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Star Wars Outlaws

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Dan_D said:
When it comes to review scores, I'm simply stating that using a 7/10 makes the game seem better than it is. This is likely by design. A 7/10 if you were talking about almost anything else would be pretty good. When talking about a game reviewed by IGN, not so much

The main protagonist in a 40+ hour game being ugly is a valid complaint. I'm not saying it should be top of the list but people want attractive characters in their entertainment which is a form of escapism.
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maybe...just maybe...they actually believe the game is a 7/10...I know shocker right?...they gave Outlaws a 7/10 and talked about both the positives and negatives like any good review site should...it seems fair...the problem is you made up your mind that you were going to hate the game before it even came out because of the 'ugly female' character and Sweet Baby

outside of overly sexualized games from Japanese developers like Steller Blade, most main characters are not gorgeous...secondary characters are moreso...was Geralt attractive?...JC Denton?...video games are not realistic depictions of actual people outside of maybe something like Callisto Protocol
 
polonyc2 said:
maybe...just maybe...they actually believe the game is a 7/10...I know shocker right?...they gave Outlaws a 7/10 and talked about both the positives and negatives like any good review site should...it seems fair
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They gave Concord a 7/10 as well. Whether or not Outlaws really is a 7/10 isn't even the point. The fact that the opinions of large media outlet reviews are often totally divorced from that of the general public means that anything they say is suspect and you have to look at the agenda behind why they would be so contrary, so consistently. Game journalists if you want to call them that have been losing credibility with audiences for years the same as mainstream movie critics have become virtually irrelevant. They are so far apart from the general public that their opinions are essentially worthless. This isn't to say its 100% true every time but being right once in awhile isn't sufficient to remain relevant.

In other words, the simple fact is that if people base their purchasing decisions on these reviews and end up disappointed time again, they'll stop paying attention to what these outlets are saying. Agreeing with the occasional 7/10 or 9/10 here or there doesn't make them useful or trustworthy.
polonyc2 said:
outside of overly sexualized games from Japanese developers like Steller Blade, most main characters are not gorgeous...secondary characters are moreso...was Geralt attractive?...JC Denton?...video games are not realistic depictions of actual people outside of maybe something like Callisto Protocol
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You might not find a given protagonist sexually attractive but it should go without saying that most people would rather look at good looking characters than ugly ones. Geralt is much easier to look at than DAW from Concord. Most people would rather look at any conventionally attractive female lead over Kay Vess in Outlaws. Again, Star Wars Jedi Survivor had a normal looking guy as a protagonist and that was fine. Kay Vess looking like Eric Stoltz in Mask is a problem. I think Outlaws has bigger issues given the bugs and broken combat / stealth systems it has but I still think her having the cheek bones of Red Skull or Skeletor is a valid complaint.
 
Dan_D said:
You might not find a given protagonist sexually attractive but it should go without saying that most people would rather look at good looking characters than ugly ones. Geralt is much easier to look at than DAW from Concord. Most people would rather look at any conventionally attractive female lead over Kay Vess in Outlaws. Again, Star Wars Jedi Survivor had a normal looking guy as a protagonist and that was fine. Kay Vess looking like Eric Stoltz in Mask is a problem. I think Outlaws has bigger issues given the bugs and broken combat / stealth systems it has but I still think her having the cheek bones of Red Skull or Skeletor is a valid complaint.
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that's not true...it's proven because in games where you are given the ability to shape your character's appearance through a Character Creator most people do not opt for the most gorgeous looking player character...that's not what people want to play as in a video game
 
polonyc2 said:
that's not true...it's proven because in games where you are given the ability to shape your character's appearance through a Character Creator most people do not opt for the most gorgeous looking player character...that's not what people want to play as in a video game
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Oh they don't? What is it you think they are looking for in a character then? What is your basis for this line of thought?

Most people seem to create characters that look either attractive or cool to them. This is of course individually subjective. Also, many people aren't necessarily adept with character creation systems which vary heavily in regard to their quality and ease of use. I'm not sure you can use that as a barometer for what players want. I think sales for skins for characters in games might be though. Dudes who look more badass and women that are more attractive sell more skins. Play any game where cosmetic microtransactions are a thing and that's what you'll see. Regardless, most people do not complain about conventionally attractive male and female characters. They sure as hell complain when there is a lack of them though. Gaming is a form of escapism. Most people either choose characters they find attractive or provide some sort of wish fulfillment or fantasy for them. If I play a male character in a game, I want him to look so jacked and full of steroids he won't live to see 35. If I play a female character in a game, I want her to look as attractive as possible.

I do not think I'm remotely unique in this regard.

Concord bombed. Overwatch and Overwatch II have been wildly successful. Yes, Concord had many issues but one of the chief complaints is that its character designs were awful across the board. Plus, it wasn't good enough in any other category to offset that. Having cool looking or conventionally attractive characters with good designs is important. I'm not saying they need to be built like Bunny from First Descendent or Lara Croft from the older Tomb Raider games. What I am saying is that a character with an off putting physical appearance and bland or simply bad design is. Sony probably doesn't see potential in monetizing Concord as a free to play game. Who the fuck wants to spend money on skins for characters so ugly they break rule 34? Kay Vess has eyes that are as far apart as Admiral Ackbar's. She looks like a man in drag cosplaying Han Solo. Again, I don't think that's Star Wars Outlaws only problem or even its main one. I am saying that it doesn't help. Again, you see a lot of people bringing this up. Not just because she's not remotely attractive but because she looks so weird that its off putting.

Character aesthetics matter.
 
Dan_D said:
Kay Vess has eyes that are as far apart as Admiral Ackbar's. She looks like a man in drag cosplaying Han Solo.
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LMAO Brutally savage.

1727744396149.png
 
Uninstalled now and will never re-sub to ubisoft again, they are just incompetent.

Frame drops to sub 30fps from 105fps on Akiva when riding around outside because of the massive VRAM hogging (20GB+) and bad optimisation. It's too annoying to soldier through and I have no confidence they will actually fix it in November given it's Ubisoft and they're rushing the DLC out at the same time.

Look at this:
1727744288063.png
 
polonyc2 said:
exactly...people are seeing what they want to see...it wasn't a massive hit in terms of sales or reviews especially in comparison to the recent Jedi: Fallen Order series but a 7/10 is a good game...people nowadays are so jaded and expect every game to be a 10/10...anything less and the game 'sucks' according to them
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No we don't. Speak for yourself and the other 50 people.
 
polonyc2 said:
Outlaws seems to match up fine with most gamers who think it's an average 7 game...or 8 on the high end and 6.5 on the low end...
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Part of me thinks that may be true, because average gamers overrate so many games these days. In reality it is around a 6 at best. At its best it is bland and on PC, un-optimized. At its worst it has some bad game design that holds back the player's enjoyment. The first 8-10 hours are quite shitty.

Blade-Runner said:
https://insider-gaming.com/star-wars-outlaws-sales-1-million/

Apparently only sold 1 million copies.....abysmal.
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Well, looks like even average gamers didn't like this. That says something. :p

Dan_D said:
Kay Vess looking like Eric Stoltz in Mask is a problem.
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It just looks so odd in game. The problem is it looks like they took bits and parts of different people and slapped it into a monstrosity of a face. It isn't so much that the character design is ugly, it just looks weird. I think they may have changed it late in development and once marketing started they stuck with the odd design. If you look at Kay when she is younger she looks quite different, almost like they are different people. It actually confused me the first time I saw a cutscene of Kay when she was younger. I have a feeling they pushed the game out the door before redoing the younger Kay cutscene to make it look more like the older one.
 
I think what irritates people about character design is not so much how the characters look nowadays, but the reason they look like that.

It's feels like it's not to make more "relateable" characters, but to take a stance and be "progressive and on the right side of history", the idea coming from the modern social sciences where man is but an empty shell that society has filled with the wrong values, thus creating war and hatred, and not in fact a complicated biological being with certain traits that are hard wired.

So that means everything that is wrong in society is because there hasn't been enough attempts to social engineer them out, and people might be just as attracted to a plain looking girl/guy, if they are only presented as attractive ideals. Game creators playing their part in making "Man 2.0".

And since there has been so much of this lately, where social science THEORIES has been elevated to hard fact status both by the Universities and media, people are overreacting to these messages and teaching from their betters, resulting in stupid exaggerations.

I can assure everyone that a re-make of Friends with more body positive actors would not be a success, and that wouldn't be because of "hate".
 
polonyc2 said:
that old wives tale doesn't apply to big sites like IGN or GameSpot etc...do you really think IGN gives a shit if they get free review codes?...they'll just buy the game on their own dime...the only people that matters to are the small independent YouTuber's and review sites...even popular reviewers like ACG always buy retail copies
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It's not about free review codes, there is something much more valuable than that: exclusive and early access. Sites like IGN drive traffic by exclusive early insider looks and interviews, they are given that access because there is a mutual understanding between the publisher and them that they won't say anything overtly negative even if the game is trash.
polonyc2 said:
what does a bad review even mean?...you want scores in the 1- 3 range?...or a zero score?...even subjectively bad games are not a complete zero...I can find things to like even in games I didn't really care for...so a 5 or 6 score is fine to denote a subjectively bad game...you rarely see 10's either...most games are not 10's or 0's...they fall in the middle...and most sites review games as such
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A bad review can be many things, but you can't deny that there is a trend to not use the lower half of the scale. I mean IGN gave Concord, Dustborn, Outlaws, Stellar Blade all a 7/10. Do you think this is informative or fair?
Bad games are not supposed to be zero, bad games are supposed to be in the 2-3 range. 4, is bellow average, 5 is mediocre or OK, 6 is above average, 7 is Good, 8 excellent, 9 great, and 10 is iconic. That's how the scale should work. In every universe Dustborn would be a 2 or 3, but not in the political panderverse of mainstream games journalists.
 
polonyc2 said:
that's not true...it's proven because in games where you are given the ability to shape your character's appearance through a Character Creator most people do not opt for the most gorgeous looking player character...that's not what people want to play as in a video game
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People will make ugly characters as a joke on stream, or because they don't have the patience or skill to get the desired result from a more complicated character creator. Not because they actually want to play as fugly characters.

Eivind68 said:
I think what irritates people about character design is not so much how the characters look nowadays, but the reason they look like that.
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I don't think that is true. Most gamers are not political, if they were fine with the character designs they wouldn't care about the politics behind it. The reason we talk about the politics is because we noticed that is what's been ruining our games.
 
M76 said:
People will make ugly characters as a joke on stream, or because they don't have the patience or skill to get the desired result from a more complicated character creator. Not because they actually want to play as fugly characters.


I don't think that is true. Most gamers are not political, if they were fine with the character designs they wouldn't care about the politics behind it. The reason we talk about the politics is because we noticed that is what's been ruining our games.
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Maybe you are right, but I do think that even people that are not into politics (but all people are, to a varying extent) have started to wonder why suddenly main characters start to look very plain, and why pronouns and sexual preference seems to be important.
 
https://insider-gaming.com/star-wars-outlaws-sales-1-million/

Insider Gaming hasn’t been able to learn what the expected sales figure was for Star Wars Outlaws, but we have secured a current sales figure from sources close to the game. At the time of writing, Star Wars Outlaws has just ticked over one million sales worldwide.
To put that into perspective, we reported in January 2024 that three months after Assassin’s Creed Mirage had hit the market, it had secured five million sales.
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Eivind68 said:
Maybe you are right, but I do think that even people that are not into politics (but all people are, to a varying extent) have started to wonder why suddenly main characters start to look very plain, and why pronouns and sexual preference seems to be important.
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That's what I was saying, people started looking into it because they noticed the deterioration in game design. If we found another reason behind it than politics we'd be calling that out. We are not inherently political, we are being dragged into it by the activists on the industry's side.
 
Eivind68 said:
I think what irritates people about character design is not so much how the characters look nowadays, but the reason they look like that.
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If you believe the insiders speaking to ENDYMIONtv, the directive given in relation to Outlaws was for the protagonist to be as homogentisic and generic as possible without being recognisable in terms of race or ethnicity despite being a person of color. It is insane pandering in the hope of not offending anyone, but all they achieve is creating unlikeable and unbelievable character representations. It is baffling that they thought it was a good idea to use Humberly González as the model but make the in-game character utterly ugly by comparison, and then gas light everyone about the reasons for this.

This is why eastern devs are absolutely kicking arse, because they don't give a shit about the pandering and risk of offending a small contingent of shit stain activists who won't even play their games. Look at Death Stranding 2 by comparison in terms of how they are trying to achieve a faithful reproduction of the character models:

1727786405450.png
 
M76 said:
It's not about free review codes, there is something much more valuable than that: exclusive and early access. Sites like IGN drive traffic by exclusive early insider looks and interviews, they are given that access because there is a mutual understanding between the publisher and them that they won't say anything overtly negative even if the game is trash.
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In the review world, if you aren't first, your last. It's that simple. Early access is critical to publishing a review that has any chance of being successfully monetized. To be clear, a lot of people talk about shills and reviewers being paid off. To be fair, this isn't all that common. Instead, PR departments and firms generally leverage human psychology in order to illicit the results and reviews they want. They do this by giving you free stuff that costs them very little if anything. They'll take you out to dinner etc. They get to know you so that it becomes difficult for you to disparage their company because you now know someone who would be directly impacted by negative reviews. Once they are people to you and not random names, it makes being honest about the product harder to do.

This is where integrity comes in and not everyone has it. That being said, (and specifically I've been approached) to do reviews so long as I guaranteed a positive result. I can't remember which company did this, but the most recent one was one of the gaming chair companies offering to send product free of charge that we could keep but only under the specific condition that the review be positive. Obviously, we declined to work with them as we couldn't guarantee a positive result for a product we had no experience with. So this type of direct solicitation of positive reviews does happen, but rarely in the way that most people think of it in terms of being bribed. I'm not saying some companies don't offer cash to reviewers directly, but I'd bet those are only the more well known influencers offered that.
M76 said:
A bad review can be many things, but you can't deny that there is a trend to not use the lower half of the scale. I mean IGN gave Concord, Dustborn, Outlaws, Stellar Blade all a 7/10. Do you think this is informative or fair?
Bad games are not supposed to be zero, bad games are supposed to be in the 2-3 range. 4, is bellow average, 5 is mediocre or OK, 6 is above average, 7 is Good, 8 excellent, 9 great, and 10 is iconic. That's how the scale should work. In every universe Dustborn would be a 2 or 3, but not in the political panderverse of mainstream games journalists.
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You've articulated my earlier point perfectly. That's how the scale SHOULD work and how it does work in most people's minds. However, with the access media, a 7/10 could either be a mediocre or even a bad game. A game that may be pretty good but goes against the politics of the reviewer may end up being given a 6/10. Most reviewers have overwhelming praise for Black Myth Wukong but Screenrant gave it a 6/10 for not having enough DEI in it. That's a game where forced DEI would make no sense as I understand it. It's a stupid complaint.

This kind of crap is why people's trust in big media outlets is fading.
 
Dan_D said:
In the review world, if you aren't first, your last. It's that simple. Early access is critical to publishing a review that has any chance of being successfully monetized. To be clear, a lot of people talk about shills and reviewers being paid off. To be fair, this isn't all that common. Instead, PR departments and firms generally leverage human psychology in order to illicit the results and reviews they want. They do this by giving you free stuff that costs them very little if anything. They'll take you out to dinner etc. They get to know you so that it becomes difficult for you to disparage their company because you now know someone who would be directly impacted by negative reviews. Once they are people to you and not random names, it makes being honest about the product harder to do.

This is where integrity comes in and not everyone has it. That being said, (and specifically I've been approached) to do reviews so long as I guaranteed a positive result. I can't remember which company did this, but the most recent one was one of the gaming chair companies offering to send product free of charge that we could keep but only under the specific condition that the review be positive. Obviously, we declined to work with them as we couldn't guarantee a positive result for a product we had no experience with. So this type of direct solicitation of positive reviews does happen, but rarely in the way that most people think of it in terms of being bribed. I'm not saying some companies don't offer cash to reviewers directly, but I'd bet those are only the more well known influencers offered that.

You've articulated my earlier point perfectly. That's how the scale SHOULD work and how it does work in most people's minds. However, with the access media, a 7/10 could either be a mediocre or even a bad game. A game that may be pretty good but goes against the politics of the reviewer may end up being given a 6/10. Most reviewers have overwhelming praise for Black Myth Wukong but Screenrant gave it a 6/10 for not having enough DEI in it. That's a game where forced DEI would make no sense as I understand it. It's a stupid complaint.

This kind of crap is why people's trust in big media outlets is fading.
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This makes sense.it basically boils down to you Just can't trust reviews by professional gaming journalists because they've basically been paid off, even if it via psychological conditioning to prevent them from giving a legitimately negative review
 
peppergomez said:
This makes sense.it basically boils down to you Just can't trust reviews by professional gaming journalists because they've basically been paid off, even if it via psychological conditioning to prevent them from giving a legitimately negative review
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Another problem is that many of the journalists (a term I use loosely) are simply employees. They likely don't have the editorial freedom to be as honest as they might want to be. You can see that sometimes in the conclusion page which sometimes has conclusions that seemingly have a different tone than the rest of the article. That's a blatant sign of interference from their editor or management. That's not always conclusive and there can be other reasons for that, but I don't want to get way into the weeds on that. I'm simply saying that some of these game journalists might have the best intentions but management and their editors may limit how negative they can be. Hence why you might read an article that has a negative tone to the whole article yet be very tempered in its conclusion with no explanation for the difference in tone.
 
M76 said:
It's not about free review codes, there is something much more valuable than that: exclusive and early access. Sites like IGN drive traffic by exclusive early insider looks and interviews, they are given that access because there is a mutual understanding between the publisher and them that they won't say anything overtly negative even if the game is trash.
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Same with Youtubers as well. They always hold back and never give true criticism. If an upcoming game looks like it is correcting half the mistakes of the previous entry they will talk about it with a positive outlook and focus on what is being improved but barely touch on the things that they didn't fix or things that looks bad with the upcoming game. You never hear them outright say something is bad, and should be removed or changed completely.

Dan_D said:
In the review world, if you aren't first, your last. It's that simple. Early access is critical to publishing a review that has any chance of being successfully monetized.
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And I think everyone should realize that. It goes back to the days of magazines. Though I would say it is even more important now due to how quickly information can be obtained. You can clearly tell after reading some reviews the people burn through these ever increasingly long games. They get the game a few days early but that isn't enough time to blow through a 60 hour game. I've read a few things that were contradictory to my own experiences and I'm not just talking about opinion, but features and character related development that wasn't correct to what the game portrayed if you played all of the quests. I don't recall which game it was but it stood out because the character says and does some things contradictory to what the reviewer mentioned.

So they rush through the game to be the first, get those clicks, even if they didn't fully play the game. And of course you have all of the interviews, early news, and are given trailers first.
 
A couple things here. The industry shills don't like devs that go against the narrative and against all the DEI shit out there, so they rated Space Marine 2 as a 6/10... It sold 2 million copies on the DAY OF IT RELEASE and is selling like hot cakes to this day. It has ZERO DEI/DIE injection in it. That's a pretty strong indicator of how sick of this shit people are. 99% of consumers are fed up. The rest are just head in the sand and totally ignorant of reality.

Now the 7/10 nonsense.... She was an IGN reviewer for 3 years:

View: https://youtu.be/gAjHzmus_is?si=--FaJP7zF7IcbVlV

There are tons of other points of reference but the above one is pretty accurate and very honest as far as I can tell

If you want more...

View: https://youtu.be/n0T1WJbsxR0?si=-0aqgRH7KzNYtI2o
 
Legendary Gamer said:
A couple things here. The industry shills don't like devs that go against the narrative and against all the DEI shit out there, so they rated Space Marine 2 as a 6/10... It sold 2 million copies on the DAY OF IT RELEASE and is selling like hot cakes to this day. It has ZERO DEI/DIE injection in it.
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That's also probably why the same reviewer from IGN gave a 7/10 to Concord and a 5/10 to The First Descendent. The latter game couldn't give a shit about DEI.
 
Dan_D said:
In the review world, if you aren't first, your last. It's that simple. Early access is critical to publishing a review that has any chance of being successfully monetized.
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Well if your only appeal as a reviewer is that you're first then your reviews probably ain't worth reading / listening to anyway. For example Angry Joe was always pretty successful in monetizing his reviews despite being a month or more late most of the time.
Dan_D said:
To be clear, a lot of people talk about shills and reviewers being paid off. To be fair, this isn't all that common.
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I don't think people believing that money is changing hands is common either. It's not that they are paid to be shills, but as I mentioned in a previous post it is a mutually beneficial unspoken arrangement. Publishers give early and exclusive access, and in exchange the outlet doesn't cover their products negatively, sometimes they go out of their way to promote it. If an outlet gives them bad press they simply won't be invited next time to the exclusive press event.
Dan_D said:
Instead, PR departments and firms generally leverage human psychology in order to illicit the results and reviews they want. They do this by giving you free stuff that costs them very little if anything. They'll take you out to dinner etc. They get to know you so that it becomes difficult for you to disparage their company because you now know someone who would be directly impacted by negative reviews. Once they are people to you and not random names, it makes being honest about the product harder to do.
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I don't believe this is an actual moral dilemma to the shills, they willingly participate in the game and go far beyond the realm of just not giving negative coverage. I mean look at the attempt of star wars explained leading a campaign to demonetize youtubers who are not beholden to the company (disney in that case).
 
M76 said:
Well if your only appeal as a reviewer is that you're first then your reviews probably ain't worth reading / listening to anyway. For example Angry Joe was always pretty successful in monetizing his reviews despite being a month or more late most of the time.
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It's a very competitive business. From a business perspective, its crucial to get your review out and published the minute the embargo on a product or game is lifted. You'll almost never be "first" but you'll end up releasing your article/video at the same time as everyone else. Doing it late means you will never get exposure for your work at the critical early stage of the products introduction to the market. Late reviews literally do not get the views they need to be commercially viable. Like it or not, that's simply how the business works. Given the costs involved, very few people can afford to devote the time or the money to creating reviews without some type of return on investment. At the very least, you have to break even long term and truly enjoy the process or you won't be around very long.

In other words, business considerations matter.
M76 said:
I don't think people believing that money is changing hands is common either. It's not that they are paid to be shills, but as I mentioned in a previous post it is a mutually beneficial unspoken arrangement. Publishers give early and exclusive access, and in exchange the outlet doesn't cover their products negatively, sometimes they go out of their way to promote it. If an outlet gives them bad press they simply won't be invited next time to the exclusive press event.
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Based on all the stuff you read, it seems most people think shills are getting big stacks of cash for their positive reviews. While the bigger outlets might, most do not. That's what I'm saying. The perception often is that reviews are bought and paid for, but I'm telling you guys as someone who has been in that business that this isn't as common a practice as you would think. Usually, all it costs is a couple of dinners and free product. However, its the early access that's the most important aspect of the arrangement. This is the part that some people / outlets are unwilling to put on the chopping block.

The fear of being blacklisted by publishers and PR firms is a very real one. Sometimes you can work around it and sometimes you can't. This is why negative reviews are often massaged into something more palatable by the publishers and PR firms. A bad game gets a 7/10 for example. Publishers and PR firms do expect some criticism but they are looking for feedback that's generally positive. A 7/10 score looks positive to the publisher/PR firms even if its really not. It's a game that works both ways. For example, you might simply not publish an overly negative review of a product so you don't piss off the publisher or manufacturer of a product. That's the main reason you don't see that many negative reviews for anything.

From a business standpoint, its often better to say nothing at all rather than publish a scathing article or video. And to my earlier point, sometimes the agreement isn't unspoken. Believe me, some manufacturers or PR firms will come out and tell you what they want in plain English.
M76 said:
I don't believe this is an actual moral dilemma to the shills, they willingly participate in the game and go far beyond the realm of just not giving negative coverage. I mean look at the attempt of star wars explained leading a campaign to demonetize youtubers who are not beholden to the company (disney in that case).
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For the shills that put out positive reviews for products which are almost objectively bad, the only thing they can do is double down on their own narrative that the game or movie is good. They often have to resort to gaslighting and other similar tactics to do this. It's an attempt to retain credibility which is truly the only thing you as a reviewer have as currency with your audience. Lose that and you might as well pack it in. This is made much easier in cases where the product (in this case games) is generally considered subjective. That's basically the ultimate defense of your credibility but even that argument falters in the face of such opinions going against the majority of gamers time and time again.

How many universally panned games have to get good reviews or 7/10 before regular people figure out that you aren't being honest or objective? A lot given IGN's continued existence I suppose.
 
M76 said:
Well if your only appeal as a reviewer is that you're first then your reviews probably ain't worth reading / listening to anyway. For example Angry Joe was always pretty successful in monetizing his reviews despite being a month or more late most of the time.

I don't think people believing that money is changing hands is common either. It's not that they are paid to be shills, but as I mentioned in a previous post it is a mutually beneficial unspoken arrangement. Publishers give early and exclusive access, and in exchange the outlet doesn't cover their products negatively, sometimes they go out of their way to promote it. If an outlet gives them bad press they simply won't be invited next time to the exclusive press event.

I don't believe this is an actual moral dilemma to the shills, they willingly participate in the game and go far beyond the realm of just not giving negative coverage. I mean look at the attempt of star wars explained leading a campaign to demonetize youtubers who are not beholden to the company (disney in that case).
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When I refer to reviewers as shills it's because they are getting their money from their reviews and the people that read their content and how many people like and subscribe. Shilling for a developer or company has benefits in the form of early access, swag, leaks, etc. All things they can use to write more articles and most people like the "free" shit. Some V Tubers use the free shit as a means to get more subscribers by giving it away.

Most reviewers are afraid to delve outside the corporate line. Many champion the inclusivity and "representation" stuff but most are likely parroting what the devs say. It's like they are given a playbook (without it being written down or expressly enforced, it's inferred) on what to say, based upon what the devs extoll in their virtue signaling and we see it in their reviews.

Star Wars Explained was launching a campaign to destroy their competition. It was an endeavor to eliminate them and the assumption they would get all the subs after they were the only ones left. It was an underhanded power play and I'm fairly certain that they lost subs as a result. Some people woke up to who they actually are.
 
Legendary Gamer said:
Star Wars Explained was launching a campaign to destroy their competition. It was an endeavor to eliminate them and the assumption they would get all the subs after they were the only ones left. It was an underhanded power play and I'm fairly certain that they lost subs as a result. Some people woke up to who they actually are.
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I found that baffling at first. I then realized that Star Wars Explained became a true believer. He's fallen to indoctrination.
 
Dan_D said:
It's a very competitive business. From a business perspective, its crucial to get your review out and published the minute the embargo on a product or game is lifted. You'll almost never be "first" but you'll end up releasing your article/video at the same time as everyone else. Doing it late means you will never get exposure for your work at the critical early stage of the products introduction to the market. Late reviews literally do not get the views they need to be commercially viable. Like it or not, that's simply how the business works. Given the costs involved, very few people can afford to devote the time or the money to creating reviews without some type of return on investment. At the very least, you have to break even long term and truly enjoy the process or you won't be around very long.
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It seems that you are blurring the line between product / hardware reviews and media reviews. While I agree that for the latest GPU / CPU it is important to be there at the start to get the most eyes, but when you review more niche products the time crunch is no longer a thing. And frankly I always enjoy those reviews more than the ones rushed out to meet a review embargo.

For media products like films and games, I don't think it is important to be among the fastest. What matters is that your words resonate with people and carry weight. Like it or not reviewing games and movies or TV series has become a form of entertainment in of itself
Dan_D said:
Based on all the stuff you read, it seems most people think shills are getting big stacks of cash for their positive reviews. While the bigger outlets might, most do not. That's what I'm saying. The perception often is that reviews are bought and paid for, but I'm telling you guys as someone who has been in that business that this isn't as common a practice as you would think. Usually, all it costs is a couple of dinners and free product.
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Giving presents and being invited to all expenses paid events is still buying positive reviews in my book. They are called paid shills as a slur, not because people actually believe they are getting wads of cash.
Dan_D said:
However, its the early access that's the most important aspect of the arrangement. This is the part that some people / outlets are unwilling to put on the chopping block.
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And I believe that as soon as you compromise your integrity for early access you're done for as a respectable review outlet. And then you really only can compete by being early, so it is a vicious circle.
Dan_D said:
The fear of being blacklisted by publishers and PR firms is a very real one. Sometimes you can work around it and sometimes you can't. This is why negative reviews are often massaged into something more palatable by the publishers and PR firms. A bad game gets a 7/10 for example. Publishers and PR firms do expect some criticism but they are looking for feedback that's generally positive. A 7/10 score looks positive to the publisher/PR firms even if its really not. It's a game that works both ways. For example, you might simply not publish an overly negative review of a product so you don't piss off the publisher or manufacturer of a product. That's the main reason you don't see that many negative reviews for anything.
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I think for game reviews it is pretty easy not to rely on PR firms and publishers. HW reviews are obviously very different where a single product can cost thousands.
Dan_D said:
From a business standpoint, its often better to say nothing at all rather than publish a scathing article or video. And to my earlier point, sometimes the agreement isn't unspoken. Believe me, some manufacturers or PR firms will come out and tell you what they want in plain English.
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I don't believe gamers nexus would've benefited from not publishing all those scathing videos over the years that they did. It built their reputation and influence. And it is much easier and less risky to publish scathing reviews for games. So outlets that will give concord a 7/10 have zero respect in my eyes, and they can be a year early in publishing their reviews I'd still not give them the time of day. Just as I never cared when a game was released 1 year early on EGS. If I can wait a year for a game, I can wait a few weeks for reviews.
Dan_D said:
How many universally panned games have to get good reviews or 7/10 before regular people figure out that you aren't being honest or objective? A lot given IGN's continued existence I suppose.
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Hot take, but I believe most of the supporters of IGN, Eurogamer, and similar shill / political outlets are not gamers but fellow ideologs, who don't buy games. People who actually want to enjoy games look right through the gaslighting.
 
M76 said:
It seems that you are blurring the line between product / hardware reviews and media reviews. While I agree that for the latest GPU / CPU it is important to be there at the start to get the most eyes, but when you review more niche products the time crunch is no longer a thing. And frankly I always enjoy those reviews more than the ones rushed out to meet a review embargo.

For media products like films and games, I don't think it is important to be among the fastest.
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I have met and known people who do reviews in all kinds of markets for all kinds of different things. Reviews work pretty much the same for most industries. From sports supplements and dildos to video games or even guns, it largely all works the same. Being first when a product releases is pretty important. There are things where being first isn't necessary, but the majority of sales for games and movies is in its early days after launch. For hardware, product cycles can be relatively short and again, the metrics on this are clear. You need to be there on day one with everyone else. Metrics show you'll get the most views early on and they'll taper off after that.
M76 said:
What matters is that your words resonate with people and carry weight. Like it or not reviewing games and movies or TV series has become a form of entertainment in of itself
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These things are important and I agree, but again being out there with everyone else on day one is how you make money.
M76 said:
Giving presents and being invited to all expenses paid events is still buying positive reviews in my book. They are called paid shills as a slur, not because people actually believe they are getting wads of cash.
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Fair enough.
M76 said:
And I believe that as soon as you compromise your integrity for early access you're done for as a respectable review outlet. And then you really only can compete by being early, so it is a vicious circle.
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Yes it is.

Just to be clear, having early access does not mean you've compromised your integrity. I've participated in plenty of launches in the last 17 years or more without doing that. I'm simply stating that the loss of early access or the threat of it is why some review outlets may not be as critical or perhaps entirely honest about the product.
M76 said:
I think for game reviews it is pretty easy not to rely on PR firms and publishers. HW reviews are obviously very different where a single product can cost thousands.
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This is how I know you don't know anything about that business. You do need to rely on publishers and PR firms for early access. They are literally the gate keepers of it. As for the hardware side, hardware costs are not really that much of an issue. Labor costs and other overhead is a far bigger expense. With hardware, you can sell off any hardware immediately after the review recouping most of your hardware costs. Yes, free hardware certainly helps but hardware costs are really not as big a deal in the hardware industry as you would think.
M76 said:
I don't believe gamers nexus would've benefited from not publishing all those scathing videos over the years that they did. It built their reputation and influence. And it is much easier and less risky to publish scathing reviews for games. So outlets that will give concord a 7/10 have zero respect in my eyes, and they can be a year early in publishing their reviews I'd still not give them the time of day. Just as I never cared when a game was released 1 year early on EGS. If I can wait a year for a game, I can wait a few weeks for reviews.
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Again, negative reviews can have negative consequences. As a guy who's written plenty of them, I know this well. You are often better off from a business perspective by not doing that in a lot of cases. You can burn bridges and close doors for yourself. That said, its the right thing to do when its warranted and yes, it does build trust with your audience. I would think its less of an issue publishing a negative review for games compared to something like hardware. Primarily because you can always hide behind the subjective taste argument.

You should also understand that your habits for reading or watching reviews doesn't necessarily reflect that of anyone else. Again, the data is pretty clear on this. There is a reason why everyone struggles to get their articles done by the date of the embargo being lifted on all products. I don't care if we are talking about guns, motherboards, or video games. It's the same thing everywhere.
M76 said:
Hot take, but I believe most of the supporters of IGN, Eurogamer, and similar shill / political outlets are not gamers but fellow ideologs, who don't buy games. People who actually want to enjoy games look right through the gaslighting.
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I'm sure you have some of that but I think there are also plenty of casual people that trust sites based on old reputations or look to IGN because its first in the search results meaning some algorithm lead them there. All that said, I think the gameplay videos probably tell people more than any of the written text does. I don't know about other people but when I see video of actual gameplay, I normally know in seconds whether or not the game interests me. If it does, that's when I start looking for more information. That's when I'll read or listen to reviews about it.

I've played enough games to know something I'm probably not going to like when I see it. If I see gameplay footage of a turn based strategy game, moba, or fantasy MMO, I'll click off the video and go on with my day. Those are not for me.
 
Dan_D said:
This is how I know you don't know anything about that business. You do need to rely on publishers and PR firms for early access. They are literally the gate keepers of it. As for the hardware side, hardware costs are not really that much of an issue. Labor costs and other overhead is a far bigger expense. With hardware, you can sell off any hardware immediately after the review recouping most of your hardware costs. Yes, free hardware certainly helps but hardware costs are really not as big a deal in the hardware industry as you would think.
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I meant financially don't have to rely on them to buy the games to review as opposed to hardware. They are needed for early access to games but that usually means selling your integrity. I know it is a business decision, but I don't have to like it, or accept their justification for it. Because I don't think it's valid. The reviewers who are trusted and successful despite giving their opinions later than than mainstream are proof that early access is not a necessity. So anyone who says they have no choice are admitting their reviews are not good enough to find an audience if they are late to the party.
Dan_D said:
I don't care if we are talking about guns, motherboards, or video games. It's the same thing everywhere.
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Same thing as in it helps to be early everywhere, but not equally important everywhere.
Dan_D said:
I'm sure you have some of that but I think there are also plenty of casual people that trust sites based on old reputations or look to IGN because its first in the search results meaning some algorithm lead them there. All that said, I think the gameplay videos probably tell people more than any of the written text does. I don't know about other people but when I see video of actual gameplay, I normally know in seconds whether or not the game interests me. If it does, that's when I start looking for more information. That's when I'll read or listen to reviews about it.

I've played enough games to know something I'm probably not going to like when I see it. If I see gameplay footage of a turn based strategy game, moba, or fantasy MMO, I'll click off the video and go on with my day. Those are not for me.
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I don't rely on reviews for my buying decisions, but i still like to read well written informative reviews because they are entertaining. This was the case going back to the first printed gaming magazine I got 30 years ago. I read all reviews in them, even for games I never played, or intended to play. But currently I know of no outlet whose reviews I'd want to read as it only makes me mad. They are either shilling for a product, pandering to the "modern audience", or outright political, or worse trash talking a product / dev who didn't drink the kool-aid.
 
About the game itself…

I’m struggling to recall any game that started so poorly for me and just got better and better. In the twenty hours I’ve played so far, I’ve done a complete 180 on this game.

Nobody else feels this way? Some games are front-loaded (Mafia 3, for example). This game is rear-loaded. LOL.
 
Hershy said:
About the game itself…

I’m struggling to recall any game that started so poorly for me and just got better and better. In the twenty hours I’ve played so far, I’ve done a complete 180 on this game.

Nobody else feels this way? Some games are front-loaded (Mafia 3, for example). This game is rear-loaded. LOL.
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Yes skillup said exactly this in his review. But he referred to the last act of the game not the 20 hour mark.
 
peppergomez said:
https://www.eurogamer.net/miasma-chronicles-review-a-disappointing-follow-up-to-a-tactics-gem

One of the most unprofessional game reviews I've ever read. talk about being blinded by an agenda
That for me was the end of taking eurogamer seriously
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That literal clown has written a few reviews that are more or less the same.

Hershy said:
About the game itself…

I’m struggling to recall any game that started so poorly for me and just got better and better. In the twenty hours I’ve played so far, I’ve done a complete 180 on this game.

Nobody else feels this way? Some games are front-loaded (Mafia 3, for example). This game is rear-loaded. LOL.
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It goes from shit to passable.
 
Interesting.

  • Tweaked the overall stealth experience by adjusting AI detection, the number of NPCs and their positioning, patrol pathing, camera detection and highlighting environmental opportunities to reduce player friction
 
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