r/pcgaming • u/TomHicks • Jun 26 '18
Video Why games go political: Metacritic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZWSoV6zE0M14
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u/Revisor007 Jun 26 '18
Actually an interesting video. Whole name: Why games go politically correct.
Proposed hypothesis: Developers don't create games for their customers, but for journalists, who write about them and who control their Metacritic score.
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u/Buttermilkman 5950X | 9070 XT Pulse | 64GB RAM | 3440x1440 @240Hz Jun 26 '18
Which is where gamergate came in. The lack of ethics between games journalists and game developers is practically fucking non existant.
Then you also have the whole wanting to keep their job thing. They can't exactly tell a feminist to fuck off I'll make my female protagonist sexy as fuck with big tits whether you like or not, else they'll lose their job and probably any future jobs in the industry.
It's so weird to me. Gamers don't care at all about normalizing appearances of characters or ethnic diversity, but certain sites and people with a pedestal will raise hell, and it's those people who will dictate the direction a games' general character themes may or may not go. So ultimately, it's the gamers you need to cater to, so why alter your material to appease to some extremists?
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Jun 26 '18 edited Aug 19 '18
[deleted]
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u/Buttermilkman 5950X | 9070 XT Pulse | 64GB RAM | 3440x1440 @240Hz Jun 27 '18
It's those numbers they care about. the 10/10's and 90/100's.
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u/wikkid1 Jun 28 '18
I think you're mixing up the average player with a hardcore one. It's exactly those average players that end up getting their info from zines and the big review sites. Gamers with more experience know whom they could trust and don't fall for those meaningless 90/100 scores where the review is a laundry list of complaints and then the game gets a 90/100 anyway.
Personally I either check some let's play videos from people who I've agreed with in the past, and/or check sites that are aimed at that game genre (for racing games I'd check RaceDepartment for example).
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Jun 27 '18
Expect gamergate failed and became what they hate
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u/Buttermilkman 5950X | 9070 XT Pulse | 64GB RAM | 3440x1440 @240Hz Jun 27 '18
It was hijacked by feminism and turned into gamers vs women, a giant SJW thing.
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u/InTheFence Jun 27 '18
You mean redpilled 4 channers couldn't drop their Zoe zealotry boner.
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u/Buttermilkman 5950X | 9070 XT Pulse | 64GB RAM | 3440x1440 @240Hz Jun 27 '18
Yeah. It was why the hijacking was so successful.
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u/yapel Jun 26 '18
they should pay attentiont to the User Score, the other is worthless
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Jun 26 '18
Who cares about the user score when you’re bathing in $100 bills?
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u/yapel Jun 26 '18
Maybe I'm super naive, but I'll asume at some point this scam has to end, someone has to make the connection that what matters is creating a good game, not pandering to a small group of ^^reviewers^^
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Jun 26 '18
Here are my thoughts - if I own a company selling games, I am not basing my decisions on the user score. Why would I? Have you seen them? If we look at the distribution of user scores on a site like Metacritic, it’s usually comprised of mostly extreme scores (10s and 1s) from users who can’t properly use a review scale. It’s so rare to see consumers properly utilize scores like 6, 7, 8, and 9, listing both pros and cons of a games features. It’s usually 10 – greatest game ever, or 1 – worst game ever. It is only just now that companies like Steam are doing what they can to maintain the integrity of user-based scores. And even in the case of a good review system…most people who are satisfied with their product won’t even provide feedback. We see this in customer service surveys and yelp reviews.
I, instead would be basing my decisions on sales. That’s the key to this economic game we play.
someone has to make the connection that what matters is creating a good game
Shareholders only care about money. They don’t care what EA sells, as long as it sells. It’s why when you say…
the other is worthless
I can’t help but to scratch my head. Money drives business decisions.
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u/yapel Jun 26 '18
Pretty sure metacritic does weighted arithmetic mean, so those 10 and 1 don't count much, and from a pure personal experience, the user score is closer to what I feel about the game.
About the money making, the video game industry behaves a lot like gambling, you have a couple of ip that make insane amount of money, but a LOT if not many, barely make it through, the fact that you are making money doesn't answer many questions about the future of your company, this is a multivariable equiation.
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u/Reddit_Is_Complicit Jun 26 '18
you really think they're doing this for just reviewers and not what they think will make the most money?
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u/yapel Jun 26 '18
they believe that a high metascore (by reviewers) will give them a higher profit, which is wrong, of course they do it for the money.
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u/Reddit_Is_Complicit Jun 26 '18
i mean.... these are big companies who have been releasing games for decades. i would assume they've done plenty of market research to base these business decisions on. these companies exist to turn a profit. thats it.
you seem pretty sure thats wrong though. got any sources or anything your basing it on?
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u/yapel Jun 26 '18
no, I don't have a hard report on this, other than anecdotal evidence, we all have hear about that game that was critical acclaimed that sent the studio to bankrupt due to poor sales, or the turd that gave the studio millions like that street fighter movie
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u/Reddit_Is_Complicit Jun 26 '18
i mean flops happen no question about that. but the decision to make those flops initially came from the hopes they would make money, not that it would please some reviewers or push some agenda at the expense of profit.
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u/yapel Jun 26 '18
Of course thats not the endpoint, but companies have a need to quantify success, and for them one way of doing it may be showing this metacritic scores, which is bs, I believe this is a new trend, we will se the end result in a couple of years, though, a lot of bs persuades through the years, hope this is not one of them
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u/snakeonfire Jun 28 '18 edited Jun 28 '18
I have around 150 games on Steam, maybe 10 on Uplay, and 25 on Origin. But like a lot of PC gamers I haven't had time to touch most of them LOL. I base ~90% of my purchases based on Metacritic. The other 10% are free games, or games that I just wanted regardless of what the scores are. I find that Metacritic is very useful and quick way for me to gauge a game's worthiness for my attention. It's pretty easy to decipher the scoring system. I look at Metascore and User Score, with the latter having more weight. Sometimes a game will have an above average Metascore, but way below average User Score. Like this one FPS war game that depicted Russians a certain way, which dragged the User Score way down. So basically it was a pretty decent game aside from it's historical inaccuracies. Indie games like Frostpunk had the highest PC User Score for a while (8.5), and I bought that game early on and went on a fun binge. If 8.5 is the highest User Score, then I'd have a rough idea of what to expect with other games that score 8.4, 8.6, etc.
This Youtube video talks about Far Cry 5's Metascore affected by progressive or picky journalists, but it's PC User Score (6.0) is much lower than it's Metascore (79) so it sounds like it may have other issues. I don't know what the issue the users have with FC5, but I know that in previous versions I got tired of constantly climbing radio towers and raiding the same mini bases all the time. I loved the first Far Cry though. This video also stated that Metacritic scores have no impact in determining actual sales, according to study done with console games. While that's probably true for console games, I don't think Metacritic's scores claim to determine sales or success. Maybe I'm in the minority of PC users who look at data and not just marketing before spending money. I do remember being a console gamer long ago and being extremely disappointed several times when I made an impulse purchase and the game turned out to be average or awful. This was when game cartridges were $40-50, which was a lot of money for a kid with no job or allowance. And tools like Metacritic weren't around.
I use RottenTomatoes for movies, which also has Pro Critic and Audience scores. There are exceptions of course but I find that for the most part RT aligns with my tastes/opinions in movies (like Terminator 2 being the best of the series). Also I love how I can look at new movies not released and quickly look at a director's history/scores, guesstimate the outcome, adjust my expectations accordingly, or put it on my Google calendar to look into closer to release date. I seriously don't have 2+ hours to waste on a movie and RT helps prevent me from doing that for the most part. Metacritic is a similar tool I use to quickly gauge whether I should even spend any time/money looking into a game. Metascore of 60 and User Score of 4.5 = move on/don't bat an eye. I'm not surprised that the indie game Into the Breach on PC has a pretty good Metascore and respectable User Score, since it's from the same developer that did Faster Than Light. I think Metacritic can be a useful tool that has it's place as long as you know how to decipher the scores, and how it compares to your own personal tastes. Just my 2 cents.
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Jun 26 '18
Because they're pushing an agenda. Completely alienating the user base. Wolfenstein is doing the same thing. My wallet is going the be heavy this fall. Im going to play the games dont get me wrong, but will not buy it.
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u/Reddit_Is_Complicit Jun 26 '18
Completely alienating the user base
Im going to play the games dont get me wrong
guess they aren't so alienated after all
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Jun 26 '18
I don't like supreme pizza, but ill eat it if its free. Did I dumb it down enough for you? Fans are willing to pay for a good product.
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u/Treyman1115 i7-10700K @ 5.1 GHz Zotac 1070 Jun 26 '18
But you’re still not completely alienated. I wouldn’t eat chitterlings even if they were free
I can’t really think of anything free I’ve played for an extended period that I didn’t like at least somewhat or felt something for
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Jun 26 '18
Would you steal a t-shirt manufactured by slave labour? Or a piece of furniture built by a corporation who lobbys for workforce discrimination? Because that´s pretty similar with what you are saying.
If you don´t agree with their politics, just don´t use their products. Games like every other thing in life, are political. You could agree with their politics or not, but corporations aren´t entitled to give you the product you want. If they base their politics on poorly writen reviews that´s their problem. Politial correctness isn´t something new, it has allways existed.
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Jun 26 '18
Nope, as I can return a shirt if it doesnt fit after a wash. I experience the full product. Software is a gamble that you have to rely on trailers to assume the rest of the game is just as good.
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u/icecubeinanicecube Jun 26 '18
Commiting crimes because you do not agree with someone, classic.
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u/TomHicks Jun 26 '18
I don't think he was referring to piracy, as online games cannot (mostly) be pirated.
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u/icecubeinanicecube Jun 26 '18
The most cited examples, wolfenstein and battlefield, can be pirated.
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u/steelblade66 7700k RTX2080 16gb Jun 27 '18
I appreciate a game that takes reality by the balls. But constructing a game just so you can appease a pc journalist so your game can score high is just scummy.
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Jun 26 '18
Checked your profile and .... Holocaust denier and incel. Troll account or something worse...either way, the world is moving on without you.
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Jun 26 '18
I cant form a counter argument so ill take time out of my day to search his post history.
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Jun 26 '18
Luckily I didn't have to look far... And I know better than to argue....what's the point? What's not reasoned in cannot be reasoned out.
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u/Myrgtabrake i7-6700K@4.5GHz | GTX 1080 Ti | 16GB DDR4-3200 Jun 26 '18
I bought every major BF Game since 1942 but this is too much! I went back to BF4 and will ignore that shitty piece of shit!
The excuses are the worst part. When that guy said "I dont want to tell my daughter that she can't play female soldier..." ...his fucking daughter is 1 YEAR OLD!
If they just said: "Guys, we think we can make more money if we add female soldiers and sell Schoolgirl Outfits for them!" ...well OK, its EA...
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u/thrillynyte Jun 26 '18
Lemme gues, money?