Fallout 4 Season Pass Steam Reviews

[aenemic]

But they never will, just like they'll never point out the flaws in any other developers' games. The gaming media is completely in bed with the AAA publishers and developers. They know that if they dare write anything besides "10/10!!! Best game ever!!!" about any release, no matter how bad of a festering pile of shit it really is, they won't get invites to the cool conferences and parties, their advance copies of new releases, their free "evaluation versions" of new consoles and hardware, etc.

Yes, there is some truth in that. But the truth is also that at least some gaming media actually will call shenanigans from time to time (see the PC release for Arkham Knight, for example). The thing with Bethesda and their games is that they're still kinda niche. There are lots of other open world games out there, but Bethesda still do their own thing. And a lot of the goodwill for their games stems from these games being an introduction to open world rpg's, and people having a wonderful experience. When Oblivion, Fallout 3 and later Skyrim broke through to the masses, how big a part of the masses had actually played an open world rpg before?

I can definitely see this goodwill growing weaker as more well crafted open world rpg's are released, while Bethesda keep devolving (or at least not evolving). Might be wishful thinking, but I have hope. A few years ago you'd only read complaints about the writing in Bethesda's games on sites such as this and the RPG Codex. The first The Witcher game wasn't exactly a blockbuster hit, but was (generally) well recieved by us picky rpg nerds. These days you find comments applauding the writing in The Witcher 3, comments about lazy writing and poor design in Fallout 4, and some serious outrage over Fallout 4's dlc - not only on here and the Codex, but on YouTube, major gaming sites, on Twitter, on Metacritic, and so on. We might still be a vocal minority, but to me it at least brings hope.

 

[Chud]

But they never will, just like they'll never point out the flaws in any other developers' games. The gaming media is completely in bed with the AAA publishers and developers. They know that if they dare write anything besides "10/10!!! Best game ever!!!" about any release, no matter how bad of a festering pile of shit it really is, they won't get invites to the cool conferences and parties, their advance copies of new releases, their free "evaluation versions" of new consoles and hardware, etc.

In these situations it's more about losing ad revenue for actual media outlets. Youtube LPer's are the ones willing to sell themselves short for gifts and party invites, such as the likes of Mattyplays. Media outlets bumping scores up, or outright lying has been a very real issue for decades now. This includes a magazine tossing a softball at a known car company accused of wrong doing, lest the car company pull ads from the magazine, or a television show avoiding any possible moment where they might negatively mention a corporate tie-in. It's annoying and makes finding honest critiques and opinion pieces hard to find. Honest ones that don't bow before corporations do exist, but they are far, far from the norm.

Destructiod's hardly the greatest gaming site, but I do like that they've been very tough on Fallout 4's Season Pass, going so far as to call it one of the worst in recent history.

 

[Shardik]

In these situations it's more about losing ad revenue for actual media outlets. Youtube LPer's are the ones willing to sell themselves short for gifts and party invites, such as the likes of Mattyplays. Media outlets bumping scores up, or outright lying has been a very real issue for decades now. This includes a magazine tossing a softball at a known car company accused of wrong doing, lest the car company pull ads from the magazine, or a television show avoiding any possible moment where they might negatively mention a corporate tie-in. It's annoying and makes finding honest critiques and opinion pieces hard to find. Honest ones that don't bow before corporations do exist, but they are far, far from the norm.

Destructiod's hardly the greatest gaming site, but I do like that they've been very tough on Fallout 4's Season Pass, going so far as to call it one of the worst in recent history.

I should have mentioned the loss of ad revenue in my post - you're correct that that's the main reason why most games media sites simply can't be trusted. And while this business of withholding ad buys has been around forever in most industries, the gaming media and the entertainment media really push it to the extreme.

Destructoid's not a bad site at all - it's a hell of lot better than most of the others. I won't even click on a link to Kotaku. TBH, I actually rely on non-gaming sites that do game reviews (such as Forbes) for the best information on new games, as well as forum discussions.