An article on IGN recently asked the question “Do Game Developers Hate Reviews?” The article allowed some developers to complain about their poor game performances and reviews. Certainly, there are some legitimate observations, especially when it comes to online meta scores where some people will review a game poorly without playing it just to be contrarian or fight some socially motivated goal. While this typically happens only to Blockbuster games like Call of Duty, it is nonetheless a real problem when reading reviews online.
Darby McDevitt, writer for the Assassin’s Creed series, did make a very astute observation though: “A cursory look at Metacritic’s rating system underscores a strange phenomenon. What constitutes a ‘good’ game (a ‘green’ rating) under their current system? 76 and above. Now look at what constitutes a ‘good’ movie or album: 61 and above. What is the reason for this discrepancy? Why have we internalized the idea that a film that scores a 70 is still well worth seeing, but a game that scores an 80 is in danger of sucking? Very strange indeed.”
While this is a good observation, it is not really very strange at all in my opinion. I think that the reason for a game rated 61 not doing as well as a movie rated 61 is very very simple to explain. Games can take anywhere from 20-150 hours to play. If you really like the game, you may want to play it twice or collect all the extras, doubling the hours. Movies on the other hand, are a meager two to three hours long… five if you are watching the extended version of Lord of the Rings, but that’s an extreme not worth mentioning as LotR is awesome and anyone would gladly lose sleep for a little Middle Earth action.
I can put on a movie in the background while I clean my room or engage in some activity that requires little mental effort from me. If I watch a movie about zombie sheep, I don’t need to give it my full attention, and it still provides enjoyment while I fold my socks. It’s a win-win. Games are much more involved and interactive, not allowing me to do anything else, a point that McDevitt touched on but never expanded.
The simple fact is that games take many many more hours to play and enjoy than do movies. Making the comparison really isn’t fair and Metascore reflects that. A single game can take a normal person who works as long to beat as it takes to watch a whole season of football. This is why buyers will only buy games that have high scores. Nobody wants to waste 120 hours on a game that is mediocre when there is a large and amazing library of games they could be playing instead.
That leaves the average public game buyer professional reviews like the staff of IGN, Gamespot, 1up, etc to provide the public with a little bit more of a reasonable and fair treatment. They provide a method of critiquing more familiar to the general populace as the movie industry has been doing it for almost a century and the food industry has been doing it forever. This is sort of where the developers’ complaints fall a little bit flat. Surely, a reviewer may take what is perceived as cheap shots or not be a fan of the original cult classic, but a good reviewer represents general opinion and will provide the same feedback and more, albeit articulately, that the majority of people may feel about the game.
Game Developers and Game Reviews
January 17, 2012 6:50 pm
I thus must disagree with IGN’s John Gaudiosi conclusion that “The good news for the industry is that gamers are among the most savvy buyers out there. That’s why Hollywood can still have a bad movie become a blockbuster but only solid games become commercial hits.” Gamers are not necessarily savvy purchasers. If they were, the Larry games wouldn’t have ever had a sequel much less a single sale. The reason mediocre games don’t do well is much more practical. Games are expensive and time consuming, and quite frankly aren’t worth putting effort into for the average person if they aren’t fantastic.
If you can read this, you don’t need glasses.
