It's a sad day when 81% isn't considered a good review score. Red Steel 2 has been getting some damn impressive reviews, not least in spite of how dire the original game was, but Ubisoft Paris isn't satisfied. Despite getting great review scores over the 8/10 range, the game's developer is slightly pleased, but is far from thrilled, with a score range is will only call "acceptable."
"Let’s start here: if you clicked that Metacritic link back there, you know that (as of this writing) our average rating is hanging out at a solid 81%," says Jason Vandenberghe. "Anyone in the industry will tell you: that doesn’t suck, but it ain’t the bestest ever. It’s the kind of number you need to be in the running for serious sales, and given the nature of the market we are releasing into, etc, blah blah blah, it’s pretty darn acceptable, but of course you always hope for more.
"It’s what Metacritic calls “generally favorable reviews”, but it’s closer to “mixed” than we’d prefer."
Really, Ubisoft? I mean, really? This, right here, encapsulates the problems with this industry and reviews in general, where nobody is satisfied unless they're being rewarded with 10/10 for everything. We've gotten to a very worrying point where game fanboys and publishers alike will be satisfied by nothing less than perfect scores. It's a damaging, spoiled attitude to have and it's not something that should be encouraged.
There are ten points in most review scoring systems and barely any of them get used enough. At least Red Steel 2 didn't get a 4.5.
Red Steel 2 Is Out, And Some People Seem To Like It [Unfettered Skree via GoNintendo]
Contest:
7:00 AM on 03.29.2010 | 
I bet if the game was selling better, they wouldn't care about the reviews at all. What's Wii Play's metacritic average? A 5.6 or something?
Indeed. I don't know why people think reviews are *that* big of a deal when it comes to sales. Sure, they inform a certain demographic, but the idiots will buy anything with a cute rabbit on the front.
Hell, I can't people ANYBODY still puts faith on Metacritic for any reason except to be a troll.
If you are part of a review system that gives scores though, you have to expect crap like this to result from it. People put the score above everything else and then you are left with nothing but numerical comparison to other reviews, your own and others', and a viewpoint from a school-grade perspective of anything below 90% being something your mother isn't getting excited over.
Not that I want to have the review score debate again, I know it is something you cannot change without throwing a ton of site interest out the window.
Even in the blog he admitted it might be his own ego skewing the prose to looking a lot more enthusiastic than the scores seem to indicate, so I think even he knows he could be barking up the wrong tree, but wanted to put his views out that scoring is a thorny issue, especially when there are sales and bonuses at stake.
I think your fight is noble, Jim, but you picked it with the wrong guy.
I disagree. He might be acting less of a cock about it than some developers, but it seems rather passive aggressive to be all "these people said our game was great, why did we only get eights?" Reading the full blog, he makes no real point, other than to say "Yeah, the reviews were decent, but I'm not that happy."
With numbers like these people are much more willing to take a chance on something that might not the quintessential example of the medium. But when the purchase in question costs $50-70 and will take somewhere around 7-100 hours to complete people are going to be much more careful.
As you have proven Jim gamers only look at review scores and yell/complain about which score is higher or not high enough much like a penis
In conclusion Review scores are penises
I mean, Final Fantasy 13 got a whole lote more flak concerning issues in the game, but that game's got a metascore of 83. Heavy Rain, 87. Sonic & Sega Allstar Racing, 78.
I guess he feels too lightly rewarded for trying something completely different and unique (controls, setting) while being heavily punished for the faults the game does have.
All IMO offcourse.
If that was true, i would love to see top quality from everyone instead of doing generic products.
I don't think this is a concern. In fact, I think it's a good thing.
Also, 81% is a good score. I'm think I'm going to get it for my girlfriend's Wii. At least someone will use the damn thing...
10 = Amazing
From reading Jim's reveiw, I'd say 8 is the right score.
I would love to say that review scores dont matter, but if something has an average score of, say, 7, and I am on the fence about buying it, I probably wont. 8 looks worse than a 9 by proximity, and I'd rather spend my money on a 9 than an 8 (or 7) because I know I'm statistically more likely to walk away with a sound investment.
Blame it on the economy, or a stiff competition, but not all of us can afford to play all the games we'd like to.
There's a world of difference between him being disappointed with the scores, and actually thinking it should be scored higher. Once is acceptance, the other is arrogance. Can you really tell which scenario this is? The general tend-towards-negativity of many a forum online will indicate that it's more likely the latter, but then that's what cynics do. And it's those folks he's afraid might hinder purchases.
Personally, I think an 8 is a quality game.
having said that, i think they just want to push themselves as developers....as a creator i always think my stuff could be better, even if most of the people that heard/saw it say its good
now if theyre upset at meta-critic for the score, then they really need to push their games hardcore...i cant think of a ubisoft game that i would give a perfect 10.
Without wanting to speak for the guy, he seems mostly positive at the response, and if anything, I'd say he's contemplating why they didn't get higher scores, rather than complaining. "That is an amazing feeling." - Closing line of the blog. Seems pretty happy to me.
I'd also argue that a developer hoping for tens is not damaging; they're allowed that liberty since they're directly responsible for it. Personally, I don't give a rat's rosy ass about review scores, which is why I never talk about them. But even so, a developer that cares about public response is more valuable than one who couldn't care less.
I totally understand, and while I usually know which games I want regardless of scores, since I consider myself to be pretty up to snuff on vidyagames, I'll almost always pick an 8 over a 7 if I am equally on the fence between two games. I don't think that can be helped.
Which is not to say that a score is by any means an indication of actual quality.
And why not? Strive to be the best you can be. You're having a go at them because they say they want to improve, which is ridiculous.
Try harder, Jim. Unless of course you're happy to settle with such mediocrity.
It's an appealing thought that wisdom should be given to the prose rather than the numeric appraisal, but one that doesn't connect with publishers' beliefs about current consumer trends.
The view of some publishers is that most gamers don't have the time or inclination to paw over review literature and would rather just find out what games are out at the moment that are getting the top scores.
The runaway success stories of metacritic and gamerankings, and the publishers' placement of these metascores in such high regard that they're willing to act like total prats to make their score look good , are testament to publishers' beliefs that views such as sandorasbox's hold true.
That said, recent analysis by the Cowen Group shows that score is one of the least important factors in games purchase. More important is the genre and whether or not consumers enjoyed a previous iteration in the series, so perhaps Ubisoft should have been more concerned about the sense in putting "Red Steel" in the title.
these devs and publishers know if a game will be getting 10's and 8.5's well before the fact. but this is ubisoft we're talking about, the company that blames god of war for making prince of persia shitty.
No they blamed GoW for taking their audience and said they needed to work harder to win them over.
CALkulon, you're reading too little into this, that's impressive. [10/10]
Why do you think Destructoid would trade integrity for extra pageviews? I wouldn't want any part in such a community, so if you honestly believe that, why hang around?
You dish out spite like a drunk heckler at a comedy club, then you make comments like: "Destructoid guys seem incapable of delivering any sort of news without some jab or some unnecessary personal commentary. I guess that is the nature of the internet now."
Physician, heal thyself.
I can see why from the developer's 81% isn't what they hoped for since apparently companies and games live and die by that number once the game comes out. However, 81%.....not bad at all and I think it shows an overall improvement on the original product. Guess that's not enough anymore which is lame.
Goes to the maturity of the people at Ubisoft.