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Gabe from Penny-Arcade pwns IGN

Anth said:
Most other big industries seem a little bit less juvenile. Sure you have quite a few jackasses in the movie industry, but if actors behave like developers (Jaffe) or gaming "journalists", they tend to get ridiculed by the press.

1 day, artists, not technology geeks, will run development teams. Until then, the industry's staying infantile.
 
GhaleonQ said:
1 day, artists, not technology geeks, will run development teams. Until then, the industry's staying infantile.
its funny, but gamer culture seems much more infantile than the industry
 
I don't even bother reading game reviews anymore. Sometimes I'll check the aggregate on Gamerankings, but generally I just go with my gut.
 
Flyguy said:
8gfkxh4.jpg

Is that seriously what the PA guys look like?
 
-COOLIO- said:
how gabe and tycho break gamer stereotypes:

they're professional, literate/artistic, charitable, competent, awesome family people



and you know what...



fuck it


theyre sexy too.

They're also both super witty. I saw them speak at MIT and they can pull out jokes from audience comments like nobody's business. Plus, they're really nice guys-- Very personable.
 
Timedog said:
BECAUSE IF THE GUY FROM PENNY ARCADE DOESN'T ENJOY THE GAME, THEN IT'S NOT WORTH MY TIME.

I hope you're being sarcastic.

Anth said:
Most other big industries seem a little bit less juvenile. Sure you have quite a few jackasses in the movie industry, but if actors behave like developers (Jaffe) or gaming "journalists", they tend to get ridiculed by the press.

Did you miss Roger Ebert and Vincent Gallo's spat?
 
Graphics Horse said:
If you don't want 7-10 review scales, don't write huge articles suggesting that 7 is a shitty score.

they arent saying 7 is a shitty score in general, just a shitty score for such an awesome game...
 
OK GUYS LET'S CUT THE BULLSHIT. This is what really happened.

Gabe said:
I want to talk about Assassins Creed but first I need to get something out of the way. I have a lot to say about the game and I want to talk about some of the bad reviews it's getting but I want to make sure everyone understands I'm not saying this because of the comic we did for them. So I'm going to link you to an old set of news posts about Prince of Persia 2. Feel free to read those and come back if you like.

Now I'm going to tell you how advertising on PA works. Every other game site out there takes ads for whatever game they can get. It doesn't matter if it's a pile of crap, if the publisher pays for the spot IGN or Gamespot or whoever will run the ad. That's fine but that's not how we do it and the news posts you just read are part of the reason why.

We were huge fans of the first Prince of Persia game so when Ubi came to us and wanted to run ads for the second we said yes. We had no idea they were going to completely fuck it over. So from then on we started demanding playable copies of games before we'd agree to advertising. No matter how early the build we tell the publishers that unless we can see it played in front of us or play it ourselves we won't run ads for it. Obviously a lot can still go wrong during development but we make the best decisions we can. We do not think of the ads you see on our page as ads. They are recommendations and we try extremely hard to insure that anything we put over there is worth your time. When Prince of Persia 2 came out and we saw that it was crap we said as much on the site. Ads for the game appeared right next to those news posts slamming it. Needless to say Ubi wasn't very happy and Robert got some angry phone calls but our loyalty is to our readers not the people paying the bills. We explained to Ubi that the reason our ads perform better than any other site out there is because our readers trust us and that means we have to admit when something we advertise doesn't turn out as good as we hoped. Obviously they understood because we're still advertising their games but like I said this isn't the way other sites operate. I actually give Ubi a lot of credit for not just telling us to fuck off and buying more ads on IGN and Gamespy with the extra money.

I'm telling you all this because I want you to understand that if Assassins Creed actually was a 7.0 game I'd tell you. I also want you to know that when I tell you it's fucking incredible I'm not bullshitting you because we're running ads for the game.

There are about four or five reviews of the game with scores in the low to mid 7's. I want to cover some of the common complaints these reviewers had in case anyone out there is worried about them.

Many of the reviews say that the ending is bad. Obviously I don't want to give away any spoilers but I will say that the final confrontation was exciting and gratifying. It was an extremely satisfying ending to this chapter of the game. Chapter is the important word here. This is a huge story, probably a trilogy at least. The game does end with a cliff hanger and it certainly sets up the rest of the arc but that's how the first part of any multi part story ends. If Star Wars had ended with Luke jumping into his X-Wing to go take on the Death Star that would be a shitty fucking ending. It doesn't though, Luke destroys it and then we get hints about what's in store for our heroes. I'm telling you right now Altair destroys his Death Star.

I also can't be 100% positive but I'm guessing that some of these reviewers didn't let the credits role. Again, I don't want to spoil anything but wait for the credits to end. Until reviewers start posting their Gamertags along with the review we'll never really be able to tell how much of a game they played. But I'd be willing to bet some of them are missing the "Visions of the Future" achievement. I'm not gonna say why but If you don't have this achievement you can't say jack shit about the ending.

I think the biggest complaint I saw was that the missions become repetitive and boring. I actually didn't understand this complaint at all until just the other day. I had gotten an early copy of the game just like everyone else in the media but I was just playing it for fun. I'd cracked into it over the weekend and when I got into the office on Monday I started seeing these negative reviews. When I saw the low scores I was actually really upset and I wanted to talk about the game here on the site. I wanted to tell everyone that these guys were full of shit. However, since so many of the complaints were based on the ending I wanted to beat it first so I was sure I wasn't missing anything. I attacked the game again but this time with the goal of beating it as fast as I could. I was determined to get a post up on Tuesday and I was pushing through the game as fast as I could. I went from finding every high perch in a district to only getting the ones I needed to advance the story. I stopped saving every citizen and avoided any unnecessary confrontations. The informer missions that I had really enjoyed before, I now avoided because I knew they took too long to complete. I did the bare minimum of missions to progress the story and anything that "hindered" my progress was frustrating. Monday night after skipping over another combat (something I used to really enjoy) I stopped myself. What the fuck was I doing? I wasn't playing the game because I wanted to I was playing it because I had a deadline and I needed to beat it. I stopped immediately and decided I'd write about the game whenever I got around to beating it. I spent another day and a half with it and during that time I hunted for hidden flags and explored the cities again. I came in this morning and finally did beat it but I did it at my own pace and I enjoyed every part of it.

Imagine what an open ended sandbox title must look like to a reviewer especially right now. How many games do they have piling up on their desks? A game like Assassins creed isn't meant to be played under a deadline. You shouldn't be trying to beat it as fast as you can so you can move on to Mass Effect or Mario Galaxy. As soon as I gave myself a deadline all of a sudden I understood all their complaints. It was like a fucking Escher painting. I had put myself in their shoes and suddenly the landscape flipped and I could see games from their perspective. In the end I wasn't angry at them for their bad reviews. I actually just felt bad for them.

-Gabe out

ok guys, see the bolded statements? FOUR OR FIVE REVIEWS in the low to mid 7.0s which would include IGN (others are 1up, Gamespy; Eurogamer and Edge gave it a 7 but they run on different scales). Nowhere does he mention 1up. Also, it doesn't have to be Hillary who responds to Gabe, he's simply responding like any other person, it just happens to be on a podcast. IGN gave it a 7.7, IGN PS3 gave it a 7.5 7.7 is borderline mid-high 7.

Jeff played the game for 40 hours, he knows the ending. He's talking about the PS3 version, but he doesn't praise the non-technical aspects.

It's all about different opinions, Jeff who played the game for 40 hours, I think has a valid opinion. Why do you praise Gabe like he's the one and only source for an opinion? His opinion is as valid as anyone else's. You may identify more with Gabe and that's fine, but don't encourage his petty attacks. I think Jeff also went overboard, but he was angry with Gabe's comments about reviewers, still no excuse. This whole thing is quite sad. Gabe makes a comment supposedly at 1up but never mentions them, then he goes ahead and insults IGN when one of their staff feels the need to defend himself.

I don't think you guys even listened to the podcast, oh well, so much for listening to both sides. I think it's pathetic that everyone is automatically taking Gabe's side. He's not exactly unbiased. He's already been affected by the game before it came out, I'm assuming that he's on friendly terms with some of the producers since it was his own game show where AC had a big presence. Gabe is the one that sounds like he thinks he's better than everyone else. If he's fucking talking to 1up then have the balls to say 1up in your post, don't act like an asshole when someone from the site that gave it a 7.5/7.7 responds to your ambiguous message.

http://media.putfile.com/IGN---Jeffs-rant
 
YYZ said:
Jeff played the game for 40 hours, he knows the ending.

Gabe said:
I did the bare minimum of missions to progress the story and anything that "hindered" my progress was frustrating.

Gabe's main complaint was the speed in which he presumed some reviewers were forced to play through the game. If Jeff took his time, why would he assume this critique was aimed at him?
 
Timedog said:
This is fucking retarded. I can see them not supporting a super buggy unplayable game, but other than that it's subjective. "Oh no! We can't have our readers clicking on a link to a game that I PERSONALLY DON'T LIKE! What are we gonna do???"


no its more like you dont get hammered with ads for crappy games when you visit
 
Graphics Horse said:
You forgot to bold the bit near the top where he mentions IGN, Gamespot and Gamespy by name, and nobody else.
Read the sentence. It has nothing to do with their review scores.
 
YYZ said:
OK GUYS LET'S CUT THE BULLSHIT. This is what really happened.



ok guys, see the bolded statements? FOUR OR FIVE REVIEWS in the low to mid 7.0s which would include IGN (others are 1up, Gamespy; Eurogamer and Edge gave it a 7 but they run on different scales). Nowhere does he mention 1up. Also, it doesn't have to be Hillary who responds to Gabe, he's simply responding like any other person, it just happens to be on a podcast. IGN gave it a 7.7, IGN PS3 gave it a 7.5 7.7 is borderline mid-high 7.

Jeff played the game for 40 hours, he knows the ending. He's talking about the PS3 version, but he doesn't praise the non-technical aspects.

It's all about different opinions, Jeff who played the game for 40 hours, I think has a valid opinion. Why do you praise Gabe like he's the one and only source for an opinion? His opinion is as valid as anyone else's. You may identify more with Gabe and that's fine, but don't encourage his petty attacks. I think Jeff also went overboard, but he was angry with Gabe's comments about reviewers, still no excuse. This whole thing is quite sad. Gabe makes a comment supposedly at 1up but never mentions them, then he goes ahead and insults IGN when one of their staff feels the need to defend himself.

I don't think you guys even listened to the podcast, oh well, so much for listening to both sides. I think it's pathetic that everyone is automatically taking Gabe's side. He's not exactly unbiased. He's already been affected by the game before it came out, I'm assuming that he's on friendly terms with some of the producers since it was his own game show where AC had a big presence. Gabe is the one that sounds like he thinks he's better than everyone else. If he's fucking talking to 1up then have the balls to say 1up in your post, don't act like an asshole when someone from the site that gave it a 7.5/7.7 responds to your ambiguous message.

http://media.putfile.com/IGN---Jeffs-rant

Jeff wins. Gabe is lame. End of discussion.

Rahk said:
Read the sentence. It has nothing to do with their review scores.

Allusions to money hattery has nothing to do with the review scores? Did you *read* what was written? Seriously?
 
Graphics Horse said:
You forgot to bold the bit near the top where he mentions IGN, Gamespot and Gamespy by name, and nobody else.
Where he's giving examples of people who advertise games?

Gamespot gave AC a 9.0 anyway.
 
Graphics Horse said:
I saw that as iimplying that advertising revenue can pay for review scores.,,

That's EXACTLY what he's saying. He's saying "Other sites will take money hats and prop up review scores, but, and here's proof, because Ubi has lots of AC ads on our site we're clearly unbiased because they could've gone to IGN or GameSpot and get a score boost, but instead they stuck with us because we're oh so unbiased!" :lol
 
joshcryer said:
That's EXACTLY what he's saying. He's saying "Other sites will take money hats and prop up review scores, but, and here's proof, because Ubi has lots of AC ads on our site we're clearly unbiased because they could've gone to IGN or GameSpot and get a score boost, but instead they stuck with us because we're oh so unbiased!" :lol

Except what he's saying is not that. . .at all. He is simply saying that other sites run ads regardless of the quality of the game. That is not money hattery. Money hattery is not implied.

"Every other game site out there takes ads for whatever game they can get. It doesn't matter if it's a pile of crap, if the publisher pays for the spot IGN or Gamespot or whoever will run the ad."
 
Here's the problem: The gaming media suffers from a dearth of maturity. And I'm not talking about long-winded discussions about the nature of Mario's heroism, but rather a simple sense of decorum and decency toward competitors.

And, more to the point, the game guys are cheered on by children and emotionally shriveled adults who delight when game Web site A proclaims game Web site B is stealing its great ideas for top 10 lists and such.

As for Penny Arcade, I remember when those merry pranksters took to assaulting Daily Radar for its review of Draconus, the crappy Dreamcast game. It's good to see they've learned and grown over the course of, what? nine-plus years.
 
joshcryer said:
That's EXACTLY what he's saying.

Wow, I didn't interpret it like that at all. I thought Gabe was saying, "IGN's editorial and marketing departments are separate, ours are not. Therefore, we only advertise games we actually recommend."

MC Safety said:
All of humanity suffers from a dearth of maturity.

Fixed. This kind of attack is not exclusive to the gaming industry.
 
White Man said:
Except what he's saying is not that. . .at all. He is simply saying that other sites run ads regardless of the quality of the game. That is not money hattery. Money hattery is not implied.

"Every other game site out there takes ads for whatever game they can get. It doesn't matter if it's a pile of crap, if the publisher pays for the spot IGN or Gamespot or whoever will run the ad."

And write glowing previews, at the very least.
 
Graphics Horse said:
And write glowing previews, at the very least.

I don't see him saying that. General practice for all gaming sites though is to write generally positive previews. Unless there is something massively and obviously wrong.
 
White Man said:
I don't see him saying that. General practice for all gaming sites though is to write generally positive previews. Unless there is something massively and obviously wrong.

No I was saying that, not him. I'm not trying to defend anyone.
 
White Man said:
Except what he's saying is not that. . .at all. He is simply saying that other sites run ads regardless of the quality of the game. That is not money hattery. Money hattery is not implied.

"Every other game site out there takes ads for whatever game they can get. It doesn't matter if it's a pile of crap, if the publisher pays for the spot IGN or Gamespot or whoever will run the ad."

You don't call that $$$ hats?

Here's the telling part. Right after he calls out IGN and GameSpot he says this, "I also want you to know that when I tell you it's fucking incredible I'm not bullshitting you because we're running ads for the game."

Read what is implied here.
 
SPEA said:
I listened to this whole terrible thing because I was writing a paper, so I just waited for it to get to the part. It never came. I checked the PA article, and it was in episode 22, but you linked 23. Total waste of time.

edit: I didn't mean to say you wasted my time, just that you linked the wrong mp3 by mistake. I meant to say that listening to an IGN podcast was a huge waste of time. I should have just skipped to the part in question.
 
joshcryer said:
You don't call that $$$ hats?

Here's the telling part. Right after he calls out IGN and GameSpot he says this, "I also want you to know that when I tell you it's fucking incredible I'm not bullshitting you because we're running ads for the game."

Read what is implied here.

He doesn't IMPLY anything. He says other sites take ads from everyone because they need the money. He never says anything that indicates they take ads from companies in exchange for good scores. That implication (that doesn't exist in the text) actually goes CONTRARY to what Gabe is saying. If he were implying that, AC WOULDN'T have gotten 7s.

The portion you just quoted, he is talking about his own site's behavior. It is even in a different paragraph to keep the concepts separate.
 
White Man said:
Wow, Jeff sounds like a complete idiot.

Yeah, listening to that section of the podcast I felt pretty embarrassed for their staff. Here's a "professional critic" going into message board nerd rage because someone has another viewpoint.

To top it off, slinging at them because they "make comics?" (and a convention, a charity, a series of books, a CCG, a videogame, a line of merch and you know.. sometimes their comics are funny and people like them.)
 
Gigglepoo said:
Since PA's complaint basically boiled down to reviewers rushing through the game, it makes no sense for a person who took their time trying to immerse themselves in the AC experience would feel they were being singled out by such a comment. I have been a game reviews (albeit on a smaller scale) for five or so years. When I hear complaints like PA made regarding a game I reviewed, I look at my own playing process before getting upset or feeling self righteous.
well, i'm not defending the IGN guy; i read/skimmed the review and i didn't listen to the podcast. and ultimately i don't actually care about the opinions expressed here or who spouted them; the only people who do hate PA/love IGN or vice versa. i don't particularly like either one, to be blunt, but at this point not enough to let it affect my abstract discussion of the issues raised on goddamn GAF.

so anyway, i don't know how it is for everyone, but i never significantly changed the way i played games as a reviewer. sometimes i felt the pressure of a deadline, and would force myself to keep playing a game, but i always personally took the time i felt i needed to evaluate aspects of the game that i inferred were significant. sure, i might have made "mistakes" in that regard, but i think i would have missed the same stuff as a general player of the game as well.

kohler's assessment of the game, in which he says there's fuck all to do in the world anyway, makes me wonder what "taking the time" would really amount to in this game anyway. but i suppose that's a separate issue. i know i personally don't have much interest in this game anymore, due to both critical assesments and basic factual information about it, though i would like to watch someone fuck around with it for about an hour so i had a better grasp of what's going on. since the first hour of this game (as with most) is bound to be unrepresentative, that person is not going to be me.
 
joshcryer said:
You don't call that $$$ hats?

Here's the telling part. Right after he calls out IGN and GameSpot he says this, "I also want you to know that when I tell you it's fucking incredible I'm not bullshitting you because we're running ads for the game."

Read what is implied here.
His beef was with reviewers giving low scores. He wanted people to know that he's not giving out a good opinion just because ads for the game are running on PA and hence PA would feel obliged to go easy on the advertiser.

I don't understand how you're reading implied money hats out of his comments. it just makes no sense.
 
Anth said:
Most other big industries seem a little bit less juvenile. Sure you have quite a few jackasses in the movie industry, but if actors behave like developers (Jaffe) or gaming "journalists", they tend to get ridiculed by the press.


the movie industry is full of these types of battles. especially on the review side. and i mean classically philosophers like marx did the same thing. so y'know
 
I dunno. Personally, without getting into a big wordy argument that I don't particularly care that much about, I think a lot of the issues with Game Criticism come from fogginess over what its role is.

Is game criticism supposed to be a form of consumer advocacy? Or is it art criticism? Or is it an outlet for nerds that are no good at anything else to earn money while doing the same thing that they would be doing on message boards anyway?

I don't know. You could have a big argument about it. I'd bet that at least some of the attitude that games aren't art comes from the juvenility of game criticism. Nobody can really defend games as a legit an art form as cinema when the main game critics are who they are.
 
White Man said:
I dunno. Personally, without getting into a big wordy argument that I don't particularly care that much about, I think a lot of the issues with Game Criticism come from fogginess over what its role is.

Is game criticism supposed to be a form of consumer advocacy? Or is it art criticism? Or is it an outlet for nerds that are no good at anything else to earn money while doing the same thing that they would be doing on message boards anyway?

I don't know. You could have a big argument about it. I'd bet that at least some of the attitude that games aren't art comes from the juvenility of game criticism.

Most game reviews are with the intention to sell or not sell a game to people. The review is essentially telling you if the game is worth your money and time.
 
MassiveAttack said:
Most game reviewers are failed writers who desperately seek the affirmation and acknowledgement of their peers. Or short of that, 6 year old kids with ADD.

Some of us just enjoy reviewing games. I have no aspirations beyond that in the gaming industry, and I have been doing it for almost eight years without pay.
 
White Man said:
I dunno. Personally, without getting into a big wordy argument that I don't particularly care that much about, I think a lot of the issues with Game Criticism come from fogginess over what its role is.

Is game criticism supposed to be a form of consumer advocacy? Or is it art criticism? Or is it an outlet for nerds that are no good at anything else to earn money while doing the same thing that they would be doing on message boards anyway?

I don't know. You could have a big argument about it. I'd bet that at least some of the attitude that games aren't art comes from the juvenility of game criticism. Nobody can really defend games as a legit an art form as cinema when the main game critics are who they are.

And, can you imagine that nerd rant coming out Ebert or Roeper?
 
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