Thursday, December 22, 2005
Too cheap for comfort
What a weird industry we work in. This morning I picked up an extra copy of Resident Evil 4 (GC) for $10 at a Toys 'R Us clearance sale. A phenomenal game, recognized by many to be the best game of 2005 (it was second for me, but we'll get to that closer to the end of the year), up for clearance to free up a bit more shelf space. Is this not incredibly bizarre? The always interesting Greg keeps telling me we need a unified industry-voted Game of the Year, and an accompanying respctable awards show. I wholeheartedly agree. When movies win Oscars they're often re-released in theaters, yet when video games receive recognition it doesn't affect their sales significantly if it's not within a couple weeks of release. Even worse, fantastic games like King Kong fall completely off the map once their accompanying hype dies down, regardless of their initial reviews.
I know it's a tough situation, but I think enough bias, allegiances and good ol' fashioned fanboyism could be set aside long enough to make an informed vote and put forth a significant effort to get a deserving title recognized universally. I can appreciate that the nature of the industry relies heavily on brand recognition and marketing hype, but that doesn't mean a game can't be sold through other methods. I know I'm preaching to the choir when I mention how word of mouth and great press coverage got Katamari out there and into people's homes, but I don't think people stop and appreciate that situation very often.
I guess there's no consistency either; a very good point was made on last weeks CAGcast, about how EGM has about a dozen reviewers who cycle out quite a bit. If you can't follow an individuals' gaming habits, tastes and criticism, how can you fully appreciate and anticipate their review of a given game? Having the same two or three voices (ahem) from every media source would do a world of good; while I doubt Adam and Morgan play more than a couple games a year, I'm always interested to see what "X-Play", emphasis on the quotes, thinks of a game. I read PLAY because Dave Halverson is insane and does things like give Legend of Kay Game of the Month, but I love him for it. Passion leads to consistency, and consistency leads to reader validation.
Especially after playing the outstanding Kameo, moreso than usual, I have very little trust in the opinion of some editors, and even less in certain groups of my fellow gamers. But you know what? it doesn't have a bad composite review score, and I'm glad that a good number of people genuinely loved it. The downside to this? One very negative review from a random EGM contributor can ruin the chances of a game selling slightly more than it should. We need unified voices and names that we can associate with opinions we don't necessarily have to trust, but are at least interested in. It's obvious in discussing Perfect Dark Zero with Tom that expectations for a game can vary too drastically, depending on what you're looking to get out of it. That doesn't come across in reviews though, and it's too subjective not to make a note of it.
I know I'm a bit all over the place here (it's late), but I needed to at least attempt to justify to myself why RE4 was so damned cheap. When there's so little recognition by a major retailer for a game that's been so positively recognized in almost every other regard, there's a problem. It's in the publisher's hands, it's in the consumer's hands, and for the purpose of wrapping up this argument, it's perhaps most squarely in the presses' hands.
I know it's a tough situation, but I think enough bias, allegiances and good ol' fashioned fanboyism could be set aside long enough to make an informed vote and put forth a significant effort to get a deserving title recognized universally. I can appreciate that the nature of the industry relies heavily on brand recognition and marketing hype, but that doesn't mean a game can't be sold through other methods. I know I'm preaching to the choir when I mention how word of mouth and great press coverage got Katamari out there and into people's homes, but I don't think people stop and appreciate that situation very often.
I guess there's no consistency either; a very good point was made on last weeks CAGcast, about how EGM has about a dozen reviewers who cycle out quite a bit. If you can't follow an individuals' gaming habits, tastes and criticism, how can you fully appreciate and anticipate their review of a given game? Having the same two or three voices (ahem) from every media source would do a world of good; while I doubt Adam and Morgan play more than a couple games a year, I'm always interested to see what "X-Play", emphasis on the quotes, thinks of a game. I read PLAY because Dave Halverson is insane and does things like give Legend of Kay Game of the Month, but I love him for it. Passion leads to consistency, and consistency leads to reader validation.
Especially after playing the outstanding Kameo, moreso than usual, I have very little trust in the opinion of some editors, and even less in certain groups of my fellow gamers. But you know what? it doesn't have a bad composite review score, and I'm glad that a good number of people genuinely loved it. The downside to this? One very negative review from a random EGM contributor can ruin the chances of a game selling slightly more than it should. We need unified voices and names that we can associate with opinions we don't necessarily have to trust, but are at least interested in. It's obvious in discussing Perfect Dark Zero with Tom that expectations for a game can vary too drastically, depending on what you're looking to get out of it. That doesn't come across in reviews though, and it's too subjective not to make a note of it.
I know I'm a bit all over the place here (it's late), but I needed to at least attempt to justify to myself why RE4 was so damned cheap. When there's so little recognition by a major retailer for a game that's been so positively recognized in almost every other regard, there's a problem. It's in the publisher's hands, it's in the consumer's hands, and for the purpose of wrapping up this argument, it's perhaps most squarely in the presses' hands.
// posted by Nick @ 11:44 PM 
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