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

KyoZz

Tag, you're it.
Days Gone is currently at 71% on Metacritics and that doesn't seem to be enough for Sony

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The news that a pitch for Days Gone 2 had been rejected by Sony prompted David Jaffe, the game designer known for creating God of War and Twisted Metal, to host video interviews with Days Gone directors on his YouTube channel.
Last week he had Jeff Ross, while yesterday it was John Garvin's turn (who, by the way, was also the game's writer).

Garvin revealed to have left Sony Bend merely days after the game's release in April 2019. When Jaffe asked him how he took the first wave of Days Gone reviews, Garvin replied:
"I took it hard, to be honest, because, again...This is just the reality of Sony, Metacritic score is everything.
If you're the creative director on a franchise and your game is coming out to a 70, you're not going to be the creative director on that franchise for very long"

Indeed, Sony has had a string of critically acclaimed game releases with the likes of Uncharted, The Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Marvel's Spider-Man, Dreams, and most recently Ghost of Tsushima.

On the other hand, there's evidence Sony might actually be looking for both outstanding critical acclaim and commercial success nowadays.
For example, Japan Studio's Gravity Rush 2 had an average Metacritic score of 80 but didn't really sell well and that was the last game ever made by Team Gravity.
Japan Studio as a whole was essentially shut down and will now focus on supporting Asobi Team, the makers of Astro Bot Rescue Mission and Astro's Playroom, as confirmed by Sony earlier this month.

Days Gone may not have had high critical acclaim, but it did sell pretty well and managed to find a dedicated fanbase.
That's demonstrated by the Change.org petition asking Sony to greenlight a sequel; it already got over 32.6K signatures and even Jeff Ross himself asked his Twitter followers to participate while tagging SIE Worldwide Studio head Hermen Hulst.

Days Gone is about to launch on PC in a month from now. Perhaps a successful launch on this platform could persuade Sony to eventually develop another installment, thus satisfying everyone eager for a follow-up on that story cliffhanger.

 
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I'm sure everybody wants to get a ho-hum metacritic rating for something they spend millions on /rollseyes

I mean, come on, even I hope for the best when the ratings for my TV shows come on my desk, or the reception of my commercials and its effect on sales for the brand is brought forth to me.

Wanting a good reception to something you put up is literally business 101.
 
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Humdinger

Member
I don't think Metacritic average is "everything" to Sony. I think Garvin exaggerated a bit there. I'm sure there are multiple factors why Sony would fund a sequel or not.

However, I'm disappointed to hear that Metacritic average is one of them. Game critics have lost a lot of credibility in my eyes. It's disheartening to hear that Sony is giving them power.
 

rapid32.5

Member
71 on metacritic is real news to me, enjoyed the game despite the score but tech performance -10 points in my book. 78/100 overall on PS4 and 88/100 on PS5.
 
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LectureMaster

Gold Member
Those fucking woke media reviews are just fucking biased dilettante those days, days gone is at least on par with recent assassin's creed games and deserve 80+ score. Just because the protagonist is a while straight male and his wife pokes sassy jokes, they gave it a 7 out of 10 for political correctness. Yet it was from those same fuckers a polarized game like TLOU 2 received universal 10/10s.

I'd rather watch some youtuber reviews than check the metacritics.
 
Those fucking woke media reviews are just fucking biased dilettante those days, days gone is at least on par with recent assassin's creed games and deserve 80+ score. Just because the protagonist is a while straight male and his wife pokes sassy jokes, they gave it a 7 out of 10 for political correctness. Yet it was from those same fuckers a polarized game like TLOU 2 received universal 10/10s.

I'd rather watch some youtuber reviews than check the metacritics.
It really just comes down to Sony California doesn’t it. Sigh..
 
I may be wrong but I think good/great scores correlate to good/great sales. When it comes to normal size to big games that have a relatively decent marketing budget, anyway, I'd say, since many low budget games can get lost amidst all the noise even if they score very well. Go to metacritic, for instance PS4 titles https://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/ps4/filtered?sort=desc and pick any game scored 80 or higher, and I think you'll find almost all of those games made their money back and then some.
 
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kingpotato

Ask me about my Stream Deck
Out of all their first party games lately, how many got sequels which didn't get great marks?

Although somehow Knack got a sequel.
Budget has to factor into the equation. Days gone is supposed to be triple a title and franchise starter. Knack was only made so the ps4 would have a mascot title at launch.
 
Mat Piscatella of NPD said that Metacritic averages don't impact sales until they break the 90% mark. Below that, they don't matter a whole lot, in terms of sales.
Hmm I don't know why that'd be the case. I mean, we can look at them by ourselves and find out. Let's see...Valkyria Chronicles 4 ... you can't get any more borderline "normal size" as well as "niche" than that. From Wikipedia: In June 2020, it is revealed by Sega that over one million copies of Valkyria Chronicles 4 have been sold worldwide on all platforms.[24] That sounds alright for a Double-A niche game, metascore 84 (PS4)

Also remember, Piscatella works for NPD, and that won't tell him the whole story. I know outside the US and Americas a Metacritic score is not as relevant, but the point remains, good score = good sales. If a game scores well on Metacritic (many of the sites they compile scores from are from all over the world), it follows it would have good sales as well.
 
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Zeroing

Banned
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?
lol and give bonus points to Xbox? Or a star for when MS tries to make games?

I prefer a star...
 
every publisher would love to have the highest possible ratings but saying its everything is an over exaggeration. sony have plently of big games that aint at 90+ like ghost of tsushima, horizon and spider-man. no publisher would be happy about an average in the 60's or low 70's.
 
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Hugare

Member
Sony not being pleased by their 5+ years of investment and hundreds of millions of dolars not being critically acclaimed should be a surprise?

Especially in a generation full of amazing Sony exclusives

With big investments comes big expectations. And they underdelivered when compared to most Sony first party titles.
Sad, most game journos have trash opinions.
You could probably count in one hand how many game journos has trashed the game for being "white supremacist" or whatever

Just like Cyberpunk transphobia thing was mentioned by maybe 3 reviewers

Game got a 70 MC because thats what it is

I'm white, I dont give a damn about forced representation in games and I would also have given it a 7 if I was reviewing it.
 
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Mabdia

Member
For now they're are lucky that the games they have done pleased the "journalists" that hates games or need a Journalist difficult.


To me the best games that Sony released on PS4 gen, one was hated by media (Days Gone), the other has a good metascore, but to me it is bellow of what it deserves (Ghost of Tsushima). And there is a lot of good games, like Gravity Rush 2, Knack (Yes, i liked it, it looks like 90's 3D plataformers), The Order (loved the game, gameplay isn't that good, but the world created was awesome) and a few more.

Days Gone is currently at 71% on Metacritics and that doesn't seem to be enough for Sony

The saddest part is that there is no way of that game be a 71% game. At leas 90%. Amazing game.
 
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Perrott

Gold Member
I mean from "it matter" to "it's everything" ? Yeah it's surprising imo
How the game perform in the long term, how it is received by the players and even how the game can evolve and improve with a sequel. All those thing matter (again this is all my opinion)
The quote is kind of taken out of context tho.

Yes, both Jaffe and Garvin were discussing how Days Gone's mixed critical reception might have influenced Sony's perception of the IP, but Garvin didn't mean his statement as a 100% fact about how Sony operates in this regard - because, again, he couldn't know as he stated that he has no insight into the business-side of things, and into Jim Ryan/Hermen Hulst's management as he left Sony before those two really started to take the reigns of the PlayStation empire if you want to put it that way.

I think it is pretty pathetic how all these shitty clickbait sites are taking quotes by Jeff Ross, David Jaffe, John Garvin and Jason Schreier entirely out of context from their recent saga of podcasts about this whole TLOU remake/Days Gone 2 drama.
 
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D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
I didn't buy the game until like half a year after launch when most of the problems were fixed, but there's no way it deserves a 71 in its current state. Reviewers don't go back to update their reviews, though.
 
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