Declaring War on Reviewers: One company did it...should Firaxis?

[Lonestar]

And now, for the entirety of my contribtuion to the debate:

Bah. Let them send the games to whomever they wish.

[Your.Master]

PC Gamer - I read it, but it is one of the worst for this

Except for the point about budget, I agree with the person Yin quoted.

Now, say what you will about Civ2 ToT, but the review PC Gamer gave it was completely erroneous. It claimed that the Extended Original game (my favourite) was the Standard game until the Alpha Centauri launch. Then the game restarted in Sci Fi mode. He docked many points for that.

GRRR! Not true. Not at all. That was just one example, not the only error.

It's funny, they listed Civ2 still as in the top 3 games of all time, but ToT got a middling reaction. The only bad things with ToT were the graphics (I liked them, but graphics aren't 40% important anyway) and a more difficult editor. Everything else was CivII++. Arg.

[CygnusZ]

I'm wary about this.

Isn't this company basically saying that all they want Maganizes to give them "fair" (subtext meaning high) marks? Wouldn't that change game Reviewer's into salesmen?

That be like a movie company saying they don't want a critic to see a movie because it might get less than 4 stars. Tough, that's what critics are, it's the nature of the game.

[Spatzimaus]

Originally posted by jackshot
But multiplayer is a *way* to play not a part of the gameplay itself.

A game is not worse because it lacks multiplayer, it just isn't a multiplayer game.

Multiplayer is a feature, not a format, in most cases. The ONLY exception I can think of would be if you tried to compare a game without any single-player component (Quake Arena, EverQuest, etc) to one without any multiplayer component (Civ 3). There's just no overlap.

Imagine two games, equal in every respect but multiplayer; game A has both single and multiplayer capability, game B can only do single player. Game A is clearly better; it can do everything B can do, just as well, AND it can do something the other can't. Was the network edition of Civ 2 superior to the original Civ 2? Of course, because it contained everything the original did, AND had multiplayer.

The catch is, in real life no two games are equal in every other respect, and limited development time/budget means that an advantage in one area (diversity of play modes, including multiplayer) will usually be counteracted by a shortcoming in others (bugs, balance issues). For example, a game that is intended as single-player will be balanced in a completely different way than a multiplayer one, and more effort will have been put into cutscenes, plot, and environment.

When reviewing Civ 3, you would say that on the downside, the game has no multiplayer, but on the upside, this has allowed it to have a smoother/more balanced single-player game than it would otherwise. It's not fair to praise the features of the game without mentioning what was sacrificed to let the developers work on those features, just like it's not fair to keep ranting about multiplayer without realizing that the developers are using the freed time to improve the single-player game. This game is going to get higher marks in those other categories than it would have if they had spent months working on network code.

The bottom line is, though, that every reviewer decides on the relative strengths of various features, and you'll never agree with the exact priorities. Personally, I don't care about multiplayer in these games, but I like nice graphics. Someone else might be the exact opposite. A reviewer who is somewhere in between will end up upsetting both of us.

[HalfLotus]

I have a feeling that MP will be the main gripe for reviewers of Civ3. It will be interesting to see which ones make a big deal about it, and how it affects reviews.
Personally, I'll be snatching up the game at Best Buy and hauling ass home before any reviews hit the stands.

[The Templar]

So I don't get the point. My personal opinion has always been that Shrapnel's games needed better graphics anyway.

Hehe, jackshot is dead on there!
Its not as though graphics and AI is a zero-sum game. You can have both. As for shrapnel, they often lack worthy graphics. Well then, sell the games for less. It's not like Space Empires 4 had an AI worth a damn. Then again, if shrapnel's developers could do awesome AI, then they could poo-poo graphics.

[Kuciwalker]

I think the problem is the exact opposite. They give far to good reviews. When I bought Star Trek: Armada, the reviews of it were very, very good. Yet they conviently forgot to mention the fact that, even if you have 256 megs of RAM and a 1-gigahertz processor, it still runs about as fast as a dead snail, except with less enthusiasm. I play at about a rate of 30 seconds stopped for 1 second of actual gameplay.

[TCO]

The basic problem lies with Gaming magazines having a conflict with companies wrt to giving fair reviews.

When Consumer Reports does a review, they accept no advertising and they buy the product themselves (including CARS!!!).

[yin26]

Wow. I didn't know that about Consumer Reports! How do they stay in business?

I wonder, then, if there isn't room out there for an inexpensive web site of plain 'ol gamers who post 'real' reviews? Anybody interested? We would have to buy our own games (at least until we get popular enough to start getting some ourselves).

We wouldn't need a lot of bandwidth because we could just link to screenshots and media posted on other sites. It would be just a few site graphics, a lot of text for the reviews ... and some honesty.

[Steve Clark]

There is, yin, but it's invite only. Several of us from a few forums started a comprehensive critics forum in January. We have previewed/reviewed/analyzed/trashed/praised many games of all genres, including my input on Civ3. It is fairly informal but it is a community that has come to trust each other, even though disagreements do pop up. Would you be interested? If so, I can ask.

[TCO]

Yin, CR are subscription-based. They have had people beg them to sell some advertising space but have always refused.

They manage to do a great job of buying and reviewing mid-tier products (electronics, etc.) With cars, they have to stick to the more common/reasonable models and they vary what they buy each year. They also do some evaluations based on repair reports, etc. If you want to select a sports car, they're not that great. But if you want to know in excruciating detail all the factors to consdier in selecting a VCR from 120 models, they are superb.

[Father Beast]

no matter what reviewers SHOULD focus on, what they generally focus on is this:

gameplay: is it fun?
interface: do I have to think about it, or is it easy to do what I want to do? (hello [i]Battlecruiser 3000 A.D.)
graphics: how does it compare?
sound: how does it compare?
multiplayer: does it work and is it fun?

about whether they'll take points off for multiplayer. That is almost an expecte part of games these days (except adventures), and TBS is not exempt from the expectation.
ESPECIALLY when they are talking about putting it in later.
ESPECIALLY when it was talked about earlier in development.

a game which took some serious hits for no multiplayer on that fromt was Oni. He had played some Oni beta at a convention and trashed fellow editors there in a network game, then the game came out without it, and no mention of it in ads or boxes. he did admit that it would have more points taken off if it had a non working multiplayer, though.
other mags got upset about no multiplayer in Oni, and even those reviewers who didn't mention it gave it a middling review and danced around complaining about it.

so the question isn't whether Civ3 will have points taken off for no multiplayer, it's how much?

Will Firaxis go to war over this? danged if I know, but it seems to me that companies which get all uptight about reviewers are either in some serious trouble themselves, or very small fish demanding to be bigger. I would hate to think of Firaxis that way.

Independents aren't slammed in most places I read. It seems that Mindrover got some good reviews back when it was still internet available only.

For shrapnel to go to war with reviewers probably won't make much difference. they don't pay much for ads anyway.

Several games mags (notably CGW) have seemed adamant about refusing to water down their reviews on pain of lost advertising. so going to war with them would seem futile. if reviewers started becoming company salesmen, it would soon become apparent. the only time (I can think of) they came close was when Blizzard had games mags come down to the Blizzard offices to review Diablo II. almost all the in-office reviewers gave D2 a stellar review. Computer games Magazine, which waited until it hit the stands, gave a less than stellar review. I somehow doubt that games mags will open themselves to being burned like that again.

and although I enjoy reading them, reviews ultimately only effect the people who are deciding whether to get it before most others. in other words, before the buzz has gotten around.

Black And white got almost universally fantastic reviews, but the hype died down quickly. same with Alpha Centauri. Yes, a lot of us still play AC, and I'm sure a bunch of people are still hooked on BW. but the hype has died down and flaws have emerged.

just my 2@ worth.

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by Steve Clark
There is, yin, but it's invite only. Several of us from a few forums started a comprehensive critics forum in January. We have previewed/reviewed/analyzed/trashed/praised many games of all genres, including my input on Civ3. It is fairly informal but it is a community that has come to trust each other, even though disagreements do pop up. Would you be interested? If so, I can ask.

would those reviews be available to read somewhere? or is the reading of reviews by this select group by invite only?

[Urban Ranger]

I don't think game companies should be selective about to whom they send review copies. That just makes them looking like silly bollocks who can't handle negative reviews.

Many gaming magazines/websites suck and their reviewers don't know jack, but many gamers know this already. Really the only good ones I found were <em>Computer Gaming World</em>, Gamespot (beware of the evil Flash intro ), and Games Domain.

Most people rely on their gamer friends anyway.