PSM praises writing of Fallout: New Vegas

[Buxbaum666]

I think it's an overblown complaint based on a stupid article. The truth is, in order to really show this problem, you need to catch the same author missing a flaw and noting it in a preview without any cuing from the devs, and that probably doesn't happen very often. Certainly, no one bothered to meet that criterion before complaining here.

Oh, really? http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=37708

 

[Stardude82]

I for one am optimisitic..

All I've read seems to confirm that it follows a lot of the material which is in the FO Bible and probably even recycles a lot of the material from Van Buren. The intact nature of Vegas is even a possible reference to Wasteland where "after the bombs fell, a number of Russian officers had their markers torn up."

 

[Crni Vuk]

I'm not worried about Chris, I'm worried about the timeframe he's working in.

Presumably the KOTOR2 experience has provided Obsidian with some tools built out of crisis time. I expect they have learned a bit from that history!

Letz hope they did cause I quite liked Kotor but sadly you can feel on many locations that it was limited or that some parts of the story have been cut out. I think there is even fan projects that try to work on that but I cant remember any of them right now. Not sure if they simply have collected the dialogues or if they even want to get some in a mod.

Anyway. Most people seem to have big hopes when it comes to the story for Fallout NV. But I hope they also try to give some of the locations live or a meaning no towns with 3 sacks and 5 people anymore please ...

 

[Jesse Heinig]

That's not quite as common a motivation as "If we give the game a shit review, we will never get a preview peek at any game by this company again, which means we will not be able to compete on content with other review magazines/websites."

I agree. Your scenario is definitely what happens in the gaming press all of the time.

My scenario was specific to Bethesda, although I'm sure other companies handle it that way too. One of the first reviews I read for Fallout 3 was for a very prominent webpage, and the guy spent his first paragraph bragging about the hotel Bethesda put him up in to do their supervised demo.

It's a sad truth; I've seen it happen.

If you want to be competitive when writing game reviews and previews, you have to show exclusive early looks at content, because that will bring in readers.

If you want exclusive early looks at content, you must appease the content creators, which means giving them good reviews.

It's a vicious cycle; give someone a bad review, lose your early preview privileges, go out of business as your competitors gobble up your reader share.

Now you could always run, say, a website that only posts reviews, and posts honest reviews. You would never get preview content, you would have to purchase your games like everyone else, and you'd probably get some hate mail and even a C&D or two, but you would be free to write unbiased, unvarnished reviews. One would think that a consistently good review writer could write a blog and get a pretty good rep and readership like this, but a consistently good writer like that would be the kind of guy you'd snap up, put on a payroll and then tell that he can't write negative press.

 

[Sorrow]

It doesn't matter what are the reasons, they are crooks and should be locked up for what they do.

 

[Sander]

It doesn't matter what are the reasons, they are crooks and should be locked up for what they do.

Yes, let's lock up people for writing shitty reviews. Awesome!

 

[Sorrow]

They don't write "shitty" reviews. They write misleading reviews that make people buy a very expensive product of dubious quality.
What they really do is writing advertisement articles (for which they are paid with exclusive content) without informing the readers that it's an advertisement.
If information can be denied for writing a "bad" review and if that information decides about be or not to be of a magazine (so, it has a real, tangible value), then receiving that information should be treated in the same way as actually receiving payment for writing a praising "reviews" - writing a sponsored article/advertisement, not a real review.

 

[frosty_theaussie]

It doesn't matter what are the reasons, they are crooks and should be locked up for what they do.

There isn't enough space in prison for that many terrible writers. We'll have to find a city, cordon it off, and let them loose within. Like Escape from New York. Except New York is too good for them. So more like, Escape from Detroit.

 

[Sander]

They don't write "shitty" reviews. They write misleading reviews that make people buy a very expensive product of dubious quality.

They don't make anyone do anything. They provide advertisements fronting as reviews, in a magazine or on a site filled with actual advertisements for those games because they think that's what they have to do to run a profitable business. If we lock up everyone who works with the goal of making money, we wouldn't have anyone left.

 

[Dionysus]

I think it's an overblown complaint based on a stupid article. The truth is, in order to really show this problem, you need to catch the same author missing a flaw and noting it in a preview without any cuing from the devs, and that probably doesn't happen very often. Certainly, no one bothered to meet that criterion before complaining here.

Oh, really? http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=37708

Yes, that is the stupid article I was referring to.

 

[jero cvmi]

They provide advertisements fronting as reviews

Yeah, well even in a free market regime, selling something fronting as something else is illegal.

 

[Sander]

I think it's an overblown complaint based on a stupid article. The truth is, in order to really show this problem, you need to catch the same author missing a flaw and noting it in a preview without any cuing from the devs, and that probably doesn't happen very often. Certainly, no one bothered to meet that criterion before complaining here.

You're saying that people complain about criticism of Fallout 3 now without looking at the history of the specific writer? That'd be a fair criticism.
But it also misses the point. When Fallout 3 came out, you never heard that criticism at all except from smaller sites. You started to hear hints of that criticism several months later, when the reviews were already largely irrelevant. It isn't just an indictment of specific authors, it's an indictment of tendencies you see almost everywhere.

Yeah, well even in a free market regime, selling something fronting as something else is illegal.

Not in a completely free market. 'Cause that'd be what totally free markets do.
Anyway, that's a bit of a moot point given that there are no truly free markets.

Magazines still review games, and the reviews may feel like advertisments but they're not actually advertisements. They are heavily influenced by the politics of their business. It's not kosher, but it certainly isn't illegal.

 

[Sorrow]

They provide advertisements fronting as reviews, in a magazine or on a site filled with actual advertisements for those games because they think that's what they have to do to run a profitable business.

It depends on advertisement law. In Poland sponsored articles and advertisement needs to be marked as such.
Advertisement that pretends to not be advertisement is illegal.

If we lock up everyone who works with the goal of making money, we wouldn't have anyone left.

Not every paying job involves being a crook and generally those that do are a cancer of the society.
Simply, no one forced them to con honest customers out of their money. If they can't be gaming journalists without being crooks, they should find themselves another job that actually contributes something to society.

 

[Sander]

It depends on advertisement law. In Poland sponsored articles and advertisement needs to be marked as such.
Advertisement that pretends to not be advertisement is illegal.

The articles aren't sponsored.

Not every paying job involves being a crook and generally those that do are a cancer of the society.

If someone's worst sin is writing a bad video game review that's just fine with me.

 

[Ixyroth]

They provide advertisements fronting as reviews, in a magazine or on a site filled with actual advertisements for those games because they think that's what they have to do to run a profitable business.

It depends on advertisement law. In Poland sponsored articles and advertisement needs to be marked as such.
Advertisement that pretends to not be advertisement is illegal.

If we lock up everyone who works with the goal of making money, we wouldn't have anyone left.

Not every paying job involves being a crook and generally those that do are a cancer of the society.

Big pharma knowingly murders people for profit. There's a long list of reptilian predators and game development isn't anywhere near the top.

As to Obsidian, writing quality is not the issue. The trouble is finishing what they start.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

It's a sad truth; I've seen it happen.

If you want to be competitive when writing game reviews and previews, you have to show exclusive early looks at content, because that will bring in readers.

If you want exclusive early looks at content, you must appease the content creators, which means giving them good reviews.

It's a vicious cycle; give someone a bad review, lose your early preview privileges, go out of business as your competitors gobble up your reader share.

Now you could always run, say, a website that only posts reviews, and posts honest reviews. You would never get preview content, you would have to purchase your games like everyone else, and you'd probably get some hate mail and even a C&D or two, but you would be free to write unbiased, unvarnished reviews. One would think that a consistently good review writer could write a blog and get a pretty good rep and readership like this, but a consistently good writer like that would be the kind of guy you'd snap up, put on a payroll and then tell that he can't write negative press.

strange. in the music world it's the opposite. for record labels, most magazines won't review your releases unless you pay a certain amount of money for ads in their magazines...but even then you're only guaranteed a review, not a good one. just a review. the magazine holds the upper hand and still maintains the ability to hold artists and labels accountable for releasing shit.

how the fuck has the gaming industry missed out on this? is it the slightly juvenile nature of the medium and it's majority fan-base? because i'm about to weep for justice right now.

 

[Dionysus]

But it also misses the point. When Fallout 3 came out, you never heard that criticism at all except from smaller sites. You started to hear hints of that criticism several months later, when the reviews were already largely irrelevant. It isn't just an indictment of specific authors, it's an indictment of tendencies you see almost everywhere.

But those tendencies are obvious and easily explicable. I suspect that everyone has a much easier time criticizing a game when it's been out for months. At that point, I can even name problems that don't bother me personally, but do bother others. Millions of people will tend to come up with a wider variety of complaints than one person. Even if game reviewers were rigorous, well paid, and given plenty of time, this sort of thing would still happen (although to a lesser extent).

And this current item doesn't even involve any explicit retrospective revaluation. It's not like they are saying that FO3 had bad writing. They are just saying that NV appears to have better dialog, which shouldn't surprise anyone.

how the fuck has the gaming industry missed out on this? is it the slightly juvenile nature of the medium and it's majority fan-base?

That's pretty much it. The mainstream media doesn't take videogames seriously unless there's some sort of sex/violence controversy. The numerous trade mags cater to a young and unsophisticated audience.

 

[Brother None]

It's just a balance of power thing, Twinks. If all the magazines ganged together and turned on the game publishers, it'd soon be over. But they're not going to do that, they're fine being in their inferior position.

Why? Well why not? This deal is sweet, it works for everyone. Publishers get their free PR, magazines/sites get their free copies and lots of sales/visits. Sure, no one takes gaming journalism even remotely seriously and sometimes the realization that they're a joke eats them up, but they can live with that in exchange of a steady paycheck. And consumers...

Well there's the thing. You'd call them the victim and to some extent they are. But to some extent, this myth that we're looking at an awesome gaming industry producing nothing but classics is so self-enforcing that a lot of consumers buy into it, and they're fine just eating the crap the industry shovels at them. It's not fair, but on the other hand, if they enjoy it, let them.

It's mostly the critical consumer that gets shanked. And I'm not sure that's relevant enough a group, in size.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

It depends on advertisement law. In Poland sponsored articles and advertisement needs to be marked as such.
Advertisement that pretends to not be advertisement is illegal.

The articles aren't sponsored.

Sending people free products and treating them to vacations and hotel stays to review your game sounds pretty "sponsored" to me. It's a loophole, but not one that couldn't be gotten rid of if there was a will.

is it the slightly juvenile nature of the medium

I think it's this one. As well as the fact that there just aren't as many games and game companies as there are music artists and labels. In the music world, if you aren't well-advertised, fans of the genre could overlook you and go for something else. In the gaming world, I'd say games could do about as well with the gaming journals as they would without. If you think of it, in this case the game companies create jobs for the journalists and not visa versa.

But those tendencies are obvious and easily explicable.

Being able to explain it makes it any better how? They're still doing a shitty job. And TBH, I'd say if I as a casual gamer can come up with a few specific issues in the first few hours, then the professional reviewer with a lot more experience should do that twice as fast. Also, it's one thing when a reviewer misses a thing or two, and another if it doesn't want to look for flaws from the get-go.

 

[Sander]

But those tendencies are obvious and easily explicable. I suspect that everyone has a much easier time criticizing a game when it's been out for months. At that point, I can even name problems that don't bother me personally, but do bother others. Millions of people will tend to come up with a wider variety of complaints than one person. Even if game reviewers were rigorous, well paid, and given plenty of time, this sort of thing would still happen (although to a lesser extent).

These are professionals, and they get paid plenty to do their jobs. They don't do it and that isn't news to anyone, but that doesn't mean we can't point it out.

And this current item doesn't even involve any explicit retrospective revaluation. It's not like they are saying that FO3 had bad writing. They are just saying that NV appears to have better dialog, which shouldn't surprise anyone.

If you read the Fallout 3 reviews (and before that the Oblivion reviews) you'd think the writers were the best thing to happen to gaming since pong.

Sending people free products and treating them to vacations and hotel stays to review your game sounds pretty "sponsored" to me. It's a loophole, but not one that couldn't be gotten rid of if there was a will.

Sure. I'm not saying it's a good situation, but it's not illegal.