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Game Previews Just Game Marketing?
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Mar 12, 2006 05:20 PM
from the unsurprising-but-sad dept.
from the unsurprising-but-sad dept.
Kotaku has a feature up today written by James Wagner Au, formerly embedded reporter in the world of Second Life. He's now doing his own thing, and he's got a fairly cynical discussion over at the Kotaku site about the real purpose behind game previews in industry rags. From the article: "For the thing of it is, game magazine previews are almost uniformly positive, even for the most undistinguished titles. So it unrolls thus: publisher makes mediocre game; press previews depict mediocre game as being good or at least worth a look; excited gamers read previews, foolishly believe them, start making pre-sale orders of mediocre game; driven by preview press and pre-sale numbers based on that press, retailers stock up on mediocre game; publisher makes money from mediocre game, keeps making more games like it."
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color me ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:color me ... Shocked (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Freebie Hardware (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember reading on [H]ardOCP about how they do reviews of most(?) computer systems.
They have an agreement with the Marketing/PR guys so that they can buy a system (like anyone else) and then get a RMA when they've finished reviewing the system.
Either the deal works, and they get a random system like anyone else would, or the PR/Marketing guys intervene and the reviewer + se
Re:color me ... Shocked (Score:3, Insightful)
*sigh* PC Gamer, PC Gamer, wherefore art thou PC Gamer? Thoust were taken over by PC Accelerator, forever to be changed into a mediocre magazine. The PC Gamer thy once were is forever dead. Dead, and floating upon the winds of time. Farewell pointy stick and coconut monkey, I knewest thou well.
Gotta listen to him (Score:5, Funny)
Not necessarily "marketing" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not necessarily "marketing" (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Not necessarily "marketing" (Score:4, Interesting)
Granted, I haven't seen it often, but in cruising IGN I've seen at least a couple of previews (though, now that I think about it, this could've been 3-4 years ago) where you could tell the writers had that same look on their faces, and while they desperately want to be able to generate some positive hype about this feature or that, all they can offer is hope that things improve in the future.
And really? Truth be told, who wants to read any more than the rare preview to say "omg this game is gonna sucks bad?"
Honesty in previews, candid words and recognizing both the positive and negative in an upcoming game is, indeed, pretty much a dead breed.
Parent
Well, I do (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I, for one, wish someone gave me the full, honest picture for a start. If I'm gonna blow my money on a product, be it a game or a watch or a TV or whatever, I'd like to have the full picture, not just a lopsided hype-only half of of the story. I'd very much like to know the good _and_ the bad, so I can make an informed decision if it's the kind of game I'm looking for.
Frankly, I neve
Re:Not necessarily "marketing" (Score:3, Interesting)
Familiar... Do they pay you marketing droids extra to work on Sundays? In actual fact, a player has almost zero freedom to influence the game world of Morrowind. Yeah, he can build a character with a different set of skills than another character. Whoo hoo. And scope? I hope you're talking about the mouth wash. Fighting huge birdy things for an hour just to walk to the next tiny dungeon does not add scope to a game. A billion cookie-cutter NPCs does not add scope. Look
Re:Not necessarily "marketing" (Score:3, Interesting)
I've yet to see any game that allows you to influence the world to any great extent beyond pre-scripted events (aside from trivial examples of natural selection). I'd love to see it, and from what I've heard, Oblivion should be closer than anything else. Like lots of the features of Daggerfall, however, I expect it to be either removed or massively cut back.
The freedom in Morrowind largely comes from the fact that the game doesn't push you hard in any direction. There are enough quests to play the game
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why would you do it with a game?
Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Really, what's your point? People pre-order cars since most cars are just new revisions / bugfixes to older models with very little changing over each revision (such as the yearly increments of the BMW E46 model for example). I don't think the car business and their merchandise can be compared to the software industry and theirs. Programmers prefer to re-invent the wheel far more often than any other engineering profession.
The ga
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Take two different implementations of the same software idea and you'll surely see two different implementations. This even stretches as far as to implementations of the same idea at different points in time by the same developer.
Don't mend what is not broken rarely applies to software developers (unfortunately). Component reuse was a buzz word a few years ago which unfortunately didn't have much of an impact for inho
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
But my point being, without that first demo or review, you might not even hear of the game at all.
Parent
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see the problem. Casual gamers go down to Walmart and pick up a game. Enthusiasts eat up news months or years in advance. Is the idea here that those poor dumb enthusiasts who actively seek out news and rumour sites are suckered into hiding under a rock between the demos
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the sites I've written reviews and previews for actually had it as a rule: Previews are to remain positive. Why? Because it's a look at an UNFINISHED product, and it's not fair to be critical at that stage, at least not publicly (we frequently give feedback directly to the development teams). I've seen good games go bad, and I've seen bad games become amazing. Everything deserves a fair shake, so we remain "cautiously optimistic."
A well-written preview should ref
And... (Score:2, Insightful)
How could it be otherwise? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How could it be otherwise? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why are so many posters missing this point? It NOT the goal of this article to point out that previews should be the same as reviews. (BTW: I mean unbiased reviews, because most have the same problems)
Things like vision, core graphics models, levels and premise are MOSTLY completed at the time of previews and can be commented on. But even things that are not finished can still be eval
Re:How could it be otherwise? (Score:5, Interesting)
"In Joe Bob's Grand Adventure you'll be playing Joe Bob as he fights to regain his Pickle farm from the evil Artichoke-Industrial Complex. In the build we played there were some bugs here and there, but the game was comming along nicely. The levels looked good and were interactive and had plenty of little touches making them seem alive and real, and the shooting mechanic felt very good. The AI provided some challenge (except for a few known bugs) and the game seemed fun. The world is enganging and the story is well presented. The game has a large number of weapons, but some currently feal very similar. The game is shaping up for a November release."
or "In Joe Bob's Grand Adventure you'll be playing Joe Bob as he fights to regain his Pickle farm from the evil Artichoke-Industrial Complex. In the build we played there were some bugs here and there, but none severly effected gameplay. The levels looked rather drab and flat, with detail akin to a game from 3 years ago. There was no interactivity to speak of, and the shooting mechanic had serious flaws in the accuracy of aiming. The AI, while working, provided little challenge and was prone to getting stuck on the simplest of objects (like a stair). The scenerio is very similar to about a dozen other games; and the story seems almost bolted-on to the action and completely incidental to the game. The dozens of weapons play almost identicle, many even looking very similar to others. The game is expected to be released in November."
The first was of a game that shows promise, the second was of a game that had some obvious problems. Let's look at what a "normal" preview looks like:
>"In Joe Bob's Grand Adventure you'll be playing Joe Bob as he fights to regain his Pickle farm from the evil Artichoke-Industrial Complex. The game world is full of interesting characters and enemies all with AI that will be very realistic. In the build we played we ran around and shot stuff and since we didn't want to kill ourselves afterward, this will obviously be a "must have" game. The levels looked great, based on the pre-renders they showed us, and are supposed to be fully interactive using a real-time-inverse-kinematic-physics-engine. There are dozens of weapons in the game, along with what is promised to be the best online multiplayer for a console to date. You'll want to reserve your copy now so you can buy it when it comes out in November."
It doesn't matter how boring or bug ridden a game is, they always get glowing previews. The only time you even see bugs mentioned in previews is in the previews of games that are expected to be great (due to lineage). You might see something like "In PGR3 we encounted a few small glitches but the game is already a blast to play." In a buggy game you'll see previews like "In Driver 3 you'll be able to drive around a GTA like world." Notice it doesn't mention that if there was a feather in the road it would stop your car dead if you hit it (example based on memory).
The reviews themselves don't help either. The "average" game seems to get a score of about 80%. A game has to be really bad to get even a medium-low score (40-50%). I think we should force reviewers to use a bell-curve system to fight "Review Inflation."
Parent
Hmmm, great in theory... (Score:2)
That said, as a gamer I'd describe it as the 'good fight', and I'm behind them on this one. (The most disappointing game i've played recently has been Star Wars: Empire At War - proof enough for me that even the Star Wars name can't save a mediocre title. And no, I never played Galaxies.)
Pretty obvious (Score:2)
I'll answer the first question.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because making games is hard.
See also: Websites, records, television programmes
Anything that involves a creative input is difficult because thats the way we're made. We love to think of ourselves as wonderfully creative creatures all very capable of coming up with brilliant new ideas day and night
So you have a difficult creative process blending with some hardcore technical requirements being worked on by just about everyone who wants fame and money.
To be brutally honest, the article should be asking how the hell any games are any good, not why most are bad.
Re:I'll answer the first question.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Who buys? (Score:2, Informative)
No problem though - hang back a little, and you get to buy a game once the reviews are out, the servers are up and the patches are released.
Re:Who buys? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Breaking News: Water is wet (Score:3, Funny)
Easy to Criticize (Score:4, Insightful)
Here are your options:
1) Gamers get positive previews and find out what games will look like, how they will play, but will not hear any of the negatives.
2) Gamers hear nothing of new games and have to wait for reviews of the games after they are released. Or worse: purchase based on number of TV ads they see.
Given those, i'll take option #1 anyday. It's not fair to game developers if they will get ripped for framerate issues when they let editors take an early playtest. There's lots wrong with the video-game industry (such as bought REVIEWS). However, overly-positive "previews" are not one of them. They're par for the course and an acceptable trade-off.
Re:Easy to Criticize (Score:3)
Re:Easy to Criticize (Score:3, Insightful)
Sadly, the submitter and almost every commenter so far seems not to have read past the first few paras, if that. He DOES propose a solution. So, for the benfit of those non-RTFAs:
In all seriousness.... (Score:4, Informative)
Next you're going to tell me... (Score:2, Funny)
That said, Madden NFL 06 is pure engineering genious. The new QB Vision Control and QB Precision Placement really brings you into the game. NFL superstar mode brings you into the world of top talent.
Overall, Madden NFL 06 will totally change the way we think about console NFL games.
Oh, Nostalgia... (Score:4, Funny)
Article is an incomplete argument (Score:5, Interesting)
Reviews ensure that developers have a reason to make the game as good as possible. If previews drive sales too, then it allows developers to take more risks -- because an ambitious game that ultimately fails will have a good preview writeup and sell enough not to be a total loss.
The author is trying to posit an implied (but untrue) connection between previews allowing mediocre games to sell and all games 'sucking.' Mediocre stuff sells in every entertainment industry that exists -- if only the best games sold then the market would be too risky to enter.
Hmmm (Score:2)
Is it just me, or does this read more like pimpage for a new upcoming feature on their (Kotaku's) website? The fact is very well known that the bulk of the videogame press - EDGE excluded - shill for publishers, especially when high profile, high budget titles are delayed or don't meet development expectations. Actually, I'm surprised that the normally-sane Kotaku is making a big thing of it. That /. is interested does not surprise me.
Next on Slashdot: Movie critics shill for movie studios, film at 11.
The ultimate example title: MOO3 (Score:5, Interesting)
Yet you'll find reviewers who give it quite a good score "4.3/5". And they'll wax poetic about some of the worst and repetitive features of the game. "I always turn up the speakers when I've gotten a diplomatic message to hear the wonderful alien voices."
Compare/Contrast the following reviews. Who would YOU go to for the truth next time?
#1: http://www.stratosgroup.com/reviews/games.php?sel
#2: http://pc.ign.com/articles/386/386281p6.html [ign.com] "9.2 out of 10 and Editor's Choice Award"
#3: http://www.avault.com/reviews/review_temp.asp?gam
#4: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/masteroforion
"6.7 out of 10"
Re:The ultimate example title: MOO3 (Score:3, Insightful)
Previews: the reality (Score:5, Interesting)
To fill pages.
No kidding. When you start the month, you have anything between 100 to 164 pages to fill. (Certainly where I worked, the editor had no say in the total number of pages - that was decided based on projected advertising revenue and the whim of the publishing director.) The advertising department says they expect to need X pages. You know fairly well how many games will come in for review based on the release schedules, and can allocate pages based on that. You have all the standing pages - news, letters, cheats and guides, house ads, subscriptions, etc.
Anything left over has to be filled. And the nature of the games business means they either have to be filled by either wacky filler features (which the magazine writers love because it gives them a chance to be self-indulgent, but the readers generally couldn't give a shit about)... or you have to talk about games that haven't come out yet. They might be lengthy interview-based stories, or they might be based entirely around the latest set of screenshots that have become avilable. Either way, they're previews.
And the sad fact is, if you preview a game that's still some months from release and get all snarky about the lame concept, the horrible control system or the blatant swipes from other games, even if it's deservedly so... the publisher is likely to tell you to fuck off when you ask for final review code down the line. Which will leave a hole in your predicted number of pages for the review section. You can fill that either by extending other reviews, even if the games aren't worth the extra space, or throw in another last-minute filler feature... or add another preview. Either way, you quickly learn to walk the fine line between gentle mockery and actual criticism, and to keep the latter until you actually have the game in your hand.
Jerry Seinfeld said it best. "Magazines are another medium I love, because 95% is simply based on 'How the hell are we going to fill all this blank space?'"
Re:Previews: the reality (Score:5, Informative)
I wrote to PC Gamer once to politely correct a photo error in one of their articles, and they published my letter -- and made fun of me, comparing me to a fictional character on a TV show. For politely correcting an error in the way that one is supposed to do when writing to a magazine or newspaper editor! In the same way in which I've found errors in the NY Times and Time magazine and written to them -- and either gotten a very polite, grateful response from them or seen the correction published in the errata in a future issue.
That one act meant I did not renew my subscription and I have never subscribed to a gaming magazine since -- because some asshole doing the same job you do proved that his profession didn't deserve any respect.
Grow up and do your fucking job. You know, the thing they teach in journalism school about, I don't know, following the rules of journalism ethics.
Parent
Re:Previews: the reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Congratulations. You have just independently rediscovered the principle that you are not the customer. You are the *product*. *You* are sold to the advertiser. The advertiser is the customer who pays to make the magazine cheap.
And guess who the advertiser is in this case? That's right, the game publishers.
Of course, you could just stop reading the magazine if you don't like what the writers have to say and how they say it...
Parent
Here's how the publishing idustry works (Score:3, Interesting)
But these are only previews. The purpose of a preview isn't to tell you what a games like. The sole purpose of a preview is to inform you that a game exists. This is not a bad thing. Gamers want to know what's coming. They just have to understand that a preview is not an opinion peice, but a promotional piece. To find out whether a game is any good, wait for the review.
Previews are *not* reviews (Score:5, Interesting)
Every editor I spoke to told me to be positive. This is not the same as jacking up hype from the PR guys: I never even spoke to them. Most of the time they'll talk to someone higher up because they don't know who I am, and then I'd get the preview handed off to me. Most of the PR junk we recieved was exactly that: junk. I found it difficult to make any more favourable words simply because I had a Spiderman Web-Shooting Gun.
The reason I was told to be positive is that there is no reason to be overly critical of preview code. Most preview code looks like ass, plays like crap and has some show-stopping bugs. That's because it isn't finished. The idea of preview code is to show ideas and direction to the journalist. Exciting games get more column inches because they show better ideas and promise, *not* because their code didn't suck. And a lot of games that have very poor preview code brush up. Development is organic. You can't be critical of every piece of code that comes through the door: it's all crap. You pick out the good bits, show it to the reader and say "you might like this when it comes out." Some games are of interest to more people than others, and might get more column inches.
Until a game ships, it never deserves derision, just encouragement. It would be very ego-centric to kick the shit out of every game that I recieved just because I could in the name of "truth".
The very simple reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
Right.
Now, how do you get a preview? Unless it's available for download (well, if it is, every mag's gonna have it, so let's ignore those for now), the game company has to send you the necessary goodies.
And now the big question: Will they send you their next preview if you write "This sucks! Bugs, flaws and no interesting gameplay, even if they spend another year on it it will STILL suck!"?
No. They'll send it to a magazine that hypes it into heavens and back. And the magazine that has the article about the preview sells more copies than the one that doesn't.
Sipmle as that.
I think it's not THAT bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
People complain about how many bad games are released nowadays but they forget shitty games were like 80% of the market ALWAYS. Thing it, they got forgotten and we don't remember them anymore. You remember Zork and HHGTTG from Infocom, but you forget a dozen of more medicore games they released. You remember Revenge Of The Mutant Camels, but where's Herbert's Dummy Run? Quake is there, a dozen of Quake knockoffs is forgotten. And press rarely bothered to mention them too.
Though I agree - we're at a crisis moment. Making a game to be of quality comparable with the market leaders is way out of reach of small developer groups. And big players want to play it safe, so they dump innovation. There's fewer good new games than there would be at any moment of the gaming history in the past. And magazines write reviews comparing games to the average. Quake 4 is still at upper 95% of the quality of currently available titles, it's just the quality of currently available titles is at about half the level the quality was in times of Quake 3.
Quick follow-up to my essay... (Score:3, Interesting)
- My name is actually "Wagner James Au".
- I'm still blogging about Second Life as an embedded journalist at http://nwn.blogs.com/ [blogs.com], though now on a commercial basis with Federated Media, the kids what bring you Boing Boing, Metafilter, and other juicy goodness.
Lot of worthwhile points worth discussing, but rather than wade in too deep, let me hit at one in particular:
> The author is trying to posit an implied (but untrue) connection between previews
> allowing mediocre games to sell and all games 'sucking.' Mediocre stuff sells in
> every entertainment industry that exists -- if only the best games sold then the
> market would be too risky to enter.
Actually, I didn't say all games sucked. What I did say is that due to previews, the few games which don't suck have to compete for shelf space with the 95% of games that do. Preview hype, not game quality, is what guarantees retail store shelf space--especially if the game is backed by a large publisher and/or it's connected to a known brand. And since the average consumer only buys the games that are on the retail shelf, they are far more prone to walk away with a shitty game. This means good games are artificially disadvantaged on the market, which is not open, and it's substantially different in this sense from all the other mediums. A good book or movie can cut through the clutter by word of mouth or good reviews, while it's far more difficult for the same thing to happen with a game, because all the good reviews in the world won't help a game that isn't even on the shelf in the first place.
It's what the readers want. (Score:3, Insightful)
They read previews to be excited for a few months, enjoying the anticipation of playing the greatest game ever. They're reading the magazine to get a little lift. In short, most readers *aren't* curmudgeons.
With positive previews everybody wins. Pages are filled, publishers get free publicity, stores pre-order more games, magazines get a closer relationship with the publisher, advertisers (who want happy game-buying readers) are happier, and readers get their thrill of anticipation (which takes their mind off the game they're playing now...)
Outside of a few curmugeons like me (and many of the previous posters), people no more want honesty in gaming magazines than they do in health magazines ("forget special diets - simply eat less calories and get moderate exercise" doesn't benefit anyone. The advertisers don't want it, and neither do the readers). The magazines give people what they want, and the one's that chose different paths have all gone bankrupt.
If you want *real* reviews by people who paste games that "deserve it", smaller websites that don't depend on readers or game advertising for financing (i.e. labors of love) are the only viable medium.
Re:Love the honesty (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, I think the problem is that people expect a game followed by an "Endgame". The *GAME* is the process of getting to 50, not what you do when you get there. If you don't like the proces of leveling up and developing a character, then don't play the game. I am constantly hearing of people who start a game, find a way to powerlevel through to the end of the game then whine that there is no content and that they are bored. Of course they are fucking bored, they bypassed 95% of the game to get to the end. Its like renting a DvD, fast forwarding to the last 5 mins and then complaining that it was a boring movie and didn't make sense.
I think designers need to start designing games that are enjoyable to play as a process, as a journey, and fuck the people who think the game starts when they get to the end
Parent