Suda suggested that one reason is publishers and developers focusing too much on Metacritic scores, and deciding to play it safe and stick to what is conventionally known to ‘work’ instead of taking risks with new ideas.
I think most people are missing that they’re talking about them from a dev and publisher standpoint, not consumer / gamer.
And from that perspective it is problematic whenever things that are supposed to be used to assess something become targets to shoot for. Oscar bait, teachers teaching the test and not the subject, etc.
They’re well informed lemmings who read the title only.
But for the topic at hand, it seems that it’s similar to how the movie industry operates. When hundreds of millions can be on the line, a sure bet is better than a risky bet.
Although from a consumer standpoint it’s true a well. Official reviewers are often bought (directly or not), pressured in other ways, operate on nonsense scales, and are infamously not actually that good at video games. Player reviews are a Little better, but you have to be adept at weeding out whinging from people who suck at games or just suck broadly.
Streamers/YouTubers are the only real option, imo, as they actually show what they’re doing (no lying!) and have to build up an actual reputation of some kind to be noticed.
I think most people are missing that they’re talking about them from a dev and publisher standpoint, not consumer / gamer.
And from that perspective it is problematic whenever things that are supposed to be used to assess something become targets to shoot for. Oscar bait, teachers teaching the test and not the subject, etc.
They’re well informed lemmings who read the title only.
But for the topic at hand, it seems that it’s similar to how the movie industry operates. When hundreds of millions can be on the line, a sure bet is better than a risky bet.
Although from a consumer standpoint it’s true a well. Official reviewers are often bought (directly or not), pressured in other ways, operate on nonsense scales, and are infamously not actually that good at video games. Player reviews are a Little better, but you have to be adept at weeding out whinging from people who suck at games or just suck broadly.
Streamers/YouTubers are the only real option, imo, as they actually show what they’re doing (no lying!) and have to build up an actual reputation of some kind to be noticed.