So alright, a couple of people have brought up No Man's Sky as an issue again, and in one case it was thought provoking enough that I wound up having a lot more thought into than even I thought there was to discuss. I'm not here again to dismiss them as liars when I've already done that, but rather seeing more long-term effects and dealing with the community as a whole has made me realize... gamers are a bit shittier about this topic than I thought they were. Even worse, There's some people on the opposite side of the issue I want to talk about asking for another issue. In a round about sort of way it really all revolves around the general topic of what some refer to as "buyer beware!" Basically it's a nearly self-made warning for consumers to tell each other when a product is just garbage, or doing something really wrong. Something like a video game lying about having actual multiplayer, or that weird new steam game being a cheap assets flip.
Open markets, and buyer warnings, are a good thing
For whatever reason, people really threw a fit when valve opened the flood gates and let just anything come in. I certainly have respect for those that ask for better categorization and polished gaming, and I have been critical before of how Valve works in their store, but I feel that blaming the existence of new games is a false diagnosis of such issues. I lightly covered this topic when a bunch of pre-school game ports from the 90's flooded and took over the "new releases" spot for a day. That's just ridiculous and careless, but if you read through the whole article I'm not at all upset with those games existing. Whether it's a bad asset flip being sold cheaply for someone to play and mock, or it's an obscure classic someone is going to be overjoyed to see, they're all welcome on the store page and I'd rather have them here than nothing but "Good games" ...because that's not an objective statement, and trying to quality control on that factor is impossible. Still some sights try, and so that's why GOG has less releases, but more respect from certain circles of gamers. That's fine, it's a free internet and all, but I still like having choices.
However they key thing in this environment is that "buyer beware" needs to be a real thing, and Steam has at least got that much down pretty darn well. Buyer beware is what I use to describe the ability for users to warn each other, and the tools they have to do so. Decent user review systems, forums with free speech and criticism, etc. Steam really does have a great score system in place, even so much as updating things to allow you to mark reviews as funny for when someone just jokes about it, so you can separate them from actual positive vs negatives. Then you can see user playtimes, the scores aren't mucked up by number scores, and there's a "useful" vote. Right on the same page is an instant link to the forums, and there's also a recent and general score combination. It's all a good tool system that's great in that sense.
The only flaw with Buyer beware, is that it takes someone to stumble into a bad game a few times before the word gets out. However that's ironically just another part of buyer beware, because if nobody has bought or said anything on the game, that's a bigger risk for you to take. Know this, observe this, and don't just go running into any random obscure game. I think that's a much better deal than the idea of "Take 700 games away, because they are not worthy as decreed by thy higher-ups!" that some people are calling for. Once again, I cannot see how some of the critics out there have called for the removal of such games. Sure when you open the flood gates a lot of it will be bad, but just don't buy those then. Simple. Stay smart, stay sharp, and buy what you think is fun. Occasionally there's a gem, or something some kid out there will love, that slips by that simply wouldn't have made it through on some super locked-down elitist market. Open markets were supposed to be a big deal to PC gamers, so start acting like it. This is the first thing I wanted to address, but not exactly the most important...
When the snake starts eating it's tail...
In recent times, I've noticed a strange confusion come out of the ideas of how buyer beware works. Somehow over the recent years, we've reached a point when fanboyism and hatred somehow go full circle and work their way into each other, ultimately both aligning to beat up the people who are participating warning others. How does that work you might ask? Well picture this scenario: A hyped game is coming out that looks promising to be an amazing farming simulator. You can plant acorns that grow into trees, work alongside other player farmers to build an industrial farm, and animals all have their own life cycles. Most people are vocally thrilled and excited, pre-orders are flying, but there's a minority of skeptics off to the side suggesting it's just a boring time sink game they've seen done better in some way and they don't pay that much attention to the finer details. Now the game comes out after two years of hyping, and waiting, and... it sucks. All of the features are gutted, with online outright missing with the only connection being leaderboards. There was no warning for this nonsense, and you're outraged. You go and give it a bad steam review, rant on it's forums, maybe even seek a refund despite giving it a slight chance beyond Steam's typical policy, and you're leaving a nasty comment along all the press sites reporting new news of this disaster. However on all these sites, you start seeing a more dominant opinion, or a pushback to your comments. The fanboys rise up to tell you how you're wrong for suggesting false ads, how every other game does it in some tiny way, or how there's technically online with leaderboards reaching a net. Meanwhile on other places you're getting beat on because "How dare you blame the devs for deceiving you! Wasn't it obvious this game would be bad! But no, you went and bought it anyways, and now you're complaining because you're an entitled dirtbag!" Another backs this up with "You actually trusted the devs? Really? Idiot! You're just angry because you want revenge for being so disappointed in your own decision.". So... you're not allowed to warn people, because the fanboys will argue with you and tell you you're wrong, and others will say you're dumb for daring to have even a little hope to any game that ever exists... ever. Just watching the trailers made you a "sheeple" in their eyes, and if you dared to buy the game and complain, you were an entitled gullible consumer that deserves everything you got.
The sad thing is, that's not a farm simulator I made up off the back of my head, rather I loosely fitted some situations of what actually happened with No Man's Sky, and you can go see the similar case scenario. Thankfully if you're reading this, I don't have to defend myself from any of the venom spitting cynics, because I was already a big outspoken skeptic of the game before I decided to take a dive on it and grab it. I really did fall into the mood of wanting it. However because I wasn't so attuned to the hype and wishful thinking, I was also genuinely shocked to fact-check and see how much of the lies I had missed from not being a super-fan. I was fairly pissed with the uncovering of so much false crap related to this game, and it was all being well documented. Now if you want to criticize me for not sticking to my guns and buying it at $60, that's fair game and I'll agree that's a blunder on my part. But, no I wasn't one of those guys to rush out, pre-order, and expect an actual universe in a box that would be fun for the entire ride. I expected a craft survival game with a nice polish. However that doesn't give me the right to sit on some ivory tower, and spit on those who were paying attention to the news, and excited for what that news gave them to work with. That doesn't give anybody the right to tell them they were wrong for being an informed consumer, because that's what lead them to the hype train, that's what kept them going, and that's where things fell off when they weren't delivered. They were the informed ones, not the other way around. So you can kindly shut your trap when you try to arrogantly argue with their presented list of lies, complaints, and debunks, because... they're kinda doing their job to fulfill the buyer beware part. These cynics are essentially trying to play Darth Vadar, and think it's a good idea to choke anybody who wasn't with them on their dark side of assumed hatred and negativity.
Again, this is where people lose track of what buyer beware means. Buyer beware does not mean shaming everyone into submission, or pressing out people for daring to speak up or dream a little. It means letting people warn each other, fuss, complaint, and generally bring attention to the matter. Sure it can be slightly annoying to hear someone moan about how No Man's Sky doesn't let you land on asteroids, but it's even more annoying to hear people cry back that the complainers should go hide in a hole, and it's the most annoying to actually have someone miss these complaints and run out and waste $60 on a bad game that they could have been warned about.
Furthermore there's just something plain stupid and deceitful about this super cynical "trust nothing!" attitude. If nobody actually trusted any of the trailers, we wouldn't have them. If we weren't allowed to trust interviews, we wouldn't have them. If we weren't able to dissect features or discuss mechanics, people would be out of their freakin' jobs. Instead those jobs exist as a part of informing the consumer, as a part of marketing the game, and a part of knowing what you're getting. Sure marketing can be tilted to a decietful light, but it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. We still live in an industry where 9 out of 10 times, if someone tells you that X feature is in, it's going to be a part of the game. Very rarely is that not the case. Aliens Colonial Marines, and No Man's Sky are two cases that jumped the shark completely. Other similar cases that are brought up, are things that were blatantly disproved ahead of the launch, like CGI trailers and renders, or downgrades on stuff like WatchDogs. Again, the informed hyped train comes to grips with this before it happens. So when a game really looks good, is a successor to something really good, or is very descriptive and enticing, and it keeps our hopes solid all-around... it usually means it's going to be a good game. That happens a lot more than people give it credit for. Uncharted 4, Dark Souls 3, Abzu, Tomb Raider, Overwatch, Bloodborne, R&C, Black Ops 3, etc, there's a ton of recent games that delivered on their ambitions. Personally I was even hyped sky-high for the new Doom in the face of so much constant skepticism, and it beat my expectations, rather than falling apart. It's my GOTY right at this moment. ...and the funny thing is I know I'm not the only one here, hype is still a big deal. It's just a bunch of pretenders acting like they don't care about games anymore.
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| Now it's Dishonored 2's turn to show it's cards |
Now on the other hand, I won't say that customers who dive into hype don't share some partial blame, but it's not worth silencing them or bitching against them over. Don't pre-order unless you're absolutely sure of a game, try to hold your expectations to a reasonable level, don't let your imagination take over mechanical reasoning, and it's always better to wait a few days or even one or two weeks after a game's launch to see how it is in the public's eye. Game's combat this careful consumer mentality through some fairly shallow ways, and they can be easily overcome. Not a lot is usually lost if you don't get the day 1 edition... which lasts on shelves post-month for most games. However again... we're not all on that bandwagon, and not every game is worth treating by poking it with a stick first to see if it has cooties or whatever. If we all were like this, there'd be no point as nobody would be there to communicate it's issues. And if we don't let these people communicate these issues because we mark them all as gullible and dumb, then that also defeats the purpose. There's absolutely nothing wrong with expecting Uncharted 4 to be good, and buying it day 1. It's okay to be all excited, and grab that CE of Doom if you really wanted that statue and have enjoyed all the coverage so far. It's NOT okay to expect No Man's Sky to be super space everything game 9000, but it's also not okay to go running around silencing people who were mislead after even more careful planning. Sometimes a game genuinely does tell and live off of a huge lie, and that's on the liar's fault, not the consumer. So... can we stop trying to kill the messenger over that matter? That'd be great, thanks. Buyer beware is only as good as the tools and our communication lets it be, so don't screw that up just to fulfill your ego-stroking quota on how much better you are for not being interested in the next disappointing game.
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