Madden 08 reviews

[sinha]

Bodhesatva said:

 

I chose to highlight this section because I think it is the key to the divergence here. You say that people choose to go with the PC versions, which is vastly different than saying all PC versions should be given higher ratings by reviewers. I agree, as a consumer, choosing the PC version because it is graphically superior is reasonable: rating all PC games with higher review scores because they are consistently superior in the graphical department (This divide will become increasingly noticeable within a year or two, of course) is another issue entirely and is not appropriate.

The best analogy I can think of would be restaraunt criticism. There was a time when food critics did indeed review restaraunts purely on the exquisite nature of their cooking; this meant, by definition, that a burger joint could never possibly compete with a "fancy" restaraunt, even if the "fancy" restaraunt was thoroughly mediocre and the burger joint served the best burgers in the world. This obviously was inappropriate, as people do not go to burger joints expecting exquisite food; furthermore, the logical conclusion of such reviews would be that a person should eat at "fancy" restaraunts at all times, which is not reflective of public desire. In the last 40 years, criticism has changed to reflect this, and now a great burger joint can reasonably compete with more refined establishments.

Now, if a person wants more exquisite meals, and chooses to go to the finer restaraunt because it offers the food they want, then that is perfectly reasonable. They can choose to do so -- but these consumer preferences shouldn't affect review scores. Similarly, if someone cares deeply about graphics, then it is entirely reasonable to forsake all consoles for nothing but a 5000+ dollar computer that you constantly spend money upgrading. That's totally fine, if a consumer so wishes -- it just shouldn't affect review scores.

Your suggestion that people will be confused by the graphical scoring of the Wii/PS3 is very much like suggesting that someone won't understand a food critic scoring a burger joint a 9 and a 100-dollar-meal joint an 8; obviously, these are reviewed with different expectations and tastes.

 

[The PC / console thing: if there is a noticeable difference in the graphics in a year or two between the same game on a PC and on a console, I think the consumer is best served if game reviewers point out that difference. That way the consumer has the best information available to make an educated buying decision between nearly identical products that are directly competing against each other. I'm not sure why I'd think otherwise just because I may own a 360 and those games will eventually look much better on the PC, my only desire is to see objective analysis by reviewers that provides accurate information for consumers.]

Your food analogy: The fancy restaurant and the burger joint are not competing against each other. The fancy restaurant is competing against other fancy restaurants and the burger joint is competing against other burger joints. There are three game consoles, Madden is being released on all three of them. Madden is like the food in that analogy. It's an almost identical food product being served for a very similar price at three similar restaurants at the exact same time.

The point I have made three times now is that the Wii, 360 and PS3 versions of Madden are competing with each other. Madden players will look to move to the next generation of consoles, see all three reviews, and may buy the Wii over the PS3 and 360 based on these IGN reviews. They may choose the Wii over the PS3 based on the higher review score and the Wii over the 360 because the scores are similar and the Wii hardware is less expensive.

Competition and the Vgchartz front page: Wii, 360 and PS3 hardware sales are all listed together, and the DS and PSP are listed together. Do you think those are just random groupings or is it because those products are in competition with each other?

The graphical scoring between the Wii and PS3 is nothing like choosing a meal. We all eat thee times a day, and most people eat out frequently. Even if an almost identical burger at three burger joints gets rated on different scales for some bizarre reason ("burger X is great compared to the typical McDonalds burger but lousy compared to the typical Burger King burger"), consumers can try it, decide for themselves, and eat somewhere else the next time they want a burger if they disagree with the reviews. If some casual Madden gamer who otherwise doesn't pay attention to video games is only going to buy one console per generation to play Madden, they may hop on to some big gaming site (IGN) and choose one console over another based on the Madden reviews, and that's the only restaurant they can buy their favorite burger at for the next six years!