As mentioned last time, we’re following up our interview with Eden Industry’s Ryan Vandendyck, creator of Citizens of Earth, to discuss a little bit about the game industry. Although I may not be internet famous, I’ve been doing freelance game journalism for several years now. However, despite the numerous bad demos, interviews with awesome developers who weren’t quite ready for serious questions, and rejecting some expensive meals (yes, some sites have policies that force me to turn down freebies), I don’t feel like I’m “industry.” I’m naturally critical, rarely afraid to ask difficult questions, and don’t get star struck easily. I often just feel like a video game fan.
Yes, I may get to see a lot that most readers don’t, but games aren’t my day job. I think I’m fortunate enough that I can still distance myself from the industry and take a good, hard look at it, and I don’t mean that in a bragging sense. I mean that I’m in an odd, middle position that might help me give readers some insight into what’s going on with developers, publishers, and general industry. Things that they may sometimes forget that you, the fan, don’t know. Curious? Join me after the break as I explore an inside look at the game industry interdependence, primarily focusing on how reviews and criticism are written and function within the community.
For this, I’m going to rely heavily on my interview with Ryan Vandendyck about Citizens of Earth, as well as the game itself. Though Ryan’s a nice guy, we’re not close friends or anything. He’s just another developer I have access to. However, what began as normal interview slowly turned into a talk of passion and development. Of personal beliefs and industry standards that different parties in the industry sometimes forget about. As you can read, this wasn’t a bunch of PR double speak; Ryan gave very real responses, which allowed me to ask some questions I normally know I won’t get an answer to. It’s also an accessible game with a fairly open development process, so I feel it’s a good example to use for exploring this topic.
The Review Basics
Let’s first talk just briefly about game reviews in general. For those who don’t know, many reviewers actually don’t finish the games they play, though GamerHeadlines’ review guide explicitly encourages it. Reviewers often just play until they’re comfortable writing a review, or maybe completed a required amount of hours of play, often outlined by the site’s reviews guide.
Press don’t receive any special journalist copies of the game (at least, not that I’ve heard of or received), just an early retail copy, and that’s only if we’re lucky and don’t have to purchase it ourselves. That early copy usually is only a week or two before release, and it depends on the power of your site/contacts. Bringing in tons of hits? Maybe you get the game three weeks in advanced and an embargo date earlier than other sites. Small site? You might get it a week ahead of time with an embargo date that ends the day before release. Or a same-day review copy of the game instead. If you’re lucky.
Since the pay for many reviewers is often low and forces many of us also work a day job (as well possibly other freelance gigs since gaming sites go down all the time), only the top sites can really afford reviewers who can make use of very early access copies that allow them to finish the game.
All this is why many of you are probably suspicious of the review process, and rightfully so. Any outlet that isn’t being upfront with their experience is trying to hide something, and most reviews published before the game is released are often similar to extended previews, especially for online games that haven’t yet experienced true stress testing. Even before I got my chance to write reviews, I often waited for fans to start reviewing a game before buying games I was on the fence about. Aside from a few writers (mostly for MMO sites), there were few game journalists I trusted, which lead me to blogging and eventually to becoming a freelancer.
The Value of Reviews and Critiques
That being said, if reviews and critiques were worthless and journalists couldn’t be trusted, PR teams wouldn’t be doing their best to ensure that popular, trusted sites receive review copies. Readers are critical of our work and trust us to be knowledgeable about the game. Publishers react to this, but game creators read them too. If a reviewer or critic is worth a damn, they represent the voice of your average gamer, if not an actual gaming expert. However, if press give a bad review (not necessarily a poor one, but one the company dislikes), PR, publishers, or even the developers can refuse to work with press, meaning that small pay check we get now has to pay for the game(s) we want to review.
Press have to at least strike a balance between gaining fans’ trust while also entertaining them and keeping other industry people happy enough to work with us. Some press also honestly try to be critics so we can help further gaming as an a medium and/or write something that can be appreciated by non-gamers, not just as a review, but a piece of writing. We want other people to understand why we love games and why a particular game has value, not just based on money but in terms of entertainment or even emotional/artistic value. We’re not just playing murder simulators!
There is low demand for this job but plenty of people clamoring to it. This isn’t to say you should pity the press, just be aware of the situation so you can read between the lines and think for yourselves. Those of who are employed and do get to work for reputable sites, have very much earned their positions in my experience, whether it’s technical and marketing skills or being able to write something witty. We’re quite easy to replace if we’re truly no good at our job!
When Reviews Attack
With all this in mind, I had to ask Mr. Vandendyck about his thoughts and feelings about Citizen’s of Earth‘s initial reviews. He was quite honest with his reaction:
“Well, the day before release, I went to bed seeing reviews like, “Sets a new standard for RPGs” and “a legend in the making”. I woke up to 6/10 from Destructoid. Those two extremes pretty much encapsulate my experience with reviews. Even Atlus said it was the most polarizing game they’ve ever released. Personally, I’d say I’m quite disappointed in the reviews. We put so much into the game, but some reviewers only complained about what else we could’ve done. For example, “It’s great there’s a map, why can’t I zoom in?” or “It’s great I can drive around, why can’t I….” on and on. Despite the fact that very few games have all the features we have (no random encounters, drivable vehicles, a pretty robust quest/map system, etc.) we were judged to an impossible standard. How many indie RPGs have the features we do? Yet, I feel like many reviewers only saw what we didn’t have, not what we did have that no one else does. So that was disappointing. And the realization of how people responded to the inclusion of so many unique features will surely affect what we put into future games, especially considering the time and money it took to make them.”
I have to admit that as a fan, I felt the same way, but notice how Ryan didn’t mention the game’s bugs. Truth be told, the game has had a lot of bugs causing random crashes, and while most reviewers (who rarely mentioned it) played the Steam version of the game, which got many quick updates, only the start of the game was (mostly) clear of bugs. Once most of the game world opened up, the bugs were once again rearing their ugly heads, which was the same situation I experienced while I was an alpha tester for the game.
But Ryan didn’t leave this out to save his own butt. He left out complaints about the bugs because, well, very few early reviewers made mention of just how much they were breaking the game. In some ways, this is good. It means people were (hopefully) at least playing the game with little interruption and judging it based on their experience. The problem, however, is that it seems like this is based on a very early portion of the game and only on one out of five platforms: Steam.
As noted in my interview, the game went through 8 external QA teams and was passed, so the blame for this is hard to place on Eden Industries alone. Something in the QA process failed us as consumers, but many reviewers failed us as consumers and fans by not being clear about the platform they played the game on, and compounded this by leaving out their progress/hours logged.
However, for many people, the early levels are what matter most. If you don’t hook the player within the first few minutes of gameplay, you may lose them. Reviewers may have read about some features in CoE, such as the vehicles, but you don’t get access to them until after the second chapter, and they are optional. While reviewers do get hints about what we should look for/at in a game, as a fellow game journalist, I can tell who only read the PR guy’s tips and who actually played. Especially among early reviewers, I get a feeling few really played CoE.
With this in mind, our next article will apply these rules and observations of the media’s interdependence specifically to the reviews of Citizens of Earth to see why, from a ratings perspective, the game so “polarizing.”
Original Author: Laguna Levine