Ars attempts to justify its own existence
An opinion piece on Ars is an attempt at rebuttal from this piece on Sony's blog regarding whether or not reviews are still relevant anymore. To Ars credit they state one of the big problems with most reviews is that they add a scoring index onto their game review. I agree that this is flat out dumb since a review, by its nature, is a subjective issue and not something that can be charted on a line graph. If you recall the movie Dead Poet's Society they try to chart poetry on a 2-d graph and the teacher calls such an idea to be excrement. The same holds for game reviews.
Here's a choice little tidbit too from the Sony opinion piece:
"There [is] another reason why game reviews may have lost some of the regard and influence they once held - slant. Many people comment on how they feel certain journalists/publishers have a particular lean towards one platform over another."
So what if a review site does? I mean there are entire magazines geared just towards PC or just towards Xbox, right? Excuse my stupid thought here but a review is just that, one person or group's opinion about something. A synonym for such a thing would be 'slant,' wouldn't it? Revies are just editorial pieces approved by a publisher/editor. For the sake of open disclosure, I despise most console games except racers and football. Everything else can be done better on a PC.
But back to the Ars article. He went on to state:
"...there is a ton of available media on the net that can help you get a look at a game as it develops, but the problem with videos and pictures is that often the intangible elements are impossible to understand simply from seeing the game in motion—only the written or verbal communication of a person can adequately capture these details."
There's something even more important: demos of games. I'm not talking about trailers I mean a hands on touching of the goodies. Let me twiddle with the user interface and maps. Let me setup a standalone server and see how the game plays. THAT is the most important thing a developer can do to let me see if I want a game. Videos and pictures are nice but until you could actually use the gravity gun in Half-Life 2 there's no way of knowing if it would be fun or not (hint: it was).
The blogger on Sony states that reviews aren't relevant because,
"We also have access to much more opinion than ever before, through countless forums and blogs, and of course, we get views from our trusted friends in our online social networks...[and demos]."
I think the last part, demos is what matters. Sure we have a ton of opinions about games but remember that old saying, "Opinions are like assholes. Everyone's got one and they all stink."
Besides which game sites are on payrolls and I don't blame them. This Sony blogger speculates about whether or not game sites are on payrolls but come on, get real, of course they are. If EA comes to a site and offers to buy up ad space and all they have to do is 'gloss over' some of the flaws in their latest game you can bet they would. Oh sure the sites might say they are concerned abuot their readership but don't try to foll us. The bottom line is making money and in publishing that means selling ad space even if it means selling out your fans a little. In fact, I've seen this in action before.
In a review for Rome: Total War a few years ago, IGN, Gamespy, and Firing Squad all sang its high praises but only gave passing reference to some rather large bugs in the game dealing with the flaw in how the generals behaved in battle and the problem of squalor choking your cities. Those things were fixed in a patch eventually I believe but for someone who might be waiting on those reviews to determine their purchase decisions it really leaves something to be desired.
Also note that these sites get their games for free unlike you so their tolerance for flaws in a game might be a little higher than schmucks like you and me who shell out $40-$50 a game.
With game review sites I'd just suggest being careful. Your best resource in the end is your own eyes and ears so any time you can get a demo before playing do that and ignore the blogging and hype machines.
Here's a choice little tidbit too from the Sony opinion piece:
"There [is] another reason why game reviews may have lost some of the regard and influence they once held - slant. Many people comment on how they feel certain journalists/publishers have a particular lean towards one platform over another."
So what if a review site does? I mean there are entire magazines geared just towards PC or just towards Xbox, right? Excuse my stupid thought here but a review is just that, one person or group's opinion about something. A synonym for such a thing would be 'slant,' wouldn't it? Revies are just editorial pieces approved by a publisher/editor. For the sake of open disclosure, I despise most console games except racers and football. Everything else can be done better on a PC.
But back to the Ars article. He went on to state:
"...there is a ton of available media on the net that can help you get a look at a game as it develops, but the problem with videos and pictures is that often the intangible elements are impossible to understand simply from seeing the game in motion—only the written or verbal communication of a person can adequately capture these details."
There's something even more important: demos of games. I'm not talking about trailers I mean a hands on touching of the goodies. Let me twiddle with the user interface and maps. Let me setup a standalone server and see how the game plays. THAT is the most important thing a developer can do to let me see if I want a game. Videos and pictures are nice but until you could actually use the gravity gun in Half-Life 2 there's no way of knowing if it would be fun or not (hint: it was).
The blogger on Sony states that reviews aren't relevant because,
"We also have access to much more opinion than ever before, through countless forums and blogs, and of course, we get views from our trusted friends in our online social networks...[and demos]."
I think the last part, demos is what matters. Sure we have a ton of opinions about games but remember that old saying, "Opinions are like assholes. Everyone's got one and they all stink."
Besides which game sites are on payrolls and I don't blame them. This Sony blogger speculates about whether or not game sites are on payrolls but come on, get real, of course they are. If EA comes to a site and offers to buy up ad space and all they have to do is 'gloss over' some of the flaws in their latest game you can bet they would. Oh sure the sites might say they are concerned abuot their readership but don't try to foll us. The bottom line is making money and in publishing that means selling ad space even if it means selling out your fans a little. In fact, I've seen this in action before.
In a review for Rome: Total War a few years ago, IGN, Gamespy, and Firing Squad all sang its high praises but only gave passing reference to some rather large bugs in the game dealing with the flaw in how the generals behaved in battle and the problem of squalor choking your cities. Those things were fixed in a patch eventually I believe but for someone who might be waiting on those reviews to determine their purchase decisions it really leaves something to be desired.
Also note that these sites get their games for free unlike you so their tolerance for flaws in a game might be a little higher than schmucks like you and me who shell out $40-$50 a game.
With game review sites I'd just suggest being careful. Your best resource in the end is your own eyes and ears so any time you can get a demo before playing do that and ignore the blogging and hype machines.
2 Comments:
Yes reviews are biased but isn't that why we read them? I want to know if this site (or Ars) for that matter enjoyed the game so I can determine if its something I want to play.
Someone values the opinion of this site? Whatever...
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