Jinxyface

A hypothetical mainstream consumer is the least educated person on the topic and is exactly the kind of person that gets swindled constantly by review scores. They’re the ones that need to hear more than ever that following review scores as some objective truth is stupid.

Once a generation you might get a Death Stranding 2 or something, and really enjoy it, but other times you’re stuck with the original Lords of the Fallen, because you like Souls-likes, and that’s your only game this month or quarter.

And sometimes the original Lords of the Fallen is exactly what you want to play, even if everyone else says it’s bad. That’s entirely my point. General consensus of “good” and “bad” means nothing. Equating popularity and quality is dumb

What I mean is even if a game looks interesting, but then I see it’s mixed on Steam or has a bunch of 5/10 reviews, I’d probably give that a pass.

I don’t see how letting other people’s opinions on something you think looks interesting should matter. I play games for me, so I don’t care if someone thinks something is a 1/10. If it seems interesting to me I’m going to play it, because that’s what matters. Some of my absolutel favorite games are panned by reviewers and critics alike, and most of the games I can’t stand are highly reviewed yearly rehashes. Scores meaning nothing.

There might be a chance it’s some hidden gem or totally up my alley, but why risk it? I’d rather play it safe, and give the 9/10 game a chance, even if the premise isn’t that compelling.

Because you’re risking it with either purchase regardless, so why not pick the one that actually sounds interesting to you? Letting review scores bias your decision making on an entirely subjective medium of art expression completely takes the point out of art.

Sometimes it’s not that easy, mainly if you can’t just afford every game that catches your eye.

I’m not sure how a review score will change that. The entire point of my discussion is that anyone who extrapolates a subjective review score as some objective quality measure is just wasting money.

It’s better to play a game that interests you than play a game because it’s scored high. “Scoring high” isn’t a metric of what makes a game fun.

For me I just don’t get how anyone can realistically extrapolate a game’s score to anything about the game itself. Reviews are fine, and people providng their own experience and interpretations of and pros/cons is fine, but then boiling that perosnal subjective into an interpretive score that somehow is supposed to convey they same information just makes no sense.

I do agree that most people just see a score and don’t bother to look further past that, it’s very annoying to see comment sections just talk about the score itself and how it might be “right” or “wrong”.

That’s the part I don’t get, when people think that someone giving CoD a 6/10 is “wrong” because another reviewer gave it a 9/10. Like, seriously, who cares what the score is. I don’t play games because the score is high, I play games because they sound interesting to me. I don’t care that some website gave Death Stranding a 4/10 because they didn’t “get it”. I still liked the game and their review doesn’t tranish that in any way, neither of us is right or wrong because not every game is made for everyone and people’s own subjective tastes and stuff will obviously affect the kinds of games they like.

I just overall think people care WAY too much about some arbitary scores that ultimately don’t mean shit. IGN giving a game I didn’t like a high score doesn’t mean I was “wrong” about the game, but too many people want to just use scores to argue with other people. Like bro, just go play the games that interest you, stop caring about scores

It’s definitely not going to be a game for everyone, but I’m one of those weird people who still sees games as art, so I really appreciate games that just do different things and provide experiences you can’t really get in other games. Even if they don’t 100% stick the landing, I can enjoy and appreciate them for adding some variety and trying something different.

Jusant is on Gamepass by the way, which could be a very good way to give it a try

$25 for a ~4 hour or so experience might not be most people’s cup of tea if they solely base things off of “dollar per hour” ratios (which I think is an insane way to judge a game’s worthiness)

However, Jusant was a great game. The varied locations, the music, the little twists on the climbing gameplay, spelunking into little hidden caverns to find shrines and story tidbits of the people’s lives before. It was absolutely worth my time. If people stopped worrying about dollar per hour ratiols or graphics or other random arbitrary things that don’t really mean anything in terms of a game’s quality, games like this would probably score a lot more recognition in the industry

That is something about this acquisition that benefits customers and not just Microsoft.

Yeah, but only the customers that Microsoft allows to play that product. What about Bethesda games being longstanding multi platform IPs that are now locked to Xbox consoles and Playstation users who might have been playing them on their consoles since Oblivion now get fucked.

Acquisitions like this are fine UNLESS it’s a multi trillion dollar conglomerate gobbling up the industry’s largest players. That is not beneficial to anyone. And there is no way to justify it is

Also, reviews are never objective.

I agree, which is why I think creating companies around subjective reviews by boiling things down to a score that people are expected to take objectively as a measure of a product’s worth is entirely asinine and silly. ESPECIALLY when the general triat of capitalism allows these review companies to have their bias and subjections swayed by not wanting to bite the hand that feeds their comapny’s existence

Review scores and review sites are dumb

It’s impressive how they managed to stumble right out of the gate.

Is it? This is Konami we’re talking about. This should be what people expect at this point

Sony being in a “dominant” position doesn’t mean the answer is to just let Microsoft buy out a nice chunk of the larger industry as a whole.

Microsoft has money, they can use that to create and invest and build up studios themselves. Corporate consolidation never helps anyone but the company buying out the other company.

Microsoft buying out Betheda and ActiBlizz will not benefit consumers in any way

WHenever I bouoght a game I suppose

I played the demo the other day. It really like it. Really nails the kind of PS1/DC survival horror vibe. I was getting a lot of Blue Stinger vibes from it

“Graphics:” are the only thing consoles can actively advertise on since “graphics” are the easiest thing to showcase in a screenshot or video.

It’s why so many gamers whine and complain about “graphics” being the most importnat thing that determines whether they buy a game or not, which I find completely asinine.

Notice I put graphics in quotes a lot. That’s because I distinctly and separating graphics/fidelity and art direction/aesthetic. I would much rather take a great game with a unique art style and lower fidelity over a game that has good fidelity, but a bog standard boring art direction and a color pallete of mostly browns and grays where 90% of the budget went to visuals and not the gameplay or content.

It’s why I pretty much don’t play modern AAA games. Year after year it’s just the same crap rehashed in a slightly differnet $60 package. Why would I buy Call of Duty 26 or Open World Collectathon But This Time There’s a Spider-Man Coat of Paint On It when I can play shit like Signalis or Crow Country or any of the Yakuza games or Nier or Antichamber or Death Stranding or Monster Hunter

It’s not about how many Microsoft owns. It’s how large the ones they own are. Microsoft has essentially made long time huge third party developers/publishers part of their company now, that’s corporate consolidation and should never be defended or justified in any way.

Microsoft has trillions of dollars. They have the capital, workforce, and time to build up their own studios. If the only way a trillion dollar company can “compete” in a space is to consolidate that space by applying anti consumer tactics like buying out longstanding publishers, that’s stupid and a lie.

Eh, I don’t think the big review sites can survive if they get blacklisted by one or a few publishers.

Then those review sites shouldn’t exist. It directly conflicts with their entire business model of “reviewing products objectively” when they can’t review products objectively without fear of the hand that feeds getting mad at them for saying the truth

A review site that lies isn’t a review site. It’s advertising

The employees being treated better under MS is probably the only positive about a trillion dollar conglomerate purchasing multiple of the industry’s largest third party publishers in the industry’s largest purchase ever.

This acquisition doesn’t benefit the average gamer in any actually good way

It’s not even a Nintendo Curve (They might have a stronger curve), but the vast majority of the time these large review sites are all in the pockets of publishers (event invites, interviews, exclusive first looks, review copies etc) and in order to keep that gravy train going so their review company doesn’t fold means to not bite the hand that feeds too much, even if you have to lie.

Video games aren’t in danger of becoming a monopoly,

Microsoft, a trillion dollar tech conglomerate, has just purchased multiple of the entire video game’s largest publishers. It is entirely in danger of becoming a monopoly

there are so many QOL improvements they can’t really be treated as the same game.

there’s a few, but it definitely doesn’t make it a superior version or anything. Honestly Bluepoint did what Bluepoint does best and fucked with the lightning and color palette too much and the PS5 remake of Demon’s Souls loses a lot of what made the original’s aesthetic so great.

The PS3 version of DS is better than the PS5 one.

That’s a great idea, why is no one talking about this?

Because why would you buy a digital PS5 and a blu ray drive when you can just buy the disc PS5 and not have to deal with an external blu ray drive?