Cryptic Studios Calls For a Metacritic Reform
Initial reviews for MMOs just don't do them justice due to their evolving nature, claims Cryptic Studios.
In a recent interview with [a]listdaily, Star Trek Online executive producer Dan Stahl and Perfect World Entertainment vice president of business development and corporate communications John Young talked about MMOs in general, ranging from topics like Star Wars: The Old Republic going free-to-play to the progression of PvP in Star Trek Online.
They eventually touch on the subject about the latter game earning lackluster reviews when it launched back in 2010. Stahl said that reviews just don't do MMOs justice.
"MMOs are designed to grow over time and get better with every major release," Stahl said. "It might be better if sites like Metacritic could find a way to rate MMO’s by releases instead of just the initial day one. There are plenty of MMOs that have made huge strides since days one and some that have even gotten worse. Until then, we will continue to offer the game for free and ask for people to try it out and decide for themselves."
As one who formerly wrote reviews for all genres, publishers want these reviews right off the bat. It's a gamble for them really: give journalists the code early so that they can evaluate the game prior to launch. Thus, if it's stellar and mind-blowing, then the publisher will ride on that publicity at launch which in turn convinces you the consumer to buy their product. If it's mediocre, they'll use a sentence or two that actually spins a positive light in adverts. If it's a bad review, publishers naturally won't refer to it at all, and may even refuse to use that reviewer or outlet again (been there done that).
Even for MMOs, there will be reviews at launch, good or bad. But as Stahl states, these are games that evolve over time. Like children, they grow and mature, growing in size. Publishers really don't want a second review for these games even though Stahl is correct. If there are any revisits done, it's by the reviewer or site's own choice, and generally don't get noticed.
The interview also touches base about the Star Trek MMO going into free-to-play mode. Stahl says it's a perfect fit because the franchise itself – even the Star Wars IP for that matter – promotes a "hobby" business, meaning fans will purchase collectables based on their desire and budget.
"When you consider that there are people who may want to buy Spock's eyelashes for $1,000, it is clear that Star Trek is their hobby," he said. "The nice thing about a hobby is that you spend what you want to spend. Some people will watch an Oakland Raiders game from the luxury of their couch while wearing their sweats. Having an Intellectual Property like Star Trek is awesome for a F2P MMO because it brings with it an already established mix of fans that might not exist if you tried to build a space MMO concept from scratch."
To read the entire review, head here.
NO. Just NO.
I don't care how hard-core a fan you are, if you pay $1000 for something in a GAME your just dead to me.
NO. Just NO.
I don't care how hard-core a fan you are, if you pay $1000 for something in a GAME your just dead to me.
Luckily no one cares what you think about them.
Same goes for you. Please go.
I have taken part of many game betas in the past and there have been changes that were heavily requested that the companies completely ignored, then when the items were released, those same issues came up in the reviews and made the games do poorly.
Most of the games that do poorly, do it because they fail to listen to their customers. I have for the most part stopped entering into game betas and stick with more consumer electronic betas instead.
When I beta consumer electronics, if I report a problem, the people running the beta will reproduce the issue and I will get periodic e-mails from the team working on the item giving status updates on the changes being made and any compromises being made and requesting additional feedback.
Why is is so different with game companies and their betas? with a game company, it is nearly impossible for them to even listen to you but with pretty much any other beta it is nearly impossible for a legitimate concern to be ignored.
Reviews should not be redone as it is a waste or time and resources for the reviews.It is up to the game company to push out a finalized product the first time around and if they feel that it is not complete then they need to keep it in beta and take more feedback from the customers.
b) if you think it is a great idea to release crap and expect consumers to finance patches until the product becomes decent then...
c) accept your shitty reviews for you have earned them
would you pay 2000$ for half life 3?
and remember half life 3 wont last 1/10th as long as any mmo.
You want to know why STO has a bad Meta Score Cryptic, go read your forums for a few clues!
I won't pay 59.99 for half life 3. I will wait for a steam sale. But thanks for playing.
Funny how Rift had such a great launch with little to no downtime and a flawless client. GW2 launched and while there were some exploits and bugs and system outage due to the high concurrency both of these games garnered high scores during launch.
Guess you shouldn't ship crappy games and blame the genre if it is a stinker on release.
Oh wait, it doesn't either. The problem is releasing a shitty half-baked product, then complaining that you're getting the flak you deserve.
A way to keep everyone reasonably happy in this case would be to periodically refresh the reviews for MMOs and the aggregated score. But most reviewers won't bother to refresh a review they've done already. So suck it down already Cryptic.
RMAH?
no thanks, D3 killed that idea forever... will never play any game with a RMAH again
As for Star Trek Online the space combat is OK but cannot be expected to carry the game and the ground combat is quirky. I simply lost interest due to game design.
I do agree that MMO ratings is a slippery slope since the MMO does change over time but all games should get rated for initial content then make efforts to work with review sites to display updates and review them.
EVE Online says hello.