[GD-Design] Re: Gamedevlists-design digest, Vol 1 #38 - 10 msgs

[<ham...@tm...>]

on Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 12:14:20PM -0800, gam...@li... wrote:
> Message: 8
> From: "Ivan-Assen Ivanov" <as...@ha...>
> 
> > A better example might be the aforementioned Combat Mission or CA's 
> > Medieval: Total War.  The Total War stuff has sold very, very well, 
> > and I think it's partly because it wasn't the same resource 
> > management RTS that everyone else has written a million times.
> 
> There is a fine line between making your game too similar in apparent
> gameplay
> to one of the classics, and making it too different so that no reviewer
> gets it in the 30 or so minutes he is able to devote.
> As our lead designer put it after the first few reviews, "No more
> *different*
> games from me".
> We've seen wildly varying reviews - people who "got it" and played the
> game
> we play, and people who didnt "get it" and play a vastly different,
> shallow and bland game. (Of course, the blame for this sits squarely on
> us, not them.) For that matter, we've seen reviews which say
> "great multiplayer/skirmish mode, but the single-player is a totally
> lame, boring attempt at an RPG" AND reviews which say
> "great single-player missions, but the multiplayer/skirmish mode
> is a totally lame standard RTS". We got good scores both from
> people who obviously had played the game for 5 minutes (probably
> due to good marketing on part of our publishers), and from people who
> understood it; however, most of the bad scores we got were from
> reviewers who judged the game completely superficially
> (what, 2D graphics? only two races? shallow tech tree? must be bad).
> 
> Maybe in the long term, it's gameplay that matters. But for good
> reviews in the initial period, you need not only glitzy technology,
> but also very accessible gameplay. No one cares if two of your advanced
> units form a very interesting symbiotic combination in the endspiel,
> or if there's a great scripted sequence after the incredibly difficult
> mission 8. The game must be obviously good, not just good.
>

Can you recall which reviewers gave the lazy reviews? Personally, if/when
the situation arises, I'd like to do my best to keep review copies out of
the hands of useless reviewers. I understand that you typically feel you
can't afford to reduce the amount of exposure you get, but if these people
aren't doing their job properly (perhaps includes people who don't even know
how to do their job properly?) and they're doing more harm than good, then
it's time to cut them out, surely? I'd have nothing against an honest, but
negative review (depressing, but...) - but a review that shows someone has
just been a lazy **** is another thing entirely...