If Too Human sells well...

Does that make the entire enthusiast press obsolete?


My own opinion is that if every publication and website slammed Too Human, with hardly any scores above a 7, and the game sells well anyways, then the enthusiast media surrounding videogames literally has lost it's voice to consumers.  I believe that the advent of playable downloadable demos in this generation has already dealt a massive blow to the legitimacy of the profesisonal review.  With plenty of sites and magazines handing out review scores that seem to be coming more and more under question by the players themselves, is this the advent of the death of the enthusiast media as it pertains to videogames?

Sales have nothing to do with the quality of the game, if it sells good, good for Silicon Knights, but if it is still an overall bad/average game, it is still an bad/average game.

But honestly, you shouldn't care what people reviewers think. It is their opinion, but ultimately, it comes down to what you think, so they might think it is a bad game, but you might end up enjoying it.

It got plenty of scores above 70; but that's besides the point.

Too Human was always predicted to sell well anyway. It's lit up my friends list for a week now, showing no signs of stopping. I don't think anyone really cared what reviewers gave it; people who were on the hate train stayed on the hate train, people who were mixed went either way on it, and supporters stayed supporters. The thing is, no demographic was represented as it was in real life. The demo was unprecedentedly popular, and it led to a high attach rate. I don't think it has anything to do with the enthusiast media. They still get sensational traffic, and none of them care what happens so long as they make money with ads.

If you're looking for the real start of that trend, one of the most noteable signs of the aging paradigm would also be Assassin's Creed. You may be onto something, in that these things seem to be happening more frequently than they used to.

If that was true...then Carnival Games would have already proven that statement. People buy what they want to buy.

"Does that make the entire enthusiast press obsolete?

it sold well because it was 10 years in the making. think about it. no system has lasted that long.

cooking mama sold more than the orange box.

"cooking mama sold more than the orange box.

"

Thanks for the responses.  I just wanted to get a feeling of what other gamers expected from reviews and what purpose they serve anymore with the changes happening in gaming today.  I suppose Too Human was a bad, and obvious, example.  It's not the only one.  I can think of several games that got bad reviews that I know to be good, popular games.  R&C: FTOD is another that comes obviously to mind. 

It just seems that if the press judges games based solely on expectations, with AAA games being seen from a mile away, than professional reviews have rendered themselves obsolete.  If the same game series are always getting AAA scores, regardless of actual enhancement in quality from installment to installment, then what's the point of actually reading them? 

To open my latest issue of GI and see Too Human at 6.75, while on the same page Sam and Max gets a 7 and Order up for the Wii gets a 7.75, it really makes me wonder what the point of even reading this publication is.  Who are they writing their reviews for?  Am I no longer the audience they cater to, as they score games I have absolutely no interest in significantly higher than games that do look somewhat appealing?  It really makes me wonder and fills me with antipathy towards ever renewing my subscription to a gaming publication again. 

An interesting question. I can understand people having bad opinions of Too Human. I enjoy it a great deal myself; but I also know that there are tons of things that would just turn people off completely. One thing that I found helped put some people in perspective was Kevin Pereira's video about the ridiculousness of comparative scores. There are tons of different examples of that issue which make a good number of reviews seem ludicrous. It doesn't just seem to be games that are in a transitionary stage, regarding the entire "casual/hardcore/blah blah blah" crap, it's the journalism itself. I wonder what we'll see in the future.

It's just like movies and TV... people will play what they like.  A handful of bad reviews don't do a lot to sales.

That's the thing, the reason comparing scores from game to game and platform to platform is so rediculous is because most issuers of scores refuse to abide by a standard qualifying how exactly a game's score is merited.   Is it value of the experience?  Quality of product?  Or just the reviewers own personal preference?
I know that many players of games would say the score is not important, it is only personal experience that counts.  I think though, that the gaming press has not served it's purpose adequately enough, and that is why this conclusion has been reached.  If game's scores were written by gamers, for other gamers, then disagreement would be much less frequent.  As it is now though, I feel that reviews are self-serving to the extreme; websites use them to garner traffic, and publications use them to glean exclusive previews. 
I am curious to see how the gaming press evolves, as it definately does seem to be in a transitionary phase as of the moment.  As if not sure whether to cater to the whim of the masses or provide actual analysis of the game at hand, they content themselves with shoving their biased, jaded, and most likely bought and paid-for opinions down our throats.

"Does that make the entire enthusiast press obsolete?"

  If Too Human sells well, then I think Silicon Knights needs to pray and give thanks to Godsmann for creating the greatest shout-out/death threat in the history of video games. All in their honor.

  BLA!! BLA!! BLA!!

-Evan

The gaming press has the same thing going for it that the film press does.

As gaming enthusiasts, we've seen your standard FPS a million times. Point, click, shoot, etc. Because of that, if an FPS comes out that would have been good two years ago but now feels dated, it'll get a lower score.

However, to the majority of the public, all of this is fresh, new, and most importantly, fun.

This is why big summer movies tend to get bad reviews, but high sales and high customer satisfaction. Just look at Transformers. Middling reviews, but it was mindless fun that most people I know enjoyed. Film reviewers and game reviewers alike are clamoring for something fresh and intelligent, a la indie/foreign movies like Sideways and Downfall and games like Braid.

However, when a big-budget movie/game does it really RIGHT (The Dark Knight, countless big games), both sets of reviewers give them their just due.

The difference between the two industries is that the gaming enthusiasts tend to steer what the gaming public will buy. Since games aren't covered in traditional channels, you have to "know a guy" who will tell you what to buy, as for most people $60 is just too expensive to take a chance on.

"The gaming press has the same thing going for it that the film press does.

As gaming enthusiasts, we've seen your standard FPS a million times. Point, click, shoot, etc. Because of that, if an FPS comes out that would have been good two years ago but now feels dated, it'll get a lower score.

However, to the majority of the public, all of this is fresh, new, and most importantly, fun.

This is why big summer movies tend to get bad reviews, but high sales and high customer satisfaction. Just look at Transformers. Middling reviews, but it was mindless fun that most people I know enjoyed. Film reviewers and game reviewers alike are clamoring for something fresh and intelligent, a la indie/foreign movies like Sideways and Downfall and games like Braid.

However, when a big-budget movie/game does it really RIGHT (The Dark Knight, countless big games), both sets of reviewers give them their just due.

The difference between the two industries is that the gaming enthusiasts tend to steer what the gaming public will buy. Since games aren't covered in traditional channels, you have to "know a guy" who will tell you what to buy, as for most people $60 is just too expensive to take a chance on."

One major problem with the argument is that the demo, much like the game, was pretty terrible.

If it sells well, it sells well. Negative reviews rarely result in a game like this tanking, and it selling doesn't make videogame press "obsolete".

Hannibal said it pretty well. Enthusiasts are the ones who really look at the reviews. We read the reviews, listen to the podcasts, play the demos... then we buy.

Average Joe Q. Know-nothing buys it because it has a fancy cover. That's why crappy games have always sold, and sometimes sold very well.

Too human is actually doing pretty good in sales, i checked 360voice.net, and alot of people are playin it

That's an interesting point, Patchinko.  It brings to mind the words of many reviews saying 'it's either a love it or hate it type game'.  I can't really think of a game that isn't true for, is the problem. 

I'm not suggesting that the gaming press is suddenly going to wither up and disintegrate, I'm just saying that they're no longer needed and many organizations (1up the most recent flagrant offender) seem to be almost hastening their own decay by writing the most flippant and inconsistant reviews imaginable. 

Surely, the sales of Too Human and the flaying it recieved from the press could be totally inconsequential to each other.  However, I believe that as early as last generation that a game slammed in reviews wouldn't get a second look from gamers before the days of demos and downloadable previews.  

The days of the enthusiast press being able to spur interest into creating a 'cult classic' or ripping a game to pieces to make it completely bomb could very well be over.

no it doesn't make the press obselete. 50 Cent bulletrpoof sold well....there's proof enough, plenty of people buy games that are hyped up and don't even listen to what people say about it. In Too Humans case, the audience for that kind of game knows who they are, and if they are into it they're going to buy it, to everyone else its just mediocre and kind of embarassing that its doing well.

It will not sell well.

Opinion is not fact, whether it is enthusiast, you, me. If you're an enthusiast gamer (if you're on a gaming forum you must be), then you recognise names like Dyack, like Miyamoto, Carmack, Kojima, Roper and realise what their history in game development entails, you watch trailers and gameplay clips, you look at screenshots and read previews, listen to podcasts. Most consumers of games look at the back of the box, they're not going to spend money on gaming magazines, their precious time at home reading websites, they go to a shop, look at the back cover and read the bullet points to determine whether a game is good or not. Some brand recognition is there; "From the Creators of Gears of War" for example shall appeal to these consumers, similar to seeing their favourite author's name on the bottom of a book cover.
Enthusiast Press are there to; not give us the facts, but to express their opinion, that is afterall what they are; opinions. I enjoyed Soldier of Fortune: Payback but the average metacritic ration was 45. Does that make me wrong or the Enthusiast Press wrong? Neither. I have my point of view and they have theirs.
It's a hell of a thing to clump all Enthusiast Press together, N'gai, Garnett Lee, Shawn Elliot, Jeff Gerstmann, Hillary Goldstein, Shane Bettenhausen, Stephen Totilo, that'd be like comparing me to the last 50 people I've talked to on the phone. Score Aggregation can't be indicitive of overall quality; you're comparing the likes and dislikes of over 150 people. Your opinion shall never be identical with anyone else. Your like or dislike of a game, product, service shall never be the same as the last 2000 people you met in your life.
If Too Human sells well then it was a good product. What quantifiers do you need to be a good GAME? That's up to your opinion, what is your opinion? Well I don't know, but I do know it is not fact.

"Does that make the entire enthusiast press obsolete?


My own opinion is that if every publication and website slammed Too Human, with hardly any scores above a 7, and the game sells well anyways, then the enthusiast media surrounding videogames literally has lost it's voice to consumers.  I believe that the advent of playable downloadable demos in this generation has already dealt a massive blow to the legitimacy of the profesisonal review.  With plenty of sites and magazines handing out review scores that seem to be coming more and more under question by the players themselves, is this the advent of the death of the enthusiast media as it pertains to videogames?"

"Does that make the entire enthusiast press obsolete?"

There's also Assassin's Creed, Two Worlds still sold a shitload, didn't it? Enough to warrant sequels and expansions and re-releases. >.<

Yeah, Assassin's Creed is a multi million seller.  All critique isn't neccessarily obsolete, but it doesn't directly affect sales.  There's usually 3 different angles for reviews:

• A way for the more discerning consumer to avoid wasting their time/money (which usually doesn't impact sales, it just saves us forum/website goers some money & time).  Usually is a bullet-point kind of review. (10 guns, 5 levels, 8 hours, 7/10)
• A way for fanboys to have a number score backing their favorite game, "proving" that it's good.  (see halo 3, gta4, and mgs4 reviews that say things like "we know you already have the game preordered and will buy it" -_- )
• An outlet for genuine real critique and artistic analysis of a game's merits and faults. (very rare, but awesome when you get to read it.  usually happens when people are reviewing games that merit that level of discussion, like Rez or Braid)

I just got the game in the mail. Played for a couple of hours.

The game is fine.

Im wondering, would game sites have jumped the gun and got all ridiculous treating the preview code like a review if this was any other game?

Like the 1up feature which went through things that needed to be fixed before it was released.

The games not great, but its fine.

Im starting to wonder that with the onslaught of awesome games in the last few years whether we are all getting a little spoilt.

That has a lot to do with it. Constant flood of new games, higher expectations with each successive new game, & few people that can clear the task of satisfying what reviewers expect.  I guess it could get to the point where it can be like movies.  Many movies get bad reviews but still get people to watch them en mass.  Hopefully game reviewing won't become this elitist where all games get slammed except for a select few.