| Original message ([an error occurred while processing this directive] Views )[an error occurred while processing this directive]
| Replies:
|
| DarkZero 799th Post
 
Red Carpet Regular Member+
   
    
    
|  "Re(5):WB will penalize games for bad reviews"
, posted Wed 26 May 21:38
quote:
That dosent decide whether the game will be good or not or whether it will sell or not. WB needs to get a grip... good reviews dont equal big money. There are great games out there that sold like crap. This goes to show that these people fail to even understand the game market.
Actually, they DO understand the game market. They understand that when millions of people shell out $50 for a horrendously bad game that's taken from one of their licenses, that causes brand damage. The fact that Enter The Matrix sucked so badly means that the very large number of people who bought the game are now never going to buy another Matrix game again and in many cases are just turned off to the entire franchise as a whole now.
Just look at the way The Matrix Online is being received. Despite the fact that a lot of the people working on it had nothing to do with Enter The Matrix, everyone still says that it will suck, even though very little about it has been revealed -- because the last Matrix game sucked. That's the sort of brand damage that they're talking about. They've made money on one Matrix game, but now they're never going to make money on another Matrix game again. Given the choice, I'm sure they would rather have sold five Matrix games that received modest sales instead of just one game that performed well, but helped end the franchise.
And people will still make games for Warner Bros., because there's still an enormous pot of gold there for American developers. And even with increased royalty rates, I think that Enter The Matrix still would've made a huge pile of money for Atari.
|
| DarkZero 800th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member+
| "Re(7):WB will penalize games for bad reviews" , posted Thu 27 May 01:00
quote:
Actually, they DO understand the game market. They understand that when millions of people shell out $50 for a horrendously bad game that's taken from one of their licenses, that causes brand damage. The fact that Enter The Matrix sucked so badly means that the very large number of people who bought the game are now never going to buy another Matrix game again and in many cases are just turned off to the entire franchise as a whole now.
Oh yeah. So if a number of people didn't think Matrix Revolutions was the movie to shine their dicks upon, that's of course the GAME'S fault.
Well, obviously Reloaded did a Hell of a lot more damage (IIRC, the box office numbers for Revolutions showed that the damage was already done), the game certainly didn't help any. It could've sucked at least a LITTLE less than the sequels themselves. And while I have heard a lot of people say that they have no interest in The Matrix Online just based on the sequels themselves, most of the negative things I've heard about it are more akin to "Will I get stuck in a wall again?" or "I wonder how many times it will crash THIS time".
Oh, and I found this sort of interesting. This is an e-mail that Tycho from Penny Arcade received from a game developer whose name he wouldn't mention:
WB's plan is a great one. As a person that has made one or two crappy licensed games myself (even for Warner Bros.) I welcome the idea someone saying, “hey quit making shitty fucking games you asshole”. It’s good for the industry and I don’t like shitty games any more than the next guy.
Now, with that said am I going to get more time to do them? Am I going to get more money? Are the Movie studios going to quit catering to the lowest bidder and go with the quality studios? The biggest and last question, are the movies studios still going to wait until the last three months of production and insist on changing the entire fucking game because one of their fat executives played it for five fucking minutes and didn’t think he liked it? When answer to those questions equal no, then and only then with shitty movie licenses quit being produced.
Given that most of the reviews I read for Enter The Matrix repeatedly used phrases like "the game feels sort of rushed", "it's as if they had no time for bug testing", or "just six more months...", I really wonder if anyone else will work with Warner Bros. again. It's one thing to punish a bad developer, but it's another thing to take money from a good developer that you're just screwing with. Then again, Shiny wasn't exactly on a roll before Enter The Matrix...
|
| Undead Fred 1595th Post
Red Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Member
    
| "FR3,E V,1C0.D1N W1,TH UR CO.P,Y OF D;R1V3R 3" , posted Fri 28 May 12:20
quote:
Oh, and I found this sort of interesting. This is an e-mail that Tycho from Penny Arcade received from a game developer whose name he wouldn't mention:
WB's plan is a great one. As a person that has made one or two crappy licensed games myself (even for Warner Bros.) I welcome the idea someone saying, “hey quit making shitty fucking games you asshole”. It’s good for the industry and I don’t like shitty games any more than the next guy.
Now, with that said am I going to get more time to do them? Am I going to get more money? Are the Movie studios going to quit catering to the lowest bidder and go with the quality studios? The biggest and last question, are the movies studios still going to wait until the last three months of production and insist on changing the entire fucking game because one of their fat executives played it for five fucking minutes and didn’t think he liked it? When answer to those questions equal no, then and only then with shitty movie licenses quit being produced.
Given that most of the reviews I read for Enter The Matrix repeatedly used phrases like "the game feels sort of rushed", "it's as if they had no time for bug testing", or "just six more months...", I really wonder if anyone else will work with Warner Bros. again. It's one thing to punish a bad developer, but it's another thing to take money from a good developer that you're just screwing with. Then again, Shiny wasn't exactly on a roll before Enter The Matrix...
Nah, them video game wizards can use their magic computers to get the game done in a week if they wanted to. They's just bein' LAZY!!! It's completely their fault.
That's a good point, though. WB punishing game companies for bad results is fine, but they do need to take into account whether or not they're partially to blame when they give them the task equivalent to moving the WB building a little bit to the left and don't give them any time to do it...
quote:
From my whole six week stint at (un)funimation, I had to sit in three Atari meetings where they said that reviewers were "hateful" to the license and reviewed stuff slanted because of it. Maybe if they just took the time to see why they were hateful we could get a decent game out of the license. They also thought the idea of hawking Sobe and Nokia in Driver 3 whas the best thing that would happen to gamers (we actually had a 4 hour meeting on that little pile of poo) When asked if the comsumer would get a break in pricing for the joy of watching Tanner drive by two Sobe machines on the same corner 12 feet apart, they said that the money recieved goes into marketing the shit they peddle.
I stated that i have never seen a Sobe Vending Machine and that it doesn't make the game feel more real but like some forced advertisment....
Good. I'm glad someone told them that they're over-marketing pieces of shit. Well, you weren't THAT blunt, but I'm glad you said something. I hate seeing ads in real life, and I sure as hell don't want to see ads in my video games. Maybe if there was more care put into the game and not which products can be forced upon us through the game, then they'd sell more copies. I mean, we're already paying $40-50 to own the game anyway, why the hell should they be allowed to stick out-of-place product endorsements in there? Doesn't Driver still take place in THE SEVENTIES?? As far as I know, there was no such thing as Sobe and Nokia back then... And if the executives had the game set in the present time just so they could place those products in it, then they need a good, old-fashioned "better run to your car" beat-down.
If a game has billboards and stuff in it, I want them to be fake ones. Like, every ad in Max Payne, for example. Then I can enjoy their fake ad (because they're usually kind of funny), and not get pissed because some fat, old executive made them try to sell me stuff I don't want while I'm trying to enjoy a game.
BLAGGO
|
| DKW 257th Post
Copper Customer
| "Re(1):WB will penalize games for bad reviews" , posted Fri 28 May 21:36
I have three problems with this policy:
1. Bass-ackwardness. The foremost concern for any game company is what will SELL. Not reviews, or originality, or non-gaming public perception, or anything else. Expecting them to put the whims of a bunch of unreliable, hopelessly biased writers above marketability and saleability is ludicrous (doubly so because movie companies themselves have been putting out critically-panned potboilers for years.)
2. Potential for abuse. In fact, I'd be surprised if the game maker didn't at least attempt to bribe a number of reviewers, or the reviewers went directly to them and made demands.
3. Simple logistics. What number constitues a "positive" review? If it's borderline, does that count as a wash? Does a rookie reviewer or one who works for a small, relatively unknown magazine carry less weight? Just too unworkable in my book.
Instead of reviews, WB should use one criteria to judge the worthiness of the game...MONEY. If people are buying (and renting) it, it's good. If they're not, it's bad. That's how both industries operate in real life; why not just carry over this basic principle?
homepage - http://home.hawaii.rr.com/dkwff
|
| Undead Fred 1600th Post
Red Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Member
| "Re(2):WB will penalize games for bad reviews" , posted Mon 31 May 02:22:
quote:
I have three problems with this policy:
1. Bass-ackwardness. The foremost concern for any game company is what will SELL. Not reviews, or originality, or non-gaming public perception, or anything else. Expecting them to put the whims of a bunch of unreliable, hopelessly biased writers above marketability and saleability is ludicrous (doubly so because movie companies themselves have been putting out critically-panned potboilers for years.)
And you have overlooked something. It is this- companies like to be able to sell more than one thing. If they can make one Matrix game that everyone liked, that means people will PROBABLY buy more Matrix games. Even though the movies sucked, people liked the Matrix idea enough to enjoy playing Matrix games. Why make a lot of money off of ONE game, when you can make the first game a good game which rakes in money for that one, AND its sequels? That makes a lot more sense to put pressure on the companies representing their properties to make a quality product so the customer will still be interested when they come out with another game based on the same thing.
quote:
2. Potential for abuse. In fact, I'd be surprised if the game maker didn't at least attempt to bribe a number of reviewers, or the reviewers went directly to them and made demands.
I thought that at first, but did you read any of the posts or the article? Their bribing reviewers won't work FOR them. They get to charge the game makers more money if they can't make a good game. So, unless you meant that they could bribe reviewers to make BAD reviews of their game, it wouldn't work in their favor. It STILL wouldn't work in anyone else's favor to rate a good game badly for the sake of getting more money out of the developers- first of all, the magazine would risk its reputation by rating a game everyone likes and doesn't have glaring flaws badly. Thus, the magazine's sales would go down, or the website would lose visitors, or whatever you like. So, the reviewer wouldn't get a good deal out of that. The company (WB for example) also wouldn't gain from that because their sales would more than likely be hurt by the bribed-down reviews. They'd get to charge more from the developer for royalty fees, but that's all they'd gain. They'd lose sales of the game in the meantime, and possibly risk sales of future games related to the first.
quote:
3. Simple logistics. What number constitues a "positive" review? If it's borderline, does that count as a wash? Does a rookie reviewer or one who works for a small, relatively unknown magazine carry less weight? Just too unworkable in my book.
The article said. What was it, like a 70% average review or something was considered the cut-off mark? Something like that? Anyway, they came out and said what the low mark was before they would start charging people, and I was pretty sure it was an overall average from the major reviewing sources (including websites, I assume).
quote:
Instead of reviews, WB should use one criteria to judge the worthiness of the game...MONEY. If people are buying (and renting) it, it's good. If they're not, it's bad. That's how both industries operate in real life; why not just carry over this basic principle?
For reasons stated earlier, they want people to stay for more than one game so they'll make more money. Aside from that, if they're also wanting to show SOME respect for their customers, then I think that's great. It's about time one of those companies saw their clients as more than a wallet that they can reach for. I'm sure it's a simple "establish a good reputation for our licenses and we'll sell more in the long run" strategy, but if they're also being considerate of their customers, then that's awesome too. Money does NOT equal quality. It never has. It can help raise the CHANCE for quality, but it will never, ever guarantee it. Movies and music have proven it, and so have games. Kangaroo Jack was bragging that it was the #1 movie in America when it was out, but does that make it a good movie? Hell no. From our end, we're spending our money on this stuff, so we want it to be good. From their end, they want to keep interest in the product high so they can keep profiting from it. If they let game companies make crappy games with their licenses, then people will lose interest quickly and they won't be able to profit on sequels and other related stuff. Companies like WB's reasons for doing this should be clear.
...now, on the other hand, that message earlier had a good point. The companies that have these licensed properties should allow for adequate development time before they pull the "we're going to charge you for your crappy game" rule. If the big, fat executive plays the work in progress for 5 seconds and decides he hates it already and makes them totally re-work everything, then the game company should be allowed a fair amount of time to "fix" everything before it's released.
EDIT:
Works cited
------------------------------------------
1. Wells, H.G. The Time Machine.
Dr. Phantom Press, WI. 1965.
2. Faigin, Gary. The Artist's Complete
Guide to Facial Expression.
Porkfart University Press, KG. 1978.
BLAGGO
[this message was edited by Undead Fred on Mon 31 May 02:30] |
|
|
and find that truly good cup of coffee.
