Sergeant Politeness
Where'd That 6th Toe Come From?
I think everyone here already knew that.
EDIT: I'm answering to the original post.
EDIT: I'm answering to the original post.
Proof that Critic Reviews mean nothing
- Thread starter Jogre
- Start date
Where'd That 6th Toe Come From?
PossibleCabbage
Vault 22 Survivor
I guess that this is basically because there's no accountability on Youtube, really, and there's no traditional barrier between advertising and editorial ("the chinese wall").
I mean, if you're Johnny-Random Youtuber and you take a deal to say only positive things about a game in exchange for pre-release coverage, and this comes out and is scandalous then you can disappear from Youtube and crop up with a different gimmick easily. Most likely nobody cares, because nobody cares about Johnny-Random Youtuber. If you're a big time Youtuber, you probably built an audience on the basis of "telling people what they want to hear" so people are going to leap to blindly defend you even if you're in the wrong (for bonus points you can claim that mainstream media is "out to get" youtubers to make this an old v. new media thing.)
But if IGN gets exposed for taking a payout in exchange for a better review, then IGN basically ceases to exist. IGN has people whose job it is to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
But yeah, you have a point, since there are no legal or ethical standards for Youtube coverage, be wary of it.
Jogre
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Fair Point, but there is this whole prejudice of "User Reviews mean nothing, Critic Reviews are the real stuff." Among Bethesda Fans, who hold what Critics say as gold because they back up their games. I'm trying to prove that Critics are nothing more than casuals who know very little or care very little for the games that they are rating, and therefore showing that their reviews are no better than User reviews.
Scipio the Elder
Whiskey Blues
Indeed, which is why it pays off to also look into that community's critics. I suppose its nice that Bethesda's extreme fans are becoming a minority.
ZigzagPX4
The Swiftness of the Ranger
I would like to remind you of two things. For the sake of this argument, let's ignore the concept of publishers paying off reviewers to rate the game higher.
1) In nearly all cases, major reviewers contemplate the goods and bads of a game based on its own merits and not on its ability to function as sequel, nor on how it compares to other games. In this sense, Fallout 4 provides hours of solid entertainment value by hitting all points at least once (even though they're not hitting each point as hard as they should be). To that end, Fallout 4 can be seen as a good game.
Not to mention that in the age of "cinematic" games that are heavily linear and are more like a really bad movie than an actual game, Fallout 4 is significantly unique. Its plot is railroaded (ha, Railroad puns), sure, but the sole act of being able to head to Nick Valentine at Vault 114 and rescue him by pure coincidence before you're supposed to is miles better than half a dozen other AAA games (speaks a lot for the modern gaming industry, doesn't it?). Bethesda's games aren't the most freeflowing of all games - they're the most freeflowing out of all mainstream games.
Fallout 4 is a very good game, if somewhat unpolished, as long as you ignore the existence of any game below the AAA level of the industry. And as far as plenty of reviewers are concerned, the AAA level is the only one that matters.
2) YouTubers always strive to find the sweet spot between three factors - enjoying what they do, picking a game with a format they can use to boost views, and games that last a very long time. Fallout 4's exploration aspect in that sense hits what YouTube Let's Play-ers want. Think of it this way - DayZ, Rust, Ark: Survival Evolved and all similar types of games are the best-selling games on Steam, thanks to YouTubers doing free advertisement for them. This is because they're games developed to not have a narrative so that they're played solely for the gameplay value, designed to take a long amount of time to get through.
The problem with this in relevance to Fallout 4 is that Fallout is a series established to be the exact opposite of this - its core draw-in was supposed to be the narrative. It's the exact opposite of what YouTubers want because that kind of format is harder and more complex to draw out into dynamic experiences - the plot moves in the same direction even with all the different choices, and that means there's a finite number of YouTubers that can draw out on the game.
But with Fallout 4's DayZ-ish design, we have a game that's determined to be vastly different in gameplay experiences (some gamers encounter a deathclaw where another might not) and that allows a variety of experiences to be showcased. The less of a direct, tunneled plot, the better for these YouTubers to not waste their time.
GTA V's third mission is the same mission every time, even if you take a different driving route with a different car. But GTA Online's deathmatch downtown is guaranteed to be different in events and outcomes every time. Which one do you think is going to create a larger variety of experiences that YouTube viewers can enjoy?
1) In nearly all cases, major reviewers contemplate the goods and bads of a game based on its own merits and not on its ability to function as sequel, nor on how it compares to other games. In this sense, Fallout 4 provides hours of solid entertainment value by hitting all points at least once (even though they're not hitting each point as hard as they should be). To that end, Fallout 4 can be seen as a good game.
Not to mention that in the age of "cinematic" games that are heavily linear and are more like a really bad movie than an actual game, Fallout 4 is significantly unique. Its plot is railroaded (ha, Railroad puns), sure, but the sole act of being able to head to Nick Valentine at Vault 114 and rescue him by pure coincidence before you're supposed to is miles better than half a dozen other AAA games (speaks a lot for the modern gaming industry, doesn't it?). Bethesda's games aren't the most freeflowing of all games - they're the most freeflowing out of all mainstream games.
Fallout 4 is a very good game, if somewhat unpolished, as long as you ignore the existence of any game below the AAA level of the industry. And as far as plenty of reviewers are concerned, the AAA level is the only one that matters.
2) YouTubers always strive to find the sweet spot between three factors - enjoying what they do, picking a game with a format they can use to boost views, and games that last a very long time. Fallout 4's exploration aspect in that sense hits what YouTube Let's Play-ers want. Think of it this way - DayZ, Rust, Ark: Survival Evolved and all similar types of games are the best-selling games on Steam, thanks to YouTubers doing free advertisement for them. This is because they're games developed to not have a narrative so that they're played solely for the gameplay value, designed to take a long amount of time to get through.
The problem with this in relevance to Fallout 4 is that Fallout is a series established to be the exact opposite of this - its core draw-in was supposed to be the narrative. It's the exact opposite of what YouTubers want because that kind of format is harder and more complex to draw out into dynamic experiences - the plot moves in the same direction even with all the different choices, and that means there's a finite number of YouTubers that can draw out on the game.
But with Fallout 4's DayZ-ish design, we have a game that's determined to be vastly different in gameplay experiences (some gamers encounter a deathclaw where another might not) and that allows a variety of experiences to be showcased. The less of a direct, tunneled plot, the better for these YouTubers to not waste their time.
GTA V's third mission is the same mission every time, even if you take a different driving route with a different car. But GTA Online's deathmatch downtown is guaranteed to be different in events and outcomes every time. Which one do you think is going to create a larger variety of experiences that YouTube viewers can enjoy?
PossibleCabbage
Vault 22 Survivor
This is a thing because people think "this piece of fiction is good or bad in some sort of objective sense" which never made any sense when you drill down on it. Like the value of fiction is to entertain you, make you feel something, or make you think about something. Whether it succeeds or fails in this regard is highly dependent on the observer, which is fine. You can't make a book, game, album, movie, or sandwich that appeals to everybody equally, nor should you even try.
So all forms of "these other people's opinions are indicative of some sort of 'True' quality of the work in question" are equally invalid.
The big difference between games critics and just ordinary consumers of games is that the former tend to think more deeply about games but the former likely spend much more time with them (they're not writing on a deadline, after all.) It's not surprising that the person who thinks a lot about something for 20 hours and the person who thinks very little about something for 100 hours are going to have pretty divergent opinions.