Is CD Projekt Most overrated Developers of today?

[CritialGaming]

Opinions. How do they work?

What if opinions were peoples? What if peoples were emotions?

Alright David Cage, settle down.

OT: I think this award goes to Bethesda, a company who's games get a shit ton of hype but always end up being trash. Name me 1 other developer that can't fix their own shit and relies on the moders to do all the work for them.

 

[Hawki]

I originally intended to stay out of this conversation - I've never played any of CDR's games, and don't have any particular desire to. As such, I'm not really in any position to judge whether they're "overrated" or not (a term I'm not particuarly fond of, but meh). That said, I saw their name come up repeatedly in the 'mix and match' thread, to the point that I thought "screw it, may as well get it off my chest."

Taking an outsider's perspective of CDR, there's an immediate dichotomy that comes to mind between the praise they get versus their actual products. For reference, as of 2007, they've made the following games (not including expansions/DLC):

-The Witcher
-The Witcher 2
-The Witcher Adventure Game
-The Witcher Battle Arena
-The Witcher 3

And as of this time of writing, are working on the following games:

-Gwent: The Witcher Card Game
-Cyberpunk 2077
-Untitled Witcher game

Now, I don't know about you, but there seems to be a bit of a pattern here. If you don't see it, don't worry, I know it's really obscure, but if you look close, you might just notice the little fact that every single game they've developed belongs to a single IP that isn't even theirs, that over the span of 11 years, they've never done anything outside this IP, and the one thing they're working on that isn't the Witcher is still a pre-existing IP, that's still an RPG. Hard to spot, but don't worry, it took me a long time to realize this as well.

What I've also realized is that while everyone seems to love Witcher 3, I rarely hear anyone talking about Witcher 1/2. Like, at all. I also don't hear anyone point out that Witcher Battle Arena was live from January 2015 to December 2015, that even in the crowded MOBA genre, that kind of timeframe is pretty pitiful. Now, you could say that that's a spinoff, and you'd be right, but if we're talking about the supposed "best developer evar!," I'd have thought that their resume would be a bit more...varied? Less monotonous? If you asked me what I think are the best game developers in the business, something they'd have in common is a variety of IPs and a variety of mechanics to go with them. CDR has only ever made games for one IP, in one genre (bar some spinoffs, one of which was DOA), and again, not even their own IP.

Now, none of this is inherently bad of course. You can easily make the argument that quality is preferable to quantity, and, yeah, sure, I get that. And who knows, maybe the Witcher 3 really is the best thing since sliced bread. But I'd have thought that in the realm of "greats," we'd be looking at someone with a bit more varied of a resume.

 

[Abomination]

And who knows, maybe the Witcher 3 really is the best thing since sliced bread. But I'd have thought that in the realm of "greats," we'd be looking at someone with a bit more varied of a resume.

Greats come and greats go - remember when Bioware was the top dog?

CD Projekt is a self-owned developer that has a primary income unrelated to the games it produces. This has enabled it to bankroll the ambitious project that was Witcher 3, and that game is undeniably one of the greatest games ever. They can take risks and have the fidelity to not get bogged down by some Yahoo in a suit trying out the latest marketing gimmick.

They might have only released a few games but they just keep improving with each iteration. Witcher 2 was a good game. Witcher 1 was decidedly average but not bad.

We have seen what they can do and have watched them grow from nobodies to an AA publisher to a AAA - and their business culture has remained the same "If you build it, they will come(/pay)".

 

[sageoftruth]

Dunno. I never saw the trailer for their next game, or followed the E3 news.

Still, as others have said, CDPR has a reputation for being consumer-friendly. As a result, I'm far less likely to suspect them of being deceptive in the marketing of their game.

Doesn't mean I'll preorder it or buy it before seeing some actual reviews, but at the moment, thanks to their reputations, I can understand people being a bit more hyped over a game they're producing, even if it's just a trailer. Trust goes a long way.

 

[Trunkage]

And who knows, maybe the Witcher 3 really is the best thing since sliced bread. But I'd have thought that in the realm of "greats," we'd be looking at someone with a bit more varied of a resume.

Greats come and greats go - remember when Bioware was the top dog?

You know, when I replayed the Baulders Gate with the Beamdog enhancements and many people complained that Beamdog did a barely adequate job. I saw something close to Bioware but not quite there. I gather people have such rose coloured glasses, they put Bioware on a massive pedestal that they don't deserve. The first game, on replay, hasn't got a really great story. After the replay, I'm done with those game.

 

[Schadrach]

this is the first time i have ever seen a game which doesnot shown to public getting insane amount of hype

So I take you were asleep during the No Man's Sky announcements, weren't you?

Hey, No Man's Sky just had another major feature update. When it finishes development in 3-5 years it'll be half of what was promised!

More seriously, it's actually pretty impressive how much they've done to the game, I'll eventually buy a copy when it gets cheap enough on Steam.

 

[CaitSeith]

this is the first time i have ever seen a game which doesnot shown to public getting insane amount of hype

So I take you were asleep during the No Man's Sky announcements, weren't you?

Hey, No Man's Sky just had another major feature update. When it finishes development in 3-5 years it'll be half of what was promised!

More seriously, it's actually pretty impressive how much they've done to the game, I'll eventually buy a copy when it gets cheap enough on Steam.

I was talking about the hype before release (before it became the joke of the gaming community). Both the media and fans were out of their minds about how awesome the game was, despite no one actually having seen it.

 

[Bombiz]

Every game is overrated

not true.

alot of games score like shit.

It's a damn accomplished for a game to score below an 80. For example

that's objectively not true. I've seen plenty of games get below 80. actually I'm willing to but if someone crunched the numbers that the average score on meta critic for games would be below 80

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Every game is overrated

not true.

alot of games score like shit.

It's a damn accomplished for a game to score below an 80. For example

that's objectively not true. I've seen plenty of games get below 80. actually I'm willing to but if someone crunched the numbers that the average score on meta critic for games would be below 80

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.872132-In-defense-of-the-number-a-note-on-video-game-review-scores

The average game score on Metacritic is 74. I wonder how much higher that would rise when you remove the obviously bad games (licensed crap, shovelware, etc). A game coming out with decent-good marketing from a known publisher has to be pretty bad to score below an 80.

 

[Bombiz]

A game coming out with decent-good marketing from a known publisher has to be pretty bad to score below an 80.

Define decent-good marketing and known publisher. Cause right now that classification puts games like
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
Prey (2017)
Tekken 6
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II
Dead Rising 2
Spec Ops: The Line

in that camp.

 

[RJ 17]

Is it just me or do all these B-Cell threads tend to run together? Like if any game isn't one of the 5 he seems to adore, they're pretty much rubbish in his eyes.

Are there some more nuanced discussions I've missed?

Nope. I've only just returned recently after months (or possibly a year or two) of not stopping by here and I still remember that every B-Cell topic is pretty much exactly the same:

Step 1: Pick something that the general consensus among people is "That's pretty good."
Step 2: Say that it's actually garbage but give no real basis or backing for such an argument/statement.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

A game coming out with decent-good marketing from a known publisher has to be pretty bad to score below an 80.

Define decent-good marketing and known publisher. Cause right now that classification puts games like
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
Prey (2017)
Tekken 6
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II
Dead Rising 2
Spec Ops: The Line

in that camp.

Most of those games still probably get overalls of 80+ because they scored like 79 on one platform then scored like 82 and 84 on other platforms like Prey did. Probably only Spec Ops and Transformers do overall score under an 8/10. Destiny or GR Wildlands is pretty much as low as any major release can score outside of like those infamous Kane and Lynch or Battlefront 2 debacles. And both Destiny and Wildlands were so bad that I deleted both betas in less than an hour of playing. No Man's Sky is even sitting at a 71. Whereas, the 2 current movies in the top 10 for box office with the best RT score, The Incredibles 2 (94) and Sorry to Bother You (95), have average scores of 7.9/10 and 7.8/10 respectively. That list of games you used as an example of poorly scoring games still have better averages than the 2 currently best rated movies. Game criticism is pretty much a joke and reviews function as advertisements nowadays. Witcher 3 still has all the same faults as RPGs and open world games but because it just did the window dressing (aka writing) the best, it scored in the 90s and is considered game of the generation.

 

[Bombiz]

A game coming out with decent-good marketing from a known publisher has to be pretty bad to score below an 80.

Define decent-good marketing and known publisher. Cause right now that classification puts games like
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
Prey (2017)
Tekken 6
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II
Dead Rising 2
Spec Ops: The Line

in that camp.

Most of those games still probably get overalls of 80+ because they scored like 79 on one platform then scored like 82 and 84 on other platforms like Prey did. Probably only Spec Ops and Transformers do overall score under an 8/10. Destiny or GR Wildlands is pretty much as low as any major release can score outside of like those infamous Kane and Lynch or Battlefront 2 debacles. And both Destiny and Wildlands were so bad that I deleted both betas in less than an hour of playing. No Man's Sky is even sitting at a 71. Whereas, the 2 current movies in the top 10 for box office with the best RT score, The Incredibles 2 (94) and Sorry to Bother You (95), have average scores of 7.9/10 and 7.8/10 respectively. That list of games you used as an example of poorly scoring games still have better averages than the 2 currently best rated movies. Game criticism is pretty much a joke and reviews function as advertisements nowadays. Witcher 3 still has all the same faults as RPGs and open world games but because it just did the window dressing (aka writing) the best, it scored in the 90s and is considered game of the generation.

I don't think I ever made a claim on games criticism as a whole. I just said that the claim that most games get 80 or above is false which is still true. I don't think their was ever a time when games criticism was ever taken seriously. also anecdote does not equal data. we can see that in the action genera on metacritic for games that over 150 pages of games have scored 72 or below. also 7.9/10 for Incredibles 2 seems pretty high tbh. ghost recon wildlands has at highest an average of 76 on the xbox one. that's lower than both of those movies you listed. Also The Incredibles 2 has an 80 not 79, "Sorry to bother you" has a 81 not a 78.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I don't think I ever made a claim on games criticism as a whole. I just said that the claim that most games get 80 or above is false which is still true. I don't think their was ever a time when games criticism was ever taken seriously. also anecdote does not equal data. we can see that in the action genera on metacritic for games that over 150 pages of games have scored 72 or below. also 7.9/10 for Incredibles 2 seems pretty high tbh. ghost recon wildlands has at highest an average of 76 on the xbox one. that's lower than both of those movies you listed. Also The Incredibles 2 has an 80 not 79, "Sorry to bother you" has a 81 not a 78.

How did you prove most games don't get 80+ scores by just showing a handful of games that didn't (even though most of your list actually did score 80+)? I clearly linked to the most data (not done by me though, but still done). I haven't seen either movie I mentioned, I literally just clicked on the 2 highest scoring movies on RottenTomatoes on the current Box Office top 10 to see what their average scores were. I was using RT not Metacritic for the scores since RT has loads more reviews than Metacritic. It is rather hard for a game to score under an 80, even a love/hate game like FFXIII scored above an 80 and only has one negative review. Whereas, this [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kingsglaive_final_fantasy_xv_2016/] is what happens when movie critics rate a FF storyline, and that movie totally convinced me to never ever play FFXV. Even if my personal game GOAT scored a 98, I'd still call it overrated because that's ridiculous for any piece of art to score that high. Thus, every game is overrated.

 

[Bombiz]

How did you prove most games don't get 80+ scores by just showing a handful of games that didn't (even though most of your list actually did score 80+)? I clearly linked to the most data (not done by me though, but still done). I haven't seen either movie I mentioned, I literally just clicked on the 2 highest scoring movies on RottenTomatoes on the current Box Office top 10 to see what their average scores were. I was using RT not Metacritic for the scores since RT has loads more reviews than Metacritic. It is rather hard for a game to score under an 80, even a love/hate game like FFXIII scored above an 80 and only has one negative review. Whereas, this [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kingsglaive_final_fantasy_xv_2016/] is what happens when movie critics rate a FF storyline, and that movie totally convinced me to never ever play FFXV. Even if my personal game GOAT scored a 98, I'd still call it overrated because that's ridiculous for any piece of art to score that high. Thus, every game is overrated.

but the data that you linked to didn't prove that most games get 80+ scores/it's hard for a game to score under 80. The guy who got the data even disagreed with you when you said the vast majority of scores are between 8.5-9.5. the data you linked to me in that thread says that they get any where from 78 to 68 on average. And I just gave those games as examples. if you want we can go through the 150+ pages of action games that scored 72 or below.

Even if my personal game GOAT scored a 98, I'd still call it overrated because that's ridiculous for any piece of art to score that high. Thus, every game is overrated.

wait so just because a piece of media got 98/100 everything in that media is overrated? cause their are movies that have scored that high before.

 

[CaitSeith]

I don't think I ever made a claim on games criticism as a whole. I just said that the claim that most games get 80 or above is false which is still true. I don't think their was ever a time when games criticism was ever taken seriously. also anecdote does not equal data. we can see that in the action genera on metacritic for games that over 150 pages of games have scored 72 or below. also 7.9/10 for Incredibles 2 seems pretty high tbh. ghost recon wildlands has at highest an average of 76 on the xbox one. that's lower than both of those movies you listed. Also The Incredibles 2 has an 80 not 79, "Sorry to bother you" has a 81 not a 78.

How did you prove most games don't get 80+ scores by just showing a handful of games that didn't (even though most of your list actually did score 80+)? I clearly linked to the most data (not done by me though, but still done). I haven't seen either movie I mentioned, I literally just clicked on the 2 highest scoring movies on RottenTomatoes on the current Box Office top 10 to see what their average scores were. I was using RT not Metacritic for the scores since RT has loads more reviews than Metacritic. It is rather hard for a game to score under an 80, even a love/hate game like FFXIII scored above an 80 and only has one negative review. Whereas, this [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kingsglaive_final_fantasy_xv_2016/] is what happens when movie critics rate a FF storyline, and that movie totally convinced me to never ever play FFXV. Even if my personal game GOAT scored a 98, I'd still call it overrated because that's ridiculous for any piece of art to score that high. Thus, every game is overrated.

Ironically, the movie doesn't reflect the game. Kingsglaive isn't as much of a movie; it's more like a 90 minutes cutscene. Besides, saying that is like saying "Pokemon the First Movie totally convinced me of never ever play Pokemon".

But something tells me you wouldn't be happy even if no game scored more than 79 (otherwise you would give examples of games deserving such honor).

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

but the data that you linked to didn't prove that most games get 80+ scores/it's hard for a game to score under 80. The guy who got the data even disagreed with you when you said the vast majority of scores are between 8.5-9.5. the data you linked to me in that thread says that they get any where from 78 to 68 on average. And I just gave those games as examples. if you want we can go through the 150+ pages of action games that scored 72 or below.

Even if my personal game GOAT scored a 98, I'd still call it overrated because that's ridiculous for any piece of art to score that high. Thus, every game is overrated.

wait so just because a piece of media got 98/100 everything in that media is overrated? cause their are movies that have scored that high before.

But that data also would include all the shovelware and shitty licensed games that would get released. The average game score with those type of titles is already at a 74, it's going to go up to at least the upper 70s or low 80s when you filter out the obvious garbage. With regards to what I said to a game being an "accomplishment" to score below an 80, I meant that for games coming from known publishers and developers that would mainly be considered AAA, which I said to you a few posts ago. Would you bet any money that Spiderman is going to end up with a Meta lower than 80?

The TC in that thread misinterpreted my post there (I probably could've worded it better as well). What I said is that a single game will likely have the vast majority of its reviews be in a 1.0 or 10 range; for example, the 8.5-9.5 range I threw down. I'll use Witcher 3 PS4 (since it has the most reviews at 79) because the thread is about CDPR. Out of the 79 reviews, 63 of those reviews all fall in at the 90-100 range so 80% of the reviewers scored the game with in the same 10% of the review scale. Where's the differing of opinions you get from movie critics? Not only do games usually have over a movie's worth of writing (and much more in say Witcher 3's case) to criticize (and writing is very subjective), games also have the game part obviously that can also be as subjective. It should be harder for games to score higher than movies just because there's so much more content there to criticize and so much more that can go wrong. Compare that to the Incredibles 2 Meta where 23 of 51 reviews fall within the 80-90 bracket (the highest populated "section"), which only amounts to 45% of all reviews vs 80% of Witcher 3 reviews that all fall into a 10-point bracket. Don't you find it extremely odd that so many people would agree that ANYTHING has approximately the same "goodness"? Where's the differing opinions at? Where's the critics that don't like Witcher 3? Start a thread here and you'll find several people that don't like Witcher 3 for valid reasons. You wouldn't even get the biggest fanboys of Metal Gear Solid end up with an average score of a 94 for MGS4 (which is what its Meta is at). There's a single negative review for FFXIII, and that's a love/hate game.

Every game is extremely overrated because reviewers really just utilize the 70-100 section of the scale. What movie has ever scored a 98 for the average score? I always use RT for movie overalls because there's more total reviews. And even something like Citizen Kane has an average score of 9.4. If you were to look for the "Citizen Kane" of gaming, you'd find 107 of them already as there are 107 games with Metas of 94+ in such a young medium.

Ironically, the movie doesn't reflect the game. Kingsglaive isn't as much of a movie; it's more like a 90 minutes cutscene. Besides, saying that is like saying "Pokemon the First Movie totally convinced me of never ever play Pokemon".

But something tells me you wouldn't be happy even if no game scored more than 79 (otherwise you would give examples of games deserving such honor).

Kingsglaive had the more boring action scenes I've ever seen. I literally didn't care about a single character or anything happening in the entire movie. RPGs are my most avoided genre because they are the longest games with also the least amount of engaging content USUALLY. I've seen a friend play FFXV for awhile and nothing about it looked very good.

I'm just asking for differing opinions in video game reviews. You can legitimately find say God of War or Uncharted or Witcher 3 or GTA bad games for legitimate and logical reasons, where are those reviews and criticisms at from "professional" critics? Start a thread about any game here and you'll see lengthy and valid reasoning at both ends of the spectrum. Not only that, but the thread will be more informative to people that haven't played it than reading every single review on Metacritic.

 

[CaitSeith]

Kingsglaive had the more boring action scenes I've ever seen. I literally didn't care about a single character or anything happening in the entire movie.

That's pretty much what made it a bad movie. A 90 minute cutscene for a game that doesn't really exist and the audience definitely isn't playing.

I'm just asking for differing opinions in video game reviews. You can legitimately find say God of War or Uncharted or Witcher 3 or GTA bad games for legitimate and logical reasons, where are those reviews and criticisms at from "professional" critics?

Define "legitimate". Like, what does legitimize game criticism or an argument in it? Intent? Methodology? Phrasing? Vocabulary? Perspective? Balanced structure? Background?

Not sure what makes being in Metacritic "professional" (neither in the actual or the sarcastic definition of the word). After all, Metacritic itself treats game scores and movie scores very differently. And the moment a critic goes against the score trend, they receive a barrage of hatred from Metacritic users (like the one who gave to Zelda: Breath of the Wild a 70).

EDIT: Differing opinions and differing scores are separate things.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I'm just asking for differing opinions in video game reviews. You can legitimately find say God of War or Uncharted or Witcher 3 or GTA bad games for legitimate and logical reasons, where are those reviews and criticisms at from "professional" critics?

Define "legitimate". Like, what does legitimize game criticism or an argument in it? Intent? Methodology? Phrasing? Vocabulary? Perspective? Balanced structure? Background?

Not sure what makes being in Metacritic "professional" (neither in the actual or the sarcastic definition of the word). After all, Metacritic itself treats game scores and movie scores very differently. And the moment a critic goes against the score trend, they receive a barrage of hatred from Metacritic users (like the one who gave to Zelda: Breath of the Wild a 70).

EDIT: Differing opinions and differing scores are separate things.

Just about anything is legitimate. What makes a good reviewer is their ability to convey the "why" they liked or disliked said thing. Several people have pointed out GTA's extremely linear missions in an open world from Yahtzee to Mark Brown to Errant Signal. Dan Houser's writing is pretty poor and the story in Rockstar's games are definitely spotlighted and a major part of their games. There's major areas in Rockstar's games that can be greatly improved but they are rated as near perfect masterpieces? It doesn't make much sense. Errant Signal's GTA4 video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E32j9ufrpoE] points out the major problems in the criteria in how games are scored. I want to know how well/poorly someone genuinely enjoyed a game with well communicated reasoning, game reviews are devoid of both those things usually.

Professional just means they get paid for doing it. The reviewers at IGN, GameSpot, Eurogamer, etc all get paid for writing reviews.

 

[CaitSeith]

snip

I'll answer tomorrow, as I need time to collect my thoughts from the video. For now I'll only say:

7.8 Too much review.