Lmao I'm so glad I wasn't the only one put off by that. I remember when I used to talk like that online. 😷
Edit - oh top of page, ok. I need to get around to Hellblade, it looks really good and I hope it starts a trend.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
The Jimquisition - Indie AAA
- Thread starter TheOnlyOneHeEverFeared
- Start date
Lmao I'm so glad I wasn't the only one put off by that. I remember when I used to talk like that online. 😷
Edit - oh top of page, ok. I need to get around to Hellblade, it looks really good and I hope it starts a trend.
Essentially, his definition of AAA differs from many other people's defintion of AAA. What Hellblade did was deliver relatively high production values, visual fidelity and overall quality (things many people associate with AAA) at a fraction of what would nowadays be considered a AAA video game budget. However, to Jim, those positives aren't as defining of what makes a game a AAA game as the nefarious, consumer- and developer-unfriendly business practices that tend to go along with big publishers' business models. So what he's saying is that Hellblade proves developers can independently make games that can hold a candle to the production values often associated with AAA games without falling into the trap of adapting the same kinds of AAA business practices. Whether one does or doesn't agree with his definition of AAA is, of course, a different matter but also somewhat beside the point.
Some people are beyond petty.
I loved Hellblade to death, one of the most impactful games ive ever played, but I still feel Jim was justified in being pissed over a game breaking bug.
Jim Sterling
Member
What the spitelords in this thread deliberately failed to note is that in my original review part of why I was so angry was because I was *aiming* to do this episode before the bug destroyed my progress. Now the bug is fixed, I beat it, I stand by my 7/10 score and am doing the video I already said I intended to do.
But of course, some people can't get over a guy making a mistake and owning up to it. Hardly surprising you get reviews doubling down when they fuck up, because look what happens when you actually cop to it.
What's funny is I knew people would do this which is why I specifically addressed it in the video that, clearly, some angry folks didn't watch before opening their traps.
Go ahead and be revisionist though. It'll help you be more vindictive.
But of course, some people can't get over a guy making a mistake and owning up to it. Hardly surprising you get reviews doubling down when they fuck up, because look what happens when you actually cop to it.
What's funny is I knew people would do this which is why I specifically addressed it in the video that, clearly, some angry folks didn't watch before opening their traps.
Go ahead and be revisionist though. It'll help you be more vindictive.
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
I get the feeling that Jim doesn't like publishers
Edit: Now that Jim is here I feel like I need to post something dumb and pathetic, fuck. Uhhh...oh yeah: Battlelog was awesome you crazy lunatic!
Edit: Now that Jim is here I feel like I need to post something dumb and pathetic, fuck. Uhhh...oh yeah: Battlelog was awesome you crazy lunatic!
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
It should also be noted that Hellblade didn't have traditional marketing in the sense of huge bombastic commercials with 4/5s and 9/10s splashed across the screen with review quotes. But rather that it had a following due to being much more transparent about development, they basically chronicled the entire dev process from pre-production all the way until the final build and explained how the reason behind each of their design decisions from the ones meant to cut costs like the camera and the more creative aspects like the binaural sound design. Hearing about these things was exciting even better was that they also changed the game with their newer solutions to old problems like collaborating with Epic to develop newer higher quality performance capture tech that simply wasn't available in the past since NT brought that tech to the industry in the first place. It's absolutely a success story but context matters. I can't think of any other studios that could've handled this project as well as veteran devs like NT did. I also wouldn't consider the success of a game like PUBG to be an indication of the death of the triple A games industry, considering the amount of profit GTAV is still making a full four years after the fact with it's online mode compared to if they made single player expansions.
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
I love Jim Sterling threads. Brings out so much anger in petty ass people.
I think obviously more Indie AAA's will become more popular but I don't think publishers will ever go away. For some studios it will probably always be needed. I think trying to push this idea that publishers will be 'gone' is honestly incredibly naive and not founded really in reality. It would be like saying that successful indie movies means we will have no more movie publisher in the future.
Gentleman Jack
Member
Mass_Pincup
Banned
Not to mention that Unity started development before the final specs of the PS4 and the Xbox One were shared.
MrS
Banned
I get the feeling Jim doesn't like to be criticised.
It seems like Jim is overcompensating with his praise for Hellblade. I certainly don't remember him being so effusive when Hellblade launched.
Do you have anything of substance to add or are you just here to shit post?
Nah fam. TW3 created characters and scenarios for every activity, in Syndicate it's the literal same activity and they even use the same normal mook model. It's Ubisoft patented by the numbers repetitive side quests at their best.
I gotta say the games does have good "real sidequests" too, more than any Ac to date I think? but it could have been better without the 70 cookiecutter district missions.
Turin Turambar
Member
It deserved a 1/10. Now it deserves a 7/10.
Games get patched. So game reviews get patched.
Except there is one thing you are missing from this analysis.
Length. What Jim fails to mention is length of a game has basically been intrinsically combined and compared to the price point of the game.
How replayable is this game? How long is it? How long will I be invested?
AAA games are very large, and are intended to keep a player playing for a long time.
Hellblade is short and concise.
I personally believe this huge explosion we've seen of open worlds in the AAA space is to create length and content so a player feels their money was spent. It's also why I feel trying to compare Hellblade to them is not a proper comparison at all.
Something more suitable would be uncharted lost legacy, which didn't charge full price because it understands it's a short game.
If hellblade charged full price, people would be up and arm's about it like they were with the order:1886.
I feel with talented artists and engineers and a decent budget, any studio can create high fidelity visuals.
Problem is, AAA is now incredibly concerned with making a player be invested in a game for as long as possible, which in tern is why microtransactions have wormed their way into so many games. Because if they are making a player invested longer, they need to get money out of them.
Don't take this as a defense, but rather my thoughts of why these trends in AAA are popping up.
I'll always be a Jim fan (unless he goes full milkshake duck at some point), but that 1/10 'review' was the kind of petulant trash you would have seen him pull back in his Destructoid days. Glad he had the sense to change it to a real review and all... but it's kind of a bummer to think that you can take the man out of Destructoid, but you can't take the Destructoid out of the man.
Jim Sterling
Member
Nah, I just don't like bullshit said about me.
It was an unprecedented situation for me and I handled it wrong. I admitted to it, quickly, and did what I could to change the situation.
Once again, part of why I did what I did was *because* of how into Hellblade I was and how much it represented what I wanted games to break away from. I was absolutely rash, absolutely fucked up, and absolutely knew I'd get shit for it again once I posted this video today.
But nothing said here has done anything to suggest why my video today is wrong. You can drag up the old bitterness over a fuckup all day long, but I'm afraid I'm not gonna let it undermine my arguments today.
MrS
Banned
Jim put out a new score and binned his 1/10. Who is trying to rewrite history here, exactly? Is that not revisionist?
His whims = new information/changing circumstances
Gravy Boat
Member
TheOnlyOneHeEverFeared
Member
bigbaldwolf86
Banned
MrS
Banned
I am not attempting to shit on him. I like Jim for the most part, I just find his now weekly praise of a game he has previously shit on to be nauseating and insincere.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Yea the same activity in different play spaces. Which I explained the thought process behind as they function similarly to district takeovers in other games, so yea I wouldn't call it boat because it serves a purpose and has a context. I agree with the criticism of the game having two few enemy models tho. But I digress, the point is that the scope of games is less bloated these days and more the general triple A game is more expensive to produce yet we're selling them at the same price.
Gravy Boat
Member
Pilgrimzero
Member
Eh, a lot of that added length and extra content is unfun, useless filler content. It's also a very different experience to what you get from a more linear, controlled game like Hellblade, The Order, Uncharted, Heavenly Sword, etc. Just comparing length and ignoring that they're very different kinds of games is somewhat disingenuous. What good am I gonna get out of taking 120 hours to complete Dragon Age: Inquisition when I would've enjoyed playing 10 hours of Heavy Rain a great deal more? (That's an example. I do actually like DAI despite its tedious filler content.)
The whole AAA bloat thing is just a result of the vicious cycle publishers and developers have placed themselves in. Their games are so expensive that they need to sell a shitload of copies so they make games which are as inoffensive as possible to as many people as possible which means less creative risks, less individuality and more and more AAA games looking like differently skinned versions of the same game. So then these publishers need to find some way to convince prospective players that their game is better than the almost-identical competition and the easiest, laziest, least risky way to do that is by starting a dick-measuring contest and saying "we have a bigger map", "we have more quests", "our game takes 1000 hours to get 100% in". Which in turn leads to higher development costs and there you have it -> vicious cycle.
What'd be much more valuable to the industry and the medium would be creative and artistic progress and advancements instead of just pumping up game lengths and map sizes. But, of course, that'd also be more risky.
TeamLeftMatch
Member
That's not what actually happened. He explained in the video that it was more of heat in the moment thing and that a game like Hellblade doesn't deserve the same score as "Life of a black tiger"
Overall I just found it a shitty thing to do considering how important review scores can be for an indie title like Hellblade, but at least was he quick about fixing that mistake.
bigbaldwolf86
Banned
He had an emotional reaction of disappointment from a game he was genuinely enjoying. He showed an ounce of weakness so give him a break. He hasn't praised the game weekly at all but does gives praise where it's due. You definitely are trying to shit on him for something he already owned up to and corrected
paperspace
Member
⁣
MrS
Banned
Releasing a 1/10 review of a game that you said he likes is not an attempt to shit on a game? That's what you're saying?
Huh? How could NT avoid a reviewer throwing a tantrum and giving a clearly misguided 1/10 to their game? Same goes for the "permadeath debacle", which was a deliberate game design choice, purposefully left behind to confuse players (similarly to the Souls games, for example) that was unfortunately misunderstood and "spoiled" by the game media.
If anything, NT made a pretty good job marketing Hellblade with behind the scenes videos explaining things that needed to be explained the indie AAA model, the game's subject matter of psychological illness, unique use of audio, motion capture etc.
Gravy Boat
Member
Do you just look at that score and ignore the entire review that goes along with it? I dont know how anyone could in good faith say that he was shitting on the game in that review.
I realise youre now to deep in to admit that you didnt actually read, but you could just quietly back away from the discussion. If you did read it youre being incredibly insincere.
Jim talks like that in his videos as well. Why is it any different when the user did? both are cringy as f
MrS
Banned
Is that not what Metacritic does? Is that not what most gamers actually do and why scores still exist? I had Hellblade pre-ordered so Jim's was the first review I saw after playing the game myself. Suffice to say I disagreed with the score and thought it was petty and not up to his usual standards.
Gravy Boat
Member
Howlongtobeat has it at 7-8 hours, roughly the same ballpark as most of the Uncharted series.
MrS
Banned
Read my post again, smart guy. I never said I do that, I said others do that.