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Forums - Gaming - A rant. Greedy lootboxes, and a better way to do user reviews.

Cerebralbore101 on 10 October 2017
RolStoppable said:
Cerebralbore101 said:

"I want the recomendations of my peers, people that have played at least five good games a year for every year they were alive past five years old. People that actively seek out good games, in the same way that a foodie actively seeks out good food. People that aren't limited to a single platform, or a few genres for their experiences."

I don't think the average user on a storefront has these qualifications though, and I think their judgement does differ greatly from somebody with these qualifications. 

Inexperienced users wouldn't need to all think the same way to affect the outcome of the score. If the average score for a game by a user without these qualifications is 6/10, and the average score for a game by a user with these qualifications is 8/10 then we have a problem. Keep in mind that you wouldn't need every inexperienced user to rate at exactly 6/10 in order to get an average of 6/10 by them. Some of them could rate it at 9/10, and some at 2/10, and some at 4/10. If the average review amoung them is 6/10 then the score still gets effected in the end. The same thing goes for the qualified users. 

What I'm trying to say here is that I only care about the opinions of the top 10% of gamers. People like you and me. People that have a passion for the medium that goes beyond just casually playing whatever seems popular. People that actively go out of their way to play old classics, so that they can have a better perspective on the industry as a whole. 

I know that sounds really elitist though. 

It sounds elitist because it is elitist.

You could browse through the 3DS eShop to see how ratings work in practice. Randomly pick games that you really like and see if you find any that are below 4 stars; or pick lame games and see how they have scored; or pick games you are unsure about. How big and varied your sample is going to be will depend on how much time you are willing to invest, but if you write down the games and their average ratings, it should be the rule that the ratings are in the correct area. Exceptions to the rule tend to have a low number of ratings which explains why the average is skewed.

I was originally going to find five games that I liked and five games that I didn't like and see if the user reviews matched up with what I thought of the game. But I rarely play a game I don't like, because I almost never pick up a game unless it has good review scores. Then I thought of checking user reviews of games that I know aren't very good like Sticker Star, Federation Force, etc. But I only know those games are bad based on youtube channels like Arlo, and based on professional review articles. And that isn't giving those games a fair shake at all. It's also circular logic...

"How do I know user reviews aren't trustworthy? Because they say that bad games are good! How do I know those are bad games? Because metacritic/youtube says so! Therefore metacritic is more trustworthy than user reviews!" - Circular and unfair logic in favor of my own ideas. 

So instead of doing that, I'm going to find five games that got a mediocre reception from professional reviews (below 78 on metacritic/opencritic), but have glowing (4/5 stars, 80% reccommended or above) eShop/PSN/Steam reviews. Then I'm going to play those games for at least twenty hours each, and rate them based on how much I like them. I'll post my findings by the end of the year, and I'll find five more games every year after that just to add to the sample size. Also, I'll find games that I've always wanted to play, but have avoided due to the metacritic/opencritic score. That way I can counter any pre-concieved bias that metacritic has given me, with my own eagerness for the game being good. 



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VGPolyglot on 10 October 2017
Cerebralbore101 said:
VGPolyglot said:

You know what, you really do criticize pirates a lot, but this is the exact same logic that they use. Hopefully you can become a bit more sympathetic to those who are too poor to afford to buy their games, but still want to enjoy the great medium that is video games.

Well, the developer already got paid for the game when it was originally bought. Used car, and book sales don't get criticized, but used game sales deserve it? 

No, they don't, but I'm saying that they get as much money from a used copy as they do from a pirated copy, it's not creating an extra sold copy. I'm saying that you should be able to understand why people pirate.



COKTOE on 10 October 2017

Loot boxes are terrible. I won't support any game that has them. Speaking of which: In the console realm, is this just a third party and Microsoft thing so far? I see MS has already employed this crap in Halo 5, Gears Of War 4, and now Forza 7. I can't find any games from Nintendo or Sony that have had a loot box systems.



- "If you have the heart of a true winner, you can always get more pissed off than some other asshole."

Cerebralbore101 on 10 October 2017
VGPolyglot said:
Cerebralbore101 said:

Well, the developer already got paid for the game when it was originally bought. Used car, and book sales don't get criticized, but used game sales deserve it? 

No, they don't, but I'm saying that they get as much money from a used copy as they do from a pirated copy, it's not creating an extra sold copy. I'm saying that you should be able to understand why people pirate.

But Poly, that's not true, because a used copy was once a brand new copy. But you mean that they get as much money from a used sale as they do from somebody torrenting the game. I'm just gonna leave this here... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfZv_lPwBFI

They explain why and when people should be allowed pirate in the video. 



Cerebralbore101 on 10 October 2017

RolStoppable said:

If you think this method will most likely lead to beneficial results, then go for it. I'd expect that you take advantage of temporary discounts or go for older games that are already cheaper on a permanent basis, so this experiment shouldn't cost too much money.

Generally though, it is indeed a good idea to opt for games with low Metacritic scores that you already have an interest in, because that way there's a realistic chance that you find something that you like.

So here's what I've got so far... 

Rune Factory 4 Metacritic Score 78/100. Eshop score 5 stars with 7764 reviews. 

Yo-Kai Watch 2 Bony Spirits Metacritic score 72/100 eShop score 5 stars with 1640 reviews.

Ever Oasis Metacritic Score 76/100 eShop Score 5 stars with 655 reviews.

Tales of the Abyss Metacritic Score 75/100 eShop Score 4.5 stars with 11116 reviews. 

Fantasy Life Metacritic Score 72/100 eShop Score 5 stars with 10512 reviews.

Oh and just for reference Super Mario Bros. 3 has a score of 4.5 with over 1k reviews too. 

Let me know if you think any of these shouldn't qualify for the test for whatever reasons. I'll play them all for at least 20 hours (only if I hate them), or longer (Will finish them if they aren't terrible.) It shouldn't be too much of a hinderance on my pocketbook, because I want to pick up some SMT I & II repros from a local used game shop, and anything I buy can be traded in towards that at a later time. 



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Cerebralbore101 on 10 October 2017
vivster said:
Cerebralbore101 said:

It fueled a lot of it. 

So you watch Jim and still don't know what the correct term for such games is?

It's "Fee to pay".

Ha! That's right. Either that or "Fee to play". 



Cerebralbore101 on 10 October 2017
RolStoppable said:
Cerebralbore101 said:

So here's what I've got so far... 

Rune Factory 4 Metacritic Score 78/100. Eshop score 5 stars with 7764 reviews. 

Yo-Kai Watch 2 Bony Spirits Metacritic score 72/100 eShop score 5 stars with 1640 reviews.

Ever Oasis Metacritic Score 76/100 eShop Score 5 stars with 655 reviews.

Tales of the Abyss Metacritic Score 75/100 eShop Score 4.5 stars with 11116 reviews. 

Fantasy Life Metacritic Score 72/100 eShop Score 5 stars with 10512 reviews.

Oh and just for reference Super Mario Bros. 3 has a score of 4.5 with over 1k reviews too. 

Let me know if you think any of these shouldn't qualify for the test for whatever reasons. I'll play them all for at least 20 hours (only if I hate them), or longer (Will finish them if they aren't terrible.) It shouldn't be too much of a hinderance on my pocketbook, because I want to pick up some SMT I & II repros from a local used game shop, and anything I buy can be traded in towards that at a later time. 

Okay, let me get this straight. The above games qualify as bad titles with good user scores on the 3DS eShop. Is that correct?

And you didn't buy any of them before because of low metascores. Is that correct?

I wouldn't say bad titles. Just mediocre. Middle of the road. Decent. They aren't shovelware by any strech. Or to put it another way, they are titles that I'm not too sure about. I already own Ever Oasis because I wanted to take a chance on it. I used to own Fantasy Life, but traded it in before I ever really got a chance to play it. I was already familair with Level 5, and Grezzo from their previous work so that made me cautiously ignore the metascores for their games. The other three I've never bought. 



Cerebralbore101 on 11 October 2017
John2290 said:
Yes, I'm starting to buy games less and less because of this. I've only bought 4 AAA games this year as opposed to near near 20+ AAA's in the same time frame last year. Not because of lack of games but because I feel like I'm being ripped off and if I don't wait I'm going to miss out. It's only a matter of time before there is a big drop off in people buying games and the AAA, big publisher market just drops off a cliff.

Yeah everybody winds up waiting for the discounted GotY edition with all the DLC and free infinite lootboxes included. Pretty sure AAA devs will react to that in the same way that this site's owner reacts to people using adblock. Revenue is down? Add more of the things people hate!



Azzanation on 11 October 2017
COKTOE said:

Loot boxes are terrible. I won't support any game that has them. Speaking of which: In the console realm, is this just a third party and Microsoft thing so far? I see MS has already employed this crap in Halo 5, Gears Of War 4, and now Forza 7. I can't find any games from Nintendo or Sony that have had a loot box systems.

Nintendo i havent seen it. Sony do worse. Play TLOU multiplayer and its basically pay to win. I believe UC does similar plus play GT5. I think there was a car that cost $120 to earn..

Nothing wrong with loot boxes if done right. Like OverWatch.



vivster on 11 October 2017
Azzanation said:
COKTOE said:

Loot boxes are terrible. I won't support any game that has them. Speaking of which: In the console realm, is this just a third party and Microsoft thing so far? I see MS has already employed this crap in Halo 5, Gears Of War 4, and now Forza 7. I can't find any games from Nintendo or Sony that have had a loot box systems.

Nintendo i havent seen it. Sony do worse. Play TLOU multiplayer and its basically pay to win. I believe UC does similar plus play GT5. I think there was a car that cost $120 to earn..

Nothing wrong with loot boxes if done right. Like OverWatch.

Loot boxes aren't done right unless you can directly buy the stuff that's in it. Hiding stuff behind gambling is a terrible thing to do. It preys on vulnerable people and makes people who just want a specific thing overpay massively. Loot boxes are far worse than traditional micro transactions. Remember how we hated those? Back in the long long ago 2015.



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