Tom Chick responds to Wired piece

[waldo]

We're not journalists (speaking for myself) .. we're fans -

Sorry, when I said 'you guys' I wasn't referring to the good people of this forum but whoever wrote those articles. Or did I just read what you said wrong?

I just don't understand how they can basically suggest that the Wired article is wrong/invalid on the basis that the reveiwer only played it for half an hour (which to me, is what seems to be the crux of their argument) when there are loads of other previews out there that pile praise on the game despite them also being the basis of a 30 minute play through.

 

[radnan]

We're not journalists (speaking for myself) .. we're fans -

Sorry, when I said 'you guys' I wasn't referring to the good people of this forum but whoever wrote those articles. Or did I just read what you said wrong?

I just don't understand how they can basically suggest that the Wired article is wrong/invalid on the basis that the reveiwer only played it for half an hour (which to me, is what seems to be the crux of their argument) when there are loads of other previews out there that pile praise on the game despite them also being the basis of a 30 minute play through.

its ok it was my fault i missread the quotes..

 

[Stiched]

*Sigh*

I guess you guys have your reasons to not like the game, but seriously, assuming that anyone who hates the game is a NMAer? Come on!

 

[Serifan]

It makes me laugh, I have been reading all the comments from the wired article, the go on bashing the reviewer for saying the game will not appeal to fans and that he could not make that judgment from 30 mins of play.

How can you say the game is going to be game of the year from just 30 mins of play

Anyway he was spot on Fallout 3 will rape everything that was great in FO1 & FO2.

Bloody mess has turned from my fav trait to shitty perk that has been implemented terrible. (Sniper shot to the head should not make your legs fall off)

Combat stinks of FPS with VATS just thrown in to WOW people with slow mo deaths.

Taking a dump in the middle of a fire fight is not tactical.

Menu/inventory system stinks of consoles once again.

 

[waldo]

How can you say the game is going to be game of the year from just 30 mins of play

Yeah, my point exactly.

Combat stinks of FPS with VATS just thrown in to WOW people with slow mo deaths.

Yup, just looks like f*cking bullet time to me.

 

[Daimyo]

Trying to argue whether the game will be great or not based on 30mins of play seems like trying to nail strawberry jam to the ceiling, but seeing as we have plenty of information from various previews, fan interviews, beth blogs and dev interviews that this game is ending up as a completely different experience than the previous Fallout titles, I have to admit that I am sceptical towards FO 3 with good reason.

I don't think this makes me a naysayer or a pessimist, it makes me a human being with an above-normal interest in the Fallout universe and I would like to see it treated with the respect it deserves. When that respect is not forthcoming I still try to be positive and hope for the best.

I truly believe that FO 3 is targeted NOT at the hardcore gamer and the Fallout fan, but at the (possibly wrong labeled) casual gamer. I also believe that it will fail horribly because of that. - Mix salmon and chicken into a stew and both the fish lover and the poultry lover will wrinkle their noses ...

The article linked to above also places Bethesda firmly in the ranks of studios too preoccupied with "Production is King" and that is why we now see FO 3 deteriorating into a so-so FPS ...

Imagine what they could do with FO 3 if they had actually kept the Fallout setting as it was instead of mellowing it out to nothingness?

Such a shame.

 

[hailtotheking]

I actually took the time to slosh through the swill of that Qt3 thread, and they repeatedly defend the fact that you can't give a negative preview because 'the company will fix everything so it's unfair'.
It's really sad that this is how far game journalism has fallen.
Honestly, I'd take fox news over some of the lame excuses for arguments they try to make.
It's not too hard to divine the real reason there can be no negativity in previews, which incidentally have nothing to do with fairness.
If you called a game developer on the flaws in it's game, then they would just go to a different publication that's willing to suck them off more by way of an undeservedly positive piece.
The gaming journalism system is broken except for a few aberrant cases.
If the industry in general had a pale semblance of integrity, then the developers wouldn't have the leverage to refuse coverage as very few would stoop to the enforced positivity that occurs now, and thus they would get no coverage for their previews.
But that would take courage and a proper understanding of ethics.
It seems most of the writers on Qt3 though are hacks and media mouthpieces who are too cowardly to come and discuss their opinions with us here and would rather wish death on us or label us with undeserved perjoratives from their closed forum.
Shame though, would make for interesting conversation.

Great rant on game journalism Simeon! I think it´s pretty obvious that this Tom chick guy is trying to defend this M.O. of his journalist-brethren. When a famous magazine like Wired says someting completely different on F3 than the rest of the herd, it suddenly becomes a matter of the child from the fairy tale "The Emperor's New Clothes". And how better to deflect an attack than starting a flamewar?

 

[archont]

So far the marketing seems targetted at the casual audience. That makes sense really. The most vocal part of the community are always the hardcore gamers, however the casuals are the guys who get dinner on the designer's plate. Defcon was marketed for hardcore gamers and although highly praised, those kinds of sales would be punishing for bethesda.

So while the marketing may be casual, the game doesn't have to be.

 

[zioburosky13]

So far the marketing seems targetted at the casual audience. That makes sense really. The most vocal part of the community are always the hardcore gamers, however the casuals are the guys who get dinner on the designer's plate. Defcon was marketed for hardcore gamers and although highly praised, those kinds of sales would be punishing for bethesda.

There is no such thing as a casual or hardcore audience. Any game can have a typical group of player.

So while the marketing may be casual, the game doesn't have to be.

Depends on your perspective, Fallout 3 is a typical game aimed for console lover. VAT is definitely bullet time in the game.

 

[fedaykin]

After all, no one here has failed to point out the problems with most of the positive previews before this happened, why can't they do the same with negative ones?

It's funny though that the anti-NMA crowd has completely failed in pointing out any flaws in positive previews.

 

[Brother None]

Do these guys really consider NMA that much of a threat to F3's potential sales? Why even bother drawing attention to the 'naysayers', which might bring up questions/doubts in others? Better to say nothing.

That has always been one of the biggest mysteries.

For an unimportant vocal minority who will buy the game anyway, there's quite a lot of people obsessing over our existence.

Lord knows why. We're not that interesting.

You make a very compelling point, and game journalism is crap. This kind of logic veers heavily into the flawed "two wrongs make a right" territory. I could count the number of worthwhile previews I've read on Django Reinhardt's left hand. I can only guess why they went and singled this piece out, but defending it is a sad exercise. After all, no one here has failed to point out the problems with most of the positive previews before this happened, why can't they do the same with negative ones?

That logic is no different from two wrongs make a right.

That said, no, it isn't a sad exercise to defend this piece, because we didn't single it out, someone else singled it out to attack it. Why? In journalistic quality, it isn't less than any of the pieces DU listed, yet another journalist singles it out. Why? What's its aberrant quality?

That's obvious, it's negative. Hence it's tainted. Hence it's NMA.

I can't see how anyone can argue that there's no sense in objecting to that.

Trying to argue whether the game will be great or not based on 30mins of play seems like trying to nail strawberry jam to the ceiling, but seeing as we have plenty of information from various previews, fan interviews, beth blogs and dev interviews that this game is ending up as a completely different experience than the previous Fallout titles, I have to admit that I am sceptical towards FO 3 with good reason.

Some of the early books of Terry Pratchett contain wonderful parodies of so-called enforced literal speak, where you can't say someone has a face that launched a thousand ships without showing the docking certificates.

This literalism is a typical weak semantic argument, the way people come in here to say "you can't hate yet you haven't even played it!"

No we haven't, nor has anyone else. Yet as non-journalist, it's fine for people to fling about "it's going to be awesome" or "it's going to suck" judgement calls based on what they've seen. It's not an absolute, this is it 100% statement (except from some idiots on both side of the fence), it's an asseveration of what one thinks it's going to be like.

Some will say "I am sceptical", some will say "it sucks", but what they actually mean isn't that far apart. Some - like me - have seen enough to think "I'll probably not enjoy it, so I have no intention of playing it", some will wait for reviews from people they can trust. The main point is that you can't always pin down a person's view just on his choice of words.

So while the marketing may be casual, the game doesn't have to be.

Casual is nothing but the new hype-term, like immersive was a few years back. Just like immersive, it is meaningless.

 

[archont]

Casual is nothing but the new hype-term, like immersive was a few years back. Just like immersive, it is meaningless.

Just because you fail to grasp the concept doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

The concept of casual game is just as blurry as the lines divding particular gaming genres. I assure you though, it's there. It's a hype-word, but unlike the previous word, it doesn't describe a kind of game, but a kind of player. While games change and the definition of immersion with it, there will always be the segment of casual players. Because there will always be a group in between those who don't play games and those who write guides, fanfic, paste their room in posters and play games 6 hours daily.

 

[Brother None]

Just because you fail to grasp the concept doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Hah, argumentative fallacy much? The easiest way to prove someone wrong is saying "he just doesn't get it".

Oh no, I fully do, but the meaningless nature of the term "casual" doesn't stem from the fact that there is no way to divide the consumer market in "casual" and "hardcore" (I've seen no serious attempt to do so scientifically, by the way), it stems from the fact that this is not a new situation. The casual market was there to make sure the Super Pong console sold so well. The "hardcore" market - if anything - is an illusion gamers drew around themselves to separate an us from a them - a natural human tendency.

What makes the term so meaningless is that it is not about discernible groups and self-identification, it's about vague concepts that are only about the discourse of the self in the above-named sense of Us and Them.

And that's why it's silly to think the separation line between an RPG marketing campaign or the kind of FPS parallel to casual and hardcore. It doesn't, it's a genre divide.

 

[Flop]

It's kind of inevitable that a lot of journalists don't like us, tho'.

Yeah, they know we hate their freedom and democracy.

Seriously though, this guy seems like he has decided to spend all his critique on people who are critical of Fallout 3, saving nothing for Fallout 3 and Bethesda.

I suppose his critique of the article isn't completely unfair, though. I don't think it's possible to get a good feel for the overall writing quality of a game in just 30 minutes. However, that critique goes both ways, since a game may look pretty for the first 30 minutes, until you realise that you've seen all there is to see and the animations are basically all the same. The same goes for other aspects of the game as well, I suppose.

I guess you guys have your reasons to not like the game, but seriously, assuming that anyone who hates the game is a NMAer? Come on!

Yeah, it's as bad as assuming that everyone at nma hates the game. I'm personally critical of it, but I haven't made up my mind yet and I won't until the game is released and I get a chance to try it myself.

 

[Bodybag]

If its marketed to the lowest common denominator it must so far be the lowest common denominator since all i've seen is a mediocre conglomerate of elements stacked together. I have not seen anything to suggest this is only a marketing thing.

Statements like that, specifically, are one reason why places like NMA and the Codex get singled out. Also: "console crowd/idiots/kiddieZ," ect. Given the righteous indignation over this newspost, you'd think the follies of describing those that don't agree with you simply in terms of negative assertion would be apparent.

Also, it's akin to yelling at gamers because they like video games. Who's elite enough to pull that shit off? Cut that out, people.

 

[whirlingdervish]

I'm sure that NMA and the Codex are the ONLY places on the net where you'll see that opinion of dumbed down console games and the audiences that they are intentionally aimed to please.

We didn't invent the terms, or start the fad, and a majority of us don't think in those terms.

Almost every time somebody lapses into a "stupid console tards" rant, another member of NMA who isn't just here to try and refute any criticism of F03 for the sake of arguing a meaningless point, will call them on it and say something along the lines of "hey not all consoles are the devil and not all console players are drooling 12 year olds on ritalin".

Kindly, take your mouthstuffing somewhere else.
I grow weary of watchin you derail thread after thread with arguments that intentionally divert the flow into stupid tangents that have little or nothing to do with the topic.

This section is for us to discuss the News, not the most glaring flaws you can find in some random person's opinion.


on topic tho: This campaign to manufacture a sinister motive behind someone's dislike of Fallout 3 falls into the acceptable pattern that Bethesda has already instituted to deal with anyone who doesn't like the changes they've made.

First they use the fallacious "you haven't seen enough of it to make that judgement" even though Bethesda is the only reason we haven't gotten enough information at this point..

Then they try to marginalize the person who has a negative opinion by implying that they are crazy* and thus their opinion shouldnt matter.. (* insert "rabid" or other adjective that implies insanity)

This whole situation mirrors the way that any criticism we make as a group is treated, and it's pretty sickening that bashing us to try and undermine our opinions has become such a standard operating practice in the media that anyone they use it on becomes "One of US!!!" for having an opinion that might line up with something we've criticized as well.

 

[Brother None]

Kindly, take your mouthstuffing somewhere else.

Actually, he's right, quite a few comments in this thread are pretty stupid considering the subject matter.

And don't backseat moderate.

 

[whirlingdervish]

Do those comments that he mentions actually represent the opinion of all of NMA? No.

Is he effectively saying that based on one person's post we are all judged by the rest of the world to hate anything that smacks of consoles?
Yes.


I dislike it when people imply that I have an opinion which I don't, just because I am associated with a group that contains a few members who do. Even moreso when that implication is used as "fact" to support a claim that isn't all that truthful.

He's quite wrong in his assumption that THAT sort of post is why we're being written off by a large part of the gaming world as fanatic or mean or old fashioned or whatever.

The people who see us that way aren't actually taking the time to judge us at all, and they aren't coming here to pick out one post by one guy on one random newspost as justfication for their opinion.

They're just taking the word of the media outlets that have told them we're insane/fanatic/rabid fanboys and effectively mouthstuffed us just like BB has done.

If they came here and looked around for a week and made a judgement of their own, instead of letting the gaming media, and bethesda and their apologists tell them what to think, a lot less people would be of the opinion that we're just some horrible place on the web full of meanspiritted fans of a game that's ancient and doesn't look shiny enough, and that we hate Fallout 3 for no reason.

 

[Per]

Well, it was time for the inevitable "you are stupid for calling them stupid for calling you stupid for calling a game stupid". Who knows what could have happened if no one had pointed out that insidious twist.

 

[Bodybag]

Do those comments that he mentions actually represent the opinion of all of NMA? NO?

Way to shoot the messenger.

Well, it was time for the inevitable "you are stupid for calling them stupid for calling you stupid for calling a game stupid".

Wasn't it, though? Say, when are they going to abandon this whole failed "internet" experiment, anyways?

Who knows what could have happened if no one had pointed out that insidious twist.

There could've been another page of inquiries into how much Tom Chick is getting paid by Bethesda, easy.