Originally posted by we3ster Originally posted by neuronomad While I will agree to disagree with you just to put a end to this thread, I am sorry but I seriously don't think that these organizations like the BAFTA will really have any effect on the general gaming population be it 5 years or 10 years from now. Sure people will make a mental note of them but in the end they are still going to go to places like MMORPG.com and Gamespot to help make up there mind.
Whilst I want to end this thread too, your statement is incorrect, the GENERAL GAMING public do not know about these websites. Do you think the Japanese, Chinese, French or Germans read this site, no, it's in English.
The BAFTA mask symbol or Oscar symbol on a game is universally recognised, needs no introduction, immediately, people associate them with quality.
The population in DDO on the European servers has increased greatly since that award was announced, fact. It will increase again on Wedenesday with the new content.
Plenty of germans probaly read it. I know quite a few germans, who speaks fluently english. Heck, i'm danish, i read it too.
I would not make a buying decision based on a game receiving a bafta award. I'd go to a site and find out what the people who have played it think. I've got no idea what baftas criteria is for a good game so there's no way I could trust that their 'bafta winner' badge means that that game is right for me. Like someone else said, as long as you activate the bullshit filter when reading websites with general public reviews you'll be ok. You can usually spot the biased fanboys or haters a mile off.
I put more stock in the players and beta testers reviews than I do the "official" reviews from the websites. It's always bugged me that only one "expert" will have reviewed the game from the major Gaming sites and written a review. How hard would it be for them to get a team of 3 people and get the 3 to try the games and write 3 reviews? Because people have their individual tastes in the genres of games and they owe it to the game to include one fan in the 3 reviewers in that genre of game to review the game. It isn't fair to have a PvP fanbois expert reviewing a RPG and likewise. Or at least in the gaming reviews- have the guy's name at the top of the article and have a subheading that says," Speciality genre- Sci-Fi, !st person Shooter" so we would know what this person's tastes run to.
And it'd be extremely nice if one of the 3 expert reviewers per game was a woman for God's sakes
Originally posted by we3ster Originally posted by neuronomadWhile I will agree to disagree with you just to put a end to this thread, I am sorry but I seriously don't think that these organizations like the BAFTA will really have any effect on the general gaming population be it 5 years or 10 years from now. Sure people will make a mental note of them but in the end they are still going to go to places like MMORPG.com and Gamespot to help make up there mind.
Whilst I want to end this thread too, your statement is incorrect, the GENERAL GAMING public do not know about these websites. Do you think the Japanese, Chinese, French or Germans read this site, no, it's in English. The BAFTA mask symbol or Oscar symbol on a game is universally recognised, needs no introduction, immediately, people associate them with quality. The population in DDO on the European servers has increased greatly since that award was announced, fact. It will increase again on Wedenesday with the new content. The BAFTA mask symbol or Oscar symbol on a game is universally recognised?? ahahahahaha Oscars is a (meaningless) award for american movies, several times the so called "judges" have not even seen the movies they are suppose to rate (Oscars are not applied to games as you have noticed). I think the raspberry award is a better indicator for quality.
BAFTA? No idea what it is & I doubt anyone cares about it. DDO is a failure, go be crazy about some other game.
Originally posted by we3ster This isn't about DDO, it's about credible organisations awarding games.
Except the credible organizations are not the target audience of any MMORPG.
The reviews on this site are not here to be put on box covers in the form of stickers. They are provided by the target audience (gamers) to the rest of the target audience (other gamers). John McEnroe may be better qualifed to comment on the play of another tennis athlete than a sports fan is, but the other sports fans are better qualified than he is to tell me which network gives better coverage of tennis... Because ol' Johnny Mac ain't watching the coverage -- he IS the coverage. The sports fans are the ones watching.
This site tells us what other GAMERS think of these games... that's one of its purposes, and it serves that purpose well. If I want to see what the critics or other game designers think, there are sites for that too. However, most people feel (and I would say correctly) that industry members, insiders, and critics, who give what you refer to as the "official" reviews, are part of the establishment... a small clique of people who all know each other and who are perhaps too eager to give one another pats on the back. For folks who feel that way, the common consumer's opinion is FAR more relevant, because you know one thing -- the common consumer is not an insider, and has aboslutely nothing to gain by giving a dishonest review (whereas insiders and establishment members often do).
So sure, I'll take Johnny Mac's explanation of the tennis happening on the screen over a common person's. But I'll take the common man's review of which network has the best coverage, over Mac's any day and twice on Sunday.
LOL is it possible for you to have picked any worse examples to support your case. Professional clothing designers and the OSCARS?
Only reason most people even watch professional fashion shows are because you see hot chicks wearing see through clothing. Which is why the Victoria Secrets shows are so popular.
As for the OSCARS, their opinions are completely worthless. You could just randomly pick 30 movies from a years list and find more good movies in that random list then you would the OSCARS list.
It would be extremely difficult for me to care any less about industry awards. I will gladly except the advice and reviews of other gamers before the so called industry award givers. As far as I can see they might be credible in their critiques of graphics or what not......but gamers tell you if the thing is any fun or total crap. My two cents : )
Because of this thread, I just found out who BAFTA is. Why should Americans give a crap about what BAFTA has to say? And who is BAFTA compaired to some other internet company. I know the game of Gamespot and IGN and have known those names for years, but I just now heard of BAFTA and their opinion means nothing to me. Why is that? It is because I never heard of them before on radio, TV, or on the internet, until one poster with the name of We3ster posted otherwise.
Now I agree with your post, but I don't agree with the company you are trying to portray as a good authority on rating games. Why not give us a great American company to go off of? The best idea is to look at several different sites, their reviews, and player reviews.
The truth is, pretty much all reviews and awards in this genre are bullshit. Especially ones from sites like this.
The basic fact about the rules and awards for video games in general is that they're all subjective .
This means that the reviewer may think the game is awesome, and lots of other people may too, but you may think it's crap. Whoever is giving out the awards may think a game is the best thing since pong, but there's any number of people who would never even touch the game. The people playing WoW think EQ2 sucks, and the people playing EQ2 think WoW sucks. What a newsflash. Winning MMORPG.com's game of the year really means nothing.
Don't trust reviews at face value, because whoever is doing the reviewing may have totally opposite tastes from you. Always figure out if you like a game for yourself. Alternatively, try and find a reviewer that you usually agree with on games, and then trust them.
For example, I find that I tend to like the same types of games as the guys (mostly Tycho) over at Penny Arcade. When he says a game is good, I'm willing to try it because I know I'll probably find it good, even if I never thought I would. I didn't try the Burnout racing series until he suggested how great it was and he was right.
In the end, don't base your gameplay experiences on what some dink with a website tells you, try the games yourself and make your own decisions. Otherwise they are running your entertainment experience for you.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
After having slept since my last comments on here in regards to my opinion of we3ster's comments I have decided to post a bit more on the topic, even though I know I should just let it die.
I think we3ster places far too much value on awards. As other's have mentioned I doubt many gamers have even heard of the BAFTA awards. And most of us who have could care less. As someone else mentioned many times judges that vote in these awards (such as the Oscars) haven't even read, heard, seen or played whatever it is that they are voting on. Honestly if anything awards like the Oscars, Emmys and such are losing any appeal that they might have once had. At least it seems so in the States, maybe it is different elsewhere I can not speak to that end.
Many of the said awards are often politically motivated, or also money driven. Which would make them no different from professional gaming sites. I think personally sites like MMORPG.com is invaluable as a resource where as some award a game might get is just some icing on a cake. If you buy a game just because it has some award sticker on it and thank that you made an informed selection God help you.
Sure there is a LOT of worthless replies and comments on here. But as others have mentioned you have to use your head when you read the reviews here or anywhere else. But chances are if a particular game is constantly flagged by players as a 'bad or low quality' game then it most likely is such. Sure there will always be someone people out there that will like a particular game regardless of how bad it is. For me that game will be Stargate Worlds when it comes out. Even if the game sticks to high heaven, I will still be a fanboi for it and rave about it. But hopefully regardless of what a fanboi says readers of this site will only use the postings as a rough guildline for their selecting a game.
Also we3ster made comment about my sarcastic remarks. You have to learn that we are talking about games here and not anything life changing. So what if people choose to interject sarcasm in their comments, how does this automatically make what they have to say worthless? I know many, many journalist that use sarcasm and satire to get their points across.
And as far as most of the reviews here not being quality piece of literary works, so what? Most gamers that are going to play these games know what OMG XXXX GAME FTW means, etc. These sites speak the lingo gamers know. How many of the BAFTA judges would have a clue what FTW even means, but yet you think they are more in touch with what gamers want or would like.
I am not saying that awards are worthless, but I think you place FAR, FAR too much value in them over what the average gamer has to say. While you make not like what 99% of the people have to say on here at least their saying it helps give you a clue toward selecting a game that you would like.
-------------------------------- Currently Playing: Guild Wars 2 and Path of Exile
Comments
--------------------------------
Currently Playing: Guild Wars 2 and Path of Exile
Quit: Eden Eternal, Wakfu, DDO, STO, DCUO, Sword 2, Atlantica Online, LOTRO, SWTOR, RIFT, Earthrise, FFXIV, RoM, Allods Online, GA,WAR,CO,V:SoH,POTBS,TR,COH/COV, WOW, DDO,AL, EQ, Eve, L2, AA, Mx0, SWG, SoR, AO, RFO, DAoC, and others.
www.twitter.com/mlwhitt
www.michaelwhitt.com
Whilst I want to end this thread too, your statement is incorrect, the GENERAL GAMING public do not know about these websites. Do you think the Japanese, Chinese, French or Germans read this site, no, it's in English.
The BAFTA mask symbol or Oscar symbol on a game is universally recognised, needs no introduction, immediately, people associate them with quality.
The population in DDO on the European servers has increased greatly since that award was announced, fact. It will increase again on Wedenesday with the new content.
Plenty of germans probaly read it. I know quite a few germans, who speaks fluently english. Heck, i'm danish, i read it too.
MMORPG
I put more stock in the players and beta testers reviews than I do the "official" reviews from the websites. It's always bugged me that only one "expert" will have reviewed the game from the major Gaming sites and written a review. How hard would it be for them to get a team of 3 people and get the 3 to try the games and write 3 reviews? Because people have their individual tastes in the genres of games and they owe it to the game to include one fan in the 3 reviewers in that genre of game to review the game. It isn't fair to have a PvP fanbois expert reviewing a RPG and likewise. Or at least in the gaming reviews- have the guy's name at the top of the article and have a subheading that says," Speciality genre- Sci-Fi, !st person Shooter" so we would know what this person's tastes run to.
And it'd be extremely nice if one of the 3 expert reviewers per game was a woman for God's sakes
The BAFTA mask symbol or Oscar symbol on a game is universally recognised, needs no introduction, immediately, people associate them with quality.
The population in DDO on the European servers has increased greatly since that award was announced, fact. It will increase again on Wedenesday with the new content.
The BAFTA mask symbol or Oscar symbol on a game is universally recognised?? ahahahahaha
Oscars is a (meaningless) award for american movies, several times the so called "judges" have not even seen the movies they are suppose to rate (Oscars are not applied to games as you have noticed). I think the raspberry award is a better indicator for quality.
BAFTA? No idea what it is & I doubt anyone cares about it. DDO is a failure, go be crazy about some other game.
The reviews on this site are not here to be put on box covers in the form of stickers. They are provided by the target audience (gamers) to the rest of the target audience (other gamers). John McEnroe may be better qualifed to comment on the play of another tennis athlete than a sports fan is, but the other sports fans are better qualified than he is to tell me which network gives better coverage of tennis... Because ol' Johnny Mac ain't watching the coverage -- he IS the coverage. The sports fans are the ones watching.
This site tells us what other GAMERS think of these games... that's one of its purposes, and it serves that purpose well. If I want to see what the critics or other game designers think, there are sites for that too. However, most people feel (and I would say correctly) that industry members, insiders, and critics, who give what you refer to as the "official" reviews, are part of the establishment... a small clique of people who all know each other and who are perhaps too eager to give one another pats on the back. For folks who feel that way, the common consumer's opinion is FAR more relevant, because you know one thing -- the common consumer is not an insider, and has aboslutely nothing to gain by giving a dishonest review (whereas insiders and establishment members often do).
So sure, I'll take Johnny Mac's explanation of the tennis happening on the screen over a common person's. But I'll take the common man's review of which network has the best coverage, over Mac's any day and twice on Sunday.
C
LOL is it possible for you to have picked any worse examples to support your case. Professional clothing designers and the OSCARS?
Only reason most people even watch professional fashion shows are because you see hot chicks wearing see through clothing. Which is why the Victoria Secrets shows are so popular.
As for the OSCARS, their opinions are completely worthless. You could just randomly pick 30 movies from a years list and find more good movies in that random list then you would the OSCARS list.
Because of this thread, I just found out who BAFTA is. Why should Americans give a crap about what BAFTA has to say? And who is BAFTA compaired to some other internet company. I know the game of Gamespot and IGN and have known those names for years, but I just now heard of BAFTA and their opinion means nothing to me. Why is that? It is because I never heard of them before on radio, TV, or on the internet, until one poster with the name of We3ster posted otherwise.
Now I agree with your post, but I don't agree with the company you are trying to portray as a good authority on rating games. Why not give us a great American company to go off of? The best idea is to look at several different sites, their reviews, and player reviews.
The truth is, pretty much all reviews and awards in this genre are bullshit. Especially ones from sites like this.
The basic fact about the rules and awards for video games in general is that they're all subjective .
This means that the reviewer may think the game is awesome, and lots of other people may too, but you may think it's crap. Whoever is giving out the awards may think a game is the best thing since pong, but there's any number of people who would never even touch the game. The people playing WoW think EQ2 sucks, and the people playing EQ2 think WoW sucks. What a newsflash. Winning MMORPG.com's game of the year really means nothing.
Don't trust reviews at face value, because whoever is doing the reviewing may have totally opposite tastes from you. Always figure out if you like a game for yourself. Alternatively, try and find a reviewer that you usually agree with on games, and then trust them.
For example, I find that I tend to like the same types of games as the guys (mostly Tycho) over at Penny Arcade. When he says a game is good, I'm willing to try it because I know I'll probably find it good, even if I never thought I would. I didn't try the Burnout racing series until he suggested how great it was and he was right.
In the end, don't base your gameplay experiences on what some dink with a website tells you, try the games yourself and make your own decisions. Otherwise they are running your entertainment experience for you.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
I think we3ster places far too much value on awards. As other's have mentioned I doubt many gamers have even heard of the BAFTA awards. And most of us who have could care less. As someone else mentioned many times judges that vote in these awards (such as the Oscars) haven't even read, heard, seen or played whatever it is that they are voting on. Honestly if anything awards like the Oscars, Emmys and such are losing any appeal that they might have once had. At least it seems so in the States, maybe it is different elsewhere I can not speak to that end.
Many of the said awards are often politically motivated, or also money driven. Which would make them no different from professional gaming sites. I think personally sites like MMORPG.com is invaluable as a resource where as some award a game might get is just some icing on a cake. If you buy a game just because it has some award sticker on it and thank that you made an informed selection God help you.
Sure there is a LOT of worthless replies and comments on here. But as others have mentioned you have to use your head when you read the reviews here or anywhere else. But chances are if a particular game is constantly flagged by players as a 'bad or low quality' game then it most likely is such. Sure there will always be someone people out there that will like a particular game regardless of how bad it is. For me that game will be Stargate Worlds when it comes out. Even if the game sticks to high heaven, I will still be a fanboi for it and rave about it. But hopefully regardless of what a fanboi says readers of this site will only use the postings as a rough guildline for their selecting a game.
Also we3ster made comment about my sarcastic remarks. You have to learn that we are talking about games here and not anything life changing. So what if people choose to interject sarcasm in their comments, how does this automatically make what they have to say worthless? I know many, many journalist that use sarcasm and satire to get their points across.
And as far as most of the reviews here not being quality piece of literary works, so what? Most gamers that are going to play these games know what OMG XXXX GAME FTW means, etc. These sites speak the lingo gamers know. How many of the BAFTA judges would have a clue what FTW even means, but yet you think they are more in touch with what gamers want or would like.
I am not saying that awards are worthless, but I think you place FAR, FAR too much value in them over what the average gamer has to say. While you make not like what 99% of the people have to say on here at least their saying it helps give you a clue toward selecting a game that you would like.
--------------------------------
Currently Playing: Guild Wars 2 and Path of Exile
Quit: Eden Eternal, Wakfu, DDO, STO, DCUO, Sword 2, Atlantica Online, LOTRO, SWTOR, RIFT, Earthrise, FFXIV, RoM, Allods Online, GA,WAR,CO,V:SoH,POTBS,TR,COH/COV, WOW, DDO,AL, EQ, Eve, L2, AA, Mx0, SWG, SoR, AO, RFO, DAoC, and others.
www.twitter.com/mlwhitt
www.michaelwhitt.com