What's with subscription included games and games leaving early access not getting many reviews?

I decided to start this thread after I notice that Abiotic Factor has been out for several days now, and it only has two reviews listed on metacritic. It was selected by Sony and Microsoft to be included on PS Plus Extra and GamePass as a day one title, it received a 92 score from PC gamer, it has overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam with a 94% user score, and almost no review sites seem to be talking about it.

It's also one of the best co-op games I've ever played, so much so that I made an OT for it. It's been in early access for more than a year now, so I guess there's also the fact that for some it doesn't feel like a "new" game. But wouldn't that make it even easier to review?

This isn't the first time I've noticed this, either. There have been a number of times lately where a game will appear as a day one title on a subscription service, and when I look there are almost no reviews to be found. So why do you think that is? Have you noticed this happening? It's almost as if reviewers have a mindset of "well, a lot of people are going to be able to try that game anyhow, so why bother with a review," but that doesn't seem right to me. I think lots of people pay for the lowest tier of PS Plus or Xbox Live, just so they can play games online, and those people still have to decide if a new game is worth buying outside of a subscription service.
 
Why do you care about the opinion of some journalists when you know the game is good since its early access days?
I don't care about the opinion of journalists, I care about the awareness reviews can bring to a game and its developers. When games aren't successful enough, they don't get sequels and their development teams don't get to continue making games.
 
I don't care about the opinion of journalists, I care about the awareness reviews can bring to a game and its developers. When games aren't successful enough, they don't get sequels and their development teams don't get to continue making games.
Did I say that? Exposure is good, Reviews are just one form of said exposure
Let's assume that in this scenario IGN can boost the game's awareness. What if they give it a 5? Won't that damage its reputation instead of helping it? Gloryfing "critics" and hoping they do reviews for games should die, but thats just me as I am a huge anti-critic. They should market the game, ads, etc. instead of relying on IGN and the likes.
 
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Let's assume that in this scenario IGN can boost the game's awareness. What if they give it a 5? Won't that damage its reputation instead of helping it? Gloryfing "critics" and hoping they do reviews for games should die, but thats just me as I am a huge anti-critic. They should market the game, ads, etc. instead of relying on IGN and the likes.
Not sure why you are arguing. Decent exposure sells more stuff. Bad exposure does not.

Who was glorifying critics?
 
It seems pretty common for indie games that have been in early access for a year to not generate much buzz when they move to full release. Early access kind of kills the buzz early on for a lot of games.
 
So why should the game risk a low score/bad exposure when it's already doing fine? Aka why should "critics" review the game if there's a chance they can do more damage than good?
No idea why you have gone off on some weird tangent looking for an argument. I simply replied to this comment of yours:
Why do you care about the opinion of some journalists when you know the game is good since its early access days?
I gave you an answer, he doesn't care about others opinions. The exposure it would get from the (likely) positive reviews would see a game he clearly cares about do better.
 
It's part sub service/part early access problem. Both water down the "game launch event" that builds up hype. Blue Prince and Clair Obscur were Day 1 sub service and seemed to survive fine, but they had no early access and very good word of mouth.
 
It seems pretty common for indie games that have been in early access for a year to not generate much buzz when they move to full release. Early access kind of kills the buzz early on for a lot of games.
I think you're right, and it seems really lame to me that this happens. Reviewers go from not reviewing a game "because it's early access, so it's not a complete game" to not reviewing it because "that game's been out for over a year now." It's a disservice to their audience and to developers. When early access games are finished, they should then be reviewed.
 
No idea why you have gone off on some weird tangent looking for an argument. I simply replied to this comment of yours:

I gave you an answer, he doesn't care about others opinions. The exposure it would get from the (likely) positive reviews would see a game he clearly cares about do better.

Im not looking for anything. It was more of a rhetorical answer which I wanted to dwelve deeper. He shouldnt care about the opinions of others, yeah, but at the same time that exposure, as I said, can do more damage than good. Flashbacks to IGN's score of Prey or Alien Isolation. Nah, every single company should never ever rely on these trash corporate "critics" ever again. Just do ads on youtube,insta,tiktok whatever, they help 100 times more than IGN these days.
 
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Early Access kills games. I don't look at them, I don't follow them, I don't care about them. When they finally get released, I'm already way past over them.
Stop with the Early Access BS.
 
That's the curse of Early Access. It gets a gig bump of press when it enters EA, and the buzz over the first few weeks....then it may be there a year or more.....and people basically don't care anymore.
 
Im not looking for anything. It was more of a rhetorical answer which I wanted to dwelve deeper. He shouldnt care about the opinions of others, yeah, but at the same time that exposure, as I said, can do more damage than good. Flashbacks to IGN's score of Prey or Alien Isolation. Nah, every single company should never ever rely on these trash corporate "critics" ever again.
He doesn't care about the opinions of others, what are you on about? Your talking about something completely different to what the OP is.

Enough of the derail.
 
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He doesn't care about the opinions of others, what are you on about? Your talking about something completely different to what the OP is.

Enough of the derail.
Come On What GIF by MOODMAN


I never derailed. You just missed the point. Stop replying then.
 
That's the curse of Early Access. It gets a gig bump of press when it enters EA, and the buzz over the first few weeks....then it may be there a year or more.....and people basically don't care anymore.
Early doesn't work for most games for sure. I think games are better off having a fairly quiet EA period then blowing up when they hit 1.0
 
Let's assume that in this scenario IGN can boost the game's awareness. What if they give it a 5? Won't that damage its reputation instead of helping it? Gloryfing "critics" and hoping they do reviews for games should die, but thats just me as I am a huge anti-critic. They should market the game, ads, etc. instead of relying on IGN and the likes.

This is an AA indie title. Marketing is expensive and they can only afford so much of it. If they've made a quality game, positive reviews will help to drive sales too.

Not sure why you're up in arms about this
 
It's part sub service/part early access problem. Both water down the "game launch event" that builds up hype. Blue Prince and Clair Obscur were Day 1 sub service and seemed to survive fine, but they had no early access and very good word of mouth.
Exp33 was day1 sub service game but they also sold 3.3M in 33 days because the vast majority of ppl who play JRPG buy and beat their games. Word of mouth really took off after about a week after release.

Gamepass was largely irrelevant to the success story. I played many many games on gamepass back in 2023 and literally every single fucking trophy that pops up is that diamond animation for RARE trophy.
The completion rates for gamepass games are DIRE. If you know you know

//Edit: typos
 
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The real test for Early Access will be Hades 2. First game was fine with it, and maybe that's what that community wants, but I could see Hades 2 "launch" being muted a bit, at least on PC (it will technically be brand new to consoles when it hits).
 
Marketing is expensive
Ads are not and are generally risk free and ultimately bring more awareness/sales to a game than any other critic. Risking IGN or Gamepot to give a game a 5 is a horrible idea. Even on gaf when a game gets a low critic score most people here are "wow trash, not buying anymore". Cmon.
 
Let's assume that in this scenario IGN can boost the game's awareness. What if they give it a 5? Won't that damage its reputation instead of helping it?
I would think that IGN giving this game a 5 would ultimately be very helpful towards sales. The positive reviews elsewhere and the people who are already enjoying the game would result in people criticizing IGN over the score, which would ultimately bring more attention to the game.
 
I would think that IGN giving this game a 5 would ultimately be very helpful towards sales. The positive reviews elsewhere and the people who are already enjoying the game would result in people criticizing IGN over the score, which would ultimately bring more attention to the game.

That's one positive scenario, yeah, won't disagree that there are benefits, not just negatives. Anyway, I've said my piece, I just think there are better methods than "critics". Will never stop being against them so I might be biased here.
 
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