The misunderstanding of fallout 4 & the effects of hype based marketing article

T

theburnedman

First time out of the vault
*it won't let me post the link so just go to their front page if you want to read the article*
Hello guys, as y'all might notice I just recently joined. I am a member of SugarBombed, which you may know is another fallout focused forum that opened not too long ago. Although intelligent discussion is often hard to come by on there because of the amount of bethesda fanboys, once in a while one of their writers (they have their own articles that they publish on the sites front page) will put out a good article that will get me thinking, especially this user named allout.

I suggest you guys read it, it's quite interesting. But if you don't want to wade through all of those paragraphs I'll give a brief summary: The writer brings up an article from Kotaku that is pretty much bashing Fallout 4 for not being nearly as good a game or deep an rpg as 1/2/NV, but the writer points out in her review of the game she is actually very positive. He questions why that is, and sums it up as Bethesda's expert marketing and all the hype around the game before the announcement causing people to look past some of the game's flaws initially. He says how this is a good strategy in the short term because sales and review scores, but a bad thing in the long term as many people just 2 months after release are already disappointed.

I don't know how accurately I summed that up so once again I just suggest you to read it for yourself and discuss below.
 
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Let me address a few points in that article(my opinion only obviously)
  • Review by committee is never a good idea, you just end up with a concession to the min max of the group.
  • FO4 was not doomed to fail. Obsidian gave Bethesda a very concise template to make a "modern" fallout game.
  • I never sat around chomping at the Bethesda bit waiting for FO4 to make the world right.
Bethesda's marketing principal is fairly primal, starve the animal, deny it any attention, and just as it's about to turn hostile you feed it scraps and call it gourmet.
 
Spacemunkey said:
Let me address a few points in that article(my opinion only obviously)
  • Review by committee is never a good idea, you just end up with a concession to the min max of the group.
  • FO4 was not doomed to fail. Obsidian gave Bethesda a very concise template to make a "modern" fallout game.
  • I never sat around chomping at the Bethesda bit waiting for FO4 to make the world right.
Bethesda's marketing principal is fairly primal, starve the animal, deny it any attention, and just as it's about to turn hostile you feed it scraps and call it gourmet.
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The fact that Bethesda completely fucking ignored that template still hurts my brain.
 
Here's something that I will never understand about video game fans-

Why would anybody, unless they work for Bethesda or are a stockholder in Zenimax, be invested in any way in Fallout 4's sales or review scores?

There is precisely one potential sale that is meaningful to me (i.e. whether or not I buy it) and I only care about reviews insofar as the opinions and experiences of people who value the same sorts of things in games that I do.
 
PossibleCabbage said:
Why would anybody, unless they work for Bethesda or are a stockholder in Zenimax, be invested in any way in Fallout 4's sales or review scores?
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I don't understand why you don't understand. The review score and sales are important so we know where the series will go from here, how people will feel about it, what they like about it, etc. If Bethesda ships a new Fallout game and it gets 7's across the board then that is something we should pay attention to. Sales and review scores are important when it comes to pretty much any form of entertainment.
 
I guess what I'm saying is that I don't understand why "they get good review scores and positive reaction on the short term" is in any shape, way, or form a defense of Bethesda that should be meaningful to me.

Like if I say "Fallout 4 is really disappointing" and someone says in response "yes, nobody noticed this until they had played the game for a while, because review scores were really good" why is that response supposed to change my mind about anything?

Sure, Bethesda is making money but that they're making money doesn't really move me to be less critical of their creative efforts, nor should it. That marketing is successful should matter to no one other than the marketers thus employed and their employers, it has no bearing on how good the product actually is.
 
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PossibleCabbage said:
I guess what I'm saying is that I don't understand why "they get good review scores and positive reaction on the short term" is in any shape, way, or form a defense of Bethesda that should be meaningful to me.

Like if I say "Fallout 4 is really disappointing" and someone says in response "yes, nobody noticed this until they had played the game for a while, because review scores were really good" why is that response supposed to change my mind about anything?

Sure, Bethesda is making money but that they're making money doesn't really move me to be less critical of their creative efforts, nor should it.
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Pretend corruption doesn't exist for a minute. People listen to review scores because they're a detailed overview of a game from an individual whose entire job is to hone the standards at which he or she see games.

Simply put, when a person's job is to look at games carefully and determine whether they are worth it, it's a good indicator of whether a game is decent quality, better, or worse. At which point after, people can decide if it's their style of games or not. It's a standard. And that means creators can use passing said standards as a defense. How strong a defense it is really stands as a matter of opinion.

Now, I can tell from my initial agreements with most reviews that a lot of the reviews were simply posted too prematurely. A common mistake of modern reviewing. Fallout 4 was reviewed on face value and it passed the standards set by people paid to set those standards. This is why it is a significant factor.

A lot of people tend to use arbitrary numbers as a factor in life decisions. It's how you can release fake science facts and convince people they're real as long as you have a graph to go with it. Game reviews are generally considered less opinion and more fact, regardless of what they are really.

It all comes down to the buyer themselves. Basically, you.
 
But here's the thing though, there are two ways that someone else's opinion on a work of fiction (or a sandwich, or anything else subjective) can matter to me:

First when it is something I don't have experience with, they can explain why they like or dislike whatever it is, and if the reasons for that opinion seem to resonate me and show that this person and I share compatible values when considering whatever it is, then this can help me pick out things I would like and avoid things I would dislike.

But when it's something I do have experience with, basically the only value someone else's opinion can have to me is that it shows a perspective or interpretation that I had not previously considered. This can either lead to interesting discussions or to learn something new.

But just knowing that someone liked a thing is pretty useless without the "why" attached. So simply observing that "other people liked Fallout 4" (which is all "it sold/reviewed well" is saying) doesn't have any bearing whatsoever on how I feel about it.
 
Crni Vuk said:
While it is common around here to be rather ... critical, we should try to refrain from bashing other forums though. I know it is tempting :look:

Just a friendly reminder :P
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What value is to be the doom and gloom community if we can't spread doom and gloom around? :P
 
I am trying to communicate with it in it's own language though! Albeit I am not sure if what I said is hello, how are you, welcome on our planet or why can't you speak in normal and clear sentences.
 
I strongly disagree with that article. The backlash against F4 isn't coming from diehard Bethesda-lovers who were eagerly awaiting what they fully expected to be the greatest video game ever made; it's coming from the fans of earlier Fallout and/or Bethesda games who have grown increasingly wary of how every new title from them has more and more RPG elements and general complexity stripped away. F4 is easily the most basic, linear, and prescriptive game that Bethesda has made in a very long time, and so the backlash from core gamers is going to be larger than it's ever been. It's as simple as that.
 
Even gamers who've not played Fallout before in its entirely has complained about its lack of depth. And I mean those who've not even played Bethesda ones. Post-apocalypse isn't exactly the biggest of genres, so that's understandable. When I first came to Fallout 3, I really got it simply because it was Oblivion with guns, and I was looking for an Oblivion with guns kind of game. I probably would not have discovered the original games if I hadn't discovered Fallout 3, so I guess I thanks this Elder Scrolls with guns attitude in a way.
 
Crni Vuk said:
I am trying to communicate with it in it's own language though! Albeit I am not sure if what I said is hello, how are you, welcome on our planet or why can't you speak in normal and clear sentences.
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You mean with me? Yeah, English is not my mother tongue and sometimes I phrase my thoughts oddly. Anyway, it was just a joke, reference to NMA being called "the doom and gloom community".
 
Oppen said:
Crni Vuk said:
I am trying to communicate with it in it's own language though! Albeit I am not sure if what I said is hello, how are you, welcome on our planet or why can't you speak in normal and clear sentences.
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You mean with me? Yeah, English is not my mother tongue and sometimes I phrase my thoughts oddly. Anyway, it was just a joke, reference to NMA being called "the doom and gloom community".
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Or the glittering gem of hatred, or the FEV vats, or a puddle of vitriol, or the Brotherhood of Steel

...ok, I made the last one up, but you have to admit its accurate and sounds better.
 
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