Grumpy Ginger said:
Critical opinion does seem to usually line up with consumer opinion but at the same time there are differences such as with games that were never particularly popular getting heaps of critical praise hence the "best games you've never played lists".
This is something that seems different than what you were describing before, as it happens with every media, and has nothing to do with how much time one has to experience it. I'm a big fan of the Nuno Bettencourt album "Schizophonic," which was a bit of a critical darling at release and even received TV spots based on hype, but garnered like ten sales in the US and led to Bettencourt finishing off his contract with the label via a "best of" down the line. A full listen of the album runs you about sixty minutes, and I doubt any reviewer got only to track four and then wrote a review.
Since the phenomenon you're currently describing transcends media, I think that it's unlikely to be about how the media is experienced. It's more likely that when you're dealing with responses that are grounded in opinion, you're bound to see one group occasionally break with the rest. Of course, we're talking music criticism, where the reviewer isn't necessarily expected to fall in line with the public. Gaming does seem unique in that, where if the score doesn't meet the bases very narrow expectations for a "proper" score, there's hell to pay.
Joccaren said:
Whilst I broadly agree with you, I'd offer a potential explanation as to why, 'we' might be considered core gamers, and the 'CoD crowd' casuals in this sense.
I already break from that in that I consider the core crowd to be casuals. Especially since "core" is generally defined in terms of the genres played, and action and shooters are both part of that. This was the definition commonly used on this site when people wanted to "prove" women weren't half the gaming base.
Call of Duty and Assassins Creed fans may be less likely to purchase a large number of games.
They may be, yes, but they may also be the most broad and diverse gamers. Similarly...
On the other hand, gaming enthusiasts with varied tastes may present a better 'core' target for the overall games market.
I mean, you say that, but many of the self-proclaimed "gaming enthusiasts" on this site have very limited, narrow palates. Simply asserting that one group might be more limited and the other might not be, while technically true, is functionally useless to me.
I could be wrong, and this does kind of depend on whether you deride everyone who buys CoD and AC as 'casuals' with bad taste, or whether you only consider the ones who almost exclusively play such games as said 'casuals', but it does potentially explain why another group may be considered the 'core' gamer segment.
I don't tend to judge people's tastes period, but I'm halfway there.
The problem still remains, we're redefining what a "core" gamer is, redefining what a gamer is, and cutting out a good number of what could effectively be both. Terms like "gaming enthusiast" only serve to muddy the mater, rather than clear the air. And it really looks like a true Scotsman argument, the kind that's been going around for the last three or four years. @phasmal has done some wonderful deconstructions of the diction in the past, but it always seems to break down to including people I want to include and excluding those I want to exclude.
Pinkilicious said:
Yeah, I'm feeling slightly annoyed that lately, of all things, bandwagoning somehow isn't considered safe anymore unless it's dirty muddy brown bullet-flinger #4185. I'd like more things that played like AC other than shadow of mordor. Different themes, different locations, different eras... Or, well, I guess that goes for anything that isn't a simple stamp&press (argh, match-3 and 2048 clones)
Ehhhhh...I'm more or less fine with AC occupying the AC slot in things. I mean, I would like to see them go to more diverse places (Edo Japan is a popular one, and originally they planned on doing a pre-Columbian South American game, IIRC), but I'd rather see people do something different. I mean, my definition of different is probably pretty loose here, as both Saints Row IV and GTA V are sandbox games. In a broad sense, I suppose, but SOM and AC seem awful similar in everything but the skin involved.
And if we're talking like Saints Row v GTA, then yeah, I'd like to see more AC-like games. But I'd like to see fewer "clones" in general. And yeah, I know the first SR was just a GTA clone, so I do acknowledge some leeway. But if there are games that look and play like AC, I'll probably just stick with AC because I'm not that devoted to the style. Unless, of course, they can offer me an actual better experience. That doesn't seem to happen that often.
I mean, yeah, overall it's not so much that the slot is sacred, it's just that you end up with a lot more Guitar Hero v Rock Band fights (though, thankfully, the new versions have somewhat different focuses): the differences tend to mostly come down to whether you like a licky strum bar and five pads or other superficial things.
Speaking of, I really wish the AC/Batman style combat wasn't so prevalent. I like the system, but it doesn't have to be everywhere.
I guess what I'm saying is: when every game plays like Call of Duty, I might as well stick to Call of Duty.
Karadalis said:
What sounds more logic:
Big gaming review sites not wanting to piss off big publishers by giving low scores
Or 60 or so reviewers from different outlets all suffering from "shit taste" syndrome?
When you look at the major purchases, these games are the taste of a significant portion of the base. Why is it so likely that the publications feel the same way? Especially since game reviewers tend to come from gamer ranks, and the gaming community has spent years balking at the kind of criticism that would be expected in other media?
And why is the only proposed alternative something that can so readily be dismissed?
Halla Burrica said:
This might seem like an obvious and tired thing to some, but I think it's important to have it out there, because there are actually people who genuinely believe that kind of bullshit, using the same kind of logic that the people who think JFK's assassination was an inside job and not just some nut tend to use. If this comic makes just one person consider that they might actually be out of touch with reality, it's worth it.
I disagree that it's the same kind of logic. Most people who argue that reviewers are paid off use it as a casual dismissal.
