588 réponses à ce sujet

[Fiddzz]

Firky wrote...

I jumped into the thread several pages back because the dev comments irked me slightly - the one about it being indistinguishable from fan feedback.

I think because,
a) Some fan feedback can be really good - fans are knowledgeable.
Writing about games can be quite a time consuming and thankless task, generally (even with the money.) It's really nice to be complimented on good writing. (When it's good.)
c) They're obviously employing the guy because he has professional qualities they want, which includes all that stuff like making deadlines, knowing the audience etc.
d) People tend to tar all of games commentary with the same brush when, IMO, it's radically different between people, outlets, genres, criteria, kind of pieces, etc etc.

But, that's the "person who writes about games'" perspective. Allan's perspective is the dev's and, if he read it looking for useful feedback, like a dev might do, I'm guessing, then it's probably fairly easy to see that it really wasn't any more useful than all the rest of the fan feedback he's read. It just genuinely wasn't much use to him.

If you kept reading you would have seen that both Allan and I do not equate "fan/forum feedback" as a bad thing.  Go back and review both mine and his comments about it, mine specifically, as I collegate this article WITH fan feedback, as it is all useful.

[karushna5]

@ Dorrieb

I believe you are reading into this way more than there actually is. As you say the question was innocent and that was not what he was asking. And that was not what Allan meant. It is fairly simple to add meanings then there might be. In that case the bashing of bioware that resulted in your writers article are equally his fault as well. If people cannot express a negative opinion, including the article writer, than what is the point of having an opinion if you are responsible for what others say?

I believe if you are saying that it is Allan's fault they are bashing it because his opinion was less than stellar, than by fairness your writer is equally if not more so to blame for sharing an opinion under a banner that has led to similar bashing in the reverse. Either they are both culpable, and the article writer more so because he was more negative, OR people have opinions and are only responsible for their own. In that case it is the ones being rude and cursing, both sides, which are to blame for the cruelty and both the writer and Allan have nothing to do with that.

It is unfair to charge Allan with negligence when the writer has done the same thing as you accuse them either they are both at fault, or as I like to think, the world has free will and those who are hateful are at fault for that hate

[Firky]

I read the whole thread. I can just understand why that phrase might have different interpretations for devs/people who write about games/fans etc. It just irked me (slightly) for the reasons I outlined.

Allan also mentioned the idea that people might see it as carrying more weight because of where it was published, rather than on a forums. I can understand that the article might not have been *more* useful, or uniquely useful. (That's probably what I meant by "wasn't much use.")

[Dorrieb]

Firky wrote...

I jumped into the thread several pages back because the dev comments irked me slightly - the one about it being indistinguishable from fan feedback.

I think that's what set me off too, and I've been thinking about what karushna5 said, specifically the phrase 'misplaced anger'. It isn't that I think I was wrong, but I think I may have taken it a little too far. I do that.

I owe Allan and Blair an apology. It's ridiculous for me to comment on other people's behaviour while I'm getting angrier and angrier with each post. I am terribly sorry to have caused you such bother and I hope you can forgive me.

I do not promise that it will never happen again, but at least I'll try not to get too carried away.

[Kidd]

Dorrieb wrote...

It's ridiculous for me to comment on other people's behaviour while I'm getting angrier and angrier with each post.

We've all done this at some point, I think. It's pretty darned terrible too, cause you start jumping at shadows and generally feel pretty miserable. People may start walking on egg shells but even that won't help because then they sound like they're not willing to converse with you on equal grounds, etc.

It's important to learn when to back off and take a breather. I sure need to learn to do so as well =)

[Firky]

(We all do it.)

Life is a learning experience.

[karushna5]

Agreed, very hard to stay positive on here, sometimes I have to take breaks from the Internet too, have a me and mine day. So easy to let the negativity make yourself negative. Thankfully I have an awesome roommate who warns me when I have had too much Internet. Some conversations can drain me for days. Lol. Have a great night

[Fredward]

-throws glitter-

Now lets all hug and sing kumbaya around the campfire!

[Swagger7]

KiddDaBeauty wrote...

Blair Brown wrote...

No i was refering to that when you work retail type jobs, you tend to get yelled at a lot for no reason. Working at one as a kid made me NEVER get mad as an adult at a place like that. "sir your big mac will be 5min sorry for the wait" me: "no problem"

Oh. Is this the part where I point to my Merrill avatar and claim I was pretending to be aloof? =)

Thanks for explaining though, this makes more sense in context =) Feel a little silly now that I misread it the way I did originally at all.

You know, until you posted this I didn't realize that your avatar was a ponified Merrill.  I feel dumb now.....

[Commander Kurt]

Swagger7 wrote...

KiddDaBeauty wrote...

Blair Brown wrote...

No i was refering to that when you work retail type jobs, you tend to get yelled at a lot for no reason. Working at one as a kid made me NEVER get mad as an adult at a place like that. "sir your big mac will be 5min sorry for the wait" me: "no problem"

Oh. Is this the part where I point to my Merrill avatar and claim I was pretending to be aloof? =)

Thanks for explaining though, this makes more sense in context =) Feel a little silly now that I misread it the way I did originally at all.

You know, until you posted this I didn't realize that your avatar was a ponified Merrill.  I feel dumb now.....

If it makes you feel better (and it shouldn't, me being dumber than you really doesn't say much), I didn't get it until your post.

[Nomadiac]

I swear half the people posting in this thread have come off the worse for it, and no one's actually discussing the article anymore...time to lock it?

[Swagger7]

Nomadiac wrote...

I swear half the people posting in this thread have come off the worse for it, and no one's actually discussing the article anymore...time to lock it?

I don't know.  I learned that I never give pony avatars a second glance.  That's something, I guess...

[MrCrabby]

I agree with Allan and Blair. Just because something is in print does not lend it anymore credibility than an anonymous forum post. People here just like the article because it is critical of DA2 and are annoyed that Allan and Blair don't give it anymore weight.

This is a case of "See see someone in media agrees with me!". Well la dee dah. Gaming "journalists" have about as much integrity and credibility as someone selling Rolex watches in a back ally.

[Fallstar]

That article was mostly opinion. I don't see how the author tried to present it as being anything other than his opinion, so what's the problem.

[zimm4973]

I for one, hope the game returns to a more "DAO-feel" in terms of mechanics. I liked my micromanagement, I liked my pause play, slow combat. In short, I really want a Baldur's Gate 3 with with modern graphics. but I can't have that now can I? So I look to the "spiritual successor" and hope for the best.

[Chiramu]

Twisted Path wrote...

Yeah, didn't PC Gamer call Dragon Age 2 the "RPG of the Decade"? If it was so perfect what is there to fix? Hmm...

Every good game has flaws, that doesn't mean it's perfect and that doesn't mean things couldn't be handled better. 

I wonder if Bioware would take some of those requests into account, PCGamer holds some sort of weight. 

[cindercatz]

Dorrieb wrote...

Richard Cobbett speaks words of wisdom, and he is also tasty and nutritious.

http://www.pcgamer.c...m-dragon-age-3/

OP that's a great list he gave. I completely agree on everything except that I do like the character voice.. just improved, as always. That and I don't mind the Deep Roads as long as there's something more interesting going on there than a scavenger hunt.

[Brockololly]

MrCrabby wrote...

I agree with Allan and Blair. Just because something is in print does not lend it anymore credibility than an anonymous forum post. People here just like the article because it is critical of DA2 and are annoyed that Allan and Blair don't give it anymore weight.

This is a case of "See see someone in media agrees with me!". Well la dee dah. Gaming "journalists" have about as much integrity and credibility as someone selling Rolex watches in a back ally.

I certainly don't hold many games "journalists" in high esteem. And certainly all things being equal, a PC Gamer writer's opinions on what they'd like to see in DA3 don't have any more merit necessarily than anyone that posts on BSN and plays BioWare games.

Except for the fact that the professional reviewers and game journalists will end up writing reviews to these games. Reviews which will end up being read by a great many people. Reviews which very well may end up being aggregated into Metacrtic or GameRankings, where they very much do matter to a company like EA. Just read the transcripts or listen to a quarterly financial call sometime when somebody like Peter Moore or John Riccitiello is talking and you'll understand that critical reception does matter a lot to them and the relative health of a given game franchise. Metacritic scores matter- just ask Obsidian about New Vegas. And you read EA statements and they seem to care about having games reach certain Metacritic score thresholds.

Ultimately, thats not really a fan's concern but more people that are working on the game. But as much as I generally don't care for many games journalist types, it would be silly to write them off completely in terms of some of the power they can end up wielding.

[DaringMoosejaw]

This thread needs to be locked. Gaming 'journalist' writes an extremely unprofessional piece that would've been better placed on his livejournal, OP posts it because he agrees with the bashing, is then horrified when people at Bioware dismiss it and decided to faint over tedious nitpicking about respecting journalism. I think mainstream news journalists need to be torn down, I'm not about to start thinking games journalists deserve any better.

[cindercatz]

I don't get the hate. He's writing a wishlist. That's it. He's trying to both state his opinion as is his job, since there's no current news on this front and space has gotta be filled and bills have gotta be paid, and he's trying to be a bit entertaining doing it, also in the job description. That's it.

I don't agree with every facet of his opinion (or a couple list articles for that matter), but there are a lot of things a lot of us have wished for on that wishlist, and that's all it is. No need to rake him over the coals because you're afraid he might possibly give it a bad review if he doesn't like it. I'm sure, like the rest of us, he's up in the air on that front until the game comes out and he plays it. I haven't seen anything at least in that article that would hint otherwise.

I've seen some abusive, uncalled for game "journalism" before, but that piece is none of the three. It's not abusive, it's not out of left field, and it's not journalism; it's opinion. That's it.

[Firky]

I said a few pages back, with that "I" vs "we" business, that individual reviewers are often quoted as their outlet, because they're representing their outlet, and that's fine. (It's just not always really "we" except possibly, explicitly, in the case of Polygon, which probably has its own +ves and -ves to group score allocation. I haven't given it a large amount of thought.)

I don't think I'm disagreeing with Brockololly when I say, I think any power reviewers wield through metacritic comes back to interpretation by companies and whatever weightings metacritic attributes to outlets. (They can do what they want. I wouldn't have thought it was *automatically* useful, based on just numbers, but they're probably examining methodology where appropriate. Hopefully.)

Like, IMO, a reviewer just gives their opinion, based on attention to detail and prior experience with the genre. (Or should.) Otherwise, if you try to start guessing average scores, general audience reception, or try to punish or reward developers with scores, things get very messy.

The only 10/10 I've ever given was to a $10 indie that was "arguably a game." Then, some people made the point to me that, because my score is on metacritic, I've helped to legitimise the move away from "games as games" and towards "games as art." I think it's an interesting question to raise but, ultimately, I just thought it was an absolutely amazing experience (and beautifully told story) and am happy with my score.

Also, someone about a year ago said that reviewers should have professional qualities judged by whether they can stay within 1 point of review aggregate on metacritic. (Thankfully, my editors didn't agree.)

But, interesting discussion.

[AmstradHero]

I would have a grave issue with reviewers having to stay within 1 point of review scores on metacritic. For starters, this promotes homogenous reviewing and scoring, which in my opinion is already a massive problem in reviews. It's also very concerning when you see things like EGM's 9/10 for Aliens: Colonial Marines when every other review is significantly lower. That kind of behaviour really doesn't, and shouldn't fill the general public with confidence about the accuracy of reviews or review scores. Personally, I detest that executives focus so heavily on metacritic scores, because they're simply not an accurate judge of a game's worth.

Unfortunately we do live in a world where professional reviewers wield massive power in terms of review scores affecting sales, price drops, and the future of a franchise. Customers and developers/publishers are massively affected by positive or negative reviews. As such, there should be a certain amount of accountability and professionalism in terms of being upfront about a professional opinion and judgement of a game as compared to a personal one.

A review or assessment heavily weighted on subjective issues that results in negative press for the game is significant - because that means the "professional" reviewer's personal biases have potentially damaged the profitability of a game or franchise. I'm not saying this is an easy thing to remove, and I'm not saying that it should be removed entirely, because that personal preference has to be there in order to provide an interesting and engaging assessment, but at the end of the day, it is the reviewer's responsibility to acknowledge and take into account their own biases and initial expectations and judgements in order to give a reasonable score. My personal pet hate on this front is all the reviewers that lambasted Alpha Protocol as "Mass Effect in a modern day espionage setting", when the game was never aiming to provide the same type of experience, so judging it as such was doing the game a disservice. Taking that bias in and using it as a measuring stick indicates a lack of professionalism that isn't acceptable for a position that wields so much power in the gaming industry.

[Firky]

Isn't it the publisher/developer who decides how much power though?

I dunno. Some outlets are incredibly objective. Some are a mix. I, personally, love reading really subjective reviews which combine personal experience, etc. (But some people hate that.)

I don't think the reviewer has any responsibility to worry about developers (beyond basic respect etc) but they do need to provide the information their audience needs to make a purchasing decision. If someone can make a purchasing decision based on a flowery, tearful run-through someone wrote up of Journey, as a review, then great. Someone else will go for the review that lists features.

It's also a matter of review text vs scores. And it all comes back to criteria. Like, is the score the reviewer's experience, or a numerical representation of points raised, good and bad?

[AmstradHero]

Unfortunately, yes, and unfortunately no one else has the power to change their (stupid) decision making processes at the current point in time. Also, I'd say the consumer has a bit of power to use their intelligence to determine what is a "good" review compared to a bad review. That said, even taking multiple sources, you can't be guaranteed a reliable judgement. For example, reviews of AC3 pitch the game roughly around the same quality as the last two outings (if not possibly slightly better), whereas the reality is that it is a much worse and uninteresting game in comparison.

Review text versus review scores is an issue. I'm not a massive fan of scores because of their inherent unreliability - for example, what does 100% or 5/5 or 10/10 mean? To me, 100% means that if I took a random sample of 100 games, this would be the best. To others it means the game is perfect.

I totally understand that reviewers have a pretty thankless job, and I definitely love the fact that we get variety in reviews. I want that. I think that's important. If everyone writes the same style of review, then that's just as useless as everyone giving the same score.

I guess what I'm asking for is for game reviewers/journalists to be mindful and possibly have some "social responsibility" (for lack of a better term) in considering the weight that their words carry. Some people would read the article as linked by the OP and take all the flaws listed as a given without a thought because it's published on a gaming website. Were I to post something similar on my blog about DA2 or any other game, it wouldn't be given much credence by the average person because I'm just "some guy".

Maybe it's my perception, but it feels like game reviewers/journalists have comparatively more power than movie/book reviewers, and should be mindful of that when writing articles.