Obsidian got fucked by Bethesda

[Aeschylus]

Maybe GL is just scared MCA might make him look shallow in comparison.

Children's literature makes George Lucas' writing look shallow.

P.S. He did not write the original trilogy.

 

[hello friend]

He didn't?

Tell me more.

 

[Aeschylus]

Well, he came up with the overarching story, but the only one he actually wrote was A New Hope (ok, I'll give him credit for that). Empire and Jedi's screenplays were not written by him. He wrote the prequel trilogy.

 

[hello friend]

BUT THAT WOULD MEAN - he was a hack from day one? (Seriously, though, I'd agree A New Hope was pretty decent, as rip-offs go.)

 

[aris]

Using metacritic as a measure for a successful developed game and bind contracts to it is one of the most stupid things I read in a while about the gaming industry.

It is not stupid. The metascore critic is extremely important for the sale of a game, as poeple really go by it. In terms of economics, the deal bethesda secured here is genius as hell: They've secured themselves some phat l00t from the game, by it not reaching the arbitrary, though pleasingly round number, of 85, and don't have to pay shit in royalties to the original developer. I think the word you are looking for is cynical, and indeed, it is cynical as fuck of bethesda to do this. However, such is life.

 

[Jarpie]

John Boorman is still alive, and supposedly doing Wizard of Oz-film.

 

[Average Manatee]

1 week later the codex is simultaneously sued by a dozen companies a dozen times each.

Not if you're stating the facts, the court records are probably floating around the net somewhere. They are open to public scrutiny. I'm more impressed that Robert Altman could bang Wonder Woman each night, lucky bastard.

Stating the facts only means that after spending $1 million on lawyers to defend yourself you won't go to jail. You can still get sued.

No, after getting sued and winning you can not be sued again for the same thing (at least in civilized countries). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_jeopardy

That means nothing when it comes to the top-dollar lawyers. At most they have to slightly rephrase what they are sueing you for. Did I mention that the $1 million cost of legal defense was just for the first suit?

 

[Country_Gravy]

I apologize for causing a derailment

 

[Morkar Left]

Using metacritic as a measure for a successful developed game and bind contracts to it is one of the most stupid things I read in a while about the gaming industry.

It is not stupid. The metascore critic is extremely important for the sale of a game, as poeple really go by it. In terms of economics, the deal bethesda secured here is genius as hell: They've secured themselves some phat l00t from the game, by it not reaching the arbitrary, though pleasingly round number, of 85, and don't have to pay shit in royalties to the original developer. I think the word you are looking for is cynical, and indeed, it is cynical as fuck of bethesda to do this. However, such is life.

What is the metacritic to number of sales constant exactly? Oh, I'm sure there's one. But it's not a measure for the quality of the game. It is a measure of how much money got sunk into marketing and how effective this was. Reviews are bought. That's a fact. In Germany are mags that practically offer whole marketing package deals the publishers can buy, score ranges included. It's like sponsoring a study to get some favourable results/publicity for your own product.

And a metacritic score is not a quanitifiable measure for the reception of a game. The only quantifiable measure you can bring up is the number of games actually sold and compare this to similar games with a similar budget (e.g. Fallout 3).
Of course you can outsource and get an "expertise" from "specialists/professionals" and I can see that the games industry sees metacritic as some sort of professionals in their trade. But this is actually the part to laugh at when the gaming industry thinks that's professional expertise and use it as a basis for serious intern contracts.

Of course it's absolutely possible that they even made sure that the score doesn't go over 84 in metacritics. Especially when you think that it's unknown how metacritic selects scores and values them.

 

[dextermorgan]

Isn't it absurd that the publisher('s company) sets a condition to be fulfilled in order to provide a bonus when the same (publisher's) company is also in charge of a single most important factor (marketing) that directly relates to a condition for such bonus (rating)?

 

[SCO]

replace rating by sales and it would be a absurd complaint.
No, the problem is not the that marketing can affect reviews, it's that the whole clause stinks of planned "gotcha" that they can guarantee through shady means - a sale is a sale, but a average is jello - isn't it strange that it failed by 1%, neatly enticing players but bypassing the money? There's a mountain of dead rats buried here. Fergus should have beat up the executive that proposed that "clause" too.

 

[dextermorgan]

I see what you mean on both counts. I'm somewhat used to stench coming out of Bethesda but still...

 

[aris]

Using metacritic as a measure for a successful developed game and bind contracts to it is one of the most stupid things I read in a while about the gaming industry.

It is not stupid. The metascore critic is extremely important for the sale of a game, as poeple really go by it. In terms of economics, the deal bethesda secured here is genius as hell: They've secured themselves some phat l00t from the game, by it not reaching the arbitrary, though pleasingly round number, of 85, and don't have to pay shit in royalties to the original developer. I think the word you are looking for is cynical, and indeed, it is cynical as fuck of bethesda to do this. However, such is life.

What is the metacritic to number of sales constant exactly? Oh, I'm sure there's one. But it's not a measure for the quality of the game. It is a measure of how much money got sunk into marketing and how effective this was. Reviews are bought. That's a fact. In Germany are mags that practically offer whole marketing package deals the publishers can buy, score ranges included. It's like sponsoring a study to get some favourable results/publicity for your own product.

And a metacritic score is not a quanitifiable measure for the reception of a game. The only quantifiable measure you can bring up is the number of games actually sold and compare this to similar games with a similar budget (e.g. Fallout 3).
Of course you can outsource and get an "expertise" from "specialists/professionals" and I can see that the games industry sees metacritic as some sort of professionals in their trade. But this is actually the part to laugh at when the gaming industry thinks that's professional expertise and use it as a basis for serious intern contracts.

Of course it's absolutely possible that they even made sure that the score doesn't go over 84 in metacritics. Especially when you think that it's unknown how metacritic selects scores and values them.

I don't know the sales to metascore rates, but I'm sure it is not always rising. However, in general, a game with a high metascore (with some exceptions) sells very good, but a game with a metascore in the 40-60s range sells poorly. 84 is a very good metascore.

I don't really buy into that reviewers are bought by the big companies. It is an intriguing and seemingly plausible idea, but I think it is more the case of big developers knowing what buttons to push to get that review score high, otherwise I think game journalists are mostly independent, like other journalists. As long as consumers go by the numbers (Hell, I tend to do it myself, who hasn't tried a game because it gets rave reviews, or decided not to, because it got bad reiews or bad publicity from word of mouth?), it's always going to be an important factor.

Isn't it absurd that the publisher('s company) sets a condition to be fulfilled in order to provide a bonus when the same (publisher's) company is also in charge of a single most important factor (marketing) that directly relates to a condition for such bonus (rating)?

From a moral standpoint, maybe, but from a legal and economical one? No.

 

[RK47]

I don't really buy into that reviewers are bought by the big companies. It is an intriguing and seemingly plausible idea, but I think it is more the case of big developers knowing what buttons to push to get that review score high, otherwise I think game journalists are mostly independent, like other journalists.

Wake up. Exclusive previews, ads. Interviews. Things that draw you to your website. All these originate from the company making the games. If they are a gaming giant and make a lot of titles a year that visitors care about, dare you to be brutally honest and cause them to close their doors in the future with you? We're talking early review access here. Are you sure this isn't related?

OVER 75 perfect scores, yet scores of the fans are unhappy with the product.

 

[aris]

I see the reasoning behind it, I absolutely do. But I don't buy into it. Not until i see hard solid proof that a large part of the reviewers are bought by the producers; ads on sites does not inherently mean any bias on the part of the reviewers. In the case of mass effect 3, I think it is more a case of, as I said before, bioware knowing exactly which game-buttons to push, to get rave reviews. It has a huge mass-appeal, and most reviewers are ultimately reviewing for this group, so naturally they are going to give high scores. It is strange to me that nobody mentioned the ending though, but I think since there was a huge rush to be the first ones to get a review of mass effect 3 out, it happened before the backlash of the ending and the reviewers simply did never predict it.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

It's a multimillion dollar business that works mainly by word of mouth (like you said yourself), of course reviewers are bought by the companies.

 

[aris]

Might be. But not everything can be bought by money. Imagine if it is true, and one particularly morally strong gaming site decided to report on a publisher's attempt to buy high scores? Or it does not even have to be morally strong, the amount of revenue that a gaming site can get from visits for a news-scoop like that, easily outweighs manifold any revenue they would get from bought reviews: It would be DEVASTATING for said publisher and it would lose far more money than it could earn by buying scores, possibly even go bankrupt. And all publishers know this. If it is indeed happening, I think it is happening in extremely small circles, and that most reviews are not bought by the same publisher.

Another interesting question is, how come not a single ex-reviewer has ever talked about this (as far as I know)? Maybe they are threatened on their life to silence, but that only makes the theory seem even more unlikely.

 

[SCO]

Listen dude, in England for years Murdorch hacked voicemail of celebrities including government and murder victims with the police knowing about it but doing jack shit. I don't want to even imagine what goes on in the Kwa.

What "respected" news organization that is not part of the corporate pyramid in alliance with the publishers is going to fall on the sword and be destroyed in the vengeance that comes down the hill? Heck, what singular persons are going to destroy their fucking "careers" because of mere gaming?
Besides, it can only be one or two of the reviews, or even metacritic itself. They don't even publish how they average or what reviews are chosen. It's not the gamer reviews, that's damn sure.
If i was the metacritic drone that selected that algorithm my eyes would be permanent $_$

 

[XenomorphII]

Wasn't there a big (well for gaming "journalism" anyway) stink a few years back when some gamespot reviewer trashed a game (Kane and Lynch maybe?) that had bought up ad space from gamespot and lost his job because of it (also the publisher pulled their access for awhile too didn't they)?

 

[Average Manatee]

Might be. But not everything can be bought by money. Imagine if it is true, and one particularly morally strong gaming site decided to report on a publisher's attempt to buy high scores? Or it does not even have to be morally strong, the amount of revenue that a gaming site can get from visits for a news-scoop like that, easily outweighs manifold any revenue they would get from bought reviews: It would be DEVASTATING for said publisher and it would lose far more money than it could earn by buying scores, possibly even go bankrupt. And all publishers now this. If it is indeed happening, I think it is happening in extremely small circles, and that most reviews are not bought by the same publisher.

Yes, this happens multiple times a year. What is your point?

The purpose of running a big site is to make money. Anything can be bought if the expected profit it brings in is more than the expected loss if discovered multiplied by the chance of being discovered

 

[Clockwork Knight]

DEVASTATING

Not quite. If not even the "buying DLC that is actually content that was already on the disc" thing made people angry, articles about "courtesies" would be forgotten in a few weeks, maybe a month if the game was especially bad. Hell, it would probably be dismissed as 4chan trolling. I mean, do you think the average gamer will refrain from buying the next Call of Duty because Treyarch paid someone for a "10/10, GOTY"?

For all the money it generates, gaming is still seen as kiddy stuff, so no one really cares about shady business practices.

 

[Aeschylus]

Might be. But not everything can be bought by money. Imagine if it is true, and one particularly morally strong gaming site decided to report on a publisher's attempt to buy high scores? Or it does not even have to be morally strong, the amount of revenue that a gaming site can get from visits for a news-scoop like that, easily outweighs manifold any revenue they would get from bought reviews: It would be DEVASTATING for said publisher and it would lose far more money than it could earn by buying scores, possibly even go bankrupt. And all publishers know this. If it is indeed happening, I think it is happening in extremely small circles, and that most reviews are not bought by the same publisher.

Every man has his price.

 

[aris]

DEVASTATING

Not quite. If not even the "buying DLC that is actually content that was already on the disc" thing made people angry, articles about "courtesies" would be forgotten in a few weeks, maybe a month if the game was especially bad. Hell, it would probably be dismissed as 4chan trolling. I mean, do you think the average gamer will refrain from buying the next Call of Duty because Treyarch paid someone for a "10/10, GOTY"?

For all the money it generates, gaming is still seen as kiddy stuff, so no one really cares about shady business practices.

Well. Devastating might have been an exaggeration, but I would see that there is a distinct difference between that kind of corruption and DLCs on discs. Publishers have taken large dents in their income by bad publicity before, in particular EA which had to lay off thousands of employees recently. If evidence of EA buying review scores got out, that might have been the last coffin in the nail for EA.

Listen dude, in England for years Murdorch hacked voicemail of celebrities including government and murder victims with the police knowing about it but doing jack shit. I don't want to even imagine what goes on in the Kwa.

What "respected" news organization that is not part of the corporate pyramid in alliance with the publishers is going to fall on the sword and be destroyed in the vengeance that comes down the hill? Heck, what singular persons are going to destroy their fucking "careers" because of mere gaming?
Besides, it can only be one or two of the reviews, or even metacritic itself. They don't even publish how they average or what reviews are chosen. It's not the gamer reviews, that's damn sure.
If i was the metacritic drone that selected that algorithm my eyes would be permanent $_$

Sure, there is corruption, no doubt about it. But Murdoch was never the shining beacon of morality in the first plass, rather exactly the opposite. The fucker will do anything, even the atrocity that is fox news, in order to get more money for his already bloated wallet.

Metacritic being bought? Maybe, maybe, maybe not. And I don't understand what is so secret about the averaging. Finding out the weights for each site is a very simple application of linear algebra. All you need to have, is n samples of n reviewers with the corresponding review scores and the metacritic score for each of the n games, and you can find out exactly which weight metacritic applies to each site. The only way it wouldn't work is if they are constantly changing the weights, but that would just be weird. I don't know why anyone has not done this yet, me, I'm to lazy though.

 

[SCO]

Then, lets imagine they did buy a few lowball scores, and it does come out.

Now the offended party has a case to bring, Obsidian wins some compensation - say a few millions. What then?
Every single employee of Obsidian would never work for a game of that publisher again (let's not say all publishers, though i can well imagine a "gentleman's agreement" about this).
So they stay quiet like a good little bitch, until MCA lets the outrage slip.

 

[Aldebaran]

I think it is good to remain skeptical of the idea of "paid for" reviews. However, looking at the factors that are involved, widespread intimidation is almost certainly present.

On the other hand, I think some reviews exist because the reviewers are just that retarded. It has nothing to do with intimidation, corruption, or the bottom line: it is just a review copy, a keyboard, one retard, and all the time in the world. These people are intentionally hired by companies--more than likely--and I don't think it is necessarily because of the promise of corporate patronage. There is another factor involved here. If a gaming site pisses off the majority of its fanbase, you can expect some repercussions. And what is the easiest way to piss off a huge percentage of the fanbase? Give a popular game an 8/10. Suddenly you will have a short burst of increased traffic followed by plenty of threats of moving to another, unbiased website. Meanwhile, if you give such a game 10/10, you will get a short burst of traffic for people who are still surprised by this number, but you will also get repeat viewers who want to validate their own opinions.

New Vegas may have gained quite a few low scores because reviewers actually thought it was worse.

Still, I have no doubt that if a few reviews were the difference between Bethesda saving or losing a lot of money, those reviews WOULD end up in favour of Bethesda.