The Last of Us Part II

[RobertoCarlos]

Look. There's no objective standard for reviews, but anyone who rates The Last of Us II a 10/10 is suggesting that it's on par with The Witcher 3 and Divinity: Original Sin 2, which in my opinion is laughable.

Any story where the characters fail to learn anything and keep repeating the same mistakes is not one I get immersed in.

It's like those horror movies where people are assholes and we as the viewers don't even care if they die.

You're free to disagree but I'm also free to say I shouldn't care about someone's review if our standards for games dramatically differ.

Yeah you're right. You can't compare a game where you spam square (witcher) for 99% of the combat to a stealth action game where AI hunt together and call out each others names

[Brostin]

Yet another person that fails to understand the difference in definition between "perfect" and "maximum". What else is new with gamer hawt takes though?

Someone want to explain how a QB can have a max QB rating on the same day they have multiple incomplete passes? Someones want to explain how you can have a max GPA while literally not being perfect? It really amazes me how this is such an abstract concept to gamers because the rest of the world seems to understand it just fine.

I bet you would have given it a 5 out of 7

[Edge-]

But say when gearbox invited a bunch of reviewers to a hot all paids private party to watch borderland 3 event. Thats pretty direct, short of giving you a brown envelope.

Not in the slightest.

Most of those attending an event like that are not reviewers, they're preview editors, freelancers, features editors, news writers, not the folks handling the reviews.

Beyond that, that's not getting "paid", that's angling to give them a good time in the hopes it leads to good coverage for the event/game. Those writers are getting paid - by the company they're writing for - but that's it. And if you think that's outrageous you would be stunned to silence to know how these kinds of parties were in the 90's/2000's for a while. Quite literal brown bags of money at times, much more access to illegal drugs etc.

These events aren't fuckin gettin paid. The closest you'd get are the Activision CoD review events, which usually have media holed up in a hotel for a while to review the game in a controlled environment while they're wined and dined. But even then, at best you're trying to influence their review positively, and any writer worth their salt knows that game and ain't gonna get wowed by a massage and a round of paintball before the all-you-can-eat buffet.

How about programs like EA that gives you preview copies, allow you to do content without copyright, but if you shit on their games, you get removed pretty fast.

...and? They have every right to control who has early access to their titles, and they specifically invite these people. If they decide they no longer want to work with one of them, that's that. It's their product, if they want to protect pre-launch coverage that's fine. Those folks can still buy and review the games at launch.

How about Bestheda that used to welcome people in their E3 private show and then public reviewers that did not give them all glowing reviews start getting denied these invitation.

Need more info but again, not remotely relevant.

The trail is not direct money, the trail is actually having access to them.

So...not getting paid? Cool, glad that's cleared up.

Advanced access can matter, yes. But none of these outlets have a right to access those events and the early information if the company decides they don't want them to. None of this impacts reviews, which are unrelated to the pre-release marketing and events and should be about the game itself. Again, every outlet can buy a retail copy on launch day and review it however the fuck they want.

But its pretty foolish to think access journalism is not a thing, all these companies will try as hard as they could to sway their reviews even if it doesent work on everyone. They try hard enough by throwing million dollard parties inviting people that do these reviews or comment on games. They try hard enough by selecting who gets their review copy.

Again, most of these events aren't attended by reviewers, because they're not reviews. They're attended by preview editors, freelancers, features folks and news writers. Folks who don't review the game. The goal of the event is positive coverage coming out of the event, period.

and if you are told you arent ever getting a review copy again, youll try to be a bit more diplomatic and optimist about a review if you think these reviews are gona be in high enough demand that your website will get clicks for it in the future.

Complete and utter nonsense. Outlets aren't monoliths, and with how often underpaid freelancers are used for reviews denying a notable site early access to news and information because of a bad review is shooting yourself in the foot. A game can be covered positively through its entire campaign only to faceplant at review time.

I do this shit for a living, the PR side of gaming, working with indies to AAA. What you posted is functionally a compilation of misconceptions and "seeing evil in every shadow" that some of the gaming community has adopted, which is really fuckin weird because they view both the companies that make their games and the media that cover them with irrational hostility and fear.

Is access a thing? Sure. Is it denied casually? Absolutely not, especially not for any site that people actually read (JoesAwesomeGamesBlogExtreme.blogspot.com ain't gettin access to these events to begin with). It takes a pretty extreme act, like Kotaku posting tons of leaked Bethesda materials or a Nintendo site grossly violating an NDA, for companies to sever ties with a site or an editor. Are they gonna be stoked if their game gets shat on? No. But they're not gonna "punish" outlets over it either.

What you're describing is a pretty bog-standard attempt by companies to influence coverage overall positively for their products, something that exists within every single industry to a lesser or greater extent (in gaming it's absolutely on the "lesser" side). It's a potential problem, sure. But it also has little bearing on the ultimate review of a product, as the person reviewing it (at least in gaming) is rarely ever the person being wined and dined at these events. And that's sorta by design, because reviewers have a very different job than the people covering news or events.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Yeah you're right. You can't compare a game where you spam square (witcher) for 99% of the combat to a stealth action game where AI hunt together and call out each others names

Are you really implying Witcher combat is simplistic and LoU isn't?

[Rennadrel]

You know if all these people who pull the "Reviewers get money to give high reviews." conspiracy would actually show evidence outside of "It didn't get a low score and I hate it." they might be taken more seriously.

Aka show evidence, such as finding money trail from company A to company B

I mean, the whole GamesJournoPros controversy as well as that cesspool known as ResetEra, where developers and "journalists" freely communicate, should be enough to suggest that at the very least, there is an excessive amount of fraternization between both parties and that can lead to major conflicts of interest when it comes to honesty and integrity.

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@Edge, I think you missed a point there. Sure, EA is free to associate with whomever they want, but partnering with someone to review their products and then canning them because they were honest and truthful in their reviews is really bad optics. Freedom of expression and speech shouldn't compel someone to say what another person wants them to say, and that sort of attitude is dangerous.

[Darknessvamp]

Actually the money trail is easy to find. Im not gona say it works on all of them and direct. But say when gearbox invited a bunch of reviewers to a hot all paids private party to watch borderland 3 event. Thats pretty direct, short of giving you a brown envelope. How about programs like EA that gives you preview copies, allow you to do content without copyright, but if you shit on their games, you get removed pretty fast. How about Bestheda that used to welcome people in their E3 private show and then public reviewers that did not give them all glowing reviews start getting denied these invitation. The trail is not direct money, the trail is actually having access to them. It has an effect for sure, but not on everyone and if someone is big enough, they can even go against it for sure. But its pretty foolish to think access journalism is not a thing, all these companies will try as hard as they could to sway their reviews even if it doesent work on everyone. They try hard enough by throwing million dollard parties inviting people that do these reviews or comment on games. They try hard enough by selecting who gets their review copy.

Are reviewer paids for good score no, do all these company attempt to sway every reviewer they can, definitivly and if you are told you arent ever getting a review copy again, youll try to be a bit more diplomatic and optimist about a review if you think these reviews are gona be in high enough demand that your website will get clicks for it in the future.

I mean if you want an even more concrete money trail, we could look at publishers bloated marketing budgets for new games. Even the publishers themselves say that swinging around a hefty budget is worth more than a review but a good score doesn't hurt and where do the majority of gaming advertisements crop up? Advertising space bought on review websites. Of course there aren't easily accessible public records of transactions between advertising departments of game review publishers and the marketing department of game publishers so we can't actually comment on how much goes to individual businesses but it's definitely probable that giving a "good" review is one of the aspects of their negotiations especially if it can result in higher allotments of budget to their business in the future if the "marketing research" shows they were "influential in sales". Not mention it resulting in bonuses I'm sure. The "free review copy" and "special invites" is probably chump change in comparison.

[Edge-]

but it's definitely probable that giving a "good" review is one of the aspects of their negotiations especially if it can result in higher allotments of budget to their business in the future if the "marketing research" shows they were "influential in sales". Not mention it resulting in bonuses I'm sure.

It's not. Ad-sales are not handled by editorial staff, and every major outlet/group of outlets has separate people handling ads and editorial, often called "church and state". Even on smaller sites, they use third party ad managers at best (usually just opting into Google Ads or something) as that's both a conflict of interest and a lot of additional work to do.

Ad-buys, even major ones, are largely unknown by editorial staff as a result. The "most" I've ever seen leveraged outta an ad buy is to get the video team to throw up a trailer on the video page that nobody really checks out.

And "market research"? No, if they're doing an ad-buy they're getting metrics on who's clicking those ads by default and seeing how those clicks are translating into purchases. No quotes needed on any of that, that's extremely standard ad-tracking metrics that are key to any advertising campaign to get results on how it performed.

[Tech614]

I mean if you want an even more concrete money trail, we could look at publishers bloated marketing budgets for new games. Even the publishers themselves say that swinging around a hefty budget is worth more than a review but a good score doesn't hurt and where do the majority of gaming advertisements crop up? Advertising space bought on review websites. Of course there aren't easily accessible public records of transactions between advertising departments of game review publishers and the marketing department of game publishers so we can't actually comment on how much goes to individual businesses but it's definitely probable that giving a "good" review is one of the aspects of their negotiations especially if it can result in higher allotments of budget to their business in the future if the "marketing research" shows they were "influential in sales". Not mention it resulting in bonuses I'm sure. The "free review copy" and "special invites" is probably chump change in comparison.

Those bloated marketing budgets don't come from advertising on gaming websites which is something even small niche publishers can afford. They come from advertising during live sports which is the most expensive and sought after marketing in the world. Also real world ads in large cities like NY or LA take a significant chunk of change as well. I really can't take you serious if you think a $100 mil marketing budget is being spent to advertise on gaming websites.

[Thereturn]

So this thing is coming out in 2 days. Looks good, gameplay seems fun, story seems good. So what exactly is the problem people are having?

Im reading stuff about transexual protagonists? Main char being gay? What exactly is the problem here?

[MrLachyG]

https://www.opencritic.com/game/8351...-of-us-part-ii

95 average over 74 reviews with 99% recommendation.

Waiting with popcorn for all the people that said the game was gonna bomb to come eat their crow.

has it been released yet? not going to trust reviews until people actually play the game

[Darknessvamp]

It's not. Ad-sales are not handled by editorial staff, and every major outlet/group of outlets has separate people handling ads and editorial, often called "church and state". Even on smaller sites, they use third party ad managers at best (usually just opting into Google Ads or something) as that's both a conflict of interest and a lot of additional work to do.

Ad-buys, even major ones, are largely unknown by editorial staff as a result. The "most" I've ever seen leveraged outta an ad buy is to get the video team to throw up a trailer on the video page that nobody really checks out.

And "market research"? No, if they're doing an ad-buy they're getting metrics on who's clicking those ads by default and seeing how those clicks are translating into purchases. No quotes needed on any of that, that's extremely standard ad-tracking metrics that are key to any advertising campaign to get results on how it performed.

I mean that's the reason why I said "transactions between advertising departments of game review publishers and the marketing department of game publishers" to make it clear that I don't think the editorial department or the reviewers themselves are handling the transactions but it's not a stretch that the people handling the Ads have communication with the people who write and manage the reviews or have someone above them who has the go between and power to instruct people to work in a way that benefits the business further. Even if there is a "separation of church and state" it's not really a true separation as their work and their interests align rather than have possible opposition. Yeah I'm aware that sites with small amounts of staff generally go the third party ad plugin route through services offered by Google and such but if we look at major publishers like IGN and Kotaku who have their own departments directly working with game's publishers then it's got less of that distance.

I mean that was kinda the joke? The whole idea being that "research" literally boils down to clicks made through either bought ad space on the site or links provided at some point in a review piece is enough to show worthwhile further investment.

Those bloated marketing budgets don't come from advertising on gaming websites which is something even small niche publishers can afford. They come from advertising during live sports which is the most expensive and sought after marketing in the world. Also real world ads in large cities like NY or LA take a significant chunk of change as well. I really can't take you serious if you think a $100 mil marketing budget is being spent to advertise on gaming websites.

I mean I'm not making the case that the whole budget is being dumped on gaming sites but a substantial amount goes towards them. Especially when billboard and massive real world ads generally are less effective for games. Heck it's why events like E3 usually had such huge investment from publishers but they're realising they don't have to allocate so much of their budget there anymore as the livestream endorsements/advertising are significantly less costly and more directed.

[Edge-]

has it been released yet? not going to trust reviews until people actually play the game

Those reviewers played the game and are people. It's officially out on this Friday though.

[Tech614]

has it been released yet? not going to trust reviews until people actually play the game

I wasn't aware the now 99 reviews where made by robots and not actual people.

Oh wait, pretty sure people did "actually play the game".

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I mean I'm not making the case that the whole budget is being dumped on gaming sites but a substantial amount goes towards them. Especially when billboard and massive real world ads generally are less effective for games. Heck it's why events like E3 usually had such huge investment from publishers but they're realising they don't have to allocate so much of their budget there anymore as the livestream endorsements/advertising are significantly less costly and more directed.

In a AAA release, no a significant portion of the marketing budget is in no way spent on gaming websites. It is spent on hosting events, live tv/sports and real world ads.

Gaming website ads is something you see for niche ass game that will sell 500k copies max, if you think it costs a significant amount of an actual AAA game budget idk what to tell you but that's blatantly false.

[Stardrift]

https://www.opencritic.com/game/8351...-of-us-part-ii

95 average over 74 reviews with 99% recommendation.

Waiting with popcorn for all the people that said the game was gonna bomb to come eat their crow.

Let's see how the fans think of it. Never rely on these critics. I always wait for what actual fans of the video game industry think.

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Those reviewers played the game and are people. It's officially out on this Friday though.

They mean something more in the vein of what I said. Nothing wrong with waiting for people who have played games all their life to put out reviews, versus the people that just got into gaming because of its surge of massive popularity and very easy critic/journalism jobs.

[Edge-]

Nothing wrong with waiting for people who have played games all their life to put out reviews

I can't think of a review editor at any site I've worked with that isn't a pretty hardcore gamer and hasn't spent most of their life gaming. Same goes for a lot of the freelance reviewers who are trying to make it in the games industry and working for peanuts.

people that just got into gaming because of its surge of massive popularity and very easy critic/journalism jobs.

Do people actually believe this garbage?

[Stardrift]

I can't think of a review editor at any site I've worked with that isn't a pretty hardcore gamer and hasn't spent most of their life gaming. Same goes for a lot of the freelance reviewers who are trying to make it in the games industry and working for peanuts.



Do people actually believe this garbage?

I mean with an avatar like yours, I'd imagine you're also into things just because it's popular and has a large amount of hype around it, and not because you genuinely enjoy it.

And no I don't mean that insultingly. It's just that people will pretend to enjoy something only because it's big and will take easy jobs for it with no genuine interest in what they do.

That's why we have so many articles and opinion pieces that don't line up at all with what actual fans/players are saying. You're just not as intimate with the subject that others are.

And let's be honest. Anybody who self identifies as a hardcore gamer was only introduced to gaming thanks to mobile games like angry birds or temple run.

[Edge-]

I mean with an avatar like yours, I'd imagine you're also into things just because it's popular and has a large amount of hype around it, and not because you genuinely enjoy it.

Or, because I listen to k-pop periodically, have for a long while, and haven't changed my avatar in forever because I'm lazy.

But please, tell me more about myself based purely off my avatar of a k-pop singer from a band I enjoy.

And no I don't mean that insultingly. It's just that people will pretend to enjoy something only because it's big and will take easy jobs for it with no genuine interest in what they do.

Reviewing games isn't an "easy job". It pays like hot garbage, you're often under very short deadlines, and should the internet "disagree" with your review you're on the receiving end of an avalanche of hate.

That's why we have so many articles and opinion pieces that don't line up at all with what actual fans/players are saying. You're just not as intimate with the subject that others are.

Or, critical reviews are different from consumer reviews, and if you look across entertainment critical reviews and audience reviews sometimes don't line up, sometimes they do. And that's totally fine.

And let's be honest. Anybody who self identifies as a hardcore gamer was only introduced to gaming thanks to mobile games like angry birds or temple run.

Good lord, the hatred and gate-keeping that some gamers have for their hobby is truly insane to me.

[Tech614]

Let's see how the fans think of it. Never rely on these critics. I always wait for what actual fans of the video game industry think.

Oh so critics aren't fans now? Please stop with terrible statements like this guys. Not only do they make no sense, it just shows the levels you're reaching to because your agenda didn't happen the way you wanted it to.

[Stardrift]

Or, because I listen to k-pop periodically, have for a long while, and haven't changed my avatar in forever because I'm lazy.

But please, tell me more about myself based purely off my avatar of a k-pop singer from a band I enjoy.



Reviewing games isn't an "easy job". It pays like hot garbage, you're often under very short deadlines, and should the internet "disagree" with your review you're on the receiving end of an avalanche of hate.



Or, critical reviews are different from consumer reviews, and if you look across entertainment critical reviews and audience reviews sometimes don't line up, sometimes they do. And that's totally fine.



Good lord, the hatred and gate-keeping that some gamers have for their hobby is truly insane to me.

Jeeze. Struck a nerve I guess. Sorry you're taking it all so personally.

You've mentioned hate twice and accuse me of gatekeeping.

I'm not hating. Nor am I gatekeeping. Keep your silly buzzwords to yourself. I'm pointing people out for pretending to enjoy things they have no genuine interest in solely for the feeling of like, what, belonging? Fitting in? It's silly.

People should enjoy the things that they genuinely enjoy. Not force themselves into something they don't give much of a shit about. I've sold expensive headsets and keyboards to hockey dude bros because they, quote on quote, "wanted in on the fortnite hype" despite "never playing much games before".

It's not that far of a stretch to say most of these critics are in it because it's an easy job, and that they fake this "hardcore gamer" persona to appease to a crowd of like-minded windowlickers.

[Edge-]

I'm not hating. Nor am I gatekeeping.

And let's be honest. Anybody who self identifies as a hardcore gamer was only introduced to gaming thanks to mobile games like angry birds or temple run.

Gatekeeping 101.

I'm pointing people out for pretending to enjoy things they have no genuine interest in solely for the feeling of like, what, belonging? Fitting in? It's silly.

An unsubstantiated, unsupported claim that flies in the face of reality.

People should enjoy the things that they genuinely enjoy. Not force themselves into something they don't give much of a shit about. I've sold expensive headsets and keyboards to hockey dude bros because they, quote on quote, "wanted in on the fortnite hype" despite "never playing much games before".

Ok, and do you think that dealing with John Q Public is the same as dealing with people whose job it is to cover games? People who love gaming and think their best way into the industry is through editorial?

It's not that far of a stretch to say most of these critics are in it because it's an easy job

If absolutely, 100% is. Again, they get paid like hot dogshit, especially if they're a freelancer. It ain't "easy" when you're spending most of your time chasing down billing departments to get paid, being put under tight deadlines for 1,000 word reviews of 20+ hour games, and figuring how you'll use what little you're earning freelancing to cover rent and food.

and that they fake this "hardcore gamer" persona to appease to a crowd of like-minded windowlickers.

Again, a claim that you've spectacularly failed to support or substantiate and are baselessly and broadly alleging. Also known as "making shit up".

What in the reviews that you've read gives you this impression? What reviews were they? Do you have links?