Why are gamers so eager to trust and even forgive the snake oil salesmen

[one-armed dwarf]

I mean you can also add Avengers to that list but to me that is just a list of bad games that didn't meet expectations. Same with Andromeda and Fallout. But I think Cyberpunk is actually deceptive with they way it came out, it's really a much worse case than those other games.

 

I will big up stuff to other people (as I have on here) but I'd hope people would be sensible enough to look at the thing in their own time and see what others are saying about it too. I know when I talk about Pathologic 2 that it's probably something that wouldn't land with most people but I also think it's true that it's one of the best things I've ever played and if I wrote otherwise I'd actually be dishonest about what I think. I'm sure blakey is similar when he bigs up a game (I'm just picking him as an example not to pick on him but that he sort of writes very hype/passionate impressions of things)

 

MMOs with long roadmaps are really hard to get right. I think with Destiny they pulled the plug on it cause the pipeline for the first game was apparently dreadful for building content out with. I'd call that an unforseen consequence more than an example of snake oil shenanigans.

[Sly Reflex]

6 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

MMOs with long roadmaps are really hard to get right. I think with Destiny they pulled the plug on it cause the pipeline for the first game was apparently dreadful for building content out with. I'd call that an unforseen consequence more than an example of snake oil shenanigans.

 

To me they sold the idea "The earlier you get on you'll be able to get year 1 versions of these guns that won't be seen again", so for example they're insinuating that an Icebreaker would journey all the way to the end of Destiny's story. It didn't even manage to get tot he end of Destiny's run. It's just pure lie. They're marketing gear as indispensable when it is in fact disposable. Then they bring it back and go "Oh look, here's the Gjallarhorn! You remember the time when this was a thing, right?" only for that to become disposable as well.

 

Chase that dragon! We'll keep supplying it for as long as you keep falling for it and paying.

[HandsomeDead]

Well, we're only focusing on Molyneux, NMS and Cyberpunk because that's the examples the OP gave.  I skimmed a few pages of the thread and I was surprised Randy Pitchford was briefly mentioned once, and if you are gonna throw Snake Oil Salesmen around in mainstream games, he's your guy.

 

I know it's hard to do since you gaming culture has evolved in a way where if you want to follow it the content you're mostly given is utter trash.  There's far too much stuff heavily curated by publishers.  I barely even look at gaming websites anymore because it's all reposts of press releases, controlled previews, early reviews.  I'm not saying it's all dishonest but anyone who's been around a while should be vigilant around it.

 

Especially now as recently I played and thoroughly enjoyed RE7 after not knowing much about it.  I wonder if I followed all the news, previews and whatever else I would have enjoyed it as much?  Like would the brain rot from all this stuff affected how I thought of it going in.

[Nag]

2 minutes ago, HandsomeDead said:

controlled previews

 

Now that's a bag of worms if ever there was one.

[DisturbedSwan]

8 hours ago, Maryokutai said:

And without those easily offended snowflakes from over there, so it's a win-win.

This sounds a bit alt-righty, Era’s a cool place.

[DANGERMAN]

Yeah, Colonial Marines destroyed Gearbox's reputation. It coloured everything they've done since, stuff they'd have got away with if they were another company. They make Borderlands and as popular as that is its still not enough to get them a pass 

 

Ubisoft do their fake previews, I think people got wise to it. Hardcore gamers are as savvy as they've ever been, a lot of people know the limits of their machines, and recognise that they're showing stuff there's no way the final product will reach. I feel like Watchdogs was key in that. People did forgive it though but its definitely tarnished their reputation. 

 

Anthem was the big one. I remember at the time being surprised how many people were willing to believe that's what the game was going to look like. Digital Foundry even put out a video saying "yep, this is possible", then one on release saying that it was pretty much the same (it really wasn't). 

 

To jump on @Sly Reflexpoint for this. There's certain games that not only never get forgiven, they're treated harsher than they probably should be. Maybe there's something else going on here in parallel because I think you could easily stick Metal Gear Survive in this group. Anthem, Avengers, Battleborn, Kinect, Fallout 76, and possibly even Cyberpunk; they're all games that will never be recoverable. They're written off and nothing they do with shift public perception of them. Anthem in particular they probably should have just cancelled. Not that I think they should, because of the people who paid for it, but I don't think any investment they're putting in is going to pay off for them. Avengers at least, and Cyberpunk, have the next gen versions to save them 

 

 

Edit to mention: Halo is the next test of this. Can it get out from under its reputation 

 

 

[OCH]

Reading through these comments, before reading the article. But this type of thing goes back a long way.

 

Anecdotally, it reminds me of PSOne era games. Wherein the pictures on the back of the box were from CG cutscenes. Not representative of gameplay*. Because the actual gameplay was shite and you wouldn't be able to sell the thing with pictures of what it actually looked like. There was an RPG I bought once (the name escapes me). It had anime cutscene images on the cover. The gameplay was top-down pseudo 3D. The character models didn't even have faces...

 

Even more of a general practice than that: Review embargoes for games and no advanced screenings for movies. The sole intention to make as much money from whatever thing before people get wise to the sham.

 

*I assume the fallout from this is why the disclaimer has to be shown with ads these days.

[Nag]

CG ads don't count, unless you're like seven or completely dumb everyone knew that an original PlayStation wasn't going to pull off Final Fantasy cutscenes as gameplay.

[OCH]

Perception is reality. Plus, there was still some innocence around the dawn of the 3D era and its capabilities. Besides "everyone in the know" aren't the only ones that buy video games.

[radiofloyd]

Wonder what will become of Star Citizen.

[Maryokutai]

15 hours ago, DisturbedSwan said:

This sounds a bit alt-righty, Era’s a cool place.

 

When I was looking for feedback for Banner of the Maid last year the first thing I found was a thread on Resetera with dozens of people proudly proclaiming they would not buy the game because a couple of characters show cleavage. It's a sublime tactical RPG that skillfully blends FF Tactics and classic Fire Emblem, a template we haven't seen in a while. If a community of gamers dismisses a very good game for such trivial issues they can, for all I care, go screw themselves. It's a point one's free to make of course but over there they're just going unhealthily far in one direction.

 

Unless I just found the wrong, non-representative topic, in which case I take it all back. 

 

Edit: Apologies for the off-topic.

[DANGERMAN]

I've not been on either in a while, but at the time Neo Gaf was a decent mix, it'd been an awful place in a couple of ways in the past but it had broadly found its feet even if it was heavily moderated with very little grey area 

 

Then the split happened and Resetera was the left wing people with the strict modding (it might have softened since), but the better information. 

 

Neo Gaf took a hands off approach to modding and went really right wing. Again, it might have softened since I went there, but I heard it mentioned in relation to the US election so I don't think so 

 

Of the two I'd rather be with the people who can be a bit sensitive than the people who were openly racist, but I ended up not posting on either 

[HandsomeDead]

The discourse around anime games seems to be a minefield anywhere as it contains the least sex positive people you'll meet to the worst creeps.  Best not to be involved.

[one-armed dwarf]

IMO era is an exhausting minefield of performative wokeness, but you learn quick enough which threads to keep out of and subjects to not get engaged in. It's really only a (very) vocal minority which are like that. On the other hand they're the only gaming-centric site I've seen which has tried somewhat to bring attention to the console and GPU manufacturers use of china supply chains/urhgur minorities.

 

Neogaf's issue is the other way around, it's gotten way too permissive and overcorrected in its stance since the split. 'We need to hear both sides' kind of centricism, like antifa and alt right are the equivalent of horde and alliance or something, or topics on russiagate should carry as much weight as 'stop the steal'. I don't post there but lurk there a bit, especially when cyberpunk came out cause talking about that game at launch on resetera wasn't really worthwhile. That site did a change recently where they don't allow far right conspiracy topics on there anymore, after months of indulging 'the kraken'. More about avoiding social media reforms under the biden admin I'd say

[Craymen Edge]

We're talking about an audience that willingly tune in to events where the only purpose is to have a ton of unfinished (or unstarted) games advertised at them, and excitedly wait for the build up to it every year. Some then pre-order based on nothing more than these clips. Trusting the snake oil salesmen is kind of built-in to the experience at this point.

[mmmark]

It's not just gamers with games its people with almost everything.

 

Spoiler

Can't believe this thread has both "snowflake" an "wokeness" used.

 

[Nag]

Little bit of a climb down it seems...

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

It's a fairly stunning error in judgement.

 

I mean if you want to have a good ol 'gamerTM' rant over on resetera can you do it on an account that doesn't have your name and job/company title on it at least lol

[shinymcshine]

He's illustrated perfectly how anyone can let their mouth / thoughts run away with them, whether hyping up something or criticising other people's actions - when on reflection / hindsight some things are probably better left unsaid.

 

[Maryokutai]

Plus I thought it was common curtesy not to publicly criticise other game developers for how handle their properties. I mean I'm pretty sure Kojima absolutely hates Metal Gear Survive but you don't see him tweeting about it.