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Toxicity and non constructive criticism in gaming and its effects on the industry.

XXL

Member
Was the Star Wars Outlaws main character model change an agenda push or an artistic decision?
AXcpaRUvRj9S.jpeg

It's a phenomenon that only seems to effect women and only with the western game developers.
92y97y.jpg

Does this look like a artistic decision or an agenda?
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
It' a social kind of industry. Gamers (customers) play together, discuss and upload videos/streams. Company employees interact with gamers, solicit feedback, bullshot promos, push politics, mtx games to death, have clowns on social media smack talking gamers and it's an industry where refunds are not the norm unless a digital gamer submits a request asap and CSR gives in.

So you got to take the good with the bad.

Make a good game at a fair price, dont act like clowns, dont bullshot videos and previews, dont nickel and dime gamers, dont push DEI politics, and low and behold gamers will be more appreciative.

Every other industry and company can figure it out.
 
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ToneyJ

Member
You should tell disney and lucasfilm that.. 9 years now and kicking the bucket strong
For sure, a company like that won’t sink overnight.

A studio like rocksteady or Firewalk though, they won’t be around for much longer if they fuck up again like they did with suicide squad and concord.
 
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hinch7

Member
Linking the player's account to Metacritic would kill 99% of reviewbombing.


"Game performance is unpolished" and "gameplay becomes repetitive over time" are legit criticim.


TLOU2 is great and yet the game was victim of dumb memes and lies.
Well, I clearly wasn't talking about TLOU 2 since that is made by a top tier developer with a good history. And that game looked fantastic from the trailers and people would've bought the sequel regardless of all the drama from the leak. OP was clearly talking about the vitriol surrounding games like Concord and those that recently bomba'd.

When I saw games like Concord and SSKTJL I called it. As many other people did. Why shouldn't people be allowed to voice their concerns and critisms over terrible looking games.
 
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Maybe companies wouldn't get meme'd on if they made good games. Maybe consumers would put more effort into their criticism if companies listened and cared.

After years of neglect, it took steam curators and reviews with clown emojis to get them to listen. Think about that.
 
Well, I clearly wasn't talking about TLOU 2 since that is made by a top tier developer with a good history. And that game looked fantastic from the trailers and people would've bought the sequel regardless of all the drama from the leak. OP was clearly talking about the vitriol surrounding games like Concord and those that recently bomba'd.

When I saw games like Concord and SSKTJL I called it. As many other people did. Why shouldn't people be allowed to voice their concerns and critisms over terrible looking games.
I never mentioned Concord.
 

Bernardougf

Member
Well, I clearly wasn't talking about TLOU 2 since that is made by a top tier developer with a good history. And that game looked fantastic from the trailers and people would've bought the sequel regardless of all the drama from the leak. OP was clearly talking about the vitriol surrounding games like Concord and those that recently bomba'd.

When I saw games like Concord and SSKTJL I called it. As many other people did. Why shouldn't people be allowed to voice their concerns and critisms over terrible looking games.
Its because a game can be made with ideology in mind.. it just cant be criticized for it ... when critiquing a game stay exclusively tuned to gameplay ... so in the future when someone make a game with hitlers SS killing a certain kind of people.. be sure the gameplay is great before you downvote "just because" your biggot!.
 
And showered with hate by people who never played it because of the leaks before it launched or
Joel dies
and LGBTQ characters.


TLOU has been LGTB since 2013. In those days being LGTB was almost a revolutionary act, not like today.

As for TLOU 2, people didn't like some decisions in the story. I don't agree though I understand their reasons and why it's controversial.

Other than that, most people think the game is great in most aspects, so it doesn't fit in the same sentence with Star Wars Outlaws.
 
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TLOU has been LGTB since 2013. In those days being LGTB was almost a revolutionary act, not like today.

As for TLOU 2, people didn't like some decisions in the story. I don't agree though I understand their reasons and why it's controversial.

Other than that, most people think the game is great in most aspects, so it doesn't fit in the same sentence with Star Wars Outlaws.
I feel your being disingenuous if you dont know what happened with TLOU 2…
 

simpatico

Member
Outlaws is lucky the headliner critique is how twisted the MC's face is. If they made he normal, all the talk would be about how under cooked the gameplay is. Gaming review credibility as an insitution failed a long time ago. I don't kow if it's worth repairing. Can you name a game that got memed on that didn't deserve it?
 

hinch7

Member
Its because a game can be made with ideology in mind.. it just cant be criticized for it ... when critiquing a game stay exclusively tuned to gameplay ... so in the future when someone make a game with hitlers SS killing a certain kind of people.. be sure the gameplay is great before you downvote "just because" your biggot!.
Well yeah, if any game gets a fair amount criticism, there is a reason for it. There's a lot of decent games that get dunked on because of dumb development or publisher's decisions. And likewise if a shit looking game gets a trailer and it looks bad well its probably deserved and a dev should listen to feedback from their customers.

Comments and feedback help devs/publishers see whats wrong with their games. And they can choose to either listen to feedback and improve on them or ignore (ill advised). How many times have we seen Saints Row (last) situation happen these past few years, and then the developers sticking their heads in the sand.. hoping for the best.
 
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Bernardougf

Member
Well yeah, if any game that gets a fair amount criticism, there is a reason for it. There's a lot of decent games that get dunked on because of dumb development or publishers decisions. And likewise if a shit looking game gets a trailer and it looks bad well its probably deserved and a dev should listen to feedback from their customers.

They help devs/publishers see whats wrong with their games. And they can choose to either listen and improve on their games or ignore them (ill advised). How many times have we seen Saints Row (last) situation happen, and then the developers sticking their heads in the sand.. hoping for the best.
 
I consider this game to be the worst game sequel of all time by a mile ... sorry if my opinion and others hurts your soft feelings
Address the article, don’t deflect.
Outlaws is lucky the headliner critique is how twisted the MC's face is. If they made he normal, all the talk would be about how under cooked the gameplay is. Gaming review credibility as an insitution failed a long time ago. I don't kow if it's worth repairing. Can you name a game that got memed on that didn't deserve it?
 

Bernardougf

Member
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Saber

Member

Where this hivemind came? Tales from your ass?
Did you think Star Wars was destroyed because of "memes" and attacks because the in game model is uglified? Nothing to do with the overall quality and boringness of the game.
If you only read what you want to see and keep your head in the ass yeah I'm pretty sure the only thing you gonna hear about this game is that "its bad because shes ugly".
And LoU2 received good scores from reviewers lmao poor game receiving "attacks".
You are a condescending guy acting smart to everyone.
 
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Best laugh I've had all day. You just know the OP wanted to put Concord in his list but lacked the juevos to do it :messenger_tears_of_joy: . Sheesh man, where do you even start with this topic? It's okay to collectively trash the straight, white, male character archetype but...

TLDR: Game reviews need to have clear criticism expressed not hivemind attacks from people with a petty, childish, unfair agenda.

Dude are you even reading what you posted? Don't do to others what you wouldn't do to yourself [Not you specifically, I don't know your post history and don't care]. One specific class of character was trashed for years by a specific community and now that ball has switched sides they're starting to cry about it.
 
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The Gamer Triple H

Gold Member
Where this hivemind came? Tales from your ass?
Did you think Star Wars was destroyed because of "memes" and attacks because the in game model is uglified? Nothing to do with the overall quality and boringness of the game.
If you only read what you want to hear and keep your head in the ass yeah I'm pretty sure the only thing you gonna hear about this game is that "its bad because shes ugly".
And LoU2 received good scores from reviewers lmao poor game receiving "attacks".
You are a condescending guy acting smart to everyone.

Star Wars was "destroyed" because it's just another mediocre Ubisoft open world title with a different skin that does absolutely nothing new in the gameplay department. And what it does (Stealth), it does absolutely horrible.

The story is forgettable, the writing is bad, and the voicework is amateurish. Typical Ubisoft dogshit. I think dude spends too much time on twitter. He definitely comes off as condescending.
 

Bernardougf

Member
Whats your point? There's always going to be trolls online.

Metacritic has since changed it policies and have done a lot better at filtering fake reviews. Not that user reviews on MC matter.
In the same coin flip there were a lot of accolades by just being "stunning and brave"... the game was pretty devisive between the fanbase.. you could expect something like that divison for criticts.. but nop.. universal praise 10/10 and awards. It maybe all worth it ... or maybe some extra points were given.
 

Kronark

Neo Member
There's so many layers to this and how we got here... But this is not as simple as "Developers need nicely written feedback only k thx". It's really disingenuous to treat the problem like that at this stage.

There's always been some level of friction between devs and the player base because the player base is a faceless mob. A lot of valuable feedback or accurate player sentiment is mixed with brain dead morons writing comments like "Y cant u just code the game 2 b gud? R u dum?" or sending threats. Unfortunately with human nature it's very easy to focus on the most vile feedback, even if it was just 5% of the comments. It feels like most game developers have done for a long time unfortunately. There are still those that remain positive and try to work with the player base but a lot of others have given up and developed an animosity with their own player base. We also don't live in the world of static games anymore. Sometimes a patch comes along and just shits all over a game. People who care a lot about that game get very upset about changes to that thing they cared a lot about and express anger toward the devs for changes. There's just a lot more to be upset about in a world where games are patched constantly, player run servers are gone, micro transactions are king, etc. A lot of power has shifted toward the publisher / developer's control since the early 2000s.

Now take that environment and add woke game journalists who feel it's their job to lump the other 90% of players in with the angry and dumb ones constantly... Congratulations you've got Gamergate. It's not just feedback to devs anymore, it's a political movement for both sides. Open dialog about how to solve problems is on the backburner because people don't feel heard or like the changes they want will come with talk. We've had literally executives at EA telling their fanbase to not buy their Battlefield game (Oops). Concord took all the feedback at the announcement and told people to shove it. It's now a political struggle of wins and losses. We're so beyond the studio listening to your feedback that it's now easier and more accessible to just watch them fail and hope they fail so hard they fall out of the industry.

No one wanted Concord to get patched. Everyone saw a game that represented a tons of ideas / trends they hated (Wokeness, Hero Shooters, GaaS, etc) and they wanted it to fail to send a message. We're in a culture now where people want a side to lose rather than the problems to be addressed. It sucks but I can only really blame the publishers / developers for us being here. They make most of the decisions, they have all of the implementation power when it comes to making changes. The literally only powers customers have are to buy / not buy or talk about a game and influence the PR around it, and I don't blame anyone for exercising those powers in a world where mods are patched to not work and dedicated servers are a rare thing of the past.
 
Your whole "non-constructive criticism" is a sham, basically dictators use exactly this term to brand all criticism they don't like so they don't have to listen to it.
Telling a game developer that his character designs are unattractive is actually very constructive criticism if the listener is interested in improving his game's audience reception, he only deems it "non-constructive" when he has already convinced himself that the appearance needs to stay the way it is.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Your whole "non-constructive criticism" is a sham, basically dictators use exactly this term to brand all criticism they don't like so they don't have to listen to it.
Telling a game developer that his character designs are unattractive is actually very constructive criticism if the listener is interested in improving his game's audience reception, he only deems it "non-constructive" when he has already convinced himself that the appearance needs to stay the way it is.
The crazy thing is testing, focus groups, consultants etc... should catch all this midway through development. But it seems the companies often stick to their creative roots and pray it does well at launch.

Concord is arguably the best example of this where almost nobody thinks it looks good (animations aside), had almost no marketing, was too late to change things when they showed gameplay and told gamers it's a 5v5 hero shooter (less than 3 months to launch), and to this day still stick to opinions (along with their loyal followers), it's everyone else's fault or they are bigots or got no taste in art. It wasnt till the apology refund PR statement they finally said they're listening to feedback and realized it didn't resonate with gamers. well, a little too late for that. The game was in dev for 8 years. You only had 7 years and 9 months to figure it out.

As a YT dude Luke Stephens said (I should watch more YT guys from now on as Concord has made me watch Asmongold and Luke trash it!), he even says companies hire popular game streamers to test games and give opnions, yet when they do sometimes the company doesn't even listen to it. Doesnt mean they have to bend over and do what they say, but he's amazed when they go through the cost and hassle to ignore it. He thinks sometimes they do it just to check off a box and not have any true intention of listening to critical feedback. I like the cideos I've seen since he brings up a bit more business chat into it sometimes. Even including some insights into accounting and taxes. So he probably has a business background of some sort which I enjoy.

Given how much time and budget big games take to make, you'd think they'd have constant feedback, but there's going to be some weird combination of stubbornness, ego tripping, politics, weird employees or some DEI requirement that leads to a funding payout which all mixed together is as anti-consumer as it gets unless the company truly wants to go after that tiny modern audience hoping it pays off.

A truly weird industry. I dont expect small indie studios to have the time and money to do lots of complex feedback, but you'd think games with big budgets would.

Every other industry just tries to make some good products at a price people will accept. I swear big companies like the ones I work at put in more focus studies and feedback implementations on whether or not a new cranberry flavour is worth doing or not. If it looks worth it, do it. But dont if it sucks. If the sentiment is blueberry is the bigger potential, then look into switching to that. A game company would just put all eggs into one basket wing it on cranberry hoping it sells with zero thought.

On top of that, you get oddball quality issues that arent even focus group type of stuff like bad netcode, saved game issues, input lag etc... things you'd think in 2024 should be solved by now.
 
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EDMIX

Writes a lot, says very little
A shining example of toxicity and non constructive criticism from the so called "professional" site:

WDbPZ8B.jpeg


Nobody should be sending review codes to these hacks.
Truth.

Reviews like this and what is happening with Star Wars Outlaws is why I no longer go by reviews.

Anyone wanting to fucking talk about this characters face for eons, the rest of their points that follow will be ignored....

This would be no different then if someone is telling me about Hogwarts and they start off by telling me a series of Tweets by JK

I don't care.

Once you opened the door to this bias and culture war shit, any fake, forced view seeking to act as if they are really, deeply concerned about the game will be ignored by either side.

Both sides have themselves to blame for this dumb shit.

1 side is giving a 1 out of 10 based on tweets
1 side is giving a 1 out of 10 cause their pp no hard for a character, but shit you guys are surprised we stopped caring about those reviews? lol

For those who are really questioning why we don't fucking care, please understand...if someone came to you about a game, told you a series of tweets, cried about representation and diversity in the game etc, when they start giving their score, are you sure 100% you'll actually believe it?

Sooooooo why are some of you shocked a lot of us have ignored all the reviews for Star Wars Outlaws and still bought the game?
 

Neff

Member
And showered with hate by people who never played it

And? I'm not sure what your point is. Sony and ND delivered the very best game they could and received critical praise to the moon.

Well-meaning projects receiving uninformed, undeserved bad press prior to release has been a thing forever. If the product is good, it'll stand on its own. Are you going to try to discourage people from being irrationally petty when appraising entertainment? Good luck with that.
 
Dude are you even reading what you posted? Don't do to others what you wouldn't do to yourself [Not you specifically, I don't know your post history and don't care]. One specific class of character was trashed for years by a specific community and now that ball has switched sides they're starting to cry about it.
I think that’s his point. OP wants a ‘neither’ outcome instead things flipping back and forth.

He is wanting true neutral. The problem is that both sides are too angry and vindictive for this to happen, and professional reviews, along with user reviews, are too pointed.

I guess the only good thing here is that it means people who are genuinely curious about a game (and not a movement) have to go back to actually reading/watching a full review instead of looking at a headline and scrolling to the score.
 
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Chechack

Member
I absolutely agree.

XFdDpKF.png
This was always so weird,like legit seems like they didnt play the gane
This game is diverse as hell,u have snake head woman with alien skeleton goat husband,hot spider granny with 4 hot daughters,pig man,amputee head man,rat Sages, ex Tiger actor from Kung Fu Panda,a character literally named Non White, raging Black centipede warrior etc

What else diverse they want idk
 

Da1337Vinci

Member
I read the op and I don't agree.

In every industry is about meeting expectations that consumers have for you product/art and that includes the brand itself too.

If the consumers complain loudly enough one must be able to recognize something is off with the product/art or brand.

Then you can decide whether you want to engage with the problem they loudly claimed or you think the underlying is issue somewhere.

Now if you want to cultivate a specific consumers segment that engage with your product/art in a specific way sure you can do that no one is forcing you to provided it to the masses.
 

laynelane

Member
Who gets to define toxicity?

I think the meaning of that word has been getting more and more distorted over time. It reminds me of a video I watched where the person was commenting on a Twitter squabble. A Kotaku journalist said something and people were arguing with her. She said she was being "attacked" to which the person in the video commented: "You're not being attacked, you're being disagreed with". And it was true. Toxicity is similar in that it can and is used to describe criticism (any criticism - constructive or negative) and disagreement with a person's opinion. Its overuse and incorrect use has caused it to have less and less impact too.
 

Nikodemos

Member
The crazy thing is testing, focus groups, consultants etc... should catch all this midway through development. But it seems the companies often stick to their creative roots and pray it does well at launch.

Concord is arguably the best example of this where almost nobody thinks it looks good (animations aside), had almost no marketing, was too late to change things when they showed gameplay and told gamers it's a 5v5 hero shooter (less than 3 months to launch), and to this day still stick to opinions (along with their loyal followers), it's everyone else's fault or they are bigots or got no taste in art. It wasnt till the apology refund PR statement they finally said they're listening to feedback and realized it didn't resonate with gamers. well, a little too late for that. The game was in dev for 8 years. You only had 7 years and 9 months to figure it out.
According to the latest info, it was only about 4.5 years. Which would put it into a more standard dev schedule, but yes, it's incredibly odd that they didn't do an earlier round of public opinion.
BG3 was in early access (basically a long Agile-style beta) for two years prior to launch.
Given how much time and budget big games take to make, you'd think they'd have constant feedback, but there's going to be some weird combination of stubbornness, ego tripping, politics, weird employees or some DEI requirement that leads to a funding payout which all mixed together is as anti-consumer as it gets unless the company truly wants to go after that tiny modern audience hoping it pays off.
There's a good chance they got hit with ye ole analysis paralysis, on account of the beta reception being so negative, so close to full game launch date. There was too much wrong with the game, and 0 time to turn around (self-inflicted problem, TBH), so they gave up trying.
There's also the unfortunately plausible issue that some wormtongue whispered the 'c**ds' word into the collective management's ears, which blinded them to the actual issues.
A truly weird industry. I dont expect small indie studios to have the time and money to do lots of complex feedback, but you'd think games with big budgets would.
Indies know from the start they can't afford to cast a wide net, so they concentrate on a particular niche audience. Also, their character designs are either inoffensive (ex. Cult of the Lamb, Rain World, the recently launched Tactical Breach Wizards), or outright abstract (Baba Is You).
On top of that, you get oddball quality issues that arent even focus group type of stuff like bad netcode, saved game issues, input lag etc... things you'd think in 2024 should be solved by now.
So much this. How the fuck is savegame corruption and unstable netcode still a thing?
 

StueyDuck

Member
The gaming industry is…an industry, it has products and consumers. It has products for casuals and hardcore alike. The companies that produce the products are in it for profit, sometimes too much and as a result we get half baked and faulty video games. We also have user reviews and criticism. Sometimes the criticism is very much warranted and others its just toxicity and non genuine opinions based on trend. We have a hivemind of non genuine reviewers attacking certain games with an agenda to destroy a certain product for a petty or childish reason.

Sometimes a “meme” will start online (Stars Wars Outlaws main character controversy) and the bad reviews will come in hard for no reason. There usually aren’t any real critiques on a game, just hivemind attacks. We saw this with TLOU 2 and I see it with Star Wars Outlaws. Maybe Star Wars Oultlaws has flaws, but they should be stated in a clear manner, not “OMGZ the main character is ugly!!!….1/10!!!”. These non genuine reviews aren’t giving developers criticism to improve from in the future, its detering them from making some of the best games ever created. Hellblade 2, TLOU 2, Cyberpunk 2077 (pre patch), Star Wars Outlaws, Horizon Forbidden West, Starfield etc.

TLDR: Game reviews need to have clear criticism expressed not hivemind attacks from people with a petty, childish, unfair agenda.

Edit: here’s a prime example

I'd argue that you see the ridiculous review scores from users most of the time because the journalists aren't doing their jobs well enough in writing their reviews that would reflect the experience for users. Showing that they are out of touch with most gamers.

Putt that small part to the side though, games are entertainment much like movies and shows and music etc. If your product is good enough and appeals to a mass audience, people won't care to leave toxic reviews or those that do would be completely ignored and forgotten.

Also none of that affects game development really, sure we've had a few steam bombs that have changed a patch like the helldivers 2 requiring psn. But majority of the time the things being critique by the masses won't be changed or made differently for future titles. Just look at skull and bones, for ages that studio was told by the public that the game is not great and average, yet it still released as is even after all those years.
 
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PeteBull

Member
Since im a nobody from eastern europe(which means i can be honest coz not afraid of being canceled) i will tell u exactly why.
For majority of us, gamers, easily 95%+ of us who actually buy games, any wokeness in it is always negative, never positive, we can still play such game if its added somewhat intelligently and tactfully, and enjoy it despite the wokeness, but nowadays trend is to push that woke agenda in all kinds of forms harder and harder.

When game is offputing and disgusting enough coz of tons of woke agenda put into it and it tips the scale enough to make us not even play this game(which includes not buying at launch) game usually flops/sells below expectations, and thats how capitalism sorts out stupid devs/publishers, they get hit where it hurts most- in their wallets :)

Future titles we already know gonna flop coz top priority was put on wokeness instead of producing game of highest quality:
DA:V, Fairgame$, Marathon those 3 are sure bet, AC:S will have sales below expectations but still relatively decent, it wont make big profit tho :)
 

GymWolf

Member
Maybe star wars has flaws is like saying maybe tera patrick caused an orgasm or 2.

The game is a walking list of shitty game design choices that other devs should avoid, kept together by a strong license and spit.
 
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PeteBull

Member
Maybe star wars has flaws is like saying maybe tera patrick caused an orgasm or 2.

The game is a walking list of shitty game design choices that other devs should avoid kept together by a strong license and spit.
That was some quick edit, bro, rofl.
And yeh, Star Wars (Out)Flaws is really beatiful game on maxed settings as long some1 has top pc, but in terms of gameplay/story its average at best, which is proven by its metacritic score and users score
And that review score was reached thx to disney offering free trips for previewers(aka future reviewers) so w/o professioanl "journos" bias game would score even lower.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
It still amazes me to see "lacking in inclusivity and diversity" for a game based on a novel published in 1592. A literary work which has such cultural importance and popularity in East Asia to boot. Just peak ignorance on display.

I read the SR review (posted below if you want to give it a read) the reviewer is a women and her point was that there are no women or feminine characters in the game in chapters 1 and 2. The reviewer also didn't like the supposed misogynistic comments from the developer.

As far as Chapters 1 and 2, while characters are clearly fictitious and fantastical creatures, there were no female or feminine NPCs, enemies, or bosses present. The only exception, if you can call it 'female', is a boss named Mother of Stones in Chapter 2, which is nothing more than a still, glowing rock with no abilities, being guarded by other enemies.
The lack of diversity and inclusivity resonates with the misogynistic comments reported to have been made by developers, which expressed disdain for women playing their games. Although Black Myth: Wukong does have truly enjoyable moments, the underlying feeling that women aren't welcome in this world felt present throughout my gameplay experience.

Now, I haven't played the game, but I'm pretty sure I've seen videos of there being female characters and I'm sure there are more than 2 chapters, so personally I think the reviewer was unfair in their assessment.
 
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