Heathrow said:
In their ongoing campaign to save the gaming industry from itself /v/ have once again decided to metabomb [http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/portal-2/user-reviews] a new release.
Screencap of first page of the relevant thread from /v/ [http://i.imgur.com/cGgFk.png].
Is it called for? Are DLC unreasonable? Are people just being petulant? What do you think?
Thread is still up on /v/ if you're interested. You all know where it is.
I actually think that your giving the channers waaay too much credit for being able to influance meta ratings. I say this because they have been around for a while now, and are expected.
I think the recent issue with high profile games bombing out in the meta-ratings is that your seeing a lot more gamer dissatisfaction with the industry and the products they are turning out. We haven't gotten to the point where people have stopped supporting them with money yet, but they are trying to express their displeasure through ratings that matter more, or are at least more visible, than simple rage-filled posts on message boards.
Your also seeing seeing the corruption in professional reviews exposed when the ratings from the pros (whose bosses are supported by company advertising) are being compared to a more vocal public.
Of course the industry doesn't want to change, and wants to ignore the warning signs, both the industry and rabid fanboys would rather blame "those pesky channers" or other minor groups that have been around for many years now for what is being seen.
Or simply put your finally seeing a situation where the industry has ticked off enough people where they are making use of the tools that have been there all along but have generally been neglected. The sloppy production of "Dragon Age 2", and some of the things I've heard about "Portal 2" (like day #1 DLC, hard to say, my interest was fairly mild so I haven't beel following it) make them two noticibly big releases that have gotten serious backlash from a user community that simply doesn't want to take it anymore.
I think that if this trend is dismissed, it's going to be bad for everyone involved.
I'll also say that one of the things I've noticed is a general attitude about "fixing the ratings" rather than "acknowlegding the problems and fixing the games" (even if just in later releases). For example with "Dragon Age 2" Bioware and EA never really acknowleged the problems with the product, instead listening entirely to the fanboys, they went out to do things like try and shill ratings to adjust them rather than going "okay, we goofed a little too much here".
I hate to say it but this isn't as sudden as it might appear either, the direction the wind is blowing in has been changing for a while.
I'll also say that I think *SOME* people in the industry have kind of acknowleged this was coming, albiet they don't want to accept what needs to be done. A lot of people have talked about how the industry as it stands can't sustain itself, of course their general "solution" seems to mostly be to dip into all of the things (DLC, Microtransactions, Online Connectivity, Metrics, etc...) that are upsetting people to make more money, rather than tightening their belts, cutting away the garbage that is annoying people (and thus produce better, more content filled games for an acceptable price) and slowly grow their audience rather than continueing to tap and exploit the lowest human denominator (which is also the most fickle human denominator).
This is what I think at any rate.
I know Valve is a darling to a lot of gamers, but they aren't perfect. Looking at some of their recent trends with things like "Left 4 Dead 2", and "The Potato Sack" where they were pretty much trying to get people to pay for their advertising, and of course all of the "hat promotions" for "Team Fortress 2", it seems like Valve has been getting into all of the exploitive corperate nonsense themselves, when one of the things that made them popular was NOT doing the kinds of things they have been doing recently. With the change in attitude, it's not surprised it's sunk into products like "Portal 2" which not only was developed on a AAA level, but also apparently with the AAA mentality.
This is not to say that Valve doesn't still have it's generous side, I mean we are still seeing some pretty good sales when it comes to STEAM and such (at least for the moment), but I think they have been on a path of losing what made them popular with users to begin with, and these ratings (if as bad as I'm expecting they will get) are any indication we're about to see their first major backlash in reception, if not in sales. Or perhaps I should say their second after what happened with "Left 4 Dead 2" though I suspect we'll actually see more here over the coming weeks. Time will tell if I'm right or wrong.
