Sekiro review embargo is very peculiar

[Erttheking]

I do enjoy the notion of activision being like "you guys are not gamer enough to review this fairly" though, not gonna lie.

Gamers were never a welcoming or open community. It?s been elitist since day one.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I do enjoy the notion of activision being like "you guys are not gamer enough to review this fairly" though, not gonna lie.

Gamers were never a welcoming or open community. It?s been elitist since day one.

You do require a level of competence at gaming in order to get to the core experience and be able to gauge it, yes. I don't think I'm breaking new ground here.


For every reviewer criticized for sucking there's dozens of reviews making up idiotic complaints such as the aforementioned "I skipped the cutscenes so now the game doesn't make sense any more and it's the game's fault!" as well as countless of reviews of something like a fighting game where the reviewer never actually played the game normally but rather relied on the easymode controls that are implemented for young children and the disabled. Suffice it to say that the balance of criticism is way off.

This just happens to result in some random guy being the straw that breaks the camel's back like that doom reviewer from IGN who couldn't walk and shoot at the same time (or the cuphead dude) getting the amassed resentment that everyone had piled up over the course of years which is of course unfair and seems excessive but when you examine its origin and context it actually makes sense to be there.


Also, being welcoming is not something you determine by how you treat your journalists. It's not the same standard you'd expect from some newbie joining a community the one you ought to expect by the guy whose job is to know about games and be able to tell you the necessary information you need to know. Usually these people are cloaked in a mantle of authority and credibility so the expectations placed on them are higher. No matter how tired you are you should be able to play a platformer above a 3-year-old's level (and yes there is a video of an actual 3-year-old passing this much faster), I've done 24 hour charity marathon streams at my locals and even at the end stretch I was beating the people I could beat fresh too (and the losers had gone to bed the last night! XD).

 

[Erttheking]

I do enjoy the notion of activision being like "you guys are not gamer enough to review this fairly" though, not gonna lie.

Gamers were never a welcoming or open community. It?s been elitist since day one.

You do require a level of competence at gaming in order to get to the core experience and be able to gauge it, yes. I don't think I'm breaking new ground here.


For every reviewer criticized for sucking there's dozens of reviews making up idiotic complaints such as the aforementioned "I skipped the cutscenes so now the game doesn't make sense any more and it's the game's fault!" as well as countless of reviews of something like a fighting game where the reviewer never actually played the game normally but rather relied on the easymode controls that are implemented for young children and the disabled. Suffice it to say that the balance of criticism is way off.

This just happens to result in some random guy being the straw that breaks the camel's back like that doom reviewer from IGN who couldn't walk and shoot at the same time (or the cuphead dude) getting the amassed resentment that everyone had piled up over the course of years which is of course unfair and seems excessive but when you examine its origin and context it actually makes sense to be there.


Also, being welcoming is not something you determine by how you treat your journalists. It's not the same standard you'd expect from some newbie joining a community the one you ought to expect by the guy whose job is to know about games and be able to tell you the necessary information you need to know. Usually these people are cloaked in a mantle of authority and credibility so the expectations placed on them are higher. No matter how tired you are you should be able to play a platformer above a 3-year-old's level (and yes there is a video of an actual 3-year-old passing this much faster), I've done 24 hour charity marathon streams at my locals and even at the end stretch I was beating the people I could beat fresh too (and the losers had gone to bed the last night! XD).

I?d be more willing to buy these complaints if there wasn?t an overwhelming hate boner against game journalists in general. You don?t even need to leave this thread to see that. Seriously, people decrying the very point of them because of thing that happened years ago. These incidents are few and far between and yet we get hate boners all around saying there?s no reasons for game reviews to exist. It?s throwing the baby out with the bath water and I am so glad I didn?t pursue that career because I would not be able to handle that elitist horseshit being thrown my way because some other guy fucked up on Cuphead two years ago. Let me tell you, I?d be pissed if I was still reviewing games and got told I couldn?t review Sekiro because I ?wasn?t gamer enough? and saw people crowing about how righteous it was.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I do enjoy the notion of activision being like "you guys are not gamer enough to review this fairly" though, not gonna lie.

Gamers were never a welcoming or open community. It?s been elitist since day one.

You do require a level of competence at gaming in order to get to the core experience and be able to gauge it, yes. I don't think I'm breaking new ground here.


For every reviewer criticized for sucking there's dozens of reviews making up idiotic complaints such as the aforementioned "I skipped the cutscenes so now the game doesn't make sense any more and it's the game's fault!" as well as countless of reviews of something like a fighting game where the reviewer never actually played the game normally but rather relied on the easymode controls that are implemented for young children and the disabled. Suffice it to say that the balance of criticism is way off.

This just happens to result in some random guy being the straw that breaks the camel's back like that doom reviewer from IGN who couldn't walk and shoot at the same time (or the cuphead dude) getting the amassed resentment that everyone had piled up over the course of years which is of course unfair and seems excessive but when you examine its origin and context it actually makes sense to be there.


Also, being welcoming is not something you determine by how you treat your journalists. It's not the same standard you'd expect from some newbie joining a community the one you ought to expect by the guy whose job is to know about games and be able to tell you the necessary information you need to know. Usually these people are cloaked in a mantle of authority and credibility so the expectations placed on them are higher. No matter how tired you are you should be able to play a platformer above a 3-year-old's level (and yes there is a video of an actual 3-year-old passing this much faster), I've done 24 hour charity marathon streams at my locals and even at the end stretch I was beating the people I could beat fresh too (and the losers had gone to bed the last night! XD).

I?d be more willing to buy these complaints if there wasn?t an overwhelming hate boner against game journalists in general. You don?t even need to leave this thread to see that. Seriously, people decrying the very point of them because of thing that happened years ago. These incidents are few and far between and yet we get hate boners all around saying there?s no reasons for game reviews to exist. It?s throwing the baby out with the bath water and I am so glad I didn?t pursue that career because I would not be able to handle that elitist horseshit being thrown my way because some other guy fucked up on Cuphead two years ago. Let me tell you, I?d be pissed if I was still reviewing games and got told I couldn?t review Sekiro because I ?wasn?t gamer enough? and saw people crowing about how righteous it was.

I may be naive about this but I fully believe if someone makes their name as being a hardcore gamer journalist, they can earn the credibility they need to get access to reviews even when the overall climate is against such people. Similar to how you have youtubers who are given review copies due to making a name for themselves and having an audience.

You're acting like this climate is in place through osmosis. I'm explaining there's a reason for it to be present. You're focusing on how unfair it is to be the straw and I already agreed with that point but if you don't address the reason why the camel is being overloaded in the first place you'll only get more straws down the line and just shifting the blame to the consumers who have no actual motive to hate journalists in a vacuum is willful ignorance.

The reason you'd not get your copy would be the same one as the one that lead to the guy who sucked at cuphead getting railed on. It wouldn't be that guy but the series of crappy showings from a bunch of journalists before and after him.

If a 600 pound guy has a heart attack it's not always the heart that has something wrong with it, it's just the first thing to give when a bunch of issues have been amassing over years.

 

[CritialGaming]

A popular Souls streamer Lobosjr has announced that streamers are able to stream the game 1 day early. He already has his copy of the game as well, so this is not the exact same thing as what Bethesda did by not even giving out review copies until release. It's merely the embargo that doesn't lift until right before release, which is fine. Journalists are already getting their hands on the game for the majority of this week, if not last week as well.

 

[Erttheking]

I do enjoy the notion of activision being like "you guys are not gamer enough to review this fairly" though, not gonna lie.

Gamers were never a welcoming or open community. It?s been elitist since day one.

You do require a level of competence at gaming in order to get to the core experience and be able to gauge it, yes. I don't think I'm breaking new ground here.


For every reviewer criticized for sucking there's dozens of reviews making up idiotic complaints such as the aforementioned "I skipped the cutscenes so now the game doesn't make sense any more and it's the game's fault!" as well as countless of reviews of something like a fighting game where the reviewer never actually played the game normally but rather relied on the easymode controls that are implemented for young children and the disabled. Suffice it to say that the balance of criticism is way off.

This just happens to result in some random guy being the straw that breaks the camel's back like that doom reviewer from IGN who couldn't walk and shoot at the same time (or the cuphead dude) getting the amassed resentment that everyone had piled up over the course of years which is of course unfair and seems excessive but when you examine its origin and context it actually makes sense to be there.


Also, being welcoming is not something you determine by how you treat your journalists. It's not the same standard you'd expect from some newbie joining a community the one you ought to expect by the guy whose job is to know about games and be able to tell you the necessary information you need to know. Usually these people are cloaked in a mantle of authority and credibility so the expectations placed on them are higher. No matter how tired you are you should be able to play a platformer above a 3-year-old's level (and yes there is a video of an actual 3-year-old passing this much faster), I've done 24 hour charity marathon streams at my locals and even at the end stretch I was beating the people I could beat fresh too (and the losers had gone to bed the last night! XD).

I?d be more willing to buy these complaints if there wasn?t an overwhelming hate boner against game journalists in general. You don?t even need to leave this thread to see that. Seriously, people decrying the very point of them because of thing that happened years ago. These incidents are few and far between and yet we get hate boners all around saying there?s no reasons for game reviews to exist. It?s throwing the baby out with the bath water and I am so glad I didn?t pursue that career because I would not be able to handle that elitist horseshit being thrown my way because some other guy fucked up on Cuphead two years ago. Let me tell you, I?d be pissed if I was still reviewing games and got told I couldn?t review Sekiro because I ?wasn?t gamer enough? and saw people crowing about how righteous it was.

I may be naive about this but I fully believe if someone makes their name as being a hardcore gamer journalist, they can earn the credibility they need to get access to reviews even when the overall climate is against such people. Similar to how you have youtubers who are given review copies due to making a name for themselves and having an audience.

You're acting like this climate is in place through osmosis. I'm explaining there's a reason for it to be present. You're focusing on how unfair it is to be the straw and I already agreed with that point but if you don't address the reason why the camel is being overloaded in the first place you'll only get more straws down the line and just shifting the blame to the consumers who have no actual motive to hate journalists in a vacuum is willful ignorance.

The reason you'd not get your copy would be the same one as the one that lead to the guy who sucked at cuphead getting railed on. It wouldn't be that guy but the series of crappy showings from a bunch of journalists before and after him.

If a 600 pound guy has a heart attack it's not always the heart that has something wrong with it, it's just the first thing to give when a bunch of issues have been amassing over years.

Please point out game journalists that identify as hardcore. And they need to earn the right to do their job? You?re not exactly disproving my elitism accusation.

Except the straw isn?t getting hit, the profession as a whole is. You yourself displayed glee over all games journalists being denied review copies. Over incidents that I doubt even happen monthly.

Call me bitter, I?ve seen too many people bitching over their favorite game getting an 8 to take critiques about gamer journalism as a whole seriously.

 

[CritialGaming]

Please point out game journalists that identify as hardcore. And they need to earn the right to do their job? You?re not exactly disproving my elitism accusation.

Except the straw isn?t getting hit, the profession as a whole is. You yourself displayed glee over all games journalists being denied review copies. Over incidents that I doubt even happen monthly.

Call me bitter, I?ve seen too many people bitching over their favorite game getting an 8 to take critiques about gamer journalism as a whole seriously.

Correct me if I'm wrong. But don't you need to prove you are qualified to do a job before you are given money to do that job? Like being capable of playing a game as well as been able to spell?

Also the journalists HAVE review copies already. It's the embargo that lifts late. These are two different things.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I do enjoy the notion of activision being like "you guys are not gamer enough to review this fairly" though, not gonna lie.

Gamers were never a welcoming or open community. It?s been elitist since day one.

You do require a level of competence at gaming in order to get to the core experience and be able to gauge it, yes. I don't think I'm breaking new ground here.


For every reviewer criticized for sucking there's dozens of reviews making up idiotic complaints such as the aforementioned "I skipped the cutscenes so now the game doesn't make sense any more and it's the game's fault!" as well as countless of reviews of something like a fighting game where the reviewer never actually played the game normally but rather relied on the easymode controls that are implemented for young children and the disabled. Suffice it to say that the balance of criticism is way off.

This just happens to result in some random guy being the straw that breaks the camel's back like that doom reviewer from IGN who couldn't walk and shoot at the same time (or the cuphead dude) getting the amassed resentment that everyone had piled up over the course of years which is of course unfair and seems excessive but when you examine its origin and context it actually makes sense to be there.


Also, being welcoming is not something you determine by how you treat your journalists. It's not the same standard you'd expect from some newbie joining a community the one you ought to expect by the guy whose job is to know about games and be able to tell you the necessary information you need to know. Usually these people are cloaked in a mantle of authority and credibility so the expectations placed on them are higher. No matter how tired you are you should be able to play a platformer above a 3-year-old's level (and yes there is a video of an actual 3-year-old passing this much faster), I've done 24 hour charity marathon streams at my locals and even at the end stretch I was beating the people I could beat fresh too (and the losers had gone to bed the last night! XD).

I?d be more willing to buy these complaints if there wasn?t an overwhelming hate boner against game journalists in general. You don?t even need to leave this thread to see that. Seriously, people decrying the very point of them because of thing that happened years ago. These incidents are few and far between and yet we get hate boners all around saying there?s no reasons for game reviews to exist. It?s throwing the baby out with the bath water and I am so glad I didn?t pursue that career because I would not be able to handle that elitist horseshit being thrown my way because some other guy fucked up on Cuphead two years ago. Let me tell you, I?d be pissed if I was still reviewing games and got told I couldn?t review Sekiro because I ?wasn?t gamer enough? and saw people crowing about how righteous it was.

I may be naive about this but I fully believe if someone makes their name as being a hardcore gamer journalist, they can earn the credibility they need to get access to reviews even when the overall climate is against such people. Similar to how you have youtubers who are given review copies due to making a name for themselves and having an audience.

You're acting like this climate is in place through osmosis. I'm explaining there's a reason for it to be present. You're focusing on how unfair it is to be the straw and I already agreed with that point but if you don't address the reason why the camel is being overloaded in the first place you'll only get more straws down the line and just shifting the blame to the consumers who have no actual motive to hate journalists in a vacuum is willful ignorance.

The reason you'd not get your copy would be the same one as the one that lead to the guy who sucked at cuphead getting railed on. It wouldn't be that guy but the series of crappy showings from a bunch of journalists before and after him.

If a 600 pound guy has a heart attack it's not always the heart that has something wrong with it, it's just the first thing to give when a bunch of issues have been amassing over years.

Please point out game journalists that identify as hardcore. And they need to earn the right to do their job? You?re not exactly disproving my elitism accusation.

Except the straw isn?t getting hit, the profession as a whole is. You yourself displayed glee over all games journalists being denied review copies. Over incidents that I doubt even happen monthly.

Call me bitter, I?ve seen too many people bitching over their favorite game getting an 8 to take critiques about gamer journalism as a whole seriously.

I don't follow them but I wouldn't be surprised if none of them did. My point is that they SHOULD. Or that, whether they should or shouldn't, if they did approach their reviews from such an angle they'd be respected more by the people you're bemoaning the disrespect of anyhow.

I find most useful information talked about games comes from competitive players or hardcore fans whose lives revolve around these games. Not journalists. This is a truth that you have to grapple with. I understand it's unfair to compare someone who has to review a new game every week to someone whose life revolves around one game that released 5 years ago and expect your and their content to be similarly compelling but it is also truth that there exist such people for practically every game under the sun. Your job is obsolete at this point if you can't at least try to match them and maybe tackle this with more insider information but information analyzed through that same prism. Hell, more and more, those people are gaining private access to corporations that used to be journalist-specific. You have fighting game youtubers and competitive players being invited by Bandai Namco to preview their new characters for db fighterZ. These people are now eating the journalists' lunch, and for a good reason. If they weren't good enough at the games to win tournaments they wouldn't have gained this access. There de-facto is a barrier of entry, elitist or whatever you wanna call it, it's a benefit to be good at games if you wanna share information about them to people, more and more as time passes.

If the audience had some innate hatred for news-bearers these people wouldn't be successful as they are. The audience actually hungers for competent high level analysis and coverage, it's just that journalists for too long failed to deliver it that's the problem here.

My glee is not out of dislike for the profession but rather out of respect for a game being confident enough to make such a statement. It's a "wee, check out the balls on them!" kinda deal. It's not something necessarily constructive or overall "good" but it's still a sight to behold.

Finally, who, if not reviewers who over-inflate scores, are to blame for the audience seeing 8 as a bad score? That one's fully on them when they give every call of duty clone a 9+ or when they give 10s out like they're candy and the worst score they can give a game is like a 5 unless it's a meme to give something 1s (and never something made by a AAA studio). I think scores are dumb in general and go for a "buy new/buy on discount/rent/skip" model in my recommendations to people.

 

[Erttheking]

Please point out game journalists that identify as hardcore. And they need to earn the right to do their job? You?re not exactly disproving my elitism accusation.

Except the straw isn?t getting hit, the profession as a whole is. You yourself displayed glee over all games journalists being denied review copies. Over incidents that I doubt even happen monthly.

Call me bitter, I?ve seen too many people bitching over their favorite game getting an 8 to take critiques about gamer journalism as a whole seriously.

Correct me if I'm wrong. But don't you need to prove you are qualified to do a job before you are given money to do that job? Like being capable of playing a game as well as been able to spell?

Also the journalists HAVE review copies already. It's the embargo that lifts late. These are two different things.

They?re employed already. This is like coming into work one day and having to earn the right to use your computer.

It can still fuck off.

Dreiko I?ll reply to you when I have access to a desktop.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I?d be more willing to buy these complaints if there wasn?t an overwhelming hate boner against game journalists in general. You don?t even need to leave this thread to see that. Seriously, people decrying the very point of them because of thing that happened years ago. These incidents are few and far between and yet we get hate boners all around saying there?s no reasons for game reviews to exist. It?s throwing the baby out with the bath water and I am so glad I didn?t pursue that career because I would not be able to handle that elitist horseshit being thrown my way because some other guy fucked up on Cuphead two years ago. Let me tell you, I?d be pissed if I was still reviewing games and got told I couldn?t review Sekiro because I ?wasn?t gamer enough? and saw people crowing about how righteous it was.

I'm completely indifferent to game journalists because they suck at their jobs, which is journalism and criticism, not that they suck at games. Jim Sterling isn't that skilled of a gamer but his criticism is far better than the standard IGN or GameSpot reviewer mainly because he's at least honest and understands games are subjective, 2 qualities that you shouldn't have to search for.

 

[CritialGaming]

They?re employed already. This is like coming into work one day and having to earn the right to use your computer.

It can still fuck off.

Dreiko I?ll reply to you when I have access to a desktop.

True they are employeed. But employees get fired for doing a shit job all the time. So maybe a better term would be "you should prove you are good enough to keep your job"?

Frankly I'm over reading reviews anyway, outside of opinions of youtubers I trust, because games journalism has devolved from writing about games to writing hit pieces about how games are evil/sexist/racist/etc etc etc.

I remember when gaming magazines were either reviews, or feature previews of upcoming shit. It was the BEST!

RIP Nintendo Power.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

They?re employed already. This is like coming into work one day and having to earn the right to use your computer.

It can still fuck off.

Dreiko I?ll reply to you when I have access to a desktop.

True they are employeed. But employees get fired for doing a shit job all the time. So maybe a better term would be "you should prove you are good enough to keep your job"?

Frankly I'm over reading reviews anyway, outside of opinions of youtubers I trust, because games journalism has devolved from writing about games to writing hit pieces about how games are evil/sexist/racist/etc etc etc.

I remember when gaming magazines were either reviews, or feature previews of upcoming shit. It was the BEST!

RIP Nintendo Power.

We had this games magazine in Greece called simply "Games" (we had gamepro and stuff too but games was my fav and the one I bought monthly for many years) and they would do reviews previews and walkthroughs. I still remember their multi issue walkthroughs of games like final fantasy 8. They were very thorough and due to the monthly nature of the magazine were long affairs (I think FFVIII's review spanned 4 months). You could tell the person who wrote those was playing the game like you were and that garnered respect. It wasn't about other subjects irrelevant to gaming. About the most irrelevant thing I can recall was a funny article ranking the female chars from ff 7 and 8 on a "who would you be best suited to introduce to your mother as your girlfriend" style setting. Fun things like that.

I say we're lucky to be old enough to even remember those magazines, younger folks nowadays just know of them as advertise-filled trash.

I?d be more willing to buy these complaints if there wasn?t an overwhelming hate boner against game journalists in general. You don?t even need to leave this thread to see that. Seriously, people decrying the very point of them because of thing that happened years ago. These incidents are few and far between and yet we get hate boners all around saying there?s no reasons for game reviews to exist. It?s throwing the baby out with the bath water and I am so glad I didn?t pursue that career because I would not be able to handle that elitist horseshit being thrown my way because some other guy fucked up on Cuphead two years ago. Let me tell you, I?d be pissed if I was still reviewing games and got told I couldn?t review Sekiro because I ?wasn?t gamer enough? and saw people crowing about how righteous it was.

I'm completely indifferent to game journalists because they suck at their jobs, which is journalism and criticism, not that they suck at games. Jim Sterling isn't that skilled of a gamer but his criticism is far better than the standard IGN or GameSpot reviewer mainly because he's at least honest and understands games are subjective, 2 qualities that you shouldn't have to search for.

Does anyone even watch Jim for his reviews? Isn't his commentary about the industry why people care about his opinion at all?

 

[Erttheking]

I?d be more willing to buy these complaints if there wasn?t an overwhelming hate boner against game journalists in general. You don?t even need to leave this thread to see that. Seriously, people decrying the very point of them because of thing that happened years ago. These incidents are few and far between and yet we get hate boners all around saying there?s no reasons for game reviews to exist. It?s throwing the baby out with the bath water and I am so glad I didn?t pursue that career because I would not be able to handle that elitist horseshit being thrown my way because some other guy fucked up on Cuphead two years ago. Let me tell you, I?d be pissed if I was still reviewing games and got told I couldn?t review Sekiro because I ?wasn?t gamer enough? and saw people crowing about how righteous it was.

I'm completely indifferent to game journalists because they suck at their jobs, which is journalism and criticism, not that they suck at games. Jim Sterling isn't that skilled of a gamer but his criticism is far better than the standard IGN or GameSpot reviewer mainly because he's at least honest and understands games are subjective, 2 qualities that you shouldn't have to search for.

....Uh. Does the average game reviewer not understand that?

They?re employed already. This is like coming into work one day and having to earn the right to use your computer.

It can still fuck off.

Dreiko I?ll reply to you when I have access to a desktop.

True they are employeed. But employees get fired for doing a shit job all the time. So maybe a better term would be "you should prove you are good enough to keep your job"?

Frankly I'm over reading reviews anyway, outside of opinions of youtubers I trust, because games journalism has devolved from writing about games to writing hit pieces about how games are evil/sexist/racist/etc etc etc.

I remember when gaming magazines were either reviews, or feature previews of upcoming shit. It was the BEST!

RIP Nintendo Power.

And are they getting fired?

So, in other words, you don't like gaming journalists because they can be critical about games. *Shakes head* Tell me, when was the last time you actually saw an article that talked about games that way? Because frankly I feel like this is yet another stereotype that doesn't even happen once a month and yet the entire profession gets hit with.

And let's be frank. I'm nostalgic for Nintendo Power, but did Nintendo ever actually tell you when a game was crap? I don't recall that happening. It was empty fluff pieces. Not to be rude, but it feels like you're nostalgic for days when no one said anything and I mean ANYTHING bad about games.

I don't follow them but I wouldn't be surprised if none of them did. My point is that they SHOULD. Or that, whether they should or shouldn't, if they did approach their reviews from such an angle they'd be respected more by the people you're bemoaning the disrespect of anyhow.

I find most useful information talked about games comes from competitive players or hardcore fans whose lives revolve around these games. Not journalists. This is a truth that you have to grapple with. I understand it's unfair to compare someone who has to review a new game every week to someone whose life revolves around one game that released 5 years ago and expect your and their content to be similarly compelling but it is also truth that there exist such people for practically every game under the sun. Your job is obsolete at this point if you can't at least try to match them and maybe tackle this with more insider information but information analyzed through that same prism. Hell, more and more, those people are gaining private access to corporations that used to be journalist-specific. You have fighting game youtubers and competitive players being invited by Bandai Namco to preview their new characters for db fighterZ. These people are now eating the journalists' lunch, and for a good reason. If they weren't good enough at the games to win tournaments they wouldn't have gained this access. There de-facto is a barrier of entry, elitist or whatever you wanna call it, it's a benefit to be good at games if you wanna share information about them to people, more and more as time passes.

If the audience had some innate hatred for news-bearers these people wouldn't be successful as they are. The audience actually hungers for competent high level analysis and coverage, it's just that journalists for too long failed to deliver it that's the problem here.

My glee is not out of dislike for the profession but rather out of respect for a game being confident enough to make such a statement. It's a "wee, check out the balls on them!" kinda deal. It's not something necessarily constructive or overall "good" but it's still a sight to behold.

Finally, who, if not reviewers who over-inflate scores, are to blame for the audience seeing 8 as a bad score? That one's fully on them when they give every call of duty clone a 9+ or when they give 10s out like they're candy and the worst score they can give a game is like a 5 unless it's a meme to give something 1s (and never something made by a AAA studio). I think scores are dumb in general and go for a "buy new/buy on discount/rent/skip" model in my recommendations to people.

Drieko, you do not need to be an expert on a game to declare whether it is good or not. Question. Are you even denying my comment about gaming being elitist? Because frankly your arguments feel like they're worded in a way that you're defending said elitism as justified.

Competative and professional players do not necescarily have the skills needed to get across information about a game in a quick and easily digestible manner. I did it for six months. There's a different skill set there. What's more, people just trying to figure out whether or not to buy a game do not need in-depth rundowns of all the game's mechanics. If they bought the game and are trying to understand more complicated aspects of it, fair enough. But just a review? No, not really. And I never claimed that gamers had a hatred for news bearers. I claimed that they're elitist. And as I said above, I feel like not only are you saying that they are, I feel like you're arguing that elitism is justified. And let me ask you something. These people who are obsessed with these games. Do you think any of them are ever going to say anything bad about it? Because I think they're far less likely too. Particularly if they had to win a tournament for the right. And there's a bit of danger there, turning feedback and news about games into a no negativity allowed echo chamber.

Also. "Check out the balls on them?" Mate. It's Activision. One of the scummiest gaming companies around right now. Call of Duty 4 Remaster being bundled with a special edition of Advanced Warfare? Them. Microtransactions in that game and nearly decade old DLC being sold at a marked up price? Them. Patenting a system of matchmaking designed to whittle down the paitence anad resolve of people who don't spend money on microstransactions? Them. Destiny 2 taking away content that was in the original Destiny for further monetization. Them. All the microtransactions in Black Ops 4. Them. Diablo, goddamn Immortal. Activision. (Remember, it's Activision Blizzard). These people go out of their way to utterly fuck over their customers are every single chance they get. Now they're making it so that reviews on a game can't come out until the day after the game comes out, the single most profitable day of a game's sale, and you're goddamn applauding them?

What. The. Hell!?

As for the score front, you'll have to forgive me. I've been part of the online gaming community for eight years now. I've been exposed to the very nasty underbelly of gamers. Fake Gamer Girls, the hatred towards casual gamers (which has recently been reincarnated into a new form of people hating people who enjoy Fortnite) console vs PC hatred, defending games as art until that label becomes inconvenient and then throwing it out the window, getting pissed at game reviewers for having the audacity to not like a game they did like, getting angry at game reviewers for having the audacity to like games they didn't like (yeah, funny thing there, gamers seem to get more pissed when people commit the dreaded sin of someone liking something they don't like. Remember the Escapist's Dragon Age 2 review? People were pissed about that for literally years). Gamers have got to be some of the most inhospitable people I've ever met. And I'm not cutting them some slack because of "inflated review scores."

Also I listened to Jim's thoughts on The Division 2 about an hour ago.

 

[CritialGaming]

snip

Hey I remember plenty of negative Playstation 1 reviews on gamespot. Previews however are generally never negative, cautious at worse really.

The hit pieces are seasonal I've noticed. There has to be a game coming out that sparks something usually. Although they do seem to be overall reducing since our pal Anita vanished out of the spotlight. So you've got a point really.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I'm completely indifferent to game journalists because they suck at their jobs, which is journalism and criticism, not that they suck at games. Jim Sterling isn't that skilled of a gamer but his criticism is far better than the standard IGN or GameSpot reviewer mainly because he's at least honest and understands games are subjective, 2 qualities that you shouldn't have to search for.

....Uh. Does the average game reviewer not understand that?

Not at all in my opinion, I posted the following about the same thing earlier in the thread:

How can you actually have a positive outlook professional game criticism in the state its in right now? You can basically go to IGN and see a game got a 9.0/10, then chances are high GameSpot gave the game 0.5 lower at an 8.5/10. I just picked 2 current releases and that rule holds true; DMC5 got a 9.5/10 from IGN and a 9.0/10 at GameSpot and Anthem got 6.5 from IGN and 6.0 from GameSpot. Reviewers in any medium are supposed to have their own opinions but games are treated like they are objective products. I can guess what a Metacritic score is going to be for a game without even playing the damn thing and just watching a single 10-minute video about the game. For example, I've only seen a single Laymen Gaming video about the Division 2 and I'm guessing that the Metacritic score will end up between 80-85 (there is currently on 2 reviews up for it and they are 75 from Gamersky and 56 from Cheat Code Central). I'm also guessing that IGN and GameSpot will be 0.5 away from each other as well. Siskel and Ebert would greatly disagree with each other but where is that in professional game journalism, games are subjective, it's OK to not like a game (just like it is with a movie). Back in the EGM magazine days where 3 people reviewed a game (only giving a couple short paragraphs too), you got more differing opinions than you do now with 50+ Metacritic reviews. A love/hate game like FFXIII only has one negative review (from Jim Sterling, who doesn't treat games like objective products), that alone shines a bright light on the state of reviews (and shocker, IGN and GameSpot 0.4 away from each other on FFXIII).

There's some Youtubers who put out really quality criticism like Errant Signal, Super Bunnyhop, Raycevick, etc. What professional review of GTAV is anywhere near as insightful as Errant Signal's GTAV video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZcX_ZdlW3Q&t=920s]?

 

[CritialGaming]

snip

I'm also a fan of Joseph Anderson and Luke Stephens too, along with the people you already mentioned.

 

[Erttheking]

I'm completely indifferent to game journalists because they suck at their jobs, which is journalism and criticism, not that they suck at games. Jim Sterling isn't that skilled of a gamer but his criticism is far better than the standard IGN or GameSpot reviewer mainly because he's at least honest and understands games are subjective, 2 qualities that you shouldn't have to search for.

....Uh. Does the average game reviewer not understand that?

Not at all in my opinion, I posted the following about the same thing earlier in the thread:

How can you actually have a positive outlook professional game criticism in the state its in right now? You can basically go to IGN and see a game got a 9.0/10, then chances are high GameSpot gave the game 0.5 lower at an 8.5/10. I just picked 2 current releases and that rule holds true; DMC5 got a 9.5/10 from IGN and a 9.0/10 at GameSpot and Anthem got 6.5 from IGN and 6.0 from GameSpot. Reviewers in any medium are supposed to have their own opinions but games are treated like they are objective products. I can guess what a Metacritic score is going to be for a game without even playing the damn thing and just watching a single 10-minute video about the game. For example, I've only seen a single Laymen Gaming video about the Division 2 and I'm guessing that the Metacritic score will end up between 80-85 (there is currently on 2 reviews up for it and they are 75 from Gamersky and 56 from Cheat Code Central). I'm also guessing that IGN and GameSpot will be 0.5 away from each other as well. Siskel and Ebert would greatly disagree with each other but where is that in professional game journalism, games are subjective, it's OK to not like a game (just like it is with a movie). Back in the EGM magazine days where 3 people reviewed a game (only giving a couple short paragraphs too), you got more differing opinions than you do now with 50+ Metacritic reviews. A love/hate game like FFXIII only has one negative review (from Jim Sterling, who doesn't treat games like objective products), that alone shines a bright light on the state of reviews (and shocker, IGN and GameSpot 0.4 away from each other on FFXIII).

There's some Youtubers who put out really quality criticism like Errant Signal, Super Bunnyhop, Raycevick, etc. What professional review of GTAV is anywhere near as insightful as Errant Signal's GTAV video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZcX_ZdlW3Q&t=920s]?

Uh. You do know there's such a thing as general consensus right? I mean not every game splits audiences in half. Heck, I just checked The Division 2's Metacritic pages and the user scores only had minor deviations from the critic's scores. Are you saying the playerbase thinks that game quality is objective? I'm not sure what you're demanding from critics, that their scores not be allowed to be too close to each other otherwise they're invalid? I mean there are always outliers, that's what Metacritic is useful for, it separates reviews by positive, negative and mixed, but it almost feels like you're demanding an even spread across the three categories.

snip

Hey I remember plenty of negative Playstation 1 reviews on gamespot. Previews however are generally never negative, cautious at worse really.

The hit pieces are seasonal I've noticed. There has to be a game coming out that sparks something usually. Although they do seem to be overall reducing since our pal Anita vanished out of the spotlight. So you've got a point really.

My apologies, you mainly specified Nintendo Power, and while I have fond memories of that magazine, it really was a bit of a self serving fluff piece.

And yeah, I have a feeling that people tend to focus more on stuff that happened in the past with this stuff.

 

[EvilRoy]

Activision already pulled a fast one by being the publisher when From could have gotten the game published by themselves and earn all their deserved reward for this amazing game and not share some of it with Activision. They have no need to pull another fast one at this point. The only time they do so around review times is when they're releasing bad games.

There appears to be some logical inconsistency in your post.

Sekiro is apparently an amazing game, but it has a review embargo, which activision only does when they're releasing a bad game.

You want to maybe fix your post to make the point you were actually trying to make?

I just don't consider a review embargo them pulling a fast one and more of them just having this policy in general. Pulling a fast one would be trying to pay people to review it positively.

Or simply not having faith in the product. Wondering if some suits heard about how difficult the game is and thought, ?Gee, that won?t attract all the newcomers we?re after. We don?t want people pulling their preorders so how about we pull review copies until it?s out.?

The ironic part is who knows what effect on preorders the lack of reviews will have. Apparently there are quite a few people that have gotten cold feet, and this ?policy change? isn?t even really a story yet.

That's even more unlikely imo. Why go out of your way to publish something you have such low confidence on. Ah well, it's activision so I'd put nothing past them.

I wonder if its just because the game is so dark souls that it hurts. Like, they went so far down the rabbit hole on this one, they aren't sure if reviewers will even understand what they're dealing with and Activision doesn't trust them not to blackball the game on the basis of it being so out there. We've all heard about how reviewers sometimes get special versions of games that are easier, have cheats, or let you skip sections. If From just said "no" to that we could get another cuphead where reviewers just suck so hard at the game it makes everyone involved look bad.

If anything, people were complaining about the souls games being too easy (or about the possibility of them being made easier one day in the future) so I don't think you can go too far down that hole.

It'd just make the fans love it more.


I do enjoy the notion of activision being like "you guys are not gamer enough to review this fairly" though, not gonna lie.

Thats kind of what I'm thinking. The reality is, game journalists are basically good at "standard" games. As in, the latest trend of videogames. Once there are three or four shining examples of a game type, and about 10 more attempting to hop on the bandwagon, you can start trusting game reviews to have real value or insight. In order to function reviewers need a really solid basis of comparison, and either a bunch of time to acclimatize to a game or a really well genre established shorthand to work off.

When it comes to unique experiences or new game styles, reviewers suck dick. Whether its because they don't have enough time to do the review, the game just isn't their speed, they dont understand the mechanics or whatever, you aren't going to get a release date review having any value. Reviewers are terrible at predicting trends and usually just take blind guesses or disguise a personal desire when it comes to this stuff.

This review embargo is probably a fantastic idea, because the fans will react first, and THEN reviewers will say what they have to say. And what the reviewers have to say will probably quietly follow along with the established fan reaction. This way activision avoids the danger of potential low release day sales because a number of rushed, unequipped reviewers called the game crap, and the reviewers avoid potential humiliation if their review is wildly off base from the public reaction. Win win.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Drieko, you do not need to be an expert on a game to declare whether it is good or not. Question. Are you even denying my comment about gaming being elitist? Because frankly your arguments feel like they're worded in a way that you're defending said elitism as justified.

Competative and professional players do not necescarily have the skills needed to get across information about a game in a quick and easily digestible manner. I did it for six months. There's a different skill set there. What's more, people just trying to figure out whether or not to buy a game do not need in-depth rundowns of all the game's mechanics. If they bought the game and are trying to understand more complicated aspects of it, fair enough. But just a review? No, not really. And I never claimed that gamers had a hatred for news bearers. I claimed that they're elitist. And as I said above, I feel like not only are you saying that they are, I feel like you're arguing that elitism is justified. And let me ask you something. These people who are obsessed with these games. Do you think any of them are ever going to say anything bad about it? Because I think they're far less likely too. Particularly if they had to win a tournament for the right. And there's a bit of danger there, turning feedback and news about games into a no negativity allowed echo chamber.

Also. "Check out the balls on them?" Mate. It's Activision. One of the scummiest gaming companies around right now. Call of Duty 4 Remaster being bundled with a special edition of Advanced Warfare? Them. Microtransactions in that game and nearly decade old DLC being sold at a marked up price? Them. Patenting a system of matchmaking designed to whittle down the paitence anad resolve of people who don't spend money on microstransactions? Them. Destiny 2 taking away content that was in the original Destiny for further monetization. Them. All the microtransactions in Black Ops 4. Them. Diablo, goddamn Immortal. Activision. (Remember, it's Activision Blizzard). These people go out of their way to utterly fuck over their customers are every single chance they get. Now they're making it so that reviews on a game can't come out until the day after the game comes out, the single most profitable day of a game's sale, and you're goddamn applauding them?

What. The. Hell!?

As for the score front, you'll have to forgive me. I've been part of the online gaming community for eight years now. I've been exposed to the very nasty underbelly of gamers. Fake Gamer Girls, the hatred towards casual gamers (which has recently been reincarnated into a new form of people hating people who enjoy Fortnite) console vs PC hatred, defending games as art until that label becomes inconvenient and then throwing it out the window, getting pissed at game reviewers for having the audacity to not like a game they did like, getting angry at game reviewers for having the audacity to like games they didn't like (yeah, funny thing there, gamers seem to get more pissed when people commit the dreaded sin of someone liking something they don't like. Remember the Escapist's Dragon Age 2 review? People were pissed about that for literally years). Gamers have got to be some of the most inhospitable people I've ever met. And I'm not cutting them some slack because of "inflated review scores."

Also I listened to Jim's thoughts on The Division 2 about an hour ago.

You don't have to be an expert but you do have to have some degree of competence in order for your opinion to hold weight. I don't care to hear if someone who I deem to be incapable of properly utilizing the systems of a game thinks the game is good or bad. That's literally useless information to me. I definitely resist the notion that just because someone is given the title of journalist I should instantly respect them despite such deficiencies as well.


I'm not exactly denying the existence of what you're describing as much as disagreeing with calling it elitist. Games have a fail state so by their very nature are competitive and when something is competitive it is natural to have competition stem out of it. It is natural to have people trying to surpass each-other and using their skill as an indication of how invested they are in a game. This investment is then translated into expertise which grants one credibility when they opine about a subject. It is not elitist to value expert opinion as much as it deserves to be valued, it's merely rational. This is what I see happening in the majority of cases you're describing as elitist. People are just expecting a higher level of expertise from their journalists and they are disappointed by them. The logic is something along the lines of "if I'm better than this dude yet I KNOW I am nothing special at this game either, boy, he must really suck, who the hell gave him this job". People only want to listen to the opinions of people who are more expert at a certain subject than they themselves are, otherwise they can just think about a subject themselves and reach a conclusion. If you don't provide that higher level of expertise you're just some random dude and are wasting their time.

I just completely disagree about the mechanics aspect when it comes to certain games. In a game like Sekiro all your review has to be is mechanical talk, same for a fighting game or a strategy game. If it's an RPG or a game with a unique graphical style and so on you can focus more on other areas like story and so on but there's a ton of games where you really wanna just boil down the gameplay. Also I don't think doing it "quickly" is all that good. You can maybe have a tldr summary up top your article or on the start of a video for the lazy people but most gamers are willing to sit through half hour or longer of actually good analysis on a game they're interested in. Certainly a professional gamer won't necessarily be as good at composing a review and may come off weird if they're inexperienced at it but as long as the base of info they're going off of is there that's always gonna make up for it. At best you just give them a good editor to help them.


Not a fan of activision either, I don't think I've ever bought one of their games in the last decade if not longer. Still, that's the impression it gives. Even with all that baggage a broken clock will be right twice a day too.


Aaand...I dunno what all that last stuff has to do with the issue of reviewers over-inflating scores which is what causes people to think 8 is a low. If your site doesn't ever give anything below a 5 and most half way decent games get 9+ people will think 8 is bad. I don't follow fortnite at all but isn't hating it the same thing that other popular things like phone games and CoD get just cause people like to hate on things that are popular. I dunno what any of that stuff has to do with gamers. It's more like a human tendency in general. And you can't put twitch thots who play games while naked wearing only bodypaint or while cosplaing a suggestive version of a character from something they've only heard of in passing on gamers. That's something that happens in all sorts of cultures. There's tons of cosplayers in the anime circles who just use the subculture to obtain unearned attention and even sometimes auction dates off on patreon lol. Fake gamer girls indeed are an issue but there's fake X girls in practically any sub-culture as long as there's sad dudes willing to give them their money or the attention they crave. A 5 becomes an 8 when in costume, that sort of deal.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

A popular Souls streamer Lobosjr has announced that streamers are able to stream the game 1 day early. He already has his copy of the game as well, so this is not the exact same thing as what Bethesda did by not even giving out review copies until release. It's merely the embargo that doesn't lift until right before release, which is fine. Journalists are already getting their hands on the game for the majority of this week, if not last week as well.

Letting streamers who?re pre-disposed to liking a game build hype while cutting out games journalists is exactly what Bethesda did. And some outlets have reported they aren?t getting review copies until launch day. Which means rushed reviews, aka, the exact thing most folks are *complaining* about and using as a justification.

With how important the first week of sales is for video games, this is anti-consumer as shit. Even if the game turns out to be good.