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Game journalism and criticism
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I'm actually in the same boat but even from what we've seen, I don't see how one could look at them and go "yea, they're on the same quality level". On the subject of generation, that's another variable I feel you've omitted from your hypothesis. We're still very early into the new generation, I know it's been a year but look at it like this, very few titles which have been released thus far would have been initially designed and, for a decent portion of their production cycle, developed on final console hardware. I don't think we're going to see any real standout next-gen AAA successes, similar to those high profile titles previously listed in scope and scale, for some time yet.Honestly, I haven't played them, not out of disinterest, just that a hefty backlog has kept me from buying new games. However, statistically, I'm still inclined to believe that a similar spectrum of games will exist from year to year generally. Perhaps 2013 was a bad example as The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite were really two of my favourites from the whole generation. Looking back to 2012 though I'm seeing stuff like Mass Effect 3, The Walking Dead, Dishonored, Borderlands 2 and Far Cry 3. All of those seem like games that, while well-made and enjoyable, if released in 2014 would have failed to reach those scores.
Obviously this is going to be entirely subjective, but I wasn't in the least bit surprised Bayonetta 2 and Dark Souls 2 were so well received. Destiny, hmm, that could have gone either way I guess although worst case scenario I would have expected an 8. As for the other games you mentioned before, the only surprise there was AC: Unity but I was equally surprised at how broken the final product was so, in that respect, its final score wasn't particularly surprising.From when I started reading reviews in early 2006, after just a few months it was generally very easy to predict which AAA games would be getting the best scores. That's just no longer the case really, at least for me. I wouldn't have guessed Bayonetta 2 or Dark Souls 2 would get their 90s and I also wouldn't have ever guessed that Destiny would get its 76.
Fundamentally broken, both technically and in terms of design, they may have been but those games were still the subject of massive amounts of hype and marketing yet failed to receive large scores. Fable III and Rage got very good scores but again, given their lineage, were still below what many expected, especially on the back of the hype preceding them. As for CoD, I only play them for the campaigns so my opinion on them is going to differ so wildly from most that I'm not even going to mention it.That's true I suppose but from what I saw of many of those games, what was delivered was so shockingly bad that there's no way they could have gotten good reviews. Not even just buggy on launch but generally very poorly executed games. That's compared to something like The Order which, from what I've heard has plenty of polish and production and plays well, but still gets criticised for its lack of originality. Two of the ones you mentioned (Fable and Rage) still got 80+ average scores. Call of Duty Ghosts was probably the biggest surprise before that though.
Now, I fundamentally disagree with this first part. How could an editor state that the opinion of one writer on a particular title reflects that of the site and all of its other writers? As I discussed with nesf above, I don't dispute what you go on to say about people's opinions on sites and the reviewers, I merely lament that is the case. People watch specific Youtubers because they feel that particular persons shares similar tastes to them when it comes to specific games or that they are just particularly good at examining or reviewing games in general. While that connection can often not be as strong on some other sites, I still don't see why it's not possible for readers to at least be able to identify some reviewers and their own personal leanings from reading their work. To reiterate the Bayonetta article, Gies expressed almost the same opinion on the first game for his Team XBox review back in 2010. Somehow I don't think that Team XBox could be seen as similarly "progressive" like Polygon.If, as an editor, you hire someone to write for you and then approve the review to go up on your site, that is an implicit endorsement of their opinion. In general, the websites are much better known than their staff members and most websites tend to have overall reputations for liking or disliking certain things. It's not at all unreasonable that someone would attribute a review to the site rather than the individual. If Bayonetta was criticised for misogyny on the site, it was probably something that most of the people there could agree was a problem with the game rather than one rogue writer acting alone.
Pretty sure one of the major editors discussed just this over the last while. Bsaically claiming that they needed to produce a large amount of content per day to generate traffic and it was acknowledged that a certain chunk of that would be lower quality content, likely the kind of crap Grumpypants mentioned above, but that those articles were necessary in order to support their own, more lengthy content. It's lamentable but understandable to be honest although when I was talking about clickbait I wasn't talking about the "...and you wouldn't believe what happened next" guff, more so the non-gaming orientated drama nonsense that's so prevalent these days.Well the thing is that things we call "clickbait" do generally get pageviews but they do it in ways that use hollow manipulation rather than quality content. Good practice would be to have a headline give you the gist of a story and expect the story is important or interesting enough to entice you to read more. A clickbait headline would usually just entice the viewer with vague sensationalism or the ever present list where a list is not needed. It gets people to click it because it activates a little dopamine rush. It works, especially because there are a lot of dumb people who fall for it every time or who just fail to notice that there is almost no content inside, but, much like selling cigarettes to children (to be hyperbolic here), what is profitable isn't always admirable. We generally depend on professionals to rise somewhat above the rabble and curate good content for us.
It is a bit of a prisoner's though and it's probably hard for sites (especially new or smaller ones) to be principled and not do it, since they probably get a lot of revenue that they do need from doing it.
Hah, I've not actually played it yet. I just listed it as I remember the internet losing it's collective **** that it was a massive step down from the previous games when it was released, along with the massive accompanying hypetrain.Fable 3 is a good game and has no place on that list Gizmo....
I'm sticking to my guns on this if anybody wants to throw down about it!
On a somewhat related note, I never knew Anthony Burch used to write for Destructoid. Anyway, here's an interesting piece for him on what he learned when he left that job and joined Gearbox. It also deals with some of the assumptions he made as a journalist, which also apply to consumers imo, and their opinions on various aspects of development.
5 Things I Didn't Get About Making Video Games (Until I Did It)
I swear it's not a clickbaity article :pac:0 -
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Also, one many project arena shooter that's apparently rather good from reviews (if you follow Youtube you've likely heard of this), plus great trailer:
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Join Date:Posts: 50542
kunst nugget wrote: »How come Hotline isn't. Is it because it's published by Devolver?
Pretty much. The definition of 'indie' is that it's independently publisher by the creators, it doesn't go through a publishing company. Of course over time that definition has become blurred just like with indie cinema.
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Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 29,430 CMod ✭✭✭✭
Join Date:Posts: 28141
Just to confuse things further, Double Fine act as a semi-publisher with their Double Fine Presents... titles
It is all really just pedantry, of course.0 -
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYsp-x1Osso
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