Judging games Pre-Release

[woodaba]

So, in the aftermath of E3, I've drawn some ire from people on communities all over the internet about my distaste for the direction of the Tomb Raider game. The one overbearing complaint that has been leveled at me is "You haven't played it yet! It hasn't come out! You can't say it sucks before it's come out!" Disregarding the fact that these people are sucking at the teat of a game that has not come out, what do my fellow escapists think? Is it all right to judge a game based on footage we have seen thus far? Should we withhold all opinions until said game is released? Or embrace the clear double standard that exists wherein it is all right to say certain viewpoints of a game before it is released (Tomb Raider will be AWESOME, Black Ops 2 will suck!), but it is somehow unacceptable to express a viewpoint apart from the one pre-judged by the Internet Hive Mind?

 

[spartandude]

of course its alright to judge a game based on the information you have, how else do you form an opinion?

also to anyone who says you cant judge a game before you play it, well i hope you have alot of cash because you have to buy either every game or no game as you can not show any judgement on one or another before playing it


capcha I'm not dead yet

 

[General Twinkletoes]

Yes it's fine.
With the controversy over the tomb raider issue, people are going "HOW CAN YOU JUDGE, YOU HAVEN"T PLAYED THE GAME D:<"
Almost every part of this problem is something you can see without buying the game guys... It's not like you can't figure out anything at all until you've played the game. Apparently we know absolutely nothing about anything until we finish it.

 

[purplecactus]

Sure, yeah. I mean, you might get proved wrong, but that can happen the opposite way around as well. Isn't the judgement kind of key to whether or not people will buy it anyway? I mean, if think a game looks good from the information you've been given and want to buy it, isn't that judgement? People seem ok with that, don't they? It's the same principle, just the other way around.

 

[Able Seacat]

I think it's fine to judge a game before it's release, it's the point of trailers and what not to give people an impression of a game without actually playing it. Though I think it's important to be aware that what your being shown isn't necessarily a complete picture and that first impressions aren't always correct. So yeah just keep an open mind I guess.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

I firmly believed Skylanders was gonna be horrible, than I played it and it's actually not that bad...
I hold firm that it's a shameless cash in, but still...

I make my judgement, than when the game is released, I read a bunch of reviews to see what people really thought about it, and if they were surprised, chances are, I'll be surprised to. If they all say "No this game is horrible", I didn't waste my money.

As for Tomb Raider, it doesn't seem like the problems are with the game it's self but rather how the creators chose to promote the game (trying desperately not to get into this...)

 

[Valdus]

I judge games before they're released. I'm not rich so I have to think before I buy and I'm certinaly not going to throw money if I don't think I'm getting good value.

People judge, it's in their nature. It's the whole reason advertising exists - otherwise people would just slap the name of the game on some random "release" site and people would buy it there based purely on a name or random description.

Though should be noted I outright refuse to buy any game where I can't see gameplay footage before it's release. Cinematic trailers = not enough faith in the actual game to me.

 

[Sixcess]

I have two main objections to the "you can't judge it fairly before it's out" argument.

Firstly, it is only ever used by people who are 'blindly' praising the game* in exactly the same way that I am 'blindly' condemning it. If I can't say it looks like it's going to be bad then how can someone else say that it looks like it's going to be good?

*except for the people who smugly say "I will wait until the game is released and I have played it before I form my opinion." That's all very well in a dry scientific sense, but it contributes absolutely NOTHING to the wider discussion other than a sanctimonious attempt to lay claim to some intellectual high ground that doesn't exist.

Secondly and more importantly, we're making these 'premature' judgements based on information - trailers, interviews, hype - that has been placed in front of us by the developers with the express intention that we form a premature judgement - preferably, from their POV, a positive one. This is what they've chosen to show us, and if they don't like the reaction then they should either assume there might be something wrong with their game, or that their PR people need to rethink their approach.

 

[Scrustle]

You can judge the trailer on it's own grounds. That is, you can judge how good the trailer is and how well it shows off a game or how excited it makes you, but you can't judge an entire game from it.

But you can get an impression of a game from a trailer, and you can form a judgement of that impression. If the trailer makes the game look crap, then you can say the game looks crap. Emphasis on "looks". As long as you withhold absolute judgement of a game then it's okay. But you are free to form any kind of opinion about a game, whether that be positive of negative, as long as you keep in mind all you have is an impression based on what you have seen so far. Things may change, for better or worse. It's okay to say "this game looks like it's going to be crap", but it's not okay to say "OMG WTF IS THIS PIEC OF FAGSHIT GAY FAGGIT COD CLONE GUNNA BE WORST GAEM EVAAAR LOLOL". That's just stupid.

 

[TheSteeleStrap]

Of course. If you say it LOOKS like it's going to suck, that's based on the info you have. I haven't looked up much on Tomb Raider, but Black Ops 2 and Dead Space 3 LOOK like crap, so I'm not too excited. That's based on the info that I have.

 

[Zaik]

It's just a big pile of "stop not liking what I like".

Or in more specific terms, people acting like children on the internet. Just like on every other day that ends in -day.