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[ClosingADoor]

Actually if all reviewers for all games had to get their own copy they may... gasp... wow... actually be free from the pressure of having to appease publishers and be honest and not often just pre-order driving machines .

Yes, the free $60 game is the pressure here. Not that the publisher actually controls the news cycle because it is their product.

I don't mind this policy at all personally because that demo pretty much sealed the deal for me. I loved it and that was enough. But I'm sure it's still very important for many people in general.

Long story short I just hope this won't eventually mean problems for these studios. I would fucking hate to see Arkane closing because the sales aren't exactly great. Hopefully the sales improve because man, Prey deserves it. A goddamn good SP game and I want developers to keep making those.

Dishonored 2 didn't have a demo. The next Elder Scrolls and Fallout won't have a demo.

 

[Tecnniqe]

Both this and lackluster marketing was Beth showing their faith and fucking themselves in the ass. Only hope is word of mouth.

 

[MosquitoSmasher]

Yes, the free $60 game is the pressure here. Not that the publisher actually controls the news cycle because it is their product.


Dishonored 2 didn't have a demo. The next Elder Scrolls and Fallout won't have a demo.

But how did D2 sell?

Elder Scrolls and Fallout pretty much are guaranteed big sellers.

 

[CloudWolf]

Actually if all reviewers for all games had to get their own copy they may... gasp... wow... actually be free from the pressure of having to appease publishers and be honest and not often just pre-order driving machines .

Good luck getting people to write game reviews for a living when they have to spend a big part of their pay on buying the games they're getting paid to review.

 

[haveheart]

Yes, the free $60 game is the pressure here. Not that the publisher actually controls the news cycle because it is their product.


Dishonored 2 didn't have a demo. The next Elder Scrolls and Fallout won't have a demo.

But how did D2 sell?

Elder Scrolls and Fallout pretty much are guaranteed big sellers.

D2 got a demo weeks (months?) after its release. I guess they were trying to push the game after it didn't sell well.

I heard it sold worse than D1, I don't got the numbers right now.

It would be interesting to hear what numbers Bethesda is expecting with titles like D2 and Prey. Maybe they are fully aware that these games are for a smaller audience and they keep publishing them because they're the only publisher that still does and to keep the genre alive.

Spoiler

probably not...

 

[ClosingADoor]

But how did D2 sell?

Elder Scrolls and Fallout pretty much are guaranteed big sellers.

Yes, that is the problem. Elder Scrolls and Fallout will sell. Without a demo, so consumers have nothing to help them avoid a bad game if it turns out that way.

Dishonored 2 did not sell well at all as far as I know, but we don't have sales numbers for it.

Good luck getting people to write game reviews for a living when they have to spend a big part of their pay on buying the games they're getting paid to review.

I think a lot of people saying things like that are overestimating how much income websites get from reviews outside of the big few sites. I bet for most website it would be a loss if they 1) need to buy the game and 2) pay someones wages for playing it. Reviews take a lot of hours when done right. The $60 in costs the publisher saves them isn't really in any way an incentive to give a higher rating.

 

[Kaiser Swayze]

I think it can have a chilling effect. You wait a week or two for feedback to settle in, and then you figure you can hold off a little longer because the excitement has died down a little, and then your attention is pulled elsewhere because of some other big release. It's not a rational response, but purchasing decisions aren't always dictated by perfectly rational impulses.

 

[Okami Haundo]

I really hope that Arkane doesn't feel the heat of Bethesda's bad decisions here. They've made some fantastic games and its a damn shame to see them not getting the attention they deserve. I really don't see how anyone "wins" with their current strategy aside from streamers.

 

[Agent_4Seven]

I really hope this game will sell well despite this shitty review policy from Bethesda. It sure does deserve it cuz Arkane Austin made an absolutely incredible game and it's without a doubt my GOTY this year.

 

[jdmonmou]

It's a really stupid policy. The only benefit I see to Bethesda is that it could delay reviews of a bad game from being seen by the public. But it really works against them when the game is good since they miss out on free marketing and buzz that outlets can generate before the game is launched which could raise pre-orders and launch day sales.

 

[trikster40]

I didn't buy Prey on launch just because of the uncertainty of the type of game it was trying to be. I waited for impressions, reviews, etc before grabbing my copy. I'd have been there at launch but I can't just blindly buy games these days without knowing what I'm getting into.

AAA games don't always translate to AAA experiences.

 

[Big Blue]

The lack of reviews absolutely kills hype and prevents games from making headlines. They're fucking themselves over.

 

[captainnapalm]

I think there's probably an argument to be made that reviews are now a big part of the hype cycle leading up to a release and that games suffer when they don't have it, but Prey also had some other problems I think, even aside from the demo.

First of all, why is this called Prey? Reviving the name of an old game that doesn't have a huge following might not have been the best idea. If this game is following on from anything it's the Shock games, not Prey. And 'Prey' really isn't even that great a title.

I think there would have been more excitement if they had the created a new IP. And the game is totally good enough to be its own thing too. People are so saturated with re-hashed properties these days I think new properties can create more buzz - unless you're talking really established IPs.

The game just didn't project a strong enough identity I think.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Yeah, maybe do your job and instead of rushing to be first, try to be the best? The only people negatively affected by Bethesda's policy is reviewers desperate to get those review page clicks.

Sooo... do your job and don't worry that you're not making any money? I wasn't aware review sites are supposed to be NGOs.

Consumers are affected by shitty reviews as a result of that, but the fault there lies with journalists.

I guess in a fantasy world where journalists can afford to publish their reviews a few weeks after the game comes out and not worry about details like traffic or ad money, that's true. Hell, I'm sure most if not all reviewers would love to live in that fantasy world. But don't let that stop you from demonizing people for wanting to get paid.

There is no benefit to a consumer buying a video game the second it comes out. In fact, with price drops and patches, you benefit much more to wait a week or 6.

I fully agree and that's exactly why I do so. That isn't and shouldn't be the reviewers' problem, though.

Why do reviewers need to have reviews ready for launch day when the only ones benefiting from that are the hype-cycle publishers?

Again, because we don't live in a fantasy world where people can live off eating clouds. If a site put up a review after everyone else has done so, nobody reads it, they don't get any money, and they can't pay its reviewers. With advance copies and an embargo date, everyone plays in a level field where they can play the game for as much as they want and take their time to write their reviews, which is exactly what you say you want.

 

[shortsoptional]

Trying to understand the other side, as Bethesda isn't going to do something intentionally to harm themselves without good reason in some other aspect. The trade off for them has to be something positive. I won't pretend to know exactly what that is.

However, websites are slowly losing ground to YouTubers and other small gaming channels. Getting review copy's early and getting early access is still some of the ways they have advantages over smaller guys (IGN First, ect). Some of the smaller guys who maybe don't get free review copies, are now getting copies of Bethesda games about the same time bigger websites do, and I can see them being motivated to not have that. Big name websites are certainly going to be upset about this from that aspect, and I don't think their anger comes from a place that is not self serving.

But I'm not in this business so these are all just guesses and me trying to understand motivations with everyone involved.

 

[MosquitoSmasher]

D2 got a demo weeks (months?) after its release. I guess they were trying to push the game after it didn't sell well.

I heard it sold worse than D1, I don't got the numbers right now.

It would be interesting to hear what numbers Bethesda is expecting with titles like D2 and Prey. Maybe they are fully aware that these games are for a smaller audience and they keep publishing them because they're the only publisher that still does and to keep the genre alive.

Spoiler

probably not...

Yes, that is the problem. Elder Scrolls and Fallout will sell. Without a demo, so consumers have nothing to help them avoid a bad game if it turns out that way.

Dishonored 2 did not sell well at all as far as I know, but we don't have sales numbers for it.


I think a lot of people saying things like that are overestimating how much income websites get from reviews outside of the big few sites. I bet for most website it would be a loss if they 1) need to buy the game and 2) pay someones wages for playing it. Reviews take a lot of hours when done right. The $60 in costs the publisher saves them isn't really in any way an incentive to give a higher rating.

A goddamn shame because Dishonored 2 is a great game. Arkane really did a fine job there and an even better job with Prey in my opinion. But that's probably because i prefer that sci-fi/space horror setting more over what Dishonored brings. Both are absolutely fantastic games and should be played by many more people. I really hope Arkane gets to do another Prey or new IP focused on SP, they do a superb job.

 

[Makonero]

Trying to understand the other side, as Bethesda isn't going to do something intentionally to harm themselves without good reason in some other aspect. The trade off for them has to be something positive. I won't pretend to know exactly what that is.

However, websites are slowly losing ground to YouTubers and other small gaming channels. Getting review copy's early and getting early access is still some of the ways they have advantages over smaller guys (IGN First, ect). Some of the smaller guys who maybe don't get free review copies, are now getting copies of Bethesda games about the same time bigger websites do, and I can see them being motivated to not have that. Big name websites are certainly going to be upset about this from that aspect, and I don't think their anger comes from a place that is not self serving.

But I'm not in this business so these are all just guesses and me trying to understand motivations with everyone involved.

the business motivation is simple. less lead time for reviewers = less chance that bad reviews will harm week one sales. it's a gamble bethesda makes, betting that their good games will sell enough without good reviews and that their bad ones will sell better without all those pesky 6s and 7s. it's a cynical anti-consumer move.

 

[aliengmr]

Reviews inform consumers. As a rather minor purchase games are in the same niche as books, movies and music where there are many new releases every month and someone looking to buy something may want to check a review to see if something will interest them over another title releasing in the same window.

But the reviews are still happening and consumers are still being informed, it's just that review copies aren't being sent out early. That sucks for reviewers, and maybe even Bethesda themselves, but if everyone does their job, consumers are fine.

Did you read the article? Half of the whole point is by making reviewers wait until release, you're essentially forcing them to race through the game to post a review as fast as possible, which are circumstances that do a game like Prey absolutely no favours. If critics were able to play through the game at their own pace and really spend time with it, there's a chance scores could have been higher, thus more sales and more accurate reviews for the consumer.

You can argue all you want about how critics shouldn't race through a game to review it as fast as possible blah blah, but the reality is the sites that post first benefit most.

How is that any different that getting copies early? Everyone is still racing to post a review, unless there's an embargo. If they handed a bunch of copies out early and there was no embargo, how would that be any different for reviewers? Then there's this:

Doom: 85
Dishonored 2: 86
Prey (pc): 83

To say that any of them suffered as a result, is hard to say. Then again, we live in a time when those scores are garbage tier, so who knows.

Like I said, it's anti-reviewer and anti pre-order, but anti-consumer? I suppose the consumers that want the review in order to decide whether or not to pre-order are out of luck, but in that case, so is Bethesda.

If reviews are important to you and the reviewers you trust do their job, then how are you really affected? The information is still getting to you, just at release instead of weeks in advance.

 

[MotionBlue]

It isn't good for consumers, but it should still be allowed to happen. Entertainment companies are only obligated to follow government regulations. Not ensure revenue streams for pundits or critics.

Hopefully this pushes people away from day one purchases and preorders.

 

[Freshmaker]

I really hope that Arkane doesn't feel the heat of Bethesda's bad decisions here. They've made some fantastic games and its a damn shame to see them not getting the attention they deserve.

They have other problems like garbage PS4 Pro support. That deserved a harsh light shined on it from the jump.

 

[Falchion]

If a game pulls something like this, I don't buy it at launch since no one has had enough time to really dig in. I'll always opt to wait it out before I commit my money.