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IGN is now reviewing (and giving a score to) early access games - Grounded
- Thread starter ManaByte
- Start date
ManaByte
Gold Member
mainstream sites do what they have to do, ya know? advertisement deals and all that jazz...
in the meantime, grounded not only is a bestseller on steam, but customer reviews are great ("very positive" to be exact)
so thank god ign and gamespot are here to protect the customerrrr
Oh I know, it's the only survival game I ever really enjoyed mostly due to Obsidian putting quests in the game. I've done them all and just waiting for them to finish more.
nikolino840
Member
I have to read yet...but...they say 6 becouse is not finished?
SlimeGooGoo
Party Gooper
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Vawn
Banned
Which PlayStation games are you talking about then? They just released two huge AAA games, that were incredibly polished at launch.
SlimeGooGoo
Party Gooper
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IntentionalPun
Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
It's for sale though.
In the end, it's kind of odd to sell a game before it's finished.
Don't get me wrong, I think early access is kinda cool.. but as a consumer, it's still a product someone is trying to sell me, and product reviews are useful to consumers. That's why Steam's user review system is so awesome; I use it on early access games ESPECIALLY to find out information / current state and whether I want to jump in and pay.
And if the review makes it clear the game is in Early Access, then... what's the problem?
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Vawn
Banned
Agreed.
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Revolutionary
Member
Seems like an accurate score to me. What's there is barebones and doesn't offer much over similar (and complete) titles like The Forest.
Personally, I feel like it's bad form to slap a number score on a game that is in Early Access.
Especially given how focused the gaming community is on review scores.
No issue with giving negative thoughts on Early Access or demos or whatever since I assume the reason these are done is to get player feedback.
Just seems shitty to slap an openly unfinished game with a numerical score.
IGN should know better to be honest.
Especially given how focused the gaming community is on review scores.
No issue with giving negative thoughts on Early Access or demos or whatever since I assume the reason these are done is to get player feedback.
Just seems shitty to slap an openly unfinished game with a numerical score.
IGN should know better to be honest.
CatLady
Selfishly plays on Xbox Purr-ies X
I was thinking the same thing when I first saw this thread, but that's because due to playing on GP, I forgot they are actually charging for it. If you charge for a beta, you can't cry if it gets reviewed.
I do hope that when the game is finished the reviews will be updated. It seems like it could be a pretty good game when complete.
Sp3eD
0G M3mbeR
Fortnite and pubg set a bad Presitent by keeping thier fundamentally finished games in Perpetual early access status Forever. Nothing early access games are doing is anything different then what other games have done for Decades in patches improving themselves. If you are selling your shit then prepare to get graded.
CamHostage
Member
IGN Early Access reviews have been a thing for a LONG TIME now.
Fortnite Save The World Early Access Review - IGN
Epic's base-building, cartoony survival action game starts out strong but slowly grinds to a halt.
At least since 2017, but the whole thing about flexible reviews probably got going in 2014 or so, line around the time of this IGN Review Policy Letter to Readers.
I preferred the clearer marker that an Early Access review was based on an unfinished game, but then again, I agree with a lot of the responses already on here that a "finished game" is an unfortunate thing of the past; games get patched and added on to, communities turn to shit, and sometimes Early Access is the only access ever offered because the game never leaves Early status when the developer goes bankrupt or abandons its project. So that whole thing of pretending that an Early Access score wasn't a "real score" was a bit disingenuous considering, as you know from your years of working in press Manabyte, readers still just scrolled down past the text to the score to find out what it rated so they could go argue about it on the comments and on Twitter...
It's not my favorite part of today's gaming world that everything that exists has to have a score assigned to it, but then again, I don't like throwing my money at things that I won't like, and to me reviews (be they professional or amateur) can be appreciable. If it makes you feel any better, IGN does Early Access reviews for things you DON'T like as well, such as Hyper Scape...
IGN did Review-in-Progress for games that were not available to review prior to launch / needed an online to review (MMOs or PVP games.) Those used to not have any preliminary score, just text of the thoughts as a reviewer went along, but more recently the reviews have had the etched-out "Not Final" score like on that old Fortnite review, and I'm not sure if IGN still does it that way or if the reviews are just straight reviews now?
If Grounded had a firm Release Date when it was to be reclassified from Early Access to Final, then maybe it would make sense to not put any score on an Early Access game? But this could be earmarked not-final for months or years, and they'll be charging 30 "final" dollars all that time, so it's just one of those things that is what it is these days.
Fortnite released in 2017 and just left Early Access barely a month ago in June. Considering its place as a dominant force in general populace entertainment, would it have made sense to you to be reading the first-ever Fortnite reviews four weeks ago?
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Vawn
Banned
IGN Early Access reviews have been a thing for a LONG TIME now.
Fortnite Save The World Early Access Review - IGN
Epic's base-building, cartoony survival action game starts out strong but slowly grinds to a halt.www.ign.com
At least since 2017, but the whole thing about flexible reviews probably got going in 2014 or so, line around the time of this IGN Review Policy Letter to Readers.
I preferred the clearer marker that an Early Access review was based on an unfinished game, but then again, I agree with a lot of the responses already on here that a "finished game" is an unfortunate thing of the past; games get patched and added on to, communities turn to shit, and sometimes Early Access is the only access ever offered because the game never leaves Early status when the developer goes bankrupt or abandons its project. So that whole thing of pretending that an Early Access score wasn't a "real score" was a bit disingenuous considering, as you know from your years of working in press Manabyte, readers still just scrolled down past the text to the score to find out what it rated so they could go argue about it on the comments and on Twitter...
It's not my favorite part of today's gaming world that everything that exists has to have a score assigned to it, but then again, I don't like throwing my money at things that I won't like, and to me reviews (be they professional or amateur) can be appreciable. If it makes you feel any better, IGN does Early Access reviews for things you DON'T like as well, such as Hyper Scape...
IGN did Review-in-Progress for games that were not available to review prior to launch / needed an online to review (MMOs or PVP games.) Those used to not have any preliminary score, just text of the thoughts as a reviewer went along, but more recently the reviews have had the etched-out "Not Final" score like on that old Fortnite review, and I'm not sure if IGN still does it that way or if the reviews are just straight reviews now?
If Grounded had a firm Release Date when it was to be reclassified from Early Access to Final, then maybe it would make sense to not put any score on an Early Access game? But this could be earmarked not-final for months or years, and they'll be charging 30 "final" dollars all that time, so it's just one of those things that is what it is these days.
Fortnite released in 2017 and just left Early Access barely a month ago in June. Considering its place as a dominant force in general populace entertainment, would it have made sense to you to be reading the first-ever Fortnite reviews four weeks ago?
Yeah, and they've discussed this on various podcasts. They basically said what most said here - if they're charging full-price for a game, they will review it as a full-priced game.
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CamHostage
Member
Yeah, there's a lot of "Fuck Early Access!!" on this thread, but the reality is, if it weren't for Early Access, we wouldn't be playing Grounded today, and probably wouldn't be playing it when Xbox Series X came out, and probably still wouldn't be playing it until a year or two from now when the content seemed "done" enough to put in a box. Instead, today, I can play Grounded. I can play Risk of Rain 2. Factorio and GTFO are in Early Access. Ooblets and Session and Atlas and Total Accurate Battle Simulator are all in Game Preview on Xbox. I love having the game Arena Gods out at parties, and I don't even know if the developer is still in business. It's looking to be that the only way to ever get to experience the amazement and tragedy of Star Citizen will be in messing around with it on Early Access...
I can play this stuff now, and it might suck for me in various cases to play them this early, but that's on me. I've been warned, and I choose what to do with my money. Single-Player Early Access games don't make a lot of sense, but some developers have been using it in interesting ways (like the Bright Memory "alpha" that's its own self-contained prequel game, sort of, kind of?) Multiplayer game Early Access, meanwhile, is starting to make less sense of waiting for it to be "perfect" since games evolve now. So it just matters if a developer handles the Early period well and maybe if charging is handled right (maybe a free period? maybe a discounted period? not sure how to handle it best, kind of depends on the game and the level of included content.) It's not for everybody, but if you're the type of person who is into the benefits of Early Access, it's a good thing that the choice is there for you to make use of.
That said, all the frustrations and ugliness about reviews being "too early", and early games maybe burning out your interests by giving you too sucky impression that you don't come back when it's good, or that developers now consider "Early Access" part of the release strategy for almost everything and will change for a game when it's still just barely a game, or that your money gets taken for Early Access products that sometimes turn out to be abandonware... All of that comes with the territory. But in days past, none of this was possible in the first place (though you could charge for shareware discs and episode samplers and and things back in the day...) Take the good and take the bad, or just don't take Early Access at all; it's up to buyers to decide.
I'm dumb, what is GTS? If you mean Gran Turismo Sport, the IGN GT Sport Review looks like it's been up since at least Oct 23, a week after the product launched, so was there controversy about GT Sport back then, or do you mean a different game?
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Spukc
always chasing the next thrill
Report me for trolling MS/Xbox threads > 06/20
Knitted Knight
Banned
Person buys game. Person reviews game.
But... did you read the fine print? "early-access....here. Don't review until it's finished"
When is the game gonna be finished? "Well you see we have this timeline...." What if you don't hit that timeline but still continue to charge for the game... "Well, fuck you, DO NOT REVIEW THE GAME!"
But... did you read the fine print? "early-access....here. Don't review until it's finished"
When is the game gonna be finished? "Well you see we have this timeline...." What if you don't hit that timeline but still continue to charge for the game... "Well, fuck you, DO NOT REVIEW THE GAME!"
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GHG
Member
Portugeezer
Member
This is fine, the game is for sale. That said, they should re-review it when it if fully released.
Tschumi
Member
For the longest time, kasavin-period GameSpot was my go-to. For the last decade i guess on rare occasions where I've ventured outside steam user feedback for games I've gone to ign.
If ign ends up going the same way that GameSpot went, I'll move on from that too. No worries.
Edit: "the way of GameSpot" being, reviews starting to seemingly be paid for, previously nuanced review scores being simplified to increments of .5, favourite reviewers leaving, similar.
If ign ends up going the same way that GameSpot went, I'll move on from that too. No worries.
Edit: "the way of GameSpot" being, reviews starting to seemingly be paid for, previously nuanced review scores being simplified to increments of .5, favourite reviewers leaving, similar.
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Bumblebeetuna
Member
If they are charging for the game, makes sense to review it. Doesn’t make sense to treat it like a full game though, it’s early access.
Not sure why people are questioning why they are charging for early access? That’s what early access is... you pay the price of the game, early, for access.
Not sure why people are questioning why they are charging for early access? That’s what early access is... you pay the price of the game, early, for access.
You went far out of your way to deliberately miss the point so you can pitch some sort of angry tantrum.
MightySquirrel
Banned
I'd rather watch some random streamer play a game i'm on a fence about for a few minutes, than believe anything a game journalists say or write, even less take their score at face value. They overrate games by at least 3-4 points consistently, especially exclusives.
heres a game journalist for you:
heres a game journalist for you:
Hoho for breakfast
Member
Don't see the issue. If the game is available it should also be able to be reviewed. Just make it clear it's a review of an early access game and not the finished game if necessary.
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Hoho for breakfast
Member
Yep, look at Fortnite. One of the biggest games of the last few years and it just came out of "early access". Should nobody have been able to review it??
Mattyp
Gold Member
That was actually Gamespot that refused to review an 'unfinished' Sony title until it was done, matters not but the game was shit and grounded is
fun
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