for many gamers when I say that ZP is the best game review approach since Pong. The guy is really sharp, and he knows how to speak his mind. That's something that the behemoth aka game industry needed for a long time.
I like Zero Punctuation, but it's mostly an entertainment source for me. Yahtzee knows his shit, but I clash with him on way too many points if I were to actually take a review of his seriously. My favorites are usually when he takes a game that genuinely sucks and tears it apart, as otherwise it really just sounds like whining and bitching about all the little things that keep a game from being perfect.

The only reviews I can truly enjoy are the ones on GameTrailers, though I find them to be flawed as well. I disagree with some of what was said for the Ninja Gaiden 2 review, and there are some games where the review is riddled with complaints and yet the score is high (GTA4), but usually you get to see the game in action and see what it is they are talking about. That helps me a lot, and it has helped me decide that yes, despite Atari's antics, I'm going to pick up Alone in the Dark (though I had first listened to the impressions of some friends, which were mostly positive).

Again, though, I find it interesting: yes, Atari is being assholes, but while the majority of this website bitches and complains about how poor the industry is doing, when a company tries to be innovative you find the dumbest excuse not to support them.

Maybe the industry is in trouble because consumers won't take risks for innovation, and just expect new and innovative games to play perfectly on the first attempt.
 

Arbre

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Jan 13, 2007
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Arguably, it's hard to test innovation when you don't even know that it exists. Money is spend on the advertising of secure projects - easy milk - to gross even more money.
That's why I think the fault is mainly the publishers'.
 

ccesarano

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Oct 3, 2007
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Arbre said:
Arguably, it's hard to test innovation when you don't even know that it exists. Money is spend on the advertising of secure projects - easy milk - to gross even more money.
That's why I think the fault is mainly the publishers'.
In a lot of ways this is true, actually. I still believe Contact on the Nintendo DS would have done better if it was advertised a lot better than it was. It was quirky and interesting enough that it could have done pretty well commercially, but Atlas' mentality towards their games is "Y'know, we're not gonna sell many anyway, so let's just release a limited amount and hope for the best". It's disappointing, since they seem to try the more interesting ideas when it comes to JRPG's, whereas Squenix makes bland games that sell like hot cakes and hype like crazy.

Other examples of good games with poor advertising: Beyond Good and Evil, Psychonauts, Metal Arms....and that's all that I can come up with off the top of my head, partly because they are repeated over and over.
 

tendo82

Uncanny Valley Cave Dweller
Nov 30, 2007
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The bottom line is that gaming publications and sites are suffering from a crisis of credibility. We've all been so wrapped up in getting this industry off the ground that now that the moment has arrived we find ourselves compromised - stuck with a dog we never trained. There is no better example of this than Play magazine who, by their own admission, only cover and review games they feel they will rate highly.

Make no mistake, people like this aren't writers, they're relics from a time when we all would've sold our souls to see gaming reach the heights of popularity and acceptance it has today. Unfortunately that's all an entire generation of videogame writers seems capable of, being diehard gamefans in the worst sense of the term. I will always play videogames, I love them, but I'm done letting them off the hook. The industry has matured, and so too have my expectations and criteria for evaluating it's products.
 

Zer_

Rocket Scientist
Feb 7, 2008
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Many Game Developers are VERY finnicky about the criticisms in their games, believe me I know. I worked in the QA department, and I've been given shit for making good imaginative suggestions. There were always companies who were actually open to suggestions from the testers. Net Devil is one of those companies, although I am forbidden to talk of that any further.

Honestly I think some Game Devs need to pull their head out of their ass and realize that a bad Review is something you learn from, and not something you cheat your way out of. Many software developers in general are taking steps to promote piracy (indirectly of course). And removing the credibility from any review site is a sure fire way to do such a thing.
 

Dom Camus

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Sep 8, 2006
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Sean> You could always try Giant Bomb for reviews. I think we have reason enough to trust Jeff Gerstmann not to sell out, no?
 

Royas

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Apr 25, 2008
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I can't say I completely agree with the conclusions of this article. Reviews are a vital part of all commerce. If we can't take any game reviews seriously in an attempt to figure out what games are worth our money, the industry might as well pack it in now. It will never be seen as equal to the movie or TV industry for entertainment, much less any other retail products. Reviews are a critical factor in choosing everything, from a new car to what movie to see this weekend. Obviously, you can't go trying every new car on the planet before buying one. So, user and industry reviews are the only way to narrow your choices down. Now, one obviously must be careful, and reviews need to be read critically. One should also not trust any single review completely, but rather should read a spread of reviews to see what the general thoughts are. If every review mentions a checkpoint save in a game, for instance, and you hate checkpoint saves, you won't like that aspect of the game. That's the kind of information you can get from reviews that you won't get anywhere else, short of buying every game and trying it yourself. Given that I play PC games (no rentals available) and that there seems to be a reluctance to release timely demos these days, I have no choice but to try to get an idea of game quality from the reviews.

That said, I'm far more inclined to trust the reviews and scores from readers rather than the paid reviewers. I look to the professional reviewer to discuss specifics of gameplay and details of what's in the game, I look to the user reviews to see whether the game is actually any good or not. If a game has 500 reviews, and 450 are saying the game sucks, then I can safely bet the game is not a good risk. That's the kind of thing I like to see before I lay down my $50.
 

L.B. Jeffries

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Nov 29, 2007
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If the damn things didn't cost so much game companies wouldn't have to corrupt the review industry so heavily. No one wants to pay 60 bucks for a mediocre game. Most people will pay 10 or 20 for one though (I do, anyways). The publishers & developers have their backs up against a wall spending 20 to 100 million making a product that has to be absolutely perfect or else people will wait until it hits the bargain bin.

I don't really know what the solution to that would be. Shorter games? Downloadable games? Something has to give in this climate because from a business perspective, I'm not sure having legit reviews is even really possible.
 

Jamash

Top Todger
Jun 25, 2008
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I trust my inner child. If a game appeals to him, then I'll enjoy it & have fun playing it.
After all, that's what games are supposed to be, fun. Graphics, narrative, technical quality & artistic quality, whilst important, are all secondary to fun, in my opinion.

For example, I really enjoy Koei games like Dynasty Warriors & Bladestorm (I've logged 120 hours & haven't finished the main story), but these games receive mediocre to average reviews. I also enjoy playing Kane & Lynch despite it's flaws.
Conversely, a "perfect" 10/10 game like MGS4 or a technically awesome game like Crysis doesn't appeal to me. Also the fun factor of GTAIV dried up very quickly for me, despite it's 10/10 reviews.
 

BloodSquirrel

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Jun 23, 2008
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I've found game reviews to be generally untrustworthy. They've done a very poor job of warning me off of buying absolute crap (like Arx Fatalis, which got a 73.5% on Gamerankings despite being one of the greatest concentrations of bad game design ever to be placed on a DVD), and I've found that I can't really trust them about games that they're raving about.

My own instincts on what looks good/bad have been far more accurate, and if that's not enough there are demos.