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Game Previews Just Game Marketing? 282


Game Previews Just Game Marketing?

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12, 2006 @06:33PM (#14903970)
  • Love the honesty (Score:1, Interesting)

    by brennz (715237) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @06:37PM (#14903982)
    "the circle jerk is complete"

    This is how I feel about World of Warcraft, AKA FactionQuest AKA World of PVEcraft, AKA one of the most unambitious mediocre games ever published.

    In WOW, endgame content basically consists of endless faction farming, nonstop instance grinding, and totally shitty PVP based primarily on gear.

    I'd give my left nut for a revamp back to the original Ultima Online (which, strangely, had far superior endgame to most of the modern MMORPGs).

    Gaming companies now are just going to follow Blizzard's lead for the next 5 years churning out shit games with polished UIs and somewhat decent netcode, instead of making something novel, inspiring and nonrepetitive.

    That article hits the money.
  • Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Radish03 (248960) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @06:41PM (#14903996)
  • by tengennewseditor (949731) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @06:43PM (#14904005)



  • by AtariDatacenter (31657) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @06:59PM (#14904073)


    "6.7 out of 10"
  • by FearTheFrail (666535) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @07:04PM (#14904091)



  • Re:Easy to Criticize (Score:2, Interesting)

    by urbaer (778997) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @07:09PM (#14904113)
    They're par for the course and an acceptable trade-off.

    "Having only played through the initial levels in a tightly restricted early beta test, it would be dangerous to jump to conclusions..."

    My point therefore is go find a mag that doesn't gush over previews, they exist. I've found that multiformat mags are a little less gushy than single format mags, but hey.
  • by payndz (589033) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @07:13PM (#14904122)

    To fill pages.





  • by 91degrees (207121) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @07:25PM (#14904172) Journal

  • by soupforare (542403) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @07:26PM (#14904176)
    I love how not one of those reviewers had MOO3 down as less than average.
  • by Lewisham (239493) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @07:38PM (#14904210)



  • by MBCook (132727) <> on Sunday March 12, 2006 @07:51PM (#14904276) Homepage
    How about something like this (I made this up):







  • by Henry V .009 (518000) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @08:32PM (#14904396) Journal

  • Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by aiken_d (127097) <`brooks' `at' `'> on Sunday March 12, 2006 @08:48PM (#14904447) Homepage

    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 and the release, and then end up making a purchasing decision based on the demos? Just seems like weird logic to me.

  • Freebie Hardware (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TubeSteak (669689) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @08:59PM (#14904482) Journal


    Either the deal works, and they get a random system like anyone else would, or the PR/Marketing guys intervene and the reviewer + several other lucky folks get computers that received a little extra attention.
  • Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by chris_7d0h (216090) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @09:03PM (#14904496) Journal
    What I was referring to was the implementation, not the ideas governing the implementation.
    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 inhouse development in cross project form. Developers like to experiment with new stuff and applying new algorithms or patterns to a known problem seems to keep them happy (avoids them being turned into factory workers i guess) and gives them a way to further educate themselves. However, this often impacts the deliverables in a (from a product manager's perspective) negative way since it introduces more unknown factors and deviations with each re-implementaion of a problem solution, than would seem necessary from the inception outlook.

    Engineering in other segments (like the tangible sectors) of the market is simply more strict than in the software market, the latter where people build castles from thin air (pure thought stuff). In software the cost of trying out new approaches to problems is significantly lower than in the tangible markets which gives bored programmers a whole new set of freedoms when it comes to experimentation.

    On a macro level though, the same governing rules apply as in the tangible segments. Stick with a proven formula since it minimizes risk. Yeah, it's boring and yields unimaginative products but that's what you get when the Harvard grads are sitting on the money bag.

    The point I was originally trying to make was that when you pre-order stuff, you do it when you pretty much know what the product will be like. Final products can be predicted pretty well in the utility market but not in the entertainment segment. Utilities are built, marketed and sold upon proven formulas and solid history while entertainment are (or should strive for) about providing new experiences which may often require unproven formulas (higher risk and subjective in appreciation which if appreciated by many can bring in the jackpot). Since entertainment is based on subjective experiences it lends itself poorly at pre-ordering strategies from a consumer's point of view (the unpredicatable nature of the result that is).

  • by Henry V .009 (518000) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @09:56PM (#14904654) Journal
    "Amazing freedom and scope"?

    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 at Planescape Torment or Fallout to see a game with scope. (Sadly, Bethesda has got its grimy maws on the Fallout franchise; RIP.)

    Instead of paying people to troll slashdot to talk up the next Bethesda bug-fest, maybe they should spend a bit more money and a first-class design and programming team.
  • by billcopc (196330) <> on Sunday March 12, 2006 @10:39PM (#14904809) Homepage

    They're not known for making innovative eye-popping works of interactive art, they're known for doing piss-poor me-too ripoffs of whatever's trendy. Just look at their list of releases over the last 15 years.. they don't even have a specialty. You can't really play a game and say "Ooh that's a Bethesda".. At least EA, hate them as we may, they have recognizable sports titles and solid (if cheapened) franchises like Need For Speed. A game house needs to be more than just generic coders with a big-ticket license.. it needs creative direction.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12, 2006 @11:03PM (#14904890)

        Wrong. Master of Orion 3 kicks ass. It is simply the best game ever.

        What does suck about MOO3 is the bugs of which alot were fixed by the players. MOO3 needs a bug fix release.

    fyi, I am not a PAID reviewer of the game. Just a dedicated player of MOO3.
  • Review inflation (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13, 2006 @12:17AM (#14905121)
    That's why I loved X-play on TechTV. They weren't afraid to tell people to avoid games like they came with free samples of anthrax. They actually rated games 2 out of 5! (There might have even been some ones here and there.) I really felt that a game in a genre that I liked that rated 4 out 5 would be a good buy when it was on sale, and a 3 would be a mostly entertaining waste of time, but not something to actually purchase. I haven't been able to watch them in almost a year, so I've only seen about two of the G4 produced episodes.
    This is of course in contrast with the other video game review shows on G4 now, which suck so hard that they were studied by Dyson and Oreck. Their shows suffer from score inflation as much as any magazine. Even if they spend the whole time saying that the game was pretty much OK, the games still get a 7 or 8 our of 10.
  • by m0ng0l (654467) on Monday March 13, 2006 @12:26AM (#14905148)

    So, the bad previews get editorialized into something positive about game X, despite the fact that they were using alpha code, or maybe just pre-rendered screenshots, or even just the design document. Then, readers get geeked up about the game, wait 6 months for preview number 2, which is even more sugary sweetly positive, pre-oder, which convinces the retailers that the game will be a hit, so they get prepped to stock up.

    Then, the game comes out, and sucks. Happens on the PC, happens on the consoles (maybe worse there?) Happens with hardware (oh look! This video card that isn't even in engineering samples will have 6 quintillion transistors, 1 million pixel pipelines, and support DirectX25, plus full Linux and DOS support! Lets write a positive preview of it to get a sample when it actually goes to silicon!)

    One of the hardware sites a couple months back did a power-supply test. However, they didn't request samples from the manufacturers, they went shopping on the web, and ordered from retailers. They did get permission to use a power supply manufacturers test lab, but still bought and brought in a retail package from a web store, of that manufacturers brand. And also managed to convince said company to leave them alone with the test equipment...

    Not sure how they managed that one...

    I've gotten more and more un-impressed with previews. Either they preview goes on about great new features, that don't make the final release (BF2s dynamically re-sizeing maps), or there is just no "meat" to the article, to give a taste of what might be good about the game...
  • by wjamesau (221905) on Monday March 13, 2006 @04:06AM (#14905746)
    Thanks for the fascinating conversation, Slashdotters. Two quick corrections:

    - My name is actually "Wagner James Au".


    > market would be too risky to enter.

  • Well, I do (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Moraelin (679338) on Monday March 13, 2006 @04:11AM (#14905763) Journal


    Frankly, I never got the seemingly rampant point of view that if you dare say anything bad about a game, or even admit that you read negative reviews, then you're a horrible person, an anti-gamer or game-hater, a troll, and/or a fanboy of the competition. There's this idiotic notion that if it's a game, we should all treat it nicely and say only the nicest stuff. God forbid that someone would be so inconsiderate and hurt the poor developpers' feelings by saying that a game sucks.

    Why? It's a product I'm buying, and not even a cheap product. Why is it so fundamentally wrong to make an informed decision about buying it? Why is it so wrong to give me the whole picture instead of a sweetened sales-pitch?

    It's the same as any other product. If I buy a TV, I want to know if this model's image looks kinda fuzzy or the de-interlacing makes it laggy for console gaming. (Some HDTV models do just that, for example.) I _don't_ want the reviewer to carefully skip all the bad parts. If I buy something as cheap as, dunno, a pair of cheap computer speaker, it would be nice if someone told me in advance "dude, playing anything through these, sounds like playing it through an old Casio watch stuck in an empty plastic barrel". (Don't laugh, I have some speakers that sound just like that.) Etc. All I'm asking is the same for games. It's not that unreasonable a request.

    And on the topic of previews, I don't expect them to predict the future and say "omg, this game is gonna suck". But it would be nice to tell me what works now and what _doesn't_ work now. Does the AI actually do yet what the developpers said it would do? Do the graphics actually look like in the developpers screenshots, or maybe in practice do you have to turn the graphics quality to a _lot_ lower to get more than a slide-show? Does the game system and resource system make any sense, or do you "mine for fish" like in the VG Cats comic strip and get bone by cutting wood? Does the story, as much of it as you can preview, make any sense? How's the balance so far? Does one class kill everything by just repeatedly clicking the left mouse button, while the other needs 15 mana potions per fight? Etc.

    (BTW, the above are not even exaggerations, sadly, but actual examples from games I've played.)

    It doesn't even have to be the meat of the preview, you know. It can just be a "stuff that doesn't work yet" section at the end.

    Yes, we all know that it could get better before release, and feel free to even include a reminder if you wish. But ffs, don't make it sound like it _already_ _is_ better anything that ever happened before, sex included, and so perfectly realistic and detailed that God himself is taking notes for the next time he creates a world.
  • No surprise here (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jamyskis (958091) on Monday March 13, 2006 @04:13AM (#14905769) Homepage
    As someone who works in journalism (not a gaming rag though) I know the laziness that sometimes permeates through the industry. Mostly these previews are just rehashed press releases and the screenshots have been ready-completed by the publisher, and generally look far better than the game actually does (Age of Empires III anyone?) I'd love to know what happened to the "investigative" reporting that made this profession so great instead of acting as a free marketing channel for these companies?
  • Too cynical (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13, 2006 @05:16AM (#14905947)
    most companies dont set out to made mediocre games, nor are there too many really bad games anymore; they arent economically viable (Xtreme Paintbrawl wasnt a financial success, was it?)

    But let's face it: companies have to get the games out the door. They can't all spend decades in development, polishing the turd like DNF or Daikatana. They don't all have a Peter Molineaux to overhype a game, then leave disappointed gamers playing some crappy game that didnt have any features he claimed.

    So most games have a decent premise, and are hopefully able to get a stable game out the door (yes, Trioka, I'm looking at you). And hopefully, the game resonates with enough gamers to where a sequel can be made. Look at how many sequels end up surpassing the original in terms of the overall experience. It's because the first game forms the base, and the company can build on that. But too many devs try shooting for the moon right at the start, and never focus on doing any one thing good by the time their game is forced out the door.
  • You'll notice (Score:2, Interesting)

    by SirSmiley (845591) <siraraya AT hotmail DOT com> on Monday March 13, 2006 @07:11AM (#14906224)
    that in same gamepro, gamespy or any other print media/online gaming mag/any other product review mag that when they preview something they will never say "game doesnt have X, game doesnt have Y". What they will say is "looking forward to this game having X and Y, that will be a blast". It's the polite way of saying, please add this or your game will suck, and the reader will never know whether the product was originally designed to have it or if the previewers just think it should be that way,
  • by Shano (179535) on Monday March 13, 2006 @08:22AM (#14906453)

    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 even if you don't give a toss about Dagoth Ur.

    As for scope, most of that comes from third-party mods, some of which have better storylines than the original game. As long as Oblivion still has the contruction kit, it's guaranteed not to suck completely, at least after a couple of patches. I admit to being a Bethesda fanboy (at least for their RPGs), but if the first release doesn't crash every five minutes with no warning, it's just not a Bethesda game.

  • Re:Easy to Criticize (Score:2, Interesting)

    by bri2000 (931484) on Monday March 13, 2006 @12:57PM (#14908499)
    Not only are Edge's previews notably well written, willing to offer constructive criticism and objective they will follow games through the development process (subject, I guess, to developer co-operation) and list any previous issues of Edge in which the game has been featured. Allowing you to trace their evolving view on a game.

    The GamesTM preview section isn't bad either, although I have noticed it becoming a little more "gushy" recently
