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Days Gone Director John Garvin Says Metacritic Score Is Everything to Sony

Arachnid

Member
Is it really metacritic's fault? they just aggregate the review scores from around the web/press; which is not really any different from if someone at Sony went around and collected them up themselves.

I think the actual problem is that gaming journalism doesn't represent the wide spectrum of interests of the actual gaming public. If you look at where these (English) reviews are coming from, it's super heavily concentrated in both California (west-coast, USA) and Brighton (here in the UK). Both of which are about as far left-learning as you can get within their respective countries. So you have a situation where the vast majority of reviews are written by this very small sub-set of ultra-liberal people.

And due to their "everyone except us is a nazi" mindset, they are very good at gate-keeping to keep it this way. e.g. the 48% of the population who voted Trump could not get a job reviewing games at most of these places in a million years, but even pro-gun supporters would find themselves alienated in the industry, which is weird considering the most popular game genre (by far) are shooting titles.

I think this is also why you see the upsurge of retrogaming news/articles/reviews, as this is where everyone else who likes videogames goes now.
Agreed, though Metacritic does have a little more to it. They do weigh certain sites more into the aggregate. It's not a true ranking. IGN has more effect on the score than some random youtuber.

Uncharted 2 would have been cancelled by today's Sony.
Drakes Fortune has an 88 aggregate though. It's right around where Horizon is.
 
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Dane

Member
Of course scores do matter for many who doesn't want to spend money they consider not worth of it, but the thing that everybody is questioning is why Sony didn't take note that in the end the game was profitable and well praised by the players, not every standing franchise starts at a 8.5/10.

"Don't complain if you bought at full price" then don't complain that it's not worth the full price for the people, but still in the end it sold millions.
 
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ToadMan

Member
Sure, most of their games aren't as profitable as their top 3 most profitable games ever. Days Gone must have sold around 8-9 million copies before being included in PS Plus Collection, PS Plus and releasing it on PC. The game can sell easily over 10 million copies.

According to davidjaffe davidjaffe DG sold about 5 mil.
 
Sony are feeling like the marvel of videogames these days. Soulless formulaic drivel adored by the masses.

Days gone had some interesting mechanics but it still tried to follow that same boring forumla so I'm not overly sympathetic. It's not like it was a widely original game that was pushing the boat which got shut down.
 
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Entroyp

Member
Looks like it’s not my fault this game will not get a sequel since I bought it at full price. I do believe, however, that it doesn’t deserve one.

This guy is full of excuses.
 
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Mobile Suit Gooch

Grundle: The Awakening
Sony cares more about woke journals think than actual fans. Guess that means If the Returnal doesn't do well, then no sequel.

Sorry Goochems, your favorite new ip from us didn't do well enough, so no part two. But hey, here's a new Last of us.
 

Gone

Banned
And their fans*

Almost every single PS fanboy (at least here in the middle east) loves to say "but its MC score is 85+ so it's a great game".
 

Entroyp

Member
Sony cares more about woke journals think than actual fans. Guess that means If the Returnal doesn't do well, then no sequel.

Sorry Goochems, your favorite new ip from us didn't do well enough, so no part two. But hey, here's a new Last of us.

It’s insane that Sony went ahead approved a sequel to their highest rated and best selling game at the time.

The wokeness is out of control right?
 
Lol the concern trolling is hilarious. No shit he cares about Metacritic. It's an industry benchmark.

As if Neo doesn't have threads full of people guessing the Metrcritic scores of games that haven't even been released yet.

This whining about "actual fans" is pathetic. Do people need companies to continuously pat them on the back for being good consumers or something? Of course they want to sell games ffs. So some guy takes a sentence out of an interview and makes an entire article about it. Big fucking deal.

All these bad faith small brain takes, feel like there is little difference between people playing dumb and actually being dumb.
 

sendit

Member
Sony are feeling like the marvel of videogames these days. Soulless formulaic drivel adored by the masses.

Days gone had some interesting mechanics but it still tried to follow that same boring forumla so I'm not overly sympathetic. It's not like it was a widely original game that was pushing the boat which got shut down.

Agreed. Not sure why they released the PS5 with Demon's Souls. A game that isn't mainstream friendly. Arrogant Sony is back boys!
 
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Agreed. Not sure why they released the PS5 with Demon's Souls. A game that isn't mainstream friendly. Arrogant Sony is back boys!

An identical remaster mechanically of a game made in 2009 which is now a cult classic and has spawned an entire genre with an avid following... WHAT A RISK TAKEN! WHAT INGENUITY.

Show me a new game from sony that doesn't follow their "winning" formula.

Until critics stop rewarding rote mechanics with hyper polish. Sony will keep cranking this shit out.
 
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assurdum

Banned
Someone should tell to those people DG is not as good as they think. It's literally annoying hear all this outrage and stupidity ("reviewers not played it doh" "they are all liars!!") around a mediocre IP. And I'm one of the person who finished it multiple times. I can like mediocre game but Jeez seems almost someone has cancelled the next super Mario. It wasn't even that original and the story was stupid as hell.
 
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TIGERCOOL

Member
is this really worse than investing in projects based only on how much money the previous iteration made? I hope more goes into it on Sony's part than just reading a metacritic score (I'm sure there is), but I'm glad they care about the quality of the product.

Days Gone was mediocre, janky and unfun to play on release. The scores fairly represented that, and I say that as someone who disregarded said scores and dropped 70 bucks on it when it came out because it was a slow time for new game releases.

I don't care how inexperienced Bend was with AAA production, that's not excuseable with the money and resources that were thrown at it. They can work their way back and earn the trust that they can knock it out of the park next time.
 

sendit

Member
An identical remaster mechanically of a game made in 2009 which is now a cult classic and has spawned an entire genre with an avid following... WHAT A RISK TAKEN! WHAT INGENUITY.

Show me a new game from sony that doesn't follow their "winning" formula.

Until critics stop rewarding rote mechanics with hyper polish. Sony will keep cranking this shit out.

I heard you like unique games with hyper unpolished game mechanics.


On a more serious note. What do you expect? Bigger companies have to play in to Shareholders hands. The biggest innovation that Sony has pushed out in gaming comes in the form of VR. Nintendo churns out clones Mario and Pokemon. The same way Microsoft releases Forza/Halo/Gears.
 
On a more serious note. What do you expect? Bigger companies have to play in to Shareholders hands. The biggest innovation that Sony has pushed out in gaming comes in the form of VR. Nintendo churns out clones Mario and Pokemon. The same way Microsoft releases Forza/Halo/Gears.

Just some different genres lol.
 

rkofan87

Gold Member
Now imagine if gaming "journalists" didn't overscore/overhype some Sony exclusives?... If we deduct from Metacritic a few perfect scores some sites always seem to give to Sony exclusives, would Sony continue making sequels to their biggest games?
or low ball days gone for sjw bs.
 

Bryank75

Banned
Reviewers now...

sad joaquin phoenix GIF


Doubt it. That's the problem with game reviewers now, they are all cut from the same cloth.... have the same political ideas, dress the same, act the same, are around the same age and have the same general ideas.... very different to film and music critics.
 

xrnzaaas

Gold Member
Should of added a lesbian and a couple of trans characters. Game journalists would have gave it solid 10s.
Days Gone already has a female biker character who's a minority and a lesbian. How often that does that happen in real life? Most of the woke reviewers were pissed off with:
- white male biker being the playable character AND a good guy
- the biker wedding scene - even if they were completely ignorant about the game staying faithful to the biker culture
 
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Withnail

Member
So your opinion > the mean average of every game critic

First of all, Metacritic is not a straight mean, they weight the scores from the different outlets using a method which isn't public but which is unlikely to match the way one of us would weight them.

Second yes my own opinion is worth infinitely more to me than some reviewer for a junk website. Games reviewers are not more educated or knowledgeable than most of us posting on here and they haven't been for games reviewer training, most of them are just lifer nerds who got a nerd job. Why would I outsource my opinions to people like that?
 

Entroyp

Member
Hold on... was GoW considered woke or was it given a pass because a of some reason?
 
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Ellery

Member
Hold on... was GoW considered woke or was it given a pass because a of some reason?

We have to look deeper. There clearly has to be someone in our echochamber that found a link between GoW doing well and mind infesting wokeness taking place at ultra far left Sony and their Gaming Journalist friends !

If not then we can just ignore GoW as an example because it doesn't fit our narrative and we can have add snide remarks about TLOU2 and trans people in a Days Gone Metacritic thread !
 

Entroyp

Member
We have to look deeper. There clearly has to be someone in our echochamber that found a link between GoW doing well and mind infesting wokeness taking place at ultra far left Sony and their Gaming Journalist friends !

If not then we can just ignore GoW as an example because it doesn't fit our narrative and we can have add snide remarks about TLOU2 and trans people in a Days Gone Metacritic thread !

I must say this place is now starting to remember me of my last days at Era. Snowflakes everywhere.
 
The game sold really well, it was the 19th best selling game of 2019 in the US and the best selling Sony first party game of 2019. Cancelling a sequel to an IP that showed promise is so misguided. This is more Jim Ryan BS.
But they let the creator/writer go even before it had time to become successful. His fate in the company was decided before the game launched. He's not saying all there is to that story of why they fired him but he makes it very implicit it was all on him.
 

Rat Rage

Member
Even though some people dismiss this as "water is wet", I think there is more to it here. I mean, everyone wants to produce a high-rated game, but I think publishers, and maybe the gaming scene as well, are too focused on meta critic.

First off, gaming "journalism" - especially when it comes to AAA blockbusters - has been a rigged shitshow more often than not. Many times "Gaming Journalists" get early or exclusive access to some huge AAA game press event and then are almost forced to write a positive review. This happend many times, even if the game turned out to be ass or very flawed. This doesn't happend all the time, but definitely it happend many times.

I don't give a shit about Meta Critic. The perception of Meta Critic scores is fucked up, too. A 70 out of 100 game isn´t bad or shit, its score just says it's seemingly somewhat flawed but overall enjoyable. And at the end of the day, it depends on your personal preference and how severe different individuals perceive these flaws. A somewhat bad game starts at under 50 in my book, but even then it depends.

If people like the game and it sells resonably well, it's shouldn't be denied a sequel, even if it doesn't have a 90+ meta critic score. I mean, this is probably already true for certain AA games, but this also shows a fundamental problem of "AAA" gaming. They are to expensive, they need to sell too many copies to break even, and therefore are a risk financially. Even "AAA" gaming is a missleading term these days. Back in the day, Metroid for NES was a "AAA" game. It was just a game of very high quality, meaning of a very high "fun" factor. These days AAA just means, "most of the budget has been spend on very expensive to produce realistic looking graphics". This leads to games that look the same, feel the same and feel more of a walk in the zoo than a true adventure, because everything needs to be adjusted to what marketing experts say. Back in the day, publishers didn't know shit and everything depended on the creators and their visions and what they thought would make a good game.

Anyway, I could go on about this for much longer, but what I want to say is this: The overfocus on Meta Critic by higher ups and gamers alike through a flawed perception of what constitutes a good or "worthwile" game in addition to modern "AAA" gamings reliance on realistic-graphics-driven focus-tested walking simulators (I'd call them "Zoo-Experiences", as opposed true creator-driven adventures), is a huge risk, because these types of products could maneuvere themselves into a dead-end and become a victim of a vicious circle. That's why I believe "modern AAA game development" isn't sustainable.

Yet, the current higher ups at Sony have probably not realized this. This is maybe what John Garvins means when he says "Meta Critic is everything to Sony".
This could be why the next Kojima Game is in talks with Xbox now and not with Sony. They saw the 82 of Death Stranding and probably dropped Kojima, only because he actually was brave enought to try a completely new and radically different game type (even if you don't like it, it can't be denied Death Stranding isn't something unique). But sometimes even in AAA gaming you need to experiment a little and try something new, otherwise there will be the risk that you'll eventually end up in creative dead-end with no way out.
 
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sinnergy

Member
What is wrong with a 7, if you had those your whole school life , you are set !

What a shitty works this has became ..

The need for more 🤡
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
Sony are feeling like the marvel of videogames these days. Soulless formulaic drivel adored by the masses.

I groaned hard when I saw the new title sequence for PlayStation Studios. It’s a total copy of the Marvel one, and probably speaks volumes about how they regard Marvel’s strategy.

No one - literally no one - has done well trying to copy Marvel.
 

Dr Kaneda

Member
The game had around 3-4 years of development time and what sounds like 1-2 of pre-production. It also had 2 delays and was a development mess. It sold alright but not that well, less than 2 months after it released Sony had to put it as a $20 discount on their E3 2019 Days of Play sale. It's been released for free on two different services. It's obvious the game didn't do that well sales wise. Add to that the extremely average reviews.

It's pretty obvious why Sony isn't desperate to release a sequel straight away. It's a loser. And no matter how much the vocal minority on enthusiast forums cry it's not going to make a difference since they're a drop in the ocean, and the ironic thing is that a lot of these people probably didn't even buy Days Gone at full price anyway.
Sony are feeling like the marvel of videogames these days. Soulless formulaic drivel adored by the masses.

Days gone had some interesting mechanics but it still tried to follow that same boring forumla so I'm not overly sympathetic. It's not like it was a widely original game that was pushing the boat which got shut down.

I don't think the comparison is even remotely the same. Marvel release literally only ONE genre of film, superhero films. That's it. So an apt comparison would be if Sony only released one genre of games, like only FPS games or only RGPs or only open world games etc... But they don't.
 

SSfox

Member
This is surprising news?
Of course it is, back then Uncharted 1 wasn't considered as a milestone, as well as Killzone 1, and both those games didn't sold that much either, yet Sony allowed a secondo for those games because back then Jimbo and Hermen weren't the head of Sony, back then there were people passionate about videogames not just about money, and Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 are considered some of the most iconic and best games from Sony.
 
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Keihart

Member
It used to be the case, i don't think that it'll be the case with Ryan Hulst.
Rest in your scores Japan Studio :messenger_crying:
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Dr Kaneda

Member
That happens way too rarely to matter. And users usually only reciew bomb stuff like tLoU2 that was pandering to woke crowd and got high scores from reviewers because of it.
TLoU2 won the most fan voted GOTY awards of any game.

This is why users scores and user opinions are equally as worthless but everyone still has an agenda.
 
I don't think the comparison is even remotely the same. Marvel release literally only ONE genre of film, superhero films. That's it. So an apt comparison would be if Sony only released one genre of games, like only FPS games or only RGPs or only open world games etc... But they don't.

They are literally all third person action adventures? Some have open worlds, some don't. Some are more focused on the action, some aren't.

Am I missing some games?
 
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