| Burek said: Actually, that is the entire argument in this thread. People wanting reviewers to praise content to be added later. Like going to the restaurant, paying for a full meal, getting a soup and being asked to come for the steak next week. But the steak will be free of charge then. And please, give our steak a great review because trust us, it will be good and free. Same thing here, only some people don't understand that the missing content will not be free. You have already paid $60, only you will get half a game now, and half a game in rations over the next few months. This game is a Nintendo-style Season Pass. So same as, for instance, Telltale games, Life is Strange or RE Revelations 2: Pay full price upfront, get a slice of the game, and the rest is free later. (Or simply wait until the game is complete and buy it then). But I don't see reviewers scoring Life is Strange episode 5 right now, when only 3 episodes are out. Because, you know, current performance is in no way an indicator of future quality. |
Like Rol said, your comparisons are extremely flawed.
First of all, your restaurant example should be ammended to be closer to a multicourse meal (because a game lasts weeks where a meal lasts an hour tops). You first get your appetizer, then your main course, then your dessert (or after meal course). If the restaurant brought out all the food simultaneously, it would make the eating experience worse for the customer and the restaurant would get a lot of complaints. The experience would be less cohesive as a whole. This is the same philosophy Splatoon is operating under. Giving players the full amount of content over a larger span of time helps to focus the experience as well as guide the player through things such as starting with the easier, more accessible Turf War (and more straightforward maps) and moving to the more complex game modes and more complex modes after they get used to the game.
As for your episodic games comparison, there are two reasons why it is flawed:
1. Episodic Games are largely single player: In my eyes, the primary flaw of episodic games is that they, by nature, break the pacing. They don't give you enough time to get fully invested in the game or the break off the game and force you to wait to finish it. This presents problems with mastering gameplay and actually remembering the story. They accomodate for this by typically being light on demanding gameplay and offering a story that at least to some extent, has arcs which can be wrapped up at the end of each episode (think of the difference between typical TV episodes vs. Pausing a movie every 30 minutes).
Multiplayer games such as Splatoon are inherently different than single player games because content is designed to be replayed. Because of this, the content being released in bunches has inherent longevity past the first playthrough. This is the same with most multiplayer games. The unique experience comes from the people you play with as well as your personal improvements. Because of this, the pacing issues are virtually non-existant if the content is released at ideal intervals (see the restaurant example above for an example of how this could actually improve pacing).
2. The idea is not to score the future content, but instead to not penalize the current content: Imagine a review of Life is Strange episode 1, which has statements saying that the game is too short and there are too many loose ends and the story isn't wrapped up nicely. That would be pretty ridiculous because it is only episode 1. Its the same way with Splatoon. I don't believe anyone is asking for reviewers to increase a score due to future content being there, just to not subtract points due to "lack of content".
