(...)
She's not a pseudo-journalist, she's very well-respected and literally worked at the largest gaming website...
You don't seem to understand my point at all, game developers work on singular projects they don't necessarily have insight on the industry as a whole.
A journalist covers *the industry*, their field is a lot more large scale.
And you ARE claiming that Baldur's Gate 3 has a bad reputation otherwise you wouldn't be talking about reversing it, read your own OP again.(...)
Game journalists are not a good source of information.
In fact, they tend to give a lot of high scores for superficial things and cinematographic experiences and low scores for games with depth and mechanic / narrative consistency. They focus on general "gaming" but an RPG fan and an Racing fan are two different things. I can't rate and review an racing game cuz I an not the target audience of racing games.
Even as a RPG fan, I would have a strong bias in favor of old school design ideas and principles.
What a random chick on a general game journalist thinks about BG3 has zero relevance about what the target audience has to say.
if was up to me, I would rate the following games, I would rate ArcaniA, Dungeon Siege 3, Albion Online, Diablo 3(...) as 1/10, BG3 in EA state as a 7/10 and BG2 as 10/10 cuz for me the best aspect of a RPG is the role playing. But game journalists would rate in the opposite. They don't care about mechanics and lore in line and more cinematographic the game is, higher rate they receive. You can see it by Diablo 3 which is a amazing game for journos but is a 4/10 for fans. Dungeon Siege 3 is a average game for journos(72) and a awful game for fans(42)...
I even created a thread on other forum to talk ONLY about game journos
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/game-journalists-crap-reviews.134178/She never said anything about Baldur's Gate 3 that's not what I am talking about at all, it's like you didn't even read what I said or what I was responding to.
And she even mentioned what you said about game journalists being biased towards the '' artsy '' side of gaming in the video in question...
Like has been stated a billion times already, Baldur's Gate 3 has been positively received overall, it IS a small minority of people complaining about it not being '' DnD enough ''.
I am sorry, but DnD is niche.
There is great interest in the lore etc, but on a gameplay PnP level it is very niche. Same with how a lot of people love Warhammer but very few actually play it.
A game being based on DnD doesn't mean that the target demographic are purist DnD fans.
Baldur's Gate 3 is Larian's take on Baldur's Gate and they're running with a formula that has proven to work.
There is also a disconnect here, because game journalists are supposed to review games as a product just bluntly.
You can't expect game journalists to all be '' hardcore fans '' of everything, and that's why there is a disconnect between game reviewers and Diablo fans.
Diablo 3 is not a bad game, it just objectively isn't on a production value none of Blizzards games are ( minus Warcraft 3 Reforged which was outsourced ).
It was reviewed as a game, not as a Diablo game.
My favorite genre of games is fighting games, I am well aware of this disconnect.
The MK franchise as a whole is an example of this, it sells on nostalgia, singleplayer and gore appeal, production value and pop culture references alone but is not actually a very good fighting game on a mechanical and gameplay level.
Most people in the FGC understands this and don't hold it in very high regard at all gameplay-wise, and yet it's the best selling fighting game franchise and gets glowing reviews and praise.
That doesn't make it a bad game or '' wrong '', even if fighting game fans don't regard it as highly as a game like Tekken or heck even Guilty Gear.
There is value in games like these that appeal to a broader audience too, even if it does irritate me on a personal level that they get so much more attention and success than games that hardcore fans consider to be better.
She's not a pseudo-journalist, she's very well-respected and literally worked at the largest gaming website...
You don't seem to understand my point at all, game developers work on singular projects they don't necessarily have insight on the industry as a whole.
A journalist covers *the industry*, their field is a lot more large scale.
And you ARE claiming that Baldur's Gate 3 has a bad reputation otherwise you wouldn't be talking about reversing it, read your own OP again.
Just because people are giving feedback in EA doesn't mean that it has been poorly received, for someone who accuses other people of being '' obsessed '' you're basing all of this on your '' obsession '' with IGN's and Gamespot's reviews.
Like I said the game doesn't even have a Metacritic score yet, and the actual consumer base have been reviewing it positively and all of the buzz I've seen outside of the Steam forums and some threads here where mostly the same small group of people posts in has been overwhelmingly positive.
With the understanding that it's EA.
Steam forums are always full of drama and shitposting, but even then it's still very much a minority of people throwing tantrums.
The game has been a massive success even tho it's not even out yet.
And in regards to Hades and DOS2, I imagine that this game has more technical difficulties and issues than those games did just based on scale alone ( also games with these kinds of graphics tend to be more difficult ).
It's also different people reviewing the games and Hades is also a finished game, even a year ago it felt almost like a finished game already.
Comparing Hades to Baldur's Gate 3 is just silly...
Meanwhile Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't even have the full act 1 yet ( probably ).
I never said that mainstream media isn't influental, I just don't think that they're influental when it comes to the general public.
They're only influental because marketing haven't caught up with the times and still believe that a soccer mom being mad about hearing the F-word or getting upset about Cammy's default costume in SFV matters.
There's an irrational fear of negative media coverage when in reality people at large don't even care or thinks that it's dumb.
Alanah Pearce is a clear example of how much turn-over there is in gaming journalism and how unreliable they are. They are not required to understand market or to follow post-release success. To claim that she would have better insight into gaming sales and market than people that actually sell games like CEOs and publishers is at least bold. And even if you don't believe, it clearly matters to Swen. Regardless, this is not even the point.
I choose IGN and Gamespot because those are "the largest gaming website". Gamespot features a huge section for BG3 in its front page now. So I am quite sure that many undecided players (semi-casual) will choose to not play BG3 because of its score. Even if it is written by a casual player.
There are many poor reviews from other websites and in this forum as well, so I wouldn't say it was well received.
I don't even see the point in engaging with you anymore if you're just going to deny reality.
You put such a disproportionate amount of relevancy on a small group of people on a forum complaining.
I've explained why game journalists are prone to have a better understanding of this than a single game developer too multiple times if you're not going to listen then you're not going to listen.
If you can't understand why someone who covers and works with the industry as a whole might have a wider understanding of the whole than someone who works in a more insular space then I dunno what else to tell you.
Look at the reception of Anthem and it was Bioware's second best selling launch game ever if I remember correctly, things are a lot more complicated than you're making them out to be and I don't even think that Swen would disagree with that.
