The current state of the industry has me feeling weird about game criticism.

[Rewind]

I think it is important to criticize games on the technical aspect. Rebirth is a good example where if you hate playing games at 30 fps, it's important to know that the 60 fps mode is bad. The onus isn't on the consumer here, if I'm going to spend 70 bucks on a game I want to know about the technical issues it may have. I don't think consumers should feel bad waiting for sales.

 

[MegaSackman]

I think it is important to criticize games on the technical aspect. Rebirth is a good example where if you hate playing games at 30 fps, it's important to know that the 60 fps mode is bad. The onus isn't on the consumer here, if I'm going to spend 70 bucks on a game I want to know about the technical issues it may have. I don't think consumers should feel bad waiting for sales.

Click to shrink...

The 60fps looks flawed but it delivers 60fps perfectly. It's funny that in the end looks mattered more. 👀

 

[Ant_17]

Games criticism is already generally toothless. You might as well just say you want them above criticism if you go down this road

Click to shrink...

Agreed. We have not had a REAL review since Gerstman got fired over Kany and Lynch. And if we burry our heads in the sand, we won't get Cyberpunk and No Man's Sky fixed.

 

[KamenSenshi]

Performance/graphics for these big AAA games were never really something I complained about in the first place, but now I'm gonna wince extra hard when reading them.

It genuinely feels like not that we should lower our expectations, but that core gamer expectations became too high in the first place.

Click to shrink...

I'd again argue that the expectations people have are there in large part due to the publishers themselves. At every turn where things could have been checked they just hit the accelerator, gotta outspend the competition and put them out of business. Like the Cliffy quote of how they could focus on AI or frame rate but what they've trained people on is the back of the box. The presentation. Hollywood vo and musicians. Look at how many advertisements and PR said gamers demand that stuff in just the 90s. Before most people even thought it was a remote possibility.

 

[AgeEighty]

I don't think you can let sympathy for the potential consequences for devs affect a professional critic's judgment of the games they make. Anything else and they're not giving an honest review, and then there's no point.

Certainly they can do more to report on why the failures of games (and even the successes of games) result in so many people being let go, but criticism needs to be honest.

 

[WardFail]

This is idea is treading dangerously into the same issue that we saw with MKBHD's review of the Humanity AI pin and the Rabbit R1. Gaming is big business. Publishers and platform holders are firstly attempting to generate as much money as possible. If they help fund art that resonates with users that's just a bonus they can exploit later. There was a tweet, who I forget who made, that commented on a lot of news outlets blaming Rocksteady's choice for a live service game in Suicide Squad that lead to the 200 million dollar loss for Warner Bros. Discovery. Is it really Rocksteady's decision if they know that pitching a live service Suicide Squad game has a much higher chance of being picked up by a publisher than say another single player Arkham game, or heaven forbid an all original IP. We're going to lose a lot of familiar names in development over the next 12-24 months not because of game criticism but because of the ruthless nature of those who actually control the purse strings of the industry. They don't want to break even, or create a little profit, they are swinging for the fences hoping for GTA & Fortnite levels of profit.

 

[Dunfish]

Major review outlets have not influenced any buying decision of mine for decades. Even era only really accepts aggregated review scores as an indication of a games quality.

 

[NaikoGames]

in one hand, is true, criticizing products this complex with such disdaint can be unfair.

in the other, is neccesary, the industry is upside down and the constant chase for AAA live service, super high fidelity nonsense and gigantic budgets show the cracks in this business model so as users we have to point it out so we can shift to a more healthy and creative industry.

 

[ventuno]

As we are faced with layoffs and studio closures, it's normal to ask ourselves how we can stop this onslaught on the devs that do the work to make games we play. How can we support devs financially so they aren't laid off and studios can continue to survive to work on more projects? How can we address the issues with the industry as consumers in a fair way that also targets issues as accurately as possible?

I don't think it's fair or accurate to exclude critics from that train of thought. Critics are also witnessing the same issues we all are. Their job is to provide educated feedback on the works they evaluate. Unfortunately, not all criticism is constructive, but that's not a good reason to give back the same disdain towards critics that we incorrectly think critics might be dishing out to devs. There is a place for criticism and gamers will have to accept that criticism is valid, not malicious.

What's more unfair, bringing up issues with the work or laying someone off because this one game didn't sell gangbusters? There's valuable perspective to be gained from the feedback we receive, whether it's positive or negative and being able to see what you can learn from feedback is a virtue. When someone loses the job, especially in these current times, it's not about their worth as creators, it's about someone else's bottom line. We really have to stop resorting to throwing critics under the bus just because negative feedback must be bad, especially when praise hasn't saved devs from terrible practices that has cost them their livelihoods.. Oftentimes, that review might just be the messenger for problems that still exist whether they're addressed or not.

 

[Cats_Schrodinger]

There is no problem with criticism that is concerned with most mechanics of gameplay.

I truly believe Digital Foundry style nitpicking about graphical fidelity, lighting, and cloth physics has been an accelerant for the current state of budget bloat. It's devoid of joy.

FF7 Rebirth is magical - a technical marvel and they have a good portion of the enthusiast community believing that it's in some kind of unplayable state.

This is often mitigated by PC nitpicking which is concerned with showcasing cutting edge hardware, but for console releases, it ruins the discourse.

Imagine if BG3 had come out on console only. The criticism around its image quality issues and graphical bugs would have drowned out any of the positives - perhaps sinking Larian in the process.

Click to shrink...

Weird. Total opposite for me. Criticizing something that is subjective as gameplay mechanics is fine to a degree, but I constantly see people complaining about "ruining" a game because XY is nerfed. Also, at some point a game might just not be for someone. Like, I am super tired of the soulslike formula, but that isn't a criticism towards it.

Technical stuff is inherently more objective, for reviewers and QA teams alike.

On that note, I have absolutely no idea where this "nitpicking" criticism comes from towards DF. They are a bunch of guys who are really interested in the technical side of real time rendering, and hardly nitpick games. IMHO they are a bit too understanding on some issues (picture quality and devs making FSR piss blood), but even that is explained by them very well.

And when they do criticize stuff, it is often refreshing and a much needed megaphone for the PC community, especially around frame time consistency, shader compilation and asset streaming related stutters. All of which were largely ignored until people started talking about them when they got out of control. And without DF we wouldn't have had the ability to articulate the problems towards devs who seemingly didn't really test or looked into this.

There was only one recent critical DF video that I didn't really agree on and that was DS Remake. I felt that the traversal stutter was not nearly as bad to warrant a more negative tone overall, and the other stuff was quickly fixed, but I might have missed some stuff that others encountered.

When capital G Gamers take DF videos and run with it, it is mostly thanks to other factors, and just general drama generation. For example, Helldivers 2 was adored by the community even if I would classify it as a semi-technical mess, and my complaints were also voiced by Oliver, although he certainly has a less harsh general tone than others. DF videos generally get blown out of proportion when a game has other problems (real or imaginary).

 

[elenarie]

All I can ask you, OP, is to be more human. Empathy can go a long way.

 

[wafflebrain]

I can see your point but it isn't critics fault for the way things are currently. That said I can't imagine the pressure either indie or large studio feels when launching a game and not being 100% on how it'll largely be received and how that may impact their sales.

 

[Atom]

I think Rise of the Ronin coming out and reviewers talking about how bad the graphics are was the most recent "man criticism is fucked" moment for me.

But I sorta felt like visuals were good enough in the PS3 era and the push should have been for better IQ, performance, and art direction.

 

[Celestial Descend]

Performance and graphics are two different issues. In the case of performance, it absolutely should be part of a review Just because you are gifted with the magic eyes that can't tell the difference between 30 fps and 60 fps does not mean others are as well. Some people's enjoyment of videogame is legitmately affected by it. No videogame outlet is docking point from games for not look photo-realistic enough. They gave GotY to Zelda, to Hades, and many other games that don't have cutting-edge graphics.

I think there's a worthwhile discussion if that "baseline" expectation is just too high nowadays. Like if a major AAA game launched with PS3 era visuals but a rock-solid everything else to decrease the cost and time needed to bring it to market I feel it would be eviscerated by reviews and gamers alike; so at that point is maybe the graphical expectations such that you need to compromise other aspects of the game to stay on target or compromise nothing and end up with 7+ years dev cycles and needing to sell 10 million copies to break even.

Click to shrink...

Zelda just won GotY, so no, the bar for graphics is not too high.

 

[EraLurker24]

Yeah, our open worlds are big enough and I do not think anyone is out there clamouring for more. Unless some exec wants that as a bullet point on the game description, but that is one expensive bullet point.

Click to shrink...

I always imagine how many more ME games they might have pumped out if they just kept using Unreal 3 forever. Alas. I would take Kotor 3 in the aurora engine right now too.

In fact I think 99% of gamers would be OK with 2012-2014 graphics upscaled with no jaggies and smoother frames.

 

[Rewind]

The 60fps looks flawed but it delivers 60fps perfectly. It's funny that in the end looks mattered more. 👀

Click to shrink...

I consider image quality different from graphical fidelity. Rebirth actually renders at a pretty good resolution, but their post processing is too soft and they have no upscaling for some reason. I would be totally fine with Rebirth looking worse if I could get decent image quality at 60 fps.

I don't think providing consumers with information is bad for games. If devs want to put a 60 fps mode in they should make sure that mode is good, same with 30, or 40. People can judge if the tradeoffs are worth it and can make better buying decisions because places like digital foundry and other content creators exist. If people get laid off, that is the company's fault for not having a sustainable plan or path forward, not the consumer.

 

[Paroni]

Ideally games criticism should be an assessment of how the game succeeds or fails at its intended mission and how it compares against similar works. I feel that for games in particular that ideal has always been tainted by a particular view of games as a product.

I get it, games come from a toy history, They require large investments of time, and have a high upfront cost vs films,music,tv etc. But I wish we could move towards criticism of games that seeks to foremost analyze the games as a work and less as a product.

If the game needs to be not only a good game, but also a good product will push the game to have to add padding, be more online focused, spend more on its visuals. This drives the cost of production and the risk, so fewer risks and bets are taken. Any failure will translate to painful results for the developers under such paradigm.

With games as a pandemic era investment vehicle dead due to interest rates, the end result is consolidation less games, and developers being on the short end of this shift.

I dont know where we go from here. It doesn't seem like anyone really knows. My guess is budgets plateau and what would been one large production is split into smaller contiguous games.

Click to shrink...

I think there is an inherent "issue" in how different the interactivity and mechanical feedback of games makes the medium. People are generally more likely to overlook artistic shortcomings if the game has good raw gameplay and technical polish than other way around. Game that has good qualities as an artistic work but that is lacking in gameplay or has technical issues will probably just be considered a bad game.

 

[Falk]

The part that drives me crazy is that we keep having these games that push super hard for all these expensive hardware-heavy graphical bells and whistles and then A) can't even maintain a stable frame rate and B) cost so much to make that they stand next to zero chance of turning a profit. It's like they fail at everything except the 'look good in magazine screenshots' test, and gaming magazines basically don't even exist anymore.

Publishers need to stop pushing graphics so hard. I do not need or care about ray tracing if the game can't even hit a playable frame rate on day one, especially if pushing for all this new fancy graphics tech means the developers have an 80% chance of being fired if the game doesn't sell 10 million copies in two weeks. Publishers' priorities are fucked beyond comprehension, and the dev staff are ALWAYS the ones who pay for the publisher's hubris.

Click to shrink...

one way i've heard it phrased which i actually sorta agree with is w.r.t. expectations and diminishing returns

an industry that's been built on selling you the new shinier thing that makes last year's slightly less shiny thing obsolete (so you absolutely should buy the new one) running up against diminishing returns w.r.t generational leaps was never going to continue at an exponential growth, much less a linear one

i think it's a wake up call to stop marketing games as the next new shiny thing

sure consumer perception isn't going to change overnight w.r.t. stuff like this but just like most markets, supply dictates demand to some extent

 

[Extra Sauce]

it does seem weird to evaluate games based on benchmarks set by the likes of Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Last of Us Part II, knowing the well-documented human cost associated with those projects.

I wish lo-fi graphics were more popular outside of the indie space. Signalis and Animal Well are some of the best games in recent years and no one is complaining about the way they look.

 

[Rahkeesh]

Smaller teams making more games faster isn't going to make more employment opportunities for devs. People still have finite budgets and time with which to enjoy games, having even more of them around isn't going to generate those resources. Critiquing one game over another isn't going to have a big impact on overall game spending, you just change who the specific winners and losers are. The only thing that will grow the industry overall is more money going into it, i.e. either grow the audience or sucker more whales with MTX.

If you just want stability in jobs rather than growth, look at Japan, writing laws works. Maybe unions as the second best thing, but good luck getting those to stick in such a volatile environment. In the absence of those forces, anything other than constant growth is going to create volatility in employment as companies keep massaging their quarterly profits, whether games are big or small budget barely changes that.

 

[oty]

it's all a big cycle, everything is influenced. people's tastes are formed because of decisions made by powerful people, and then those decisions are influenced by people's tastes.i don't like criticising the "general gamer audience" as this unified whole that always knew about everything. we are more at mercy of the big companies than the other way around

besides, criticism always has to exist and always has to be at the whims of the critic. the minute general "criticism" starts to get filtered is the minute the entire river starts being poisoned

In a perfect world, quality would be rewarded with success.

FF7 Rebirth is one of the best RPGs of all time, and it released in a highly polished and feature-complete state with enough content to justify twice its asking price, and no prompts for microtransactions or DLC. The game did everything right, and is pretty much everything great about single-player gaming rolled into one package: stylish yet strategic combat, a detailed world full of fun activities, a wonderful story with lovable characters, a well-paced journey with the best boss battle lineup since OG RE4, and incredible art and music. Yet here we are looking at relatively low sales and subsequent Square-Enix layoffs that may or may not be a cost-cutting measure caused directly or indirectly by Rebirth's sales.

Even if it's just a short-term struggle before being porting to other platforms, it's still disheartening to see a dev's work not reap immediate rewards.

Click to shrink...

nah, this ain't it. Rebirth is a great game, and I'm sure that a lot of love was put into it, but a shame is a small developer who already has close to zero chance to have a breakout hit try to make a game in this hell state industry we have. a multibillion dollar company like SE doubling down on plenty of dumb decisions that everyone already told them it was risky and dumb and then dealing with the consequences isn't that

the only shame in SE's situation is the dozens of workers who have nothing to do with the exec's dumb decisions getting their lives ruined because of them. Rebirth not selling well has dozens of justified reasons.

 

[bitcloudrzr]

I always imagine how many more ME games they might have pumped out if they just kept using Unreal 3 forever. Alas. I would take Kotor 3 in the aurora engine right now too.

In fact I think 99% of gamers would be OK with 2012-2014 graphics upscaled with no jaggies and smoother frames.

Click to shrink...

The open world genie cannot be put back in the bottle.

 

[SolidSnakeBoy]

I think there is an inherent "issue" in how different the interactivity and mechanical feedback of games makes the medium. People are generally more likely to overlook artistic shortcomings if the game has good raw gameplay and technical polish than other way around. Game that has good qualities as an artistic work but that is lacking in gameplay or has technical issues will probably just be considered a bad game.

Click to shrink...

I dont think "raw gameplay" is really any meaningful measure of a game. It's more "intended gameplay", how its interactive nature is deployed to achieve something. A game being fun is an intended choice from the creators, you can choose to make a game that is miserable to play to make a point. My gripe is that if the game is judged on how much fun/dollar it provides, we end up only making larger games with gameplay that publishers know is what people have wanted in the past. It leaves with little room for games that are interested in exploring the space of what gameplay can generate.

I know indies have us covered in the above regard, but I feel like the main centers of mass in the industry keep teetering on the edge of pursuing that grand strategy but the risk becoming too large to justify. And developers keep suffering due to that endemic mismanagement