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Denis Dyack in 1up yours. NeoGAF is "hurting society," justifies having it shut down

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AstroLad said:
By my count GAF has had a direct influence on the sales of at least a dozen or so high-profile hits (and flops). Even if you break it down further, you'll notice that the early sales of a game like GTAIV were huge when GAF was severely hyped, but then you get things like the large backlash thread and general turn in the tide of sentiment on GAF and you do see the sales take a hit. To me this proves correlation.

I'm not sure I'd take it quite that far, but for those completely dismissing your point I think are greatly underestimating the influence that internet discussion holds on society, and especially a closed culture like video gaming where a vast majority of enthusiasts are internet users.

The active posters here on GAF are the taste makers for the hardcore video game buying populace. We make fun of blogs and sites that pick up stories from here, but it just goes to show how quickly information disseminates from these boards, information that inevitable spreads to employees of stores who then carry that information directly to consumers.


Mr. Dyack is completely correct in his analysis that the internet is now indeed serious business. His mistake is that he isn't heeding his own advice. For him to think that he can somehow exercise his position into changing the way internet discussions function is pure hubris and folly. He's successfully identified perhaps the most powerful marketing tool today, then promptly stabbed himself with it.
 

Nolan.

Member
PistolGrip said:
He will be invited to the Too Human Launch party which is cool for a story Denis sort of made up to prove his point. Not too shaby if you ask me.


The whole thing just seemed like a big act to me. I like how he plays up to how remorseful he felt for ''correcting'' kittowny. I read that thread and the Dyack that posted there and appeared on 1up yours don't particularly match. I can understand if after the whole incident he had undergone some kind of change because of the remorse. Though he hasn't.
 

Madman

Member
GAF didn't "make" MGS4 for anybody except GAF. MGS, MGS2, and MGS3 made MGS4. I suspect the same could be said for CoD4.
since when did gaf "make" COD4... haha COD4 made COD4 the game is flat out good. You think the majority of people out there buying these games are influenced by gaf? Carnival games sure did flop, so did boogie and countless other games that gaf hate on.
I'm not sure I'd take it quite that far, but for those completely dismissing your point I think are greatly underestimating the influence that the internet discussion holds society, and especially a closed culture like video gaming where a vast majority of enthusiasts are internet users.
AstroLad wins.
 
Somebody should sue those MST3k guys for making fun of shitty movies. They might have been each individually rated the worst films of all time by several different critics and viewers, but we all know that viewer and critical opinions don't matter! How dare they make fun of shitty movies!

Somebody needs to learn to tolerate when his product turns out to look like crap. The internet has an influence over society, but forums aren't the biggest contributor to this. I'd say the "ease of communication" via e-mail and the oversaturation of information produced on news sites is damaging society far more than forums. I'd say a general over-reliance on review scores is also hurtful. But discussing things is not harmful.

And GAF does have a direct influence over companies. Six months ago I gave Capcom the idea for Mega Man 9--right down to its artistic design style. Really. Check out the link in my tag.
 

kaching

"GAF's biggest wanker"
Having only looked at the OP seems like Dyack is, as usual, greatly exaggerating with the broad strokes but on the finer points, I'd tend to agree. Sorry, Denis, I'm not really worried about GAF tearing itself apart or the fabric of gaming society at large. But I do agree that this place tends to pick certain games to pre-judge and overreact about, positively or negatively, and then has trouble backing down from the stance taken once the final game is available and objective reality doesn't quite jive with the early pre-judged stance. But that's hardly an "internet" phenomena, so hardly an accusation to level at NeoGAF specifically, above others.
 
I think the reason Denis finds no good from posting on Neogaf is because the man seems to have no desire to have discussions, instead just wanting to lecture people. Yes there are the gifs and such that we use for laughter, but there's always good criticism in threads from the most hardcore of gamers. To ignore that criticism is moronic (just as it would be stupid to totally rely on it), we're free focus testing pawns that are actually informed. You'd think directors/producers, who tend to be perfectonists, would kill for critiques from us, especially when they're making a hardcore loot-whore dungeon crawler with a nerdy scifi theme.

Shane: "The fact that anyone thought is just as valid as anyone else's thought is damaging."

WTF? Go to China then.
 

Mooreberg

is sharpening a shovel and digging a ditch
I hope Too Human is either a critical smash or the exact opposite. Either will result in great threads.
 
Mooreberg said:
I hope Too Human is either a critical smash or the exact opposite. Either will result in great threads.
Current previews rule it out as a critical smash. I think it will fall somewhere in between.
 
Wow, just finished listening and I can't believe this guy. All he did was talk circles around the fact that his game, based on previews, seems mediocre at best. Name dropping book titles doesn't explain for the fact that the animation in this game looks to be of very poor quality. I don't even need to play the game to see this. Regardless, I was very curious about the game before, now thanks to Denis's ego, I'd rather just skip it entirely. There are more than enough games coming out soon as it is.
 
If someone could make a gif redoing the scene from Annie Hall when that guy in the movie line is talking about Marshall Mcluhan and Mcluhan comes in and says "you know nothing of my work", replacing the guy with Dyack, Woody Allen with Garnett, and Mcluhan with Peter Drucker it would be perfect.
 

GhaleonQ

Member
njp142 said:
If someone could make a gif redoing the scene from Annie Hall when that guy in the movie line is talking about Marshall Mcluhan and Mcluhan comes in and says "you know nothing of my work", replacing the guy with Dyack, Woody Allen with Garnett, and Mcluhan with Peter Drucker it would be perfect.

*thumbs up*
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
eznark said:
http://blogs.ign.com/Bozon-IGN/2008/07/07/95053/

Bozon has impressions ("20 hours in"?!?) but I'm blocked at work. Anyone provide the gist?

I’m a fan.
...
You’ve heard some of the complaints from people that have played it, and to an extent I can agree with a few of them. The camera isn’t always spot on (though once I started using the LB to re-center it, I didn’t have any trouble) and the story mode can be called relatively short, though basing the game’s replayability on one trip through the game is like rating Diablo off of a quick trip down to hell (which took about three hours, mind you).
...
Playthrough with Commando Class: 40% finished after 4.5 hrs, level 19, Cyber Allegiance

Playthrough with Champion Class: 60% finished after 6 hours, level 22, Cyber Allegiance (Matt and I playing off of his character, switching off).

Finished Game with Bio Engineer Class: 100% finished after 8 hours and 10 minutes, level 28, Human Allegiance, died 12 times, skipped the story for the first 50% of the game.

He says multiple times that he is a big fan of the genre, and for those people it will be a satisfying experience. But he also says he will not dwell on the negatives, as others can look into them and detail them. Also he has not done any of the co-op.
 

eznark

Banned
andydumi said:
He says multiple times that he is a big fan of the genre, and for those people it will be a satisfying experience. But he also says he will not dwell on the negatives, as others can look into them and detail them. Also he has not done any of the co-op.

cool, thanks a lot.
 

Cahill

Banned
eznark said:
http://blogs.ign.com/Bozon-IGN/2008/07/07/95053/

Bozon has impressions ("20 hours in"?!?) but I'm blocked at work. Anyone provide the gist?

20 hours in.. seems to like it quite a bit as a fan of dungeon crawlers (and specifically mentions Diablo).
Not perfect.
Feels like he's just scratching the surface and plans to keep playin. Still hasn't tried 2 classes or the co-op.
Estimates ~15 hr (story) playthrough for people doing standard exploration.
 
andydumi said:
He says multiple times that he is a big fan of the genre, and for those people it will be a satisfying experience. But he also says he will not dwell on the negatives, as others can look into them and detail them. Also he has not done any of the co-op.

Good. As long as the game play is good, I imagine I will enjoy it.
 

fanduck

Member
Just finished listening, now it's time to spout my uneducated opinion...

I agree with a lot of what Denis said, and just like his 1 console future talks, he brings up a utopia scenario that would be nice, but likely would never happen! His idea is basically that Neogaf could thrive and become a place where real credible game discussions occur that rival the quality of the editorial content of IGN/1up or other real news sites rather than the juvenile discussions that typically occur (not that quality discussions don't occur, but they are few and far between).

This is definitely a good idea, and something that would be awesome, if it existed, but currently it doesn't exist, and Dyack is certainly mistaken if he's expecting this kind of reform from Neogaf. He's essentially suggesting that Digg should be more like Slashdot. What he's missing is that Digg is much more popular than Slashdot, just as Neogaf is much more popular than whatever gaming site he wants it to be.
 

TheWolf

Banned
Matt is pretty tight with Denis. i'm pretty sure he was one of the first people to see anything remotely related to the game.

i wouldn't expect either of them to be doing an official review though. just blog stuff.
 

Dunlop

Member
besada said:
So far as I can tell, the only devs with a problem are those attempting to use GAF as a sales platform.

All devs are using Gaf as a sales platform. You think they are writing here to catch up on old times or something?
 

kottila

Member
TheWolf said:
Matt is pretty tight with Denis. i'm pretty sure he was one of the first people to see anything remotely related to the game.

i wouldn't expect either of them to be doing an official review though. just blog stuff.

You mean they'll just hype and utter no critisicm?
 

hc2

Junior Member
Is it "There is no such thing as bad publicity unless it is your obituary"(Brendan Behan)
or "What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself"(Abraham Lincoln)?
Which one applies in this case?
 
too human shows poorly at E3, denis complains that previews of builds need to stop, industry needs to change.

denis predicts too human will receive low scores, complains that giving scores to games needs to stop, industry needs change.

too human threads on neogaf are filled with page after page of trolling, denis complains that message boards need drastic reform, industry needs change.

:lol
 

eznark

Banned
kottila said:
You mean they'll just hype and utter no critisicm?

It's not like IGN is going to have the Nintendo team review the game for god's sakes. They're just giving impressions of a preview build.
 

Struct09

Member
kottila said:
Doesn't Bozon and Matt hang out with Dyack? Thought I heard them mention going to the movies together on of the latest Wii-podcasts. Shouldn't they stay away from writing about his game then?
sorry if I heard the wrong name

You are correct that Bozon hangs out with Dyack, they talked about it in a recent podcast. Why should that prevent Bozon from talking about the game in his own blog?
 

eznark

Banned
Struct09 said:
You are correct that Bozon hangs out with Dyack, they talked about it in a recent podcast. Why should that prevent Bozon from talking about the game in his own blog?


TEH BIASSZZZSS
 

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
Heh, I had no real idea about this game before the whole BS started on these forums, because it's totally outside my sphere of interest in the gaming world, but Dyack's railing on NeoGAF because of its criticism of it has piqued my interest. Like they say, "no press is bad press".

He is a bit right when NeoGAF goes on and on attacking non-playable previews of games for the silliest, most niggling issues, though I'm guilty of that myself a little bit.
 

ggnoobIGN

Banned
Dyack is shooting himself in the foot here. By all accounts, Too Human is pretty much the most expensive game ever made, maybe save for a few others. Given that, I think it's going to have a tough time getting a positive return seeing the negative hype around it, and how it doesn't look to be a critical success. In either case, I doubt anyone ever again hands Dyack a major project. Much too big of a risk.
 

Combine

Banned
Speak of the devil. Matt C. has gone and made his own blog post about what he thinks of Too Human as well: http://blogs.ign.com/Matt-IGN/2008/07/07/95058/
Boz loves dungeon crawlers. He grew up on games like Diablo. On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of the genre. I recognize the qualities of certain games belonging to it, but they haven't in the past generally appealed to me. In my mind, Too Human's biggest success is therefore that it makes me a believer in the genre. Control and combat are surprisingly tight and fun -- these two areas represented my biggest concerns going in, but they have really come together since the first time I saw the game in motion. The story is engaging. And the loot / character and weapon upgrade system is very deep and addictive.


I'm sure there will be those out there who hate Too Human. I get the feeling some people actually want to hate it. But I really don't think the hate is warranted. There is no effin' way in this life or the next Too Human can accurately be gauged a bad game. It's just not. Period. What it will boil down to, I think, is whether it's a great game or merely a good one
 

eznark

Banned
ggnoobIGN said:
Dyack is shooting himself in the foot here. By all accounts, Too Human is pretty much the most expensive game ever made, maybe save for a few others. Given that, I think it's going to have a tough time getting a positive return seeing the negative hype around it, and how it doesn't look to be a critical success. In either case, I doubt anyone ever again hands Dyack a major project. Much too big of a risk.

yep. Negative hype killed Assassin's Creed. Nobody ended up buying that thing.

EDIT: mind summarizing Cassmassina's thoughts?
 

GhaleonEB

Member
typo said:
I'm listening to the podcast again, and I'm wondering--where the fuck is the demo?
I'm guessing it comes out a lot closer to the game release. Dyack has said it will come out before the game.

Hopefully it's okay that I draw conclusions from the demo, since it's not the full game and all.
 

eznark

Banned
There is no effin' way in this life or the next Too Human can accurately be gauged a bad game. It's just not. Period. What it will boil down to, I think, is whether it's a great game or merely a good one.

dope, my tastes often coincide with his
 

ggnoobIGN

Banned
eznark said:
yep. Negative hype killed Assassin's Creed. Nobody ended up buying that thing.

EDIT: mind summarizing Cassmassina's thoughts?
LOL wat? Going into release, AC impressed everyone with it's awesome trailers and won tons of e3 awards. It did receive backlash(including from myself), but this is not even close to being the same thing.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
eznark said:
dope, my tastes often coincide with his

I think thats a good point. It wont be a bad game. But if its just on OK game, and plagued with some issues (the stuff people are already pointing out from previews) then it may suffer and Assasins Creed fate of averageness in scores and quality and sales, despite being mega hyped and expensive.
 

Dunlop

Member
eznark said:
yep. Negative hype killed Assassin's Creed. Nobody ended up buying that thing.

Too many people bought and resold the game. I'm running a bachelor party this week and figured to get rid of some games for more booze money.

Bioshock - $11
Mass Effect - $7
AC - $2 WTF?!?!

Girl told me they had about 50 used copies of AC in the back.

Needless to say I just kept the games....

Back on topic, either of the new "bias" reviews give impressions for MP??
 

Twig

Banned
ggnoobIGN said:
LOL wat? Going into release, AC impressed everyone with it's awesome trailers and won tons of e3 awards. It did receive backlash(including from myself), but this is not even close to being the same thing.
It received a considerable amount of negativity after that E3 demo with all the graphical glitches and the first time anyone saw the Matrix-y effects on targeted enemies.

I'm sure if Jade Raymond had been on 1Up Yours spouting bullshit about how people shouldn't base their opinions on previews, the negativity would've never ended.

(Well, then again, maybe not. Lots of gamers seem to have a fetish for her.)
 
Just finished listening.

Garnett gets a few props from me.

Shane comes off as a fucking weak yes-man. I've totally lost respect for him as a voice for gaming culture.

The rest of the guys aren't even there. Nice work fellas. Way to participate.

Denis is just the same old Denis he was in March 2007, when he was pulling the same old "I'm so much better than you" stuff on NeoGAF. I said everything I wanted to say to him, directly to him, way back then, so I'll leave it at that.

If anybody cares:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5775057&postcount=158

...once I had guys like Prine calling me a dickhead for that post, I knew I was on to something.
 

FabCam

Member
Having listened to his 30 minute talk, I can sum up what he really wants to say:

Don't base Too Human on the preview build even though nothing has been fundamentally changed from that build.

I agree with the ethical business stuff but that has nothing to do with Too Human.
 
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