TheSaint wrote:"Hipsterwank" ... Monster Train - 8.5/10. You have some really contradictory preconceptions Roguey. EG has always basically been staffed by ex- Edge, PCG, Future Publishing and other progressive writers. It's inevitably going to have content that tries to be a bit different even if it fails. Sounds like Resetera is more your bag. |
Forum turning to shit • Page 39
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Tomo 19,566 posts
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retro74 3,802 posts
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Registered 13 years agoIt seems to be me that the old 'play the game to completion and give it a score out of 10 or 100' method of reviewing games is being resigned to the past now
This is a big assumption but I suspect that gaming writers of this era cut their teeth on the likes Candy Crush and Farmville rather than Space Invaders, Ghosts & Goblins and Double Dragon -
Nazo 1,953 posts
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Registered 12 years agoIt's almost like they aren't as old as us. -
Rogueywon 12,387 posts
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Registered 16 years ago@Tomo Is Monster Train hipsterwank? It's a game that tries to be enjoyable as, you know, a game rather the kind of story-based bollocks that EG writers obsess over.
Dial back a few years and EG could produce some really good stuff. A lot of games journalism isn't ever going to be more than repeating press releases, so comment and op-ed is important. In the past, EG was great at this. Just as one example, they cut past the memes and produced the best piece of writing on the Dorito Pope. These days, the comment pieces are almost inevitably about the writer, not the subject, and that's started to bleed over into the reviews as well.
Whatever their editorial line, Edge, PCG, Future Publishing etc always gave the impression their writers were genuinely passionate about gaming. These days, too many of the writers give the strong impression that gaming was just the only foot they could get in the writing-for-a-living door. -
retro74 3,802 posts
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Registered 13 years ago@Nazo It's not just an age thing though. There are still 'traditional' games now -
DaM 17,729 posts
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Registered 20 years agoretro74 wrote:
I don't think it has been the case for 20 years. Reviews always talk about specific stuff/story points that happens early in the game. Later on it's just largely just general statements. I first noticed this back when Zelda came out on the N64.
It seems to be me that the old 'play the game to completion and give it a score out of 10 or 100' method of reviewing games is being resigned to the past now
This is a big assumption but I suspect that gaming writers of this era cut their teeth on the likes Candy Crush and Farmville rather than Space Invaders, Ghosts & Goblins and Double Dragon -
dominalien 10,703 posts
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Registered 15 years agoThere’s the obvious conclusion, but also there’s the whole spoilers thing. -
retro74 3,802 posts
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Registered 13 years ago@DaM Yeah I agree, when I say "resigned to the past" I mean completely eradicated. At present that type of review (the full playthrough) does still exist but it won't for much longer
All reviews will end up being based on an hours play, a day at best -
macmurphy 4,448 posts
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Registered 14 years agoretro74 wrote:
I don’t think this will ever become normalised. It’s happened before and reviewers have been caught with their pants down and had to backtrack.
@DaM Yeah I agree, when I say "resigned to the past" I mean completely eradicated. At present that type of review (the full playthrough) does still exist but it won't for much longer
All reviews will end up being based on an hours play, a day at best
If you’re not willing to give EG the benefit of the doubt about their professional standards - which I still am, I think it’s a great site - from a business perspective it makes no sense. If you don’t play games properly there will be a subsequent social media shitstorm and your traffic will take a hit. I still like to read front page reviews, and I’m sure this generates a lot of traffic. You risk that by posting shoddy ones.
Also a lot of games have review embargoes. This means journos get usually a week or two with the game. I know some unscrupulous companies will try and give limited pre-embargo access to hide faults, but my impression is they are the minority.
EG and other quality sites are also happy to do first impressions pieces. This means they can wait until a review is ready and don’t have to rush out a score on a game they have spent minimal time on.
With games as services becoming prevalent they also do pieces that reassess big titles after updates and improvements that may have made them very different games.
I agree that I sometimes don’t like their editorial line. I’m not a huge fan of reviewers talking about themselves. But generally I think EG are consistently good for content.
The idea of reviewers not spending time with games is something I think used to happen more than it does now. And it’s not something I’ve ever noticed at EG. -
Nazo 1,953 posts
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Registered 12 years agoretro74 wrote:
I don't think that's fair, maybe they won't play something right to the end but I think a fair bit of time has been put in.
@DaM Yeah I agree, when I say "resigned to the past" I mean completely eradicated. At present that type of review (the full playthrough) does still exist but it won't for much longer
All reviews will end up being based on an hours play, a day at best
A lot of comments on reviews seem to be along the lines of 'You don't know what you're talking about, I've been playing this game for an hour and it's the best thing ever' but then over time the narrative from players change as they put more time in and get bored. -
nickthegun 87,711 posts
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Registered 16 years agoThey arent dumb. They would post more reviews if they drove enough traffic. I suspect for the amount of time a reviewer needs to sink into a game to cover it properly, it just isnt worth the outlay.
I mean, how much time would you need to make a proper stab at the new 100 hour assassins creed game, even though everyone knows exactly what it will be like?
More and more, people know whether they are going to buy a game way before its released and reviewed because most games plop out of a sausage factory. The only real value I find in reviews are of games that I havent heard about or turn out much better than they looked. -
Vortex808 15,598 posts
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Registered 13 years agoNazo wrote:
😃 Sadly, all too true.
It's almost like they aren't as old as us.
At least we don't have to put up with our kids mooching 10p coins to play space invaders/pacman/asteroids when they can watch shite on you tube. -
Rogueywon 12,387 posts
Seen 6 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoAh, yeah, the talk of controversy over whether a reviewer played a game properly reminded me... EG did have a big row with a developer over this in the past.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/editors-blog-darkfall-aftermath-blog-entry -
Load_2.0 33,582 posts
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Load_2.0 33,582 posts
Seen 11 hours ago
Registered 18 years agoReviews are problematic.
EG started out as a game review website. It is now a marketing and events company.
If EG say Ass Creed 11 is a turd, it makes for a difficult relationship with EA and jeopardises the stall at Expo 2024.
Roger Reedpop doesn't give a fuck whether Nigel Fedora from EG Towers hates the game, he does care if EA get the shits.
The solution. Less reviews. Less problems.
Fat finger edit.
Edited by Load_2.0 at 10:28:01 17-12-2020 -
Nazo 1,953 posts
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Registered 12 years agoI'm not convinced anyone reads reviews as buying advice any more anyway, more like verification of a choice they've already made, which is why people get so angry when big games get bad reviews. -
Nazo wrote:
Spot on, on all counts.
I'm not convinced anyone reads reviews as buying advice any more anyway, more like verification of a choice they've already made, which is why people get so angry when big games get bad reviews. -
DFawkes 32,791 posts
Seen 13 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoTo be fair to EG, it is a business. Sure, it's a shame there has been such a noticeable decrease in the overall quality of their content, but that's just where the money is. I don't grudge them that, I just don't read much on the front page any more. -
Rogueywon 12,387 posts
Seen 6 hours ago
Registered 16 years ago@Nazo I agree that's how a lot of people read reviews. There are a lot of problems with how the industry's structure works in respect of reviews anyway. There's a lot of pressure put on the average buyer to make a pre-order or day 1 purchase these days, whether through pre-order/day 1 incentives or through simple fear of spoilers for more story-heavy games. In that environment, reviews-as-consumer-advice only work when they're available before release day.
And that's where developers and publishers hold all the cards. They can choose whether to send out pre-release review copies and where to send them to. They can choose which platforms to make pre-release review copies available on, as CDPR have just demonstrated with gusto. On occasion, they can even get reviewers fired for a low score (and frankly, having played it, a 6 was generous for Kane and Lynch).
If a site wanted to do actual games journalism, as opposed to press-release-regurgitation and waffly op-ed, it would need to accept being cut off from the official channels. It's probably an impossible situation. Despite all the talk of "entitled gamers", consumers often get a really shitty time of it from the gaming industry. But genuine consumer advice or advocacy is going to be incredibly hard. -
Yeah, I'll occasionally have a look at the front page to see what the latest outrage is, but mostly just hang around on the forums. With most of my gaming coming from Game Pass these days reviews are less important to me and I get my gaming news from trueachievements, who pick up all the the relevant stuff from various websites so I don't have to. It might not be the most timely source, but I'm not in any hurry. -
JamboWayOh 25,237 posts
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Registered 8 years agoI can't believe someone wrote 'they hold all the cards' unironically. -
Your-Mother 8,173 posts
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Registered 5 years agoThe cut off from Official Channels is pretty much what Rock Paper Shotgun does (or did, prior to ReedPop Corporate Overlording making a pigs ear out of it), they completely siloed the advertising and the writers so the latter didn’t even know what was going on with the former. John Walker notably cost them 25k or so in ad revenue for slating a game they had an ad contract with. -
b-rk 1,709 posts
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Registered 3 years agoED ZITRON -
Rogueywon wrote:
OMG, that was 11 years ago. One of the most entertaining episodes on EG...
Ah, yeah, the talk of controversy over whether a reviewer played a game properly reminded me... EG did have a big row with a developer over this in the past.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/editors-blog-darkfall-aftermath-blog-entry
PRE-PATCH FIRE KICKS FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU -
Nexus_6 6,169 posts
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Registered 17 years agoAnd as if by magic, a spam thread comes on out of the blue like the bad old days (a couple months back bad old days) -
@Nexus_6 Yeah, it disappeared quite quickly, though .gif)
Especially as they were "a leading email".
Well, quite. -
Nazo 1,953 posts
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Registered 12 years agoKieron Gillen wrote:
Truly the glory days are gone.
If someone pisses on my shoes all night at the pub, I don't care if I get crazed fellatio at closing time: I'm only going to recommend it to the glorious perverts who like the urine-feet thing.
Nowadays they'd just have a video of Ian and co pulling funny faces. -
Cappy 14,394 posts
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Registered 16 years ago'In defence of Bioshock' -
Fake_Blood 11,093 posts
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Registered 12 years agoI guess I stopped reading reviews once I started watching Giantbomb’s quicklooks. You could argue that it takes longer than reading a review, but I basically know after 5 minutes if a game is for me or not. -
Fake_Blood wrote:
Well at least in a quick look you actually get to know about the game compared to having to contend with a reviewer musing about a philosophical quote and their youth 200 words in and you've learned nothing about the game or its systems
I guess I stopped reading reviews once I started watching Giantbomb’s quicklooks. You could argue that it takes longer than reading a review, but I basically know after 5 minutes if a game is for me or not.
.gif)
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