Video Game Industry Thread: September's thread is done, go to the new one

Spoit

UncleSporky wrote:

SmokeStacks wrote:

It baffles me that stock prices can be set by a group of idiots who spend their time masquerading as writers. "Videogame Journalism" is the worst oxymoron I've ever seen.

I don't buy this as being something unique to this industry though. Isn't "journalism" in general just about always just like this? Whatever you personally follow, be it games or politics or the farming industry, you will hate the journalists that cover the things you are passionate about. All journalists are equally terrible.

Yeah, but other than the cable news channels, where else can you find journalism that is so beholden to kowtowing the party line with the very people they're covering?

Gaslight

Relevant:

Henroid

I appreciate that comic much more now than I did when it came out.

Athenor

I still kinda smirk any time I see Peter Moore at EA Sports. His little piece on the Wii U just had me giddy, as it showed just how shallow being a shill for a corporation can be. I wonder if he still has the Halo tattoo... er.. tattoos?

UnbreakableVow

I think of that comic every time Peter Moore is up

And then I'm always surprised when I remember that the 360 had such a fucking dire first year

Fats

UncleSporky wrote:

All journalists are equally terrible.

Good journalism is definitely rare, but you still get the occasional Robert Fisk and Edward Murrow. I imagine there are one or two decent journalists skulking around the video games industry, but it's not like there's anything of great consequence to cover.

SmokeStacks

UnbreakableVow wrote:

I think of that comic every time Peter Moore is up

And then I'm always surprised when I remember that the 360 had such a fucking dire first year

I was working at this shitty game store when the 360 launched, and we weren't getting our units until the morning of the launch date. We had tons of games and accessories, but no actual consoles.

So the day before the launch date, this redhead woman walks in, absolutely gorgeous, perfect breasts, tall, she was amazing. Poetry in motion, the whole shebang.

She bought a couple of launch games and a controller. Turns out she had won a 360 from the Pepsi contest, and some of the winners received their systems the day before launch. Hers was sitting at her house. Right then. She was going to go home and play it.

So as I'm ringing her up I make some crack about how I'm coming over later so we can both play some Ridge Racer 6, she stops what she's doing, looks me square in the eye, and says in the most deadpan of deadpan voices the phrase "Not happening, chief".

She leaves with her purchases, and my coworkers ridicule me mercilessly. The inside joke was that from then on, whenever I needed something or made a suggestion to one of them, the response was "Not happening, chief".

And that's the one thing I remember best about the Xbox 360 launch.

Olivaw

Fats wrote:

UncleSporky wrote:

All journalists are equally terrible.

Good journalism is definitely rare, but you still get the occasional Robert Fisk and Edward Murrow. I imagine there are one or two decent journalists skulking around the video games industry, but it's not like there's anything of great consequence to cover.

Some people do, in fact, give a shit. There's not many, but they do exist

Video game journalism is like any other piece of enthusiast journalism - they aren't covering important shit, but they do owe something to their readers to present well-researched facts as well as genuine opinions and unbiased coverage. We're just starting to realize that a lot of this industry, especially now during the days of the "blogosphere" (ughhhhh), are holding themselves to no standard whatsoever, but this doesn't mean that journalists in general suck. That is ludicrous

But to say that "all journalists are equally terrible" isn't just staggeringly ignorant. It's also falling for the trap that every shitty video game journalist sets to escape having standards - "oh, i'm shit at my job, but so is everyone else, so you can't blame me!"

It's devaluing the entire profession so that you don't look so bad. It's dirty pool, bad form, and generally fucking bullshit

UnbreakableVow

SmokeStacks wrote:

UnbreakableVow wrote:

I think of that comic every time Peter Moore is up

And then I'm always surprised when I remember that the 360 had such a fucking dire first year

I was working at this shitty game store when the 360 launched, and we weren't getting our units until the morning of the launch date. We had tons of games and accessories, but no actual consoles.

So the day before the launch date, this redhead woman walks in, absolutely gorgeous, perfect breasts, tall, she was amazing. Poetry in motion, the whole shebang.

She bought a couple of launch games and a controller. Turns out she had won a 360 from the Pepsi contest, and some of the winners received their systems the day before launch. Hers was sitting at her house. Right then. She was going to go home and play it.

So as I'm ringing her up I make some crack about how I'm coming over later so we can both play some Ridge Racer 6, she stops what she's doing, looks me square in the eye, and says in the most deadpan of deadpan voices the phrase "Not happening, chief".

She leaves with her purchases, and my coworkers ridicule me mercilessly. The inside joke was that from then on, whenever I needed something or made a suggestion to one of them, the response was "Not happening, chief".

And that's the one thing I remember best about the Xbox 360 launch.

Well uh

That's...that's pretty creepy, yeah

Astale

That would be an odd comment to hear from a clerk, definetely inappropriate.

orionminus

"Not happening, chief".

Your response should have been as follows:

"Oh it's happening, trust me. The only thing you have to decide is if you want it the easy way or the hard way."

Then winked at her.

:3

Undead Scottsman

Xenogears of Bore wrote:

Hey now, the only problem with GOW2 is that it is almost too perfect a game.

Aside from, you know, the absolutely abysmal launch multiplayer, and the fact that the game quite often will wipe all of your singleplayer and multiplayer progress.

Unless you're talking about GOD of war 2, in which case I have no argument with you statement.

The_Spaniard

Snake Gandhi wrote:

Actually Cliffy's problem wasn't the score but the fact that they rated Gears 2 higher, and he feels that 3 is much improved over 2.

Actually one of the 8s said that it was worse than 1, that 3 weakest entry in the series. But honestly content and set-piece wise you can't in any way claim that. I'm not disagreeing with the score, just I couldn't imagine it being the worst of the series considering certain things about the first. Like the fact that an entire chapter was cut before release, along with the one boss fight that was teased the entire development process. I'm not saying that the game may not have deserved an 8, I'm just saying it couldn't be the worst game in the series in a few ways. Though yes yes I will give people full right to form their own opinions.

Automaticzen I'll just repost what I said about Jim Sterling when he wrote that article defending himself.

Okay now I have to preface what I'm about to say with the fact that I am not talking about the Destructoid review. I'm not disagreeing with the score or its content, but want to bitch about something that Jim Sterling said in an article, after the review, defending it that someone linked me to. I'm not even arguing the validity of the article itself, but one particular point set my teeth on edge.

In the defense article he wrote that he got the game late and as such started playing when he had 15 hours left before the embargo broke. He said that over the next 15 hours he, played the game, played a decent amount of multiplayer, both the new Horde 2.0 and Beast modes, and then preceded to jerk himself off about the sublime quality of review he then put out. I call complete and utter BS. There is no way that you could play the entire singleplayer campaign, and not just sample but give a decent amount of time to each of the extensive multiplayer modes, then have time to write and post a high quality review. Something has to give, and it was either rushing through/glossing over parts/features of the game, half-assing a review to get it out at the last minute, or possibly even both. God damn-it I hate you so much Jim Sterling.

I understand deadlines and how awful they are in this industry, I understand that he had no control over how late he got the game, but I wouldn't point that out to the reader without being absolutely humble about it. "I did the best I could with the short time I was given, and considering that I think I did a good job." not "This is one of the best reviews I've ever written!" Frankly I'd have asked for a short extension on the review to do a proper job, embargo date be damned. To me it smacks of a lack of integrity and professionalism to blow through the entire process in just over half a day. When he admits in his review that the campaign alone took 9 of those 15 hours he had to not only play every part of the game, write his review, and get it posted on the site, just to make a self-imposed deadline. Other sites are claiming that the campaign took them 15-20 hours depending on the difficulty, so I could imagine him tearing ass through the game to get a review out in time. I'm willing to at the very least acknowledge that maybe if he really took his time and completely experienced everything the game had to offer he might have given it an extra point. Instead of playing the game and writing the review both under extreme stress and time crunch and almost certainly cutting corners.

plufim

Spaniard, this isn't going to become another Jim Sterling hate parade is it? Because every time he comes up we lose 3 pages of these threads to that crap.

Astale

Is it bad I don't know any reviewers by name so that I can hate them for not liking a game I like enough?

At best I "think he writes for gamespot or something". I don't think I'm internet angry enough here.

UnbreakableVow

Jim Sterling is a douche

There are reviewers I often don't agree with, and that's fine, because they make their cases and articulate their points well

Jim Sterling is the opposite of that

The_Spaniard

plufim wrote:

Spaniard, this isn't going to become another Jim Sterling hate parade is it? Because every time he comes up we lose 3 pages of these threads to that crap.

Well I didn't see someone mention Jim Sterling and suddenly go, "Hey let me bring up half a dozen completely unrelated reasons I hate Jim Sterling!" I'm talking about the topic at hand, his review and post review defense were directly referenced.

Spoit

But really, the only reviewer that I can think of that's even half as controversial is tom chick

The_Spaniard

Spoit wrote:

But really, the only reviewer that I can think of that's even half as controversial is tom chick

We could always hate on the guy that said Space Marine was a ripoff of Gears of War, and then defended his article to the bitter end refusing to admit fault some more. That's tangentially related.

JCRooks

One thing that I've learned in the 10 years or so since I've graduated college, is that there are a lot of people bad at their jobs in all parts of the industry. The games business is certainly not immune to this. I've come across many bad developers, writers, managers, press, etc. you name it. Fortunately, they are vastly outnumbered by all the awesome, talented people out there. It's gotten to the point where I just ignore people that are bad at their job, because more often than not, they won't be doing that job a few years from now. It's just not worth the stress involved. Case in point, I really thought Shane Bettenhausen was really awful at his job when he was at 1UP (so very biased, while pretending not to be). Lo and behold, he's long gone from game journalism and apparently now works at Sony. Go figure.

UncleSporky

Olivaw wrote:

But to say that "all journalists are equally terrible" isn't just staggeringly ignorant. It's also falling for the trap that every shitty video game journalist sets to escape having standards - "oh, i'm shit at my job, but so is everyone else, so you can't blame me!"

It's devaluing the entire profession so that you don't look so bad. It's dirty pool, bad form, and generally fucking bullshit

Whoa dude, whoa. I'm not a journalist. I don't say all journalism is terrible to make myself look better, I say it because well, that's pretty much the way the world looks these days.

Maybe it's better phrased as "everyone thinks that journalists are terrible in every medium," whether that's true or not. I don't think any journalist should be let off the hook, but I also don't think that game journalists are falling short of some mythical standard that everyone else is meeting.

I pop into a Debate & Discourse political thread to see what's up, and what do I see? Criticism of journalists, not covering the right stuff, or not covering it in a way that makes them happy, or apparently pandering to one group or another. Not just Fox News either, you see the leftest media being lambasted regularly.

And if you want to say that game journalism is somehow remarkable, that it's all extra bad on our side...well that's exactly what I would expect everyone else to say about the journalism they follow, too.

"OMG can you believe this month's Train Watchers Monthly, shit is so amateurish, the Stirling F85 model box car is like the shittiest product to come out of Stirling since the C20 Capitalist. Typical for them to give it rave reviews, probably just because they got an insider's look."

"Bitchin' Sewing Tips Quarterly has stooped so low! Why would you ever recommend anything from Finn's Textiles. Their thread counts are AWFUL and they have the worst patterns. Also why did they redo the layout of the whole magazine?! I stopped subscribing to the Needlework Newsletter and maybe I'll just drop these guys too. Terrible journalism."

Sometimes it's almost like there's a sense of superiority around here about how terrible game journalism is. Why is that? We're not special. Everyone has to deal with this.

AnteCantelope

In Australia, every news is Fox News. Journalists everywhere are pretty terrible, although I think game journalists deserve it a bit worse than others, partly because they're generally not very skilled ("Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad is now a game you can play. If you buy it. Which you now can. This is the standard of journalism you get from me after 1am. Far better to ignore me and watch the launch trailer below."), and partly because they largely act as another arm for marketing departments (although I see ads on the news all the time, so they're not unique there). All journalists are terrible, to some degree, but I think these put game journalism in the lower end of the spectrum. Maybe also because their audience is largely children and teenagers, there's less need for professionalism and skill? But that bit's just drunken speculation.

darleysam

JCRooks wrote:

One thing that I've learned in the 10 years or so since I've graduated college, is that there are a lot of people bad at their jobs in all parts of the industry. The games business is certainly not immune to this. I've come across many bad developers, writers, managers, press, etc. you name it. Fortunately, they are vastly outnumbered by all the awesome, talented people out there. It's gotten to the point where I just ignore people that are bad at their job, because more often than not, they won't be doing that job a few years from now. It's just not worth the stress involved. Case in point, I really thought Shane Bettenhausen was really awful at his job when he was at 1UP (so very biased, while pretending not to be). Lo and behold, he's long gone from game journalism and apparently now works at Sony. Go figure.

I thought he was at Rising Star Ignition games now, partly responsible for bringing Deadly Premonition to the wider world.. I agree I didn't like him much at 1UP because of the shameless bias, and he may have since moved to Sony, but I'll be forever grateful to everyone who contributed to getting that game into my xbox. Likewise, Jim Sterling may be a pretty unversally-recognised hate-figure, but the dude gave glowing reviews to Deadly Premonition and The Undergarden, and I would gladly buy a beer for anyone who'd do that.

edit: I have a research! Bettenhausen worked for Ignition, not Rising Star, but has recently taken a job with Sony. Like, last Friday recently.

mynameisguido

JCRooks wrote:

One thing that I've learned in the 10 years or so since I've graduated college, is that there are a lot of people bad at their jobs in all parts of the industry. The games business is certainly not immune to this. I've come across many bad developers, writers, managers, press, etc. you name it. Fortunately, they are vastly outnumbered by all the awesome, talented people out there. It's gotten to the point where I just ignore people that are bad at their job, because more often than not, they won't be doing that job a few years from now. It's just not worth the stress involved. Case in point, I really thought Shane Bettenhausen was really awful at his job when he was at 1UP (so very biased, while pretending not to be). Lo and behold, he's long gone from game journalism and apparently now works at Sony. Go figure.

Well, at least he's not been paid to review games for a while.

It's not like that one guy who gave Perfect Dark Zero an absolutely glowing review and then (shockingly) went on to get a job at Microsoft almost immediately after. Maybe Shane was biased (aren't we all, ultimately) but at least it didn't look like he was writing reviews as part of the interview.

Sheep

I got news for you.

Reviewers tend to not completely indulge themselves in games. Across the board.

Guy's pissed that his third rehash of a mediocre series did not impress a guy who tends to dislike games in general.

Shadowfire

Astale wrote:

That would be an odd comment to hear from a clerk, definetely inappropriate.

Not really. Whenever I have a customer buying a lot of beer, I always jokingly ask for their address so I can stop by and help "unload." Not one of them has taken it the wrong way.


Regarding great gaming journalists: Patrick Klepek.

Sheep

She bought a couple of launch games and a controller. Turns out she had won a 360 from the Pepsi contest, and some of the winners received their systems the day before launch. Hers was sitting at her house. Right then. She was going to go home and play it.

My former brother in law won a 360 via a Mountain Dew bottle top contest. PDZ and a few other games. He got the console a few days before launch.

Automaticzen

The_Spaniard wrote:

Actually one of the 8s said that it was worse than 1, that 3 weakest entry in the series. But honestly content and set-piece wise you can't in any way claim that. I'm not disagreeing with the score, just I couldn't imagine it being the worst of the series considering certain things about the first. Like the fact that an entire chapter was cut before release, along with the one boss fight that was teased the entire development process. I'm not saying that the game may not have deserved an 8, I'm just saying it couldn't be the worst game in the series in a few ways. Though yes yes I will give people full right to form their own opinions.

I understand deadlines and how awful they are in this industry, I understand that he had no control over how late he got the game, but I wouldn't point that out to the reader without being absolutely humble about it. "I did the best I could with the short time I was given, and considering that I think I did a good job." not "This is one of the best reviews I've ever written!" Frankly I'd have asked for a short extension on the review to do a proper job, embargo date be damned. To me it smacks of a lack of integrity and professionalism to blow through the entire process in just over half a day. When he admits in his review that the campaign alone took 9 of those 15 hours he had to not only play every part of the game, write his review, and get it posted on the site, just to make a self-imposed deadline. Other sites are claiming that the campaign took them 15-20 hours depending on the difficulty, so I could imagine him tearing ass through the game to get a review out in time. I'm willing to at the very least acknowledge that maybe if he really took his time and completely experienced everything the game had to offer he might have given it an extra point. Instead of playing the game and writing the review both under extreme stress and time crunch and almost certainly cutting corners.

And the Eurogamer review? It clarifies nothing about it being the best or worst in the series and is the review that Cliffy specifically called out.

Again, the issue here is 8/10 is somehow not good. That a great score on a title is cause for being singled out as a hater. That makes absolutely no sense. They didn't slam the game. It wasn't a 3 or 5. It wasn't a hate-filled tirade. It was, this is great, but there are a few flaws.

taliosfalcon

Automaticzen wrote:

And the Eurogamer review? It clarifies nothing about it being the best or worst in the series and is the review that Cliffy specifically called out.

Again, the issue here is 8/10 is somehow not good. That a great score on a title is cause for being singled out as a hater. That makes absolutely no sense. They didn't slam the game. It wasn't a 3 or 5. It wasn't a hate-filled tirade. It was, this is great, but there are a few flaws.

The guy's known for being an idiot and spouting inane jackassery whenever he opens his mouth so meh.

UncleSporky

Cliffy or the reviewer?

Eh, there's got to better things we could talk about.

Automaticzen

taliosfalcon wrote:

The guy's known for being an idiot and spouting inane jackassery whenever he opens his mouth so meh.

I like Cliffy. Nice guy. In fact, they're all pretty nice guys when you meet them. (I recently met Pachter during a press demo, and found out we have the same first and middle name. quite odd)

I just just think the review scale could use a good workout and there's little reason to be angry or surprised over a 7 & 8.

RainbowDespair

Given that Eurogamer is one of the few game review sites that considers a 5/10 average, an 8/10 from them is nothing to complain about.

cloudeagle

Wanna hear Pachter state the obvious?

GTA, much like Madden, Gran Turismo and Mario, is one of those franchises that the mainstream almost always buys. Call of Duty in the last several years has risen to this status as well, and in fact, Activision's franchise may well be the king of the mainstream market, which at one point it could be argued was a title held by Rockstar's GTA.

"Call of Duty is bigger, and GTA will not maintain its position as the world's biggest mainstream franchise," Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter commented to IndustryGamers recently.

The main difference, of course, is that Rockstar takes its time with GTA, releasing one title every few years, whereas Activision has managed to successfully annualize Call of Duty and sell a boatload with every new iteration. That's kept Call of Duty top of mind with many gamers. While GTA might sell 25 million every four years, Call of Duty can sell 20 million essentially every year (at least for now).

"Eventually, Call of Duty may suffer from fatigue, and GTA could keep chugging along, but it will be 8 years before we can make that call," Pachter added.

GTA V is likely to be shipped sometime next year, although Take-Two has yet to officially announce the game.

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/gta-will-not-maintain-its-position-as-biggest-mainstream-franchise---pachter/

Speaking of which, what's going on with Infinity Ward?

Speaking to Infinity Ward's Director of Communications and Community Manager, Robert Bowling, at a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer event in Sydney we're able to get a little additional insight into the game and, specifically, what makes the development team tick.

On the topic of whether the Infinity Ward or Sledgehammer crews concern themselves much with the competitive corporate bickering higher up the chain the answer is, unsurprisingly, no.

"Not at all, there's no buy in on that sort of stuff," says Bowling. "We don't care about sales numbers, we don't care about competition, we don't care about beating anyone. Our 100 per cent focus is making a game that we're going to love to play, that we're going to be proud of, and that we know that our fans are going to play. To us, we don't care if there are three people playing it or 30 million people playing it. If there are three people having a great time then we've done our job correctly and we will be happy."

Following the terminations of Jason West and Vince Zampella last year around half of the remaining Infinity Ward employees resigned. This resulted in the loss of a large percentage of senior talent from all departments and is likely a key factor in the conscription of Sledgehammer Games to assist with development. Bowling, however, confirms that with new faces comes fresh enthusiasm.

"What's really cool is, at Infinity Ward we have very strong design philosophies of this is what makes a Modern Warfare, and we have a very passionate vision of what we wanted Modern Warfare 3 to be, based on our feelings about MW2 and our fan feedback from COD4," says Bowling. "But then you have a team like Sledgehammer who comes in with a completely fresh perspective, a completely different outlook on what they expect from a Modern Warfare title and what they want to see from a fan perspective, because they didn't work on the franchise previously. That allows a unique opportunity for us to execute on our vision, but also build on top of that in ways that we may never have before."

"There are inherently logistical challenges, especially early on doing something like that, [but] there was never a hard divide, like, 'You take this, and we'll take this, and we won't speak to each other, we'll just do our job.' Once you made it clear that that's not how things operate, that it is working as one team, playing off each other's strengths and weaknesses, it really worked."

The Call of Duty series is one of the few shooters that continues to embrace offline multiplayer as well as online multiplayer, an element most shooters pitching themselves against the dominant series consistently ignore. Bowling cannot say how many people utilise it but claims it's "definitely a statistic that we track."

"Obviously it's nowhere near the majority of players but there's a large percentage of people who use it," he says. "I think, especially in Call of Duty, because Call of Duty is one of those games that is extremely accessible and it's a game that is better played with friends, so when we introduce that tool, that ability to jump on the couch and with, you know, a spouse or a brother or something like that, online as well as in co-op, it opened up that floodgate of people who are willing to do it."

Accessibility is paramount but tailoring a product to suit as many people as possible is a tricky task, particularly with a fanbase this large. The overall aim is to produce a product that appeals to as many people as possible.

"It pays to be extremely accessible, as we are with our audience, and make sure we're in the trenches, having conversations," says Bowling. "It's one thing to look at statistical data; it's another thing to just get out there and get gut checks. More importantly, that's what Modern Warfare 3 has been designed as: a platform that gives you more options to control your own experience. It's not about catering to a specific type of player, that's what we've moved away from, and baking in your ability to really just play the game that you want to play and be incentivised to do that, however you play it."

Our chat ends on Spec Ops survival mode, a mode already tipped to be Modern Warfare 3's most-promising new feature and Bowling's personal favourite.

"I play that on a daily basis, whenever I have a chance, and I ****ing love it, every single time," says Bowling. "It's a brand new experience that we've never had. I'm a competitive multiplayer guy but sometimes I just want to sit back and have fun, especially in co-op."

http://pc.ign.com/articles/119/1195453p1.html

I want to play Modern Warfare by hopping on top of enemies and kicking turtle shells around. Glad to hear that I can apparently do that, since they're not catering to shooter fans.

L Ron Howard

I want to play the game with mechas. I assume that there will be many mechas I can choose from and play, correct?
I mean, what would MW*:COD*:BLOPS* be without mechas?

cloudeagle

THQ is really freaking desperate to make Homefront happen.

The multi-award winning Crytek will develop the next title in the Homefront franchise.

Danny Bilson, EVP of Core Games at THQ, said that "Selecting Crytek to take Homefront forward underscores our strategy of working with the industry's best talent.

He goes on to cite "Crytek's industry leading technology and legendary experience in the FPS genre" as one of the main reasons why the developer is such a massive coup for the Homefront series.

And the love is mutual, with Cevat Yerlie, the Founder, CEO and President of Crytek, saying that the studio has been given "a lot of creative freedom", with THQ allowing it "to bring the Homefront world to life in a new and innovative way."

The as yet unnamed sequel is scheduled to be released in 2014 on console and PC platforms.

http://games.ign.com/articles/119/1195501p1.html

At least I finally got my wish: a Crytek game that doesn't awkwardly shoehorn "cry" into the title.

By the way, what are some good websites that have the UK/Japanese sales info? By which I mean the full charts in a format that's easily copy and pasteable.

darleysam

Homefront actually sold alright. It just wasn't actually a very good game. Fair enough if they're trying to make the quality match the sales figures.

-SPI-

Well Crytek does have a proven track record with making killing North Koreans entertaining.

Lanrutcon

Homecry will be a great game. It will involve a dog's epic journey to return to its home against all odds!

...and killing Koreans.

Zerokku

RainbowDespair wrote:

Given that Eurogamer is one of the few game review sites that considers a 5/10 average, an 8/10 from them is nothing to complain about.

Pretty much. I'm a little surprised that anyone would complain about an 8/10 at all, much less from Eurogamer.

Robes

CoD will become Madden: People will catch on and learn they can get by with buying it everyother year/ every 3 years.