That is a bit extreme. Really I just wish there was more accountability. For instance the IGN/ Last Guardian issue how are you posting that article ( as the editor in chief) without making absolutely certain your source is correct. Let's be honest here as well this isn't specific to games all Journalism has shifted to sensationalist media ( there are a few places that haven't done this). The truth doesn't matter anymore only ratings.
Yeah one thing i have to say is: NeoGaf as a source is way too often basis for news articles. There was Rumor Articles based on people who are speculated to be a reliable source talking about stuff from the Sony conference of which close to 50% came true...at best. Thats not a good ratio.
Maybe this is more related to a game getting more negative reviews than expected? Who knows.
Game journalism isn't even journalism though, it's just insipid ranting by pretentious hobbyist that have close to no idea about what game development entails.
They're also big doodoo heads and they smell like farts.
maybe he's burnt out from crunching for E3, a dog & pony show for game journalists.
The average gamers anger me more than game journalists - the game sites talk about what happened at E3, the fans just argue over who won it.
Yeah to a certain extent. I mean the game journalist like to fuel those flames as it earns them a ton of ratings. Though while I get annoyed at the average gamer I really blame the journalists. It's not the gamers job to understand the industry and report on it. The journalists are actually tasked with giving the average gamer more information about games and their developers. All they ever really end up doing is reporting misinformation and fueling malcontent between developer and consumer with articles like this:
Giantbomb is one of the few good sites left that I read. I totally ignore reviews at this point because they are just so far off the mark and pointless now. It is pretty shocking though how many news storys from sites like IGN, Polygon etc come down to what some random person posted on Neo Gaf.
Honestly I think the biggest problem is that it does not pay enough so all the greats (i.e. most of the original 1UP.com/EGM (original edition) staff have moved on, a lot of them actually on the dev side now.
There are some good sites, but what I think is far worse are the reviews of the games.
Journalism will always be journalism and you know how it is.
IGN is the teenage magazine of gaming basically.
But I dont see the big problem with journalism, the main thing is to hear about something and the rest is what you search for yourself if it matters.
Game reviews, those are a freaking mess. Hundreds and thousands of people trust the unqualified opinion of a single random person following a non existant rating system.
How is it even allowed that a single person can review a multi million dollar game on a money print site like IGN. 3000 people work on something like assasins creed for years and random pete is going to judge that work on his own and millions of people take his opinion ? What is this ?
PCGamer reviews are the worst ive encountered so far. Its like they pick a random person on the office to give his biased opinion and he chooses a random number as score. Especially the mediocre to worse games get rated terribly. Decent graphics and audio, mediocre gameplay and problems here and there, 30/100. And the masses listen to those. Its a insult to every hard working dev on the market. I could also ask a random person on my steam friendlist what he thinks.
There are some sites doing good reviews, Polygon seems pretty qualitative but I didnt follow too much there to be honest. But its only the germans that are doing it truly right. Gamestar puts usually 2 or more people up for a review and they present it to the review team, and they actually have a chart to rate the numbers and not just make them up on the fly -
Ever heard of something like that ? Actual ratings that are based on something tangible, you hear PCGamer & IGN (..)?
Here an example of the rating alone without the review
And it seems to work very well, im following them for many years now and there was a lot of itaration in the system I guess, but they have the most accurate ratings imo and theres no reason to think otherwise.
for the most part game journalism is a steaming pile of shit. I'm not looking for award winning writing here, but if you cant even form coherent sentences (let alone complete ideas) i wont bother reading or watching, so that rules out about 95% of the business.
I feel like Kotaku does that a lot.. Polygon has been getting to that point, too.
One thing that really gets to me about Polygon is a lot of high profile reviews over the last year that they have changed the score on several times Sim City for example went from like a 8 to a 3 or something, Battlefield 4 was one of the others.
Too worried about rushing out the review rather than doing it when its ready.
I wouldn't hate on a site as a whole as much as I'd hate on a stupid individual representing the site. There are some really stupid people working at IGN, but there are also some very informed people working there as well, for example.
Polygon seems to be going downhill, especially that situation with the cerebral palsy joke they made where they started banning people to cover themselves up. Individual gamers do make me the angriest though, just a quick look into the Steam discussion boards of basically any game will be enough to make you lose faith in gamers.
Polygon seems to be going downhill, especially that situation with the cerebral palsy joke they made where they started banning people to cover themselves up. Individual gamers do make me the angriest though, just a quick look into the Steam discussion boards of basically any game will be enough to make you lose faith in gamers.
That's awful! Not the first time they have banned people to cover mistakes up though.
game journalism is a made up profession that just straight up isn't needed. i feel pretty much the same about movie, book, and music reviews too, so maybe that says something about me.
the only game opinion site i like is giantbomb (minus sjw patrick) because they have always been very upfront about presenting all their content as personal opinions only, and they put a lot of emphasis on having the reader identify with the host's opinions. if jeff likes a game brad doesn't like, and you tend to have a similar taste in games to jeff, you might want to consider playing it. if you tend to like games brad likes, maybe avoid it. it also helps that each of the hosts is very personable in the first place, something most game journos are lacking.
One thing that really gets to me about Polygon is a lot of high profile reviews over the last year that they have changed the score on several times Sim City for example went from like a 8 to a 3 or something, Battlefield 4 was one of the others.
Too worried about rushing out the review rather than doing it when its ready.
The issue with Sim City, pre-release the game was great, there was no server issues, there was a lot of features and the game seemed to have a lot of interaction and depth. 9.5
Come release and the next month, the game had server issues and was basically unplayable, so Polygon lowered the review -twice- to represent that. 9.5 -> 8 -> 4
A month later when the game was actually working, it became known that the game was very shallow, it had a lot of features, but they didn't have any depth, your choices didn't really matter, and it was hard to fail until a certain population. They also removed features from the game to make it more stable, it was obvious the game wasn't going to have the replayability of the last SimCity games. 9.5 -> 8 -> 4 -> 6.5
That whole review situation is completely fair, and you cannot expect reviewers to put 20 hours into every single game before making a review, most people would assume after making 3 or so cities in the game, that's the whole experience and it will keep playing that well, but that wasn't the case with this game. I actually really liked that Polygon kept updating the review score, and at each point I felt the review was fair and valid.
The issue with Sim City, pre-release the game was great, there was no server issues, there was a lot of features and the game seemed to have a lot of interaction and depth. 9.5
Come release and the next month, the game had server issues and was basically unplayable, so Polygon lowered the review -twice- to represent that. 9.5 -> 8 -> 4
A month later when the game was actually working, it became known that the game was very shallow, it had a lot of features, but they didn't have any depth, your choices didn't really matter, and it was hard to fail until a certain population. They also removed features from the game to make it more stable, it was obvious the game wasn't going to have the replayability of the last SimCity games. 9.5 -> 8 -> 4 -> 6.5
That whole review situation is completely fair, and you cannot expect reviewers to put 20 hours into every single game before making a review, most people would assume after making 3 or so cities in the game, that's the whole experience and it will keep playing that well, but that wasn't the case with this game. I actually really liked that Polygon kept updating the review score, and at each point I felt the review was fair and valid.
Yeah I do take the point that sim city had a lot of issues post launch and yeah I think you are right that they updated the reivew to reflect that. Its just something I have noticed with a few of their reviews now. Honestly I wish sites didn't give scores at all.
That's why I like TotalBiscuit's first impressions.
Is the game playable?
Does it what are the menu options?
Does it have FOV options? 60+ FPS? Mouse/keyboard/gamepad support?
What games is it like? If I like those games will I like this?
I think the main point of existence for game journalism is reviewing especially in video format. But sadly enough mags these days give a lot of games scores that seem a bit out of nowhere. Yeah for game devs a bad review score might be awful, then again it's consumer advice and if your game got serious problems, is not up to the standards of today or just lacking in certain ways that it just shouldn't, the consumer should be informed about that. But then again i got the feeling the mainstream sites are too close to the publishers to be objective. A lot of mags gave the desaster that was the first FF14 release 60-70 (6 -7 out of 10) ratings, what basically means, "not too bad" eventhough it was an utter trainwrack they had apologise twice for. Same with The Elderscrolls Online. While the game gained rather favorable scores the only critic that went all out about the game, the lack of instancing, the lack of up to date party control and the bullshit payment system was Angry Joe who gave the game a beating, and rightfully so.
Or FF13, yeah now Gametrailers and others call it a failure, but it feels like Spoony and other indepent people had to take the whole thing up and show what a mess this game was to make members of the major outlets say they gave a way too high rating across the board (in his FF13 review spoony showed all the review scors of major sites and they all were in the 80-90 area). Gametrailers pretty much stated "yeah our score back then doesn't have any defenders anymore TODAY". But since the Mountain Dew / Doritogate thing their credability is down the drain anyway.
But bottom line is Game Journalism should be about the reviews first since that is what they can bring to the people: consumer advice.
Replies
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So, what game did you release, and why did it suck so much?
Please see a doctor immediately so you don't do something you'll quickly regret.
so if we can get them to jaywalk its then okay to kill them?
Maybe this is more related to a game getting more negative reviews than expected? Who knows.
Hat in Time looks great Habboi!
They're also big doodoo heads and they smell like farts.
The average gamers anger me more than game journalists - the game sites talk about what happened at E3, the fans just argue over who won it.
Yeah to a certain extent. I mean the game journalist like to fuel those flames as it earns them a ton of ratings. Though while I get annoyed at the average gamer I really blame the journalists. It's not the gamers job to understand the industry and report on it. The journalists are actually tasked with giving the average gamer more information about games and their developers. All they ever really end up doing is reporting misinformation and fueling malcontent between developer and consumer with articles like this:
http://kotaku.com/e3-winners-losers-day-zero-1588491904
http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/10/5798216/how-did-sony-and-microsoft-do
http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/10/5795576/video-game-trailers-e3-2014
Honestly I think the biggest problem is that it does not pay enough so all the greats (i.e. most of the original 1UP.com/EGM (original edition) staff have moved on, a lot of them actually on the dev side now.
Journalism will always be journalism and you know how it is.
IGN is the teenage magazine of gaming basically.
But I dont see the big problem with journalism, the main thing is to hear about something and the rest is what you search for yourself if it matters.
Game reviews, those are a freaking mess. Hundreds and thousands of people trust the unqualified opinion of a single random person following a non existant rating system.
How is it even allowed that a single person can review a multi million dollar game on a money print site like IGN. 3000 people work on something like assasins creed for years and random pete is going to judge that work on his own and millions of people take his opinion ? What is this ?
PCGamer reviews are the worst ive encountered so far. Its like they pick a random person on the office to give his biased opinion and he chooses a random number as score. Especially the mediocre to worse games get rated terribly. Decent graphics and audio, mediocre gameplay and problems here and there, 30/100. And the masses listen to those. Its a insult to every hard working dev on the market. I could also ask a random person on my steam friendlist what he thinks.
There are some sites doing good reviews, Polygon seems pretty qualitative but I didnt follow too much there to be honest. But its only the germans that are doing it truly right. Gamestar puts usually 2 or more people up for a review and they present it to the review team, and they actually have a chart to rate the numbers and not just make them up on the fly -
Ever heard of something like that ? Actual ratings that are based on something tangible, you hear PCGamer & IGN (..)?
Here an example of the rating alone without the review
And it seems to work very well, im following them for many years now and there was a lot of itaration in the system I guess, but they have the most accurate ratings imo and theres no reason to think otherwise.
Sorry im a little mad because im tired
I feel like Kotaku does that a lot.. Polygon has been getting to that point, too.
One thing that really gets to me about Polygon is a lot of high profile reviews over the last year that they have changed the score on several times Sim City for example went from like a 8 to a 3 or something, Battlefield 4 was one of the others.
Too worried about rushing out the review rather than doing it when its ready.
Polygon seems to be going downhill, especially that situation with the cerebral palsy joke they made where they started banning people to cover themselves up. Individual gamers do make me the angriest though, just a quick look into the Steam discussion boards of basically any game will be enough to make you lose faith in gamers.
This video comes to mind.
[ame="
That's awful! Not the first time they have banned people to cover mistakes up though.
the only game opinion site i like is giantbomb (minus sjw patrick) because they have always been very upfront about presenting all their content as personal opinions only, and they put a lot of emphasis on having the reader identify with the host's opinions. if jeff likes a game brad doesn't like, and you tend to have a similar taste in games to jeff, you might want to consider playing it. if you tend to like games brad likes, maybe avoid it. it also helps that each of the hosts is very personable in the first place, something most game journos are lacking.
The issue with Sim City, pre-release the game was great, there was no server issues, there was a lot of features and the game seemed to have a lot of interaction and depth. 9.5
Come release and the next month, the game had server issues and was basically unplayable, so Polygon lowered the review -twice- to represent that. 9.5 -> 8 -> 4
A month later when the game was actually working, it became known that the game was very shallow, it had a lot of features, but they didn't have any depth, your choices didn't really matter, and it was hard to fail until a certain population. They also removed features from the game to make it more stable, it was obvious the game wasn't going to have the replayability of the last SimCity games. 9.5 -> 8 -> 4 -> 6.5
That whole review situation is completely fair, and you cannot expect reviewers to put 20 hours into every single game before making a review, most people would assume after making 3 or so cities in the game, that's the whole experience and it will keep playing that well, but that wasn't the case with this game. I actually really liked that Polygon kept updating the review score, and at each point I felt the review was fair and valid.
Yeah I do take the point that sim city had a lot of issues post launch and yeah I think you are right that they updated the reivew to reflect that. Its just something I have noticed with a few of their reviews now. Honestly I wish sites didn't give scores at all.
Is the game playable?
Does it what are the menu options?
Does it have FOV options? 60+ FPS? Mouse/keyboard/gamepad support?
What games is it like? If I like those games will I like this?
Or FF13, yeah now Gametrailers and others call it a failure, but it feels like Spoony and other indepent people had to take the whole thing up and show what a mess this game was to make members of the major outlets say they gave a way too high rating across the board (in his FF13 review spoony showed all the review scors of major sites and they all were in the 80-90 area). Gametrailers pretty much stated "yeah our score back then doesn't have any defenders anymore TODAY". But since the Mountain Dew / Doritogate thing their credability is down the drain anyway.
But bottom line is Game Journalism should be about the reviews first since that is what they can bring to the people: consumer advice.