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First, I read the two articles quickly and I did not perceive them as negative at all.

Second, I feel I would not be professional if I wrote a media article/review for a game that is clearly in such a very early stage. "Early Access" on Steam can mean many different things but, in this case, the systems are really an early version / work-in-progress, though I still have a lot of fun with it and only crashed once or twice (with a good gaming PC). Writing an article about BG3 Early Access, sure, but making sure it is not presented as a review.

nb : I do not count Steam reviews as related to media or professionals. I did post a Steam review, as the game is for sale at 60 USD, just to help buyers.

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Originally Posted by Svalr
Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
Of course it is not an exact science and there are no meta-analyses, but:


https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014...reviews-lead-to-stronger-sales-on-steam/

Swen also at timestamp 25:00 (I believe he mentions later too).

https://youtu.be/c-4gxB9ulHk?t=1500



Swen isn't a game journalist, and I also think that Steam reviews are different because of what I said before.
Steam reviews are just a thumbs up or thumbs down, and people use that to communicate if there is something wrong with the game.
If a game has a mixed score that's a lot more of a warning than if a game gets a 7 or a 6 from IGN because usually that means that there's significant technical issues.

I don't care about reviews but if I see that a game has a mixed or heck even mostly positive score then that makes me second guess and I'll look into it further before buying.
Monster Hunter World is a good example of this, back when I bought it on Steam it had a mixed score because of connectivity issues.
So it made me second guess and research the game more but ultimately I did buy it, but I didn't buy it right away because of that and with other games I've put off buying something because of it.

I also think that people in general trust users more than media outlets, users aren't perfect and there's a lot of dumb reviewings but generally speaking they tend to get cancelled out.

Edit: Also Steam reviews are in your face in the store.
An IGN review is something you have to either seek out yourself or stumble upon on Youtube.


Game journalists are not market experts, I am sure Swen has better insight than them.

Overall, casual players are influenced by review be it Steam or mainstream reviews.

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Originally Posted by FelLich
Honestly I consider "professional" reviewers to be in the same league as the average joe over on steam. It's all personal opinions and maybe one of them will align with yours but they're not any more reliable than anyone else.

Fair enough. But the D:OS2 fans swore by all those 10/10 pro reviews that D:OS2 received for why that game was the best game ever made blah blah blah. So, live by the sword, die by the sword?

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The actual quote from Swen regarding scores and sales is on timestamp 30:45

https://youtu.be/c-4gxB9ulHk?t=1832

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Guess I better stop liking it now since paid review sites don't understand that the game is in early access. Thanks OP, you've changed my mind.


I don't want to fall to bits 'cos of excess existential thought.

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Professional reviews of unfinished products are a bad idea. Devs will stop releasing games in Early Access if they're gonna get shit on by critics for their IN-DEVELOPMENT games.

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Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
Originally Posted by Svalr
Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
Of course it is not an exact science and there are no meta-analyses, but:


https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014...reviews-lead-to-stronger-sales-on-steam/

Swen also at timestamp 25:00 (I believe he mentions later too).

https://youtu.be/c-4gxB9ulHk?t=1500



Swen isn't a game journalist, and I also think that Steam reviews are different because of what I said before.
Steam reviews are just a thumbs up or thumbs down, and people use that to communicate if there is something wrong with the game.
If a game has a mixed score that's a lot more of a warning than if a game gets a 7 or a 6 from IGN because usually that means that there's significant technical issues.

I don't care about reviews but if I see that a game has a mixed or heck even mostly positive score then that makes me second guess and I'll look into it further before buying.
Monster Hunter World is a good example of this, back when I bought it on Steam it had a mixed score because of connectivity issues.
So it made me second guess and research the game more but ultimately I did buy it, but I didn't buy it right away because of that and with other games I've put off buying something because of it.

I also think that people in general trust users more than media outlets, users aren't perfect and there's a lot of dumb reviewings but generally speaking they tend to get cancelled out.

Edit: Also Steam reviews are in your face in the store.
An IGN review is something you have to either seek out yourself or stumble upon on Youtube.


Game journalists are not market experts, I am sure Swen has better insight than them.

Overall, casual players are influenced by review be it Steam or mainstream reviews.


I mean neither is Swen.
You were talking about mainstream reviews I never said anything about Steam until after and he was also talking about metacritic.

Like I said, Steam reviews are totally different.
When you go to the store page it's in your face and people just take tens of thousands of people more seriously than an IGN journalist.
A game getting a 7 from IGN doesn't say much, most people understand that.
A game having mixed or negative reviews on Steam on the other hand just turns on more alarm bells in peoples heads because that's thousands of actual customers and not a person who got it for free working on a website barely anyone takes seriously.
Not to mention that the game has been received positively on Steam too to begin with so it doesn't help your argument.
Swen is also a game developer working on a single game he's not a game journalist that reviews and has insight on hundreds of games.

The video is also from 2015 and he's quoting a friend that said something about it at some point who even knows who and when.
The perception of game journalism has changed drastically and I have no clue how those numbers are even measured. Like how do they even know that there is a correlation there?

IGN on their Baldur's Gate 3 video review currently has 1.7k upvotes and 1.2k downvotes and 140k views.
That's pretty awful tbh, but it's quite indicative too of how seriously people take IGN reviews, game journalism has a crap reputation and even their own readers are aware of that.
The biggest thing that these sites do to help game devs sell more copies is marketing, interviews, articles, ads etc for exposure.
Making people aware that the game exists.

It's the same with movies too, movie reviewers used to be more respected and taken more seriously.
But how many countless movies have been awfully received by movie reviewers but been massively successful vise versa?

Yeah, Steam reviewers are more indicative of a games reputation than freaking IGN and Gamespot.
But the game has been received well on Steam so...
It's silly to say that the game has a bad reputation then.

Edit: Also casual players aka the general masses don't even read game websites.
But casual players will be exposed to Steam reviewers just by the mere fact that they're right there on the store page which again.
Positive.

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Honestly I have NEVER take mainstreamn game revieuwers websites seriously and over time my skeptic opinion of them has proven to be right. Most outlets have no clue wtf they are talking about and the few that do often dont take things like EA into consideration. I trust a select few revieuwers on youtube and the revieuws from friends. Occasionally il revieuw a dozen or so revieuws (both positive and negative on steam) to see what the game is about. But people like IGN or other such websites? They might be mainstream media but to highlight an easy example: people who cant even pass the cuphead tutorial in a normal manner have no place to tell us anything about games.

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Originally Posted by Svalr
I mean neither is Swen.You were talking about mainstream reviews I never said anything about Steam until after and he was also talking about metacritic.


Swen is/was directly involved with sales/publishers. Journalists barely understand games. The other article also mentioned meta-critic as indicator for sales.

Many semi-casual players follow GS or IGN and I am sure they would give a try for games they don't know reaching 9+, especially if there is a consensus in the media that the game is good (which essentially is what metacritic is). Steam also put on his front page some selective scores to promote the game.

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There are very few game's journalists that I will even consider looking at. There are reasons beyond "but they're game jounalists" too. When they botch a puzzle, and can't open a door, the game is bugged beyond redemption, a very rough paraphrasing of Jim Stirling with Senua. I don't remember who the journalist was that was failing at jumps in the turtorial of cuphead? Why should I trust that "this time it's different, and it's really the game's fault"?

Metacritic can, and should be, ignored out of hand, since one isn't required to provide any proof that one's actually played the game in question*. Steam is a whole other world of mess when it comes to reviews. Vanilla Skyrim went from one of the best reviewed games on Steam, to one of the worst, over the Creation Club. The problem is, of course, that one can't access the Creation Club in the vanilla version of Skyrim, so it had absolutely no affect on that version of the game. Valve not only allows this to go on unchecked, but does seem to passively encourage it. Even on the SE, where you can access it, it's not required to play, so nothing about the base SE changed, but those review bombs sure would tell a different tale, eh?

If this EA had only been available through Steam, I wouldn't be here. I don't like their blackmail business model, "Do what we approve of, or get review bombed". "But Rob, it's not Valve, but the players that do that, you can't hold them accountable for that", except that I in fact can. They allowed a false review on their site, in fact they allowed review bombs, not just one, that's on them. It's to the point where if a game is available both on XBox and PC, but only through Steam on PC, I'll play it on my XBox. HZD made the right choice, from my perspective, going through anyone but Steam. Even if Epic is coming off a bit shady these days, I don't have to deal with them for anything but one game, HZD, and since I like that game well enough, and won't be buying a PS, ever, stemming from Sony's shady practices dating all the way back to the 90s, it's a better choice than not playing it, and missing out. If it's only through Steam, I'll miss out.

*A lot of negative reviews of DA I can be attributed to "the protagonist isn't the Warden/OGB so the game is bad". Not that I'm just going with that, the same game had a lot of high review scores from people that couldn't have played the game as well. It's another Steam type issue, only Steam at least requires ownership, if it doesn't do anything about shady practices where reviews are concerned.

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Who cares about game journalists????

Seriously. Look to his reviews

"many monsters and creatures require very specific tools to kill. Swarms of small creatures like rats, for instance, can't be effectively fought with a sword and shield."
https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/pathfinder-kingmaker-review-the-classics/1900-6417006/

Same reviewer
Witcher 2 (PC): 7/10 [https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/art.../8905-The-Witcher-2-Assassins-of-Kings-Review]
Dragon Age 2 (XBOX): 10/10 [https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/art.../editorials/reviews/8701-Dragon-Age-II-Review]

They reviewing BG1/2



Originally Posted by Verte
A critical review is better than a fan review. Praising unfinished product at this stage would be rather untrue.



Wrong. Journos are low IQ people who failed into game journalism. Fans are the target audience of the game.

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1) The reviews are not negative IMO.
2) Why do I care...I love the game
3) Why would you care about a reviewer that didn't spend the time or do the research to know what the level cap is?

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I have come to trust, rely and care less and less about 'professional' reviews, not just for games, but almost all things. I've even come to be leery about certain things (like movies) that receive top marks, for suspicion that the reasons for which they were so highly touted have no interest to me at all. At the very least, unless I see universal abysmal ratings (e.g 1 or 2 out of 10), I ignore the numbers and rely solely on what is written. In this case, though, a review of something fresh into EA is more of an indictment of the person doing the review than the game being reviewed. Don't give a number (what is a 10 for EA supposed to look like anyway?) and give a consensus of a given subject rather than ones one narrow experience. For example, the claim that "Baldur's Gate 3 is rough and messy and often feels like it is just barely hanging together" is not consonant with my experience at all. Maybe it is with his. Not mine.

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Just be careful when reading reviews. It's impossible to not be subjective when giving an opinion about the whole game: it's all about what one likes or not.

There can be true points in there, if a single feature is analyzed and compared to how other games did those. There are things that are quite well made in BG3, others not quite and many others that needs complete rework (for example party UI, just IMO). That can be fair, but again, it's just an opinion, and you may agree or not. I may like what the reviewers don't and they may not like what I do, and that's fine, it's just as things should be.

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Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
Originally Posted by Svalr
I mean neither is Swen.You were talking about mainstream reviews I never said anything about Steam until after and he was also talking about metacritic.


Swen is/was directly involved with sales/publishers. Journalists barely understand games. The other article also mentioned meta-critic as indicator for sales.

Many semi-casual players follow GS or IGN and I am sure they would give a try for games they don't know reaching 9+, especially if there is a consensus in the media that the game is good (which essentially is what metacritic is). Steam also put on his front page some selective scores to promote the game.



You don't have to understand games to understand the business side of them, just like you don't have to be a pro E-sports player to be an excellent E-sports commentator and being an excellent one doesn't make you a good commentator either.
The article is from 2014 a lot has changed very rapidly and even then it's still just speculation.
Metacritic alone has significantly changed since 2014 especially its reputation.
People also have more of an understanding of how Metacritic works now, for example how scores from certain media outlets like IGN actually weigh heavier than other sites on metacritic which only makes people take it even less seriously.

I am not saying that no one will buy a game because of a better score, what I am saying is that it doesn't have a significant impact except for Steam reviews because of the nature of Steam reviews.
It's also important to remember that correlation is not causation.
Most games with a high rating especially a '' critic '' one have it because the production value is so high and those games also have way higher marketing budgets and fancy grahpics which appeals to the mainstream audience.
Baldur's Gate 3 is sorta in the middle I guess.

Either way, your claim is that Baldur's Gate 3 has a bad reputation because certain media outlets didn't give it a high enough score.
I think that anyone who's paying attention knows that's not true, the game has been incredibly well-received.
And even in regards to Metacritic it doesn't even have a Metacritic score to begin with yet.



Originally Posted by Verte
A critical review is better than a fan review. Praising unfinished product at this stage would be rather untrue.



Alanah Pearce covered the '' critics '' vs fans part too.
Basically, and remember that she used to be a game journalist at IGN herself and is close friends with A LOT of game journalists.
Game journalists write reviews for their social media followings and each other, that's why there's such a disconnect between game journalists ( or other journalists ) and the fans.

Most fans are totally aware of this, or they at least speculate that they're paid off ( which is what she was responding to ).
If anything I'd probably argue that '' critics '' are more biased than fans and the general public are.
Which is also why the general publics reviews ultimately matters more especially from the pov of someone in the general public too to begin with.

That's not to say that fans aren't biased or that things like reviewbombings etc can't happen there's always going to be exceptions.
But there's a reason why the Last Jedi was received well by critics but not the fans ( a Star Wars movie part of a trilogy is still bound to be successful tho ).
Not saying that you can't like the movie, but just that the '' critics '' care more about getting pats on the back from their friends, getting invited back to fancy parties and reviewing things for their friends and are often also more culturally involved so cultural drama also plays a much larger role while most people aren't even aware of it altogether and even less care.

We don't live in the times of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel anymore, we live in the age of the internet where people don't need to rely on '' critics '' anymore.
And things change VERY rapidly in just a couple of years.

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I mean I don't really care for random reviews, but how do you even have the guts to call those reviews "bad" when the reviews themselves are saying otherwise?

IGN gives a 7, which is "good" on their scale. "Good" is *not* a bad review, you know?

https://corp.ign.com/review-practices/

Quote
Playing a Good game is time well spent. Could it be better? Absolutely. Maybe it lacks ambition, is too repetitive, has a few technical bumps in the road, or is too repetitive, but we came away from it happy nonetheless. We think you will, too.


Gamespot's 6 is a "fair". And the article reflects that the final product seems to have much more potential and that the EA is not the end of all things for BG3.

So it seems you did not even invest the time to check the reviews you base this thread on.

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Originally Posted by Emrikol
I have come to trust, rely and care less and less about 'professional' reviews, not just for games, but almost all things. I've even come to be leery about certain things (like movies) that receive top marks, for suspicion that the reasons for which they were so highly touted have no interest to me at all. At the very least, unless I see universal abysmal ratings (e.g 1 or 2 out of 10), I ignore the numbers and rely solely on what is written. In this case, though, a review of something fresh into EA is more of an indictment of the person doing the review than the game being reviewed. Don't give a number (what is a 10 for EA supposed to look like anyway?) and give a consensus of a given subject rather than ones one narrow experience. For example, the claim that "Baldur's Gate 3 is rough and messy and often feels like it is just barely hanging together" is not consonant with my experience at all. Maybe it is with his. Not mine.


I really like your use of "consonant" there. Well done.

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Originally Posted by Svalr
You don't have to understand games to understand the business side of them, just like you don't have to be a pro E-sports player to be an excellent E-sports commentator and being an excellent one doesn't make you a good commentator either.

Either way, your claim is that Baldur's Gate 3 has a bad reputation because certain media outlets didn't give it a high enough score.
I think that anyone who's paying attention knows that's not true, the game has been incredibly well-received.
And even in regards to Metacritic it doesn't even have a Metacritic score to begin with yet.


Alanah Pearce is a pseudo-journalist. I don't know why you are obsessed with her. She clearly doesn't understand game market, not alone comparing to game developers.

I am not claiming that BG3 has a bad reputation, just exposing data to support that is not only a "vocal minority" that sees a lot of problems in the current EA. I don't see data supporting it has been well received, in fact it is the opposite. To neglect the fact that mainstream media is still influential is unwise. Steam reviews are binary, so difficulty to draw conclusions from them.


Originally Posted by KingTiki
I mean I don't really care for random reviews, but how do you even have the guts to call those reviews "bad" when the reviews themselves are saying otherwise?


Well, Hades Early Access got 8.8; DOS 2 10/10, so...

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Even if a professional reviewer's review is worth more than a fan-review, it isn't worth more than a thousand fan reviews.

Typically when I want to buy a game I look at the steam reviews, read some of the positive ones, and then filter out the positive ones and read only the negative reviews.

If the worst someone can say about the game is something like "It is different from an older game" or "It just doesn't feel right" I'll almost always give the game a chance.

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Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
Originally Posted by Svalr
You don't have to understand games to understand the business side of them, just like you don't have to be a pro E-sports player to be an excellent E-sports commentator and being an excellent one doesn't make you a good commentator either.

Either way, your claim is that Baldur's Gate 3 has a bad reputation because certain media outlets didn't give it a high enough score.
I think that anyone who's paying attention knows that's not true, the game has been incredibly well-received.
And even in regards to Metacritic it doesn't even have a Metacritic score to begin with yet.


Alanah Pearce is a pseudo-journalist. I don't know why you are obsessed with her. She clearly doesn't understand game market, not alone comparing to game developers.

I am not claiming that BG3 has a bad reputation, just exposing data to support that is not only a "vocal minority" that sees a lot of problems in the current EA. I don't see data supporting it has been well received, in fact it is the opposite. To neglect the fact that mainstream media is still influential is unwise. Steam reviews are binary, so difficulty to draw conclusions from them.


Originally Posted by KingTiki
I mean I don't really care for random reviews, but how do you even have the guts to call those reviews "bad" when the reviews themselves are saying otherwise?


Well, Hades Early Access got 8.8; DOS 2 10/10, so...



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.

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