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[Ioric Kittencuddler]

And fails to cover it up... again.
http://www.destructoid.com/that-s-our-eidos-arkham-asylum-review-score-shenanigans-139267.phtml

Oh silly Eidos...  No one else seems to have trouble covering up their fixed review scores, what makes you so special? 

[Dragooble]

TAKE THAT INTEGRITY. ah... that made me laugh.

[Rilder]

Wouldn't it be cheaper just to make a good game? Instead of being massive dipshits.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Wouldn't it be cheaper just to make a good game? Instead of being massive dipshits.

How do you know!?  Have you made a game!? .... 

[Heron TSG]

I have.

It was like breakout, only with starfish and explosion cubes.

Fixing reviews is why I prefer my own testing over reviews.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Irrelevent, have you ever tried fixing reviews instead of letting your game be judged purely on it's own merits?  If not you can't say it's cheaper.

[beorn080]

There's two choices. Spend a couple million making a decent game and face the chance it might flop, or spend 3/4 of a million making a crappy or generic + 1 game and bribe the reviewers with cheap stuff and other cheap things. It makes more financial sense to dupe the user out of their money, since everyone knows that good games get pirated and thus lose money, plus its fairly hard to return an open computer game, if not impossible.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

There's two choices. Spend a couple million making a decent game and face the chance it might flop, or spend 3/4 of a million making a crappy or generic + 1 game and bribe the reviewers with cheap stuff and other cheap things. It makes more financial sense to dupe the user out of their money, since everyone knows that good games get pirated and thus lose money, plus its fairly hard to return an open computer game, if not impossible.

Heh, it's nowhere near that simple.  I'm surprised I even have to say that more money doesn't equal more quality.

[beorn080]

I meant from the perspective of the big publishers. Not specifically from a perspective based on reality.

[Neonivek]

What is interesting is that they ONLY have to include a high score.

Which means that the average person NEVER READS THE FREEKEN REVIEW!

Honestly the review itself is more important then the score.

[Sergius]

There's two choices. Spend a couple million making a decent game and face the chance it might flop, or spend 3/4 of a million making a crappy or generic + 1 game and bribe the reviewers with cheap stuff and other cheap things. It makes more financial sense to dupe the user out of their money, since everyone knows that good games get pirated and thus lose money, plus its fairly hard to return an open computer game, if not impossible.

Heh, it's nowhere near that simple.  I'm surprised I even have to say that more money doesn't equal more quality.

I agree. The money isn't invested in actually coming up with a decent storyline or gameplay mechanics. It's in the months or years spent in rendering lots of CGI videos, hiring top star voice actors, licensing soundtracks, etc. And they usually don't suck because the in-game 3D models are badly or cheaply done.

[beorn080]

Which is why I said that there were only two choices from the big developers point of view. They think money invested = quality. Honestly, from what I can tell, most really good games come at that point right before a developer gets really big. I mean look at Blizzard. Everything up to and including D2/WCIII was at the very least good. Then WoW comes out and they stop making anything to work on that money sink. They got big, thought money = quality, though in this case its the people spending money on it, and not actually them bothering to invest money getting debuggers for it.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

It's hard to believe that every high up in a major game company is completely delusional.  It seems far more plausible that quality does not factor into the equation at all as anything more than a buzz word.  A more accurate statement would be Money = Money.  You put money into making the game seem really good by concentrating on the surface aspects and hype, and lots of people will buy it, play it for a week, then never touch it again while raving about how great it was because that's what they're supposed to think.  Then they'll do the same with the next game.  Thus giving you money.  If you spend more money on making the game actually good in ways that can't be easily showcased, people will actually love it, and play it for a long time... Which isn't really good for business because you aren't making more money if people are still playing your last game and not buying the next one.

[Granite26]

It's hard to believe that every high up in a major game company is completely delusional.  It seems far more plausible that quality does not factor into the equation at all as anything more than a buzz word.  A more accurate statement would be Money = Money.  You put money into making the game seem really good by concentrating on the surface aspects and hype, and lots of people will buy it, play it for a week, then never touch it again while raving about how great it was because that's what they're supposed to think.  Then they'll do the same with the next game.  Thus giving you money.  If you spend more money on making the game actually good in ways that can't be easily showcased, people will actually love it, and play it for a long time... Which isn't really good for business because you aren't making more money if people are still playing your last game and not buying the next one.

Ayup, that about covers it.

I saw a lady (45?) in Gamestop the other day point to a poster for Wolfenstein and tell her son (15?) that it looked like a neat game.  From a TEASER POSTER.

It's signalling theory, pure and simple.  High production values are obvious to consumers, whereas writing quality and level design quality are not.  Therefor, in the bang for the buck department, they are more valuable.  Game sales peak early and drop fast, so long term reputation isn't valuable save where it encourages sales of the next game.

Add to that an active resale market for games that further cripples long term sales, and you've got a market that gets maybe a month's worth of real sales.