One of my favorite reviews of anything is for Lord of the Rings Online, where the guy reviewing it gave it a bad score because he forever associates the game with a bad Israeli hash trip

@bensmith2269

4 жыл бұрын

link?

@rotkvan

4 жыл бұрын

@@bensmith2269 kzread.info/dash/bejne/Y5x10NiqqcmsmbA.html

@zcritten

4 жыл бұрын

Hey hey people

@FredHerbert999

4 жыл бұрын

Those kind of reviewers are so damaging to the industry. They just suck at their jobs and dont comprehend the big picture. Its really sad.

@Briskeeeen

3 жыл бұрын

@@FredHerbert999 it wasn't even a real review. Just a passing joke on another review entirely.

it's interesting how I'm hearing "AA has taken over" and "AA no longer exists" in equal measure lately

@slaps9402

4 жыл бұрын

*Schrodinger's double A

@606hunter1

4 жыл бұрын

Who's calling it dead? I'm not sure how common it is in western game development but in Japanese game development there's quite a lot of AA developers out there.

@electricdreams8237

4 жыл бұрын

Dunno, can't remember the last time I played an AAA game. Even the best of them can't seem to hold my interest. Life's too short to be wasted on products for "everyone" rather than ones that seem to be tailored just for me.

@scrustle

4 жыл бұрын

Those types of games did die, around the end of the last generation. When THQ went bankrupt is kind of the big moment when it was "officially" dead. But since then they've made a comeback. THQ is even back, in name at least. Yet a lot of people are still stuck in that mindset of that part of the market dying. They haven't paid attention to it coming back. Perhaps it has something to do with the name. "AA" is a relatively new term. I don't remember it being used back when that sector was still alive before.

@RookieN08

4 жыл бұрын

AA will eventually take over AAA if AAA developers can't figure out how to reduce their game development cost. The biggest advantage AA gaming has over AAA is how their games are sold at the same price as AAA games (if not slightly lower) despite having much lower development cost. This allows AA developers to take more creative risks thus their games have more personalities than AAA games. This is accompanied by the fact that most AA games are published and marketed by AAA publishers themselves. So as a game publisher, it is much safer to bet on AA games due to higher profit margin. That explains why Japanese niche franchises are gaining more popularity than ever in Western market for the past decade.

I'm surprised that "dark souls" wasn't one the highest used phrase in reviews.

@606hunter1

4 жыл бұрын

Only 8 games from the last decade broke the top 100 so it'd have to be mentioned a lot in those reviews to appear. If his data was from all games in the past decade "dark souls", "souls like", or "soulsy" may be the most used terms by a mile

@rubenfigueiredo3458

4 жыл бұрын

The media only jumped on the Dark Souls train once word of mouth made it popular. Like mentioned at the start of the video, this top 100 list is incredibly influenced by marketing budgets.

@NathanCassidy721

4 жыл бұрын

Because Dark Souls is not as popular as people think. Or rather, it’s harder to get into for the time a reviewer would need to critique it. No doubt it’s one of the best things to happen to games in the past decade but I know a lot of people who hated the series and only came around to it after HOURS of trying again and again. Ben Crowshaw and Gavin Dunne come to mind as far as people who didn’t like the game but came around to loving the series.

@BlargleWargle

4 жыл бұрын

It's almost like reviewers don't actually use that title as much as people like to claim they do.

@estebanrodriguez5409

4 жыл бұрын

It's the dark souls of phrases!

God, just last week I had to suffer through a video where some guy took all the over-9.0 metacritic scores from 2002 and all the metacritic scores from last year and tried to say that 10 years ago everything was objectively better in every way. I had to post saying that data analysis (and review scores!) don't work that way, and it's like comparing apples to camels. Of course it's a youtube comment, so surely nobody cared. But this, this is a breath of fresh air.

@zandermetrakos2637

4 жыл бұрын

I saw that same video man!

@quintessenceSL

4 жыл бұрын

Ya but how many new genres/mechanics were created in the past 20 years verses now? I mean there are certainly just as many great movies (probably moreso) than in the past, but nostalgia aside, there will never be another Godfather simply because it broke new ground for others to follow. Most of those high scoring games of the past created new genres, or refined them to such a degree as to be unrecognizable from their roots. Not much in the groundbreaking happening now.

@dominokos

4 жыл бұрын

@@quintessenceSL That's because you're not paying attention. I have a list of extremely original (and great) games just this year. Outer Wilds, Baba Is You, Dicey Dungeons, Disco Elysium. Of course, we can't know yet if these games will result in new genres because genres only form over time. Plus in the beginnings of a medium new genres form much quicker. It's harder to do something wholly original when a lot has been done already. And sure, no one's gonna make another Godfather, but they don't need to since it already has been. Yet this year we've had an amazing year in film with films such as Parasite, The Lighthouse, Marriage Story, Uncut Gems. All great films in their own right. What was special about The Godfather was its marketing moreso than the film itself. Everyone knew it, everyone watched it. Art House films don't have that pull anymore but that's also due to industry juggernauts like Disney pushing them off to the side. In artistic industries we're seeing the same development as with retail and Walmart. Juggernauts completely decimating the competition.

@LE0NSKA

4 жыл бұрын

welcome to george town. his stuff never disappoints and always surprises.

@RobinOttens

4 жыл бұрын

@@quintessenceSL The big ones are all the Dark Souls, Dota, CCG influences everywhere. Never mind a ton of mobile and indie games setting trends and changing things up regularly this past decade. If anything, the 00's were all about refining genres invented in the 90's. And improving on storytelling and production values. Where the 10's saw a lot of creativity and influences from all over, because game development opened up and it's way easier for anyone to start making games than it ever was. At least that's my experience.

Hate to repeat myself, but: To be completely honest, I find the Celeste/Undertale thing absolutely *delicious.* Over the past decade, you have all of these increasingly extravagant AAA spectacle pieces battling it out over who can deliver the most "content" with the most polish... only for two emotionally intimate little indie games in unfashionable genres sporting the most retro visual aesthetics to completely trounce them by simply doing what they set out to do incredibly well.

@alucardhellsing5466

4 жыл бұрын

Oh You comented it again, awesome, I totally agree 💜

@bigbone_99

4 жыл бұрын

I'd also like to say the same about the niche Japanese franchises that have been gaining popularity over the decade. They're still not the best selling games, but they go to show that a good niche product will have good audience retention. I'm hoping that Death Stranding proves the viability of niche AAA projects.

@JukaDominator

4 жыл бұрын

I mean, I doubt these two games sold as well as those big AAA titles. Is this really "trouncing" them?

@alucardhellsing5466

4 жыл бұрын

@@JukaDominator That is like a larger discussion about if you really think money is an indicator of worth and or "excellence". Which, again, larger, bigger discussion but I believe it's something that's very subjective. Which I think was kinda the point George was making in this video, or at least one of the points (sorry my English is not the best)

@JukaDominator

4 жыл бұрын

@@alucardhellsing5466 I know a lot of people don't agree, but I do think money is a big indicator, since you wouldn't have bought the games if you didn't want them. You satisfied someone's needs, and that's a big deal.

"When going by this number, these games are not comparable to one another at all, not in the slightest! There are suddenly oddities and exceptions everywhere." Welcome to what 90% of the work is as a statistician/data scientist, George. You did well.

Seeing you mention common phrases in old game reviews reminds me of my own "research" in to this by looking through old issues of Game Players and Ultra Game Player Magazine a few months ago. Reviews back then were really a trip, but what surprised me the most was the obsession that every game had to be new and unique. There were a lot of reviews for fighting games in particular that would dock points because "we already have a Street Fighter." They did the same for RPGs and shooters.

@heavysystemsinc.

4 жыл бұрын

The reason for that was that the previous decade was literally the wild west, genre conventions didn't really exist so much. I mean, think about the term Rogue-like. The genre name itself just refers to the archetype, which at that time was novel and new. I think the late 80s started showing that 'iterations are the new thing' and coming off a high like the early 80s where every game felt like no other game before it would definitely be a downer. I know it's a large reason I play less new games myself as the genres being iterated that are popular aren't especially my steez and I think there's are more unexplored territory in the medium than what's been charted. I'm glad indie games exist as they're not confined to financial risk based decisions like a lot of officially published/marketed games are. I don't get to play so many of them, but there are ones that when I see them, I have hope that eventually that one game will influence someone in the publishing business to okay it since that other person proved it could be done and done enjoyably. I mean, tabletop games have been around far longer than videogames and they're still coming up with wild ideas for new ways to play. Did you know they have a game with no real pieces and the game is literally getting 6 people to argue? I mean, that's insane to think of, but tabletop games will go there. Videogames...eh...they rely too much on audio visual and mcguffening and other details that aren't actually the game itself. I think until that paradigm culturally shifts, it's gonna be a mostly boring ride in the mainstream. Maybe there will be a mainstream renaissance once all the 'whales' get beached.

2:44 you forgot "person" My favorite videogame genre, person.

@toko099o

4 жыл бұрын

I got a new game for you, an action, person, RPG. You in?

@GreedAndSelfishness

4 жыл бұрын

Guess thats the genre where the camera is turned off.

@Tunabringer

4 жыл бұрын

Metacritic lists Action Man: Raid on Island X with the "action" tag but not the "person" tag. Shameful.

@EggBastion

4 жыл бұрын

Action adventure modern person shooter or Action adventure modern shooter person __¯\_(ツ)_/¯_*_*

@allgodsnomasters2822

4 жыл бұрын

its from 3rd person and 1st person because its 2 words

A sincere 'thank you for your service' for compiling and navigating and interpreting that spreadsheet. It looks seriously daunting but as someone who's been thinking a lot lately about game preservation beyond 'ROMs in a folder', how games were marketed and talked about and reviewed and how those reviews aged and are relics of their own snapshot in culture, a video like this is really, really important and interesting. EDIT: Also just want to say that I've always loved the way your writing can shift very rapidly and organically from hard, analytic number-crunching to 'damn, this art made me feel things' and the bit about 'games that were polished to a mirror sheen vs games that gave you tingling feelings in your stomach because you connected with them on an aesthetic and / or mechanical level' felt like an absolute crystallization of that. Bloodborne really was that for me. Yeah, it was polished, but the polish was used to make a sense of atmosphere that just set the tips of my fingers and toes alight. It still does.

@heavysystemsinc.

4 жыл бұрын

One of the things you should keep in mind when looking at reviews through the ages is thinking about the idea of 'games journalism' itself. Like many cultures, it was just a fan driven thing at one time, not anything you would ever even hear about in schools or colleges. It's a very young medium (computers themselves being the actual medium, automated interactivity being the prime delineation here) and so it's worth noting that even in interviews with national magazine editors like Steve Harris from EGM, he'll happily tell you 'We were just kids having a good time and didn't know anything about what we were doing'...much like the majority of early adopters of the industry itself making the games. Also, it's worth noting that Japan, where a lot of early games were also coming from, as well as the UK had very different attitudes toward both computers and games creation and are a bit of an extension to their general attitudes toward pop culture and media in addition to how they treated the shifting tides of technology itself and the 'computer invasion' as it were. I can't speak with any authority about Japan, but it's clear early on that there's a level of respect for games as a medium that ran along side their respect for animation (it's obvious to anyone looking at America's animation output that it's still viewed as 'for kids') and in the UK, their 'computer literacy programs' meant that there was widespread adoption of computers in general and therefor a pretty vibrant range of people who might make and play them. Compare that to the US where 'computers are for business' kind of attitude and marketing and there starts to be some real huge differences in the origins of what most would consider the three epicenters of gaming history. I don't know if any of this makes sense because I'm probably rambling at this point, but I've been into gaming as a culture and history for a while now since modern games actually don't interest me much at all, at least in the mainstream sense. Call of Shooty, Sporty Game 2k20, etc. don't interest me at all. I don't care how good a game looks, I don't play them to oogle at graphics because I can do that just watching a Let's Play video, so I spend a lot of my 'gaming time' these days just looking at general culture around the time gaming became a thing. I would also like to offer a correction to the video as well: Arcades in the late 70's and early 80's in every country was mainstream and made TONS of money. There's a reason why Time Warner bought Atari in 1981. However, I suppose in this context he means 'big AND sustained' since America did go through the crash of '83, but that has more to do with short sighted general capitalism and quarterly earnings vs. quarterly projections than games themselves. I tend to believe a good game is one that you'll play for 20 years, and that's really hard to tell a company that depends on selling at least one big title every year.

I really thought when you started talking about the commonalities between them that this would end up a very long shitpost about MGS3 being the statistically best game of all time.

@MrStronglime

4 жыл бұрын

A man can dream.

The fact that Persona 4: Golden, a Vita exclusive is in the top 100, makes me happy...

@Dogmicspane

4 жыл бұрын

I'd still consider that my favorite game

@frogglen6350

4 жыл бұрын

And it's stuck on the Vita. Should have been ported on PS3 and PS4

@jose2226

4 жыл бұрын

calm down with the commas bro you edited some out, better

@playzkool9459

4 жыл бұрын

Was on ps2, obviously not the golden edition with extra content. There are a few ways to play it on computer though.

@JukaDominator

4 жыл бұрын

Also known as the only reason to have a PS Vita. And not for long because an emulator just booted it.

"Do review scores matter?" I'll be sure to ask Obsidian

@likeasonntagmorgen

4 жыл бұрын

F***ing Bethesda, man, the signs were there...

@mattskirble6845

4 жыл бұрын

Its fucked up more when you realize that Zenimax the company that owns Bethesda wanted it to put obsidian in such dire situation financially so they can buy them out

@Melkac

4 жыл бұрын

@@mattskirble6845 Thank god that didn't happen.

@zedxcu

4 жыл бұрын

@@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan maybe that's why outer worlds sucked so much

@ryuail

4 жыл бұрын

Gott'em!

When I hear the words "do review scores matter?" I turn my head to see OBSIDIAN looking down to a barren floor, and kicking a empty can.

@KwarterCraft

4 жыл бұрын

What happened with Obsidian?

@BillyMaizes

4 жыл бұрын

@@KwarterCraft bethesda basically held a ton of profit of new Vegas from them, because they were 2 points short of the required threshold on metacritic. It forced obsidian into a few dozen layoffs. Not only was it absolutely scummy, but it's made bethesda even more notorious now, as new Vegas is still the considered the best of the fallout games released by bethesda, along with bethesda revealing itself to be a horrible company that makes shit games

@Notallowed101

4 жыл бұрын

@@KwarterCraft Pretty famously Bethesda had Obsidian produce Fallout:NV on a tight schedule. They were told they were given a bonus upon a review score of 85. They got 84. They got nothing.

@jacksonelh

4 жыл бұрын

it didnt force obsidian into a few dozen layoffs. they lost out on a bit of money as per the agreement but the layoffs happened during development of a canned third person action game with microsoft

@MezMez

4 жыл бұрын

@@BillyMaizes/videos Not only that but Obsidian were given only 18 months to finish the game and much of the criticism New Vegas got was from technical errors that were entirely Bethesda's fault.

"Who critiques the, uh, Critique-Men?"

@NickHunter

4 жыл бұрын

youtube commenters

@Pan_Z

4 жыл бұрын

@@NickHunter nice system of checks and balances we got going here

@OuroborosChoked

4 жыл бұрын

Well, there was a loose, nebulous collection of gamers who tried that, but the critique-men didn't respond well _at all_ to being critiqued. Like, *at all*

@LN.2233

4 жыл бұрын

Matt brought this up

@OuroborosChoked

4 жыл бұрын

@ShoLKAN Most of the people who participated in GG were left and center left people. I wonder who gave you this contrary impression. Certainly not the media figures who were being criticized... surely a person of at least moderate intelligence would see that they have everything to gain by slandering their critics and not addressing their core critiques, right? By the by, that's called an ad hominem fallacy. The actual kind; not the way it generally gets thrown around online.

9:15 "Donkey Kong Country is truly perfect. If you do not get this amazing new generation of Donkey Kong Country madness, you are stupid. Yes, I know it's insulting, but that's also the truth. If you're a true video game fan, you will not hesitate in the slightest bit to buy this piece of gaming history."

@havochot

4 жыл бұрын

Gaming in the Clinton Years

@Pazuzu4All

4 жыл бұрын

As hilarious as that quote is, DKC and DKC2 do really hold up. The gameplay is timeless.

@energeticyellow1637

4 жыл бұрын

This but unironically.

@kategrant2728

4 жыл бұрын

Too be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Donkey Kong Country.

@nepetaclose1338

4 жыл бұрын

george wood will never not be relevant

Review scores are better at capturing the zeitgeist, presence, and impact of a game and cultural values than they are at accurately reflecting a game's quality.

@ElTequilla

2 жыл бұрын

Very well said.

It's 3am where I live and your upload came in clutch: lacking entertainment I was starting to evaluate the sinking dinghy that is my life and looking deep into the void where my aspirations and dreams should be.

@jose2226

4 жыл бұрын

literally in that same boat, because i forgot to ask for the number of a girl who i just spent all day with, but i accidentally left my lunch bag in her car so im hoping she'll be back but pretty sure thanks to my stupidity im going to be alone a long time

@maxfelson9467

4 жыл бұрын

@@jose2226 I feel you bro, had my fair share of regret and anguish from lost opportunities. Now I'm alone, lost, and rotting..

@CommieApe

4 жыл бұрын

Greetings fellow humans aboard the S.S. Nihilism!

@maxfelson9467

4 жыл бұрын

@@CommieApe now the question is, how do we get out ?? If we can at all

@jw6588

4 жыл бұрын

What makes you guys feel this way? It's not a rhetorical question; I've dealt with (well, still am dealing with) depression and I find it helps to actually describe the situation in objective rather than subjective terms. So, I mean, what is the sinking dinghy of your life? A divorce? Looming renal failure? IBS? Bankruptcy?

GTA, COD, Mario and Pokemon. Hearing those four names gives me PTSD flashbacks now. Video games need fresh new ideas not sequelitis and stagnation. Its the exact problem film is dealing with. *The Legend of Super Auto Theft Four* is the first title when Disney buys out the whole industry.

@JacobOnodera

4 жыл бұрын

I honestly feel like it really depends on the game, the franchise, and the state the franchise is in but I can definitely see where your coming from.

@Wyllowisp

4 жыл бұрын

"Its the exact problem film is dealing with." Well yeah, because its the easy way to make money. But sequels and fresh ideas aren't mutually exclusive. It's just the executives and the higher-ups preying on people who want a continuation of their favorite franchise, it being Fallout or Pokémon, and pushing out mediocre games because, like metacritic scores show, brand recognition is the only thing that matters for people to buy and love their games.

@duffman18

4 жыл бұрын

I dunno. I've been playing games for nearly 30 years, and I've played stuff in every genre and played all sorts of experimental games, but these days what I enjoy the most are games that just go back to the basics with stuff like mario-style platformers. Nothing beats that simple joy for me. I've played the Shovel Knight games dozens of times each. Being experimental and pushing limits for its own sake is cool and we definitely need that. But it's often that the experimental one isn't great but the subsequent games that adopt elements of the experimental ones but try to make coherent games out of them end up being great. Just like with music. You get crazy stuff like Stockhausen, but then the Beatles listened to Stockhausen a lot (especially Paul) and then adapted elements of Stockhausen into their own better songs that were actually good to listen to as songs, not just as experiments

Incredible: It turns out you cannot objectively measure feelings about art in numbers, nor can you use those numbers describing feelings to see what, statistically speaking, would be the best work of art ever.

@aturchomicz821

4 жыл бұрын

Truerly incredible Facts being speweed here :O

George might be my favorite game journalist. Every video of his is the most amazing interesting topic you never knew you wanted to hear about. Keep up the beautiful work Mr Bunnyhop

@stayphrosty

4 жыл бұрын

+

@kanalkucker14

2 жыл бұрын

+

This is why I sort of like retrospective reviews, not only it is separated from the marketing infused hype pressing for higher scores to get more sales, it is able to get a new metric that you cannot get from launch, "how well does it hold up today" Also while this is all subjective it is a pretty good indicator why games after 2015 are not received with the same enthusiasm that the past generation games have been, in short yes games of yesterday are just better than many of the big budget title games of today.

I have to be real, game reviews are something of a joke. So long as a game has a big enough profile and doesn’t crash and burn on release, it’ll rarely get lower than an 8. I can’t say a game’s positive meta critic score has ever impacted my decision to buy or not

@plansk8r

4 жыл бұрын

Review scores really just feel like an endcap on a games marketing.Just get enough people all hyped up and collect your 8+ to shove em through the door with.

@phreakinpher

4 жыл бұрын

If a game isn't bad then it's good. --Dysphoria Blue 2020

@kaltakus

4 жыл бұрын

@@phreakinpher That's not what Dysphoria Blue is trying to say. He's simply stating "if the game made a lot of money, it'll surely have a good score no matter what" The fifa games make tons of money but barely change the formula in any way in the series, and imo is just a boring soccer game. Yet, Metacritic has been giving the games at least above 80% every time (except fifa 2020 which 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 got a 79%) "Just because (insert AAA title here) has an 84% on Metacritic does not mean I'll play that game" - Dysphoria Blue 2020

@weregretohio7728

4 жыл бұрын

The scores are so inflated now. They're pretty meaningless anyway, but even moreso these days. Even without factoring in everything that comes along with it, like the skeevy things publishers do to manipulate scores.

@Cheesemonk3h

4 жыл бұрын

bioshock infinite might just be one of the worst games i've ever played, it had so many terrible game design decisions that ran contrary to its intent, had obviously cut content hanging in plain sight, absolutely god awful writing direction that contradicted itself left and right, used cheap storytelling techniques to cover up their lack of planning and rushed development, had cheap shocks to manipulate you emotionally that didn't even tie into the theme of the game, and used the name of its predescessor to try and sell itself on the idea that it might have been more than a half baked game rushed out the door it didn't even leverage any of the things they spent time establishing in the first half of the game. it's so half baked its embarassing. even looking at it for what it is, a linear campaign shooter, it has such massive glaring balance and pacing issues that they had to use elizabeth to spawn an infinite amount of ammo and medkits as a crutch to make the game even beatable 94% on metacritic. game reviews don't mean anything

If you listen closely at 1:08 you can hear george clicking his mouse

@wesleybcrowen

4 жыл бұрын

George just lost another dollar there.

@ethanphilpot7643

4 жыл бұрын

Your profile pic. I require the source. That is some high quality shitpost material

@danbariani4371

4 жыл бұрын

George clicks confirmed

@ASFASDFSDFASDFASDFAS

4 жыл бұрын

ethan philpot Google shaggy rei, not my own content unfortunately lol

hold up DIVINITY MADE IT TO THE TOP?? OOooooh happy day, Larian deserves it.

@vilapimpducky4626

4 жыл бұрын

You pumped for their new game coming?

@falvai

4 жыл бұрын

@@vilapimpducky4626 My friends and I are. Enjoy it!

*IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU*

@lob5645

4 жыл бұрын

THIS GAME WILL GET YOU LAID

@EggBastion

4 жыл бұрын

Oh, good ol' NAViGaTR.

@diegowushu

4 жыл бұрын

WELL I LIKE IT BUT THERE'S DEFINITIVELY, OBJECTIVELY, A LOT OF THINGS WRONG WITH ME.

@GreenChillZone

4 жыл бұрын

Donkey Kong Country is truly perfect. If you do not get this amazing new generation of Donkey Kong Country madness, you are stupid. Yes, I know it's insulting, but that's also the truth. If you're a true video game fan, you will not hesitate in the slightest bit to "buy this piece of gaming history." - George Wood

I'm not gonna lie, The Legend of Super Metal Auto Theft IV actually does sound like it would be one the greatest games of all time.

Finally, ACTUAL journalism. (This time With slightly less typing errors) EDIT: I swear to god how many times is this man gonna change the title now no one will ever get the joke anymore ):

@Pan_Z

4 жыл бұрын

*Fewer

"Slightly fewer" editing errors. :p

@likeasonntagmorgen

4 жыл бұрын

thanks Stannis :p

@bunnyhopshow

4 жыл бұрын

You may be more grammatically correct but I swear "less" still sounds better.

@likeasonntagmorgen

4 жыл бұрын

@@bunnyhopshow no one says fewer anymore, it saddens me

@Platitudinous9000

4 жыл бұрын

@@bunnyhopshow I'm gonna guess this is because "less editing" sounds more natural, even when the wording of "fewer errors" is technically correct

@rerere284

4 жыл бұрын

@@bunnyhopshow "slightly less" is a bit of an established phrase, so I guess that's why it rolls off the tongue better.

I do appreciate the return to this OP ed style about video game critic culture having this strong need for not just maturity but self-importance and self-vindication as a medium; and how in pursuing said ideal of an objective "worthwhile"-ness for games has instead paradoxically proven how fallicious it is, not just that the statistical nature of more and more games becoming almost impossible to dethrone the "top" games, but also the Capitalistic drudgery that the most "objectively good" games wind up becoming more and more homogenous and possibly even more forgettable like every new Marvel movie that everyone socially agreed they HAVE to watch but with the same story beat formula and everyone forgetting it within a week post-opening weekend. It's funny like that, quantifying aesthetic vanity into tangibleness just winds up disillusioning the whole art.

@heavysystemsinc.

4 жыл бұрын

Quantitative justification for anything will never best qualitative. You can have 100 dixie cups, but your glass can be used a million times.

George could have made the title clickbait like "Do review scores even matter?!" But he has journalistic integrity.

@musikalniyfanboichik

3 жыл бұрын

hmmm in my opinion that would be a fitting non-clickbait title for this video

Things I'm surprised didn't get mentioned: •Sonic Adventure has a 95 or so from its original dreamcast release but like a 49 for the HD version, probably the biggest discrepancy between releases I can think of (good for the time capsule point but maybe a retread of the first Sonic levels video, arguably George's best) •MGS2 is the highest rated MGS despite its reputation for critical pushback at the time, and the later consensus of MGS3 as the best (especially in George's view) •Why it might be getting harder for games to crack those top ratings. Less consensus? Higher standards? Stagnation? Overall a good overview of the situation, I love George's content as always.

I feel like KZread should implement a proper revision feature. It just messes up the algorithm and people's sub boxes whenever minor changes like this need to be made to a video. Have it so you can easily go back and watch previous versions, but make the latest one the one that plays when you click.

@FecalChunks

4 жыл бұрын

They're too busy superfluously messing with the layout every few years and being concerned about "hate speech" to add actual features to the site.

@_ZeroSum_

4 жыл бұрын

The problem with that is that a video could amass a lot of likes and traffic before being "revised" to be completely different. If you could keep the same url for a different video, you could release and entirely new video with inflated statistics and a history of traffic on just the first day it comes out. This might not be so bad for youtube, but it definitely has been a problem on amazon. On amazon, a seller can make a page for an actually good product, and then completely replace what product is being sold on the same page while keeping the same review score and reviews. This can lead to a whole lot of scams where defective products have good reviews and will make it seem like the product isn't a cheap knockoff or something like that. KZread videos aren't exactly capable of the same kind of scam, but it would be possible to mislead people if you could just replace the existing video on a particular page to revise it.

@tinkerer3399

4 жыл бұрын

You mean like the annotation feature that it used to have? Because the loss of that feature is still the biggest loss to KZread that I've ever seen.

@_ZeroSum_

4 жыл бұрын

@@tinkerer3399 Yeah, I agree. I have no idea why they got rid of annotations, they were literally the best thing youtube had ever added to their site.

Pretty eye opening stuff. Well done.

@jamestoney9338

3 жыл бұрын

Hello from next year.

"editing errors" huh? Alright, I'll play along

@simonwilliamson3684

4 жыл бұрын

What was actually removed?

@aghayejalebian7364

4 жыл бұрын

Editing errors.

This made me realize I've been watching your videos for about 5 years now. I haven't really been able to play many games since 2017, so that might be why it feels so surprising that Metal Gear Solid 5 came out nearly 5 years ago. Uh, I guess I'll keep watching, then.

I love how the new form of game criticism (like this channel) is actually becoming like "self-aware". Self referencing and critically overviewing how we even concieve and criticize "games".

@projekt3749

4 жыл бұрын

Postmodern Critique. It's neat. Lol

Loving the Outer Wilds snippets, just seeing those images brings back good feels.

@thace622

4 жыл бұрын

Kevin Bromley I wish it was more popular. It’s easily my favorite game of the last ten years and I just stumbled on it on game pass, I’d never heard of it, nobody’s talking about it. It was a life changing unforgettable experience and I hope the studio gets to make more.

I think a large part of sequels having so much critical prestige in video games compared to other media has to do with the technical-interactive dimension of games. It becomes an iterative process, sequels work (up to a point) because the technical aspects are fine tuned and the games interact progressively "better" with the player. I guess you could also compare to a similar phenomenon in popular music (to a much lesser degree) where in a lot of cases the sophomore or third album from an artist is their most acclaimed work.

Really informative and interesting, thank you!! Seeing how review trends have changed over the years is hilarious, and I never considered how the top of the Metacritic list has been crowded by games from previous decades. I really hope the public consciousness loses interest in objective scoring. It really just feels like a reductive way to understand media in general. I wonder if this is something that can be done with existing generations or if we just need to be teaching better media literacy and comprehension at a younger age

Before I rant I'd like to say that your vids are often enjoyable George and this may be one of my favorites you've done in a long. I'm not a big fan of metacritic or any averaged group of critic scores cause outside of the wide appeal genres like action, shooter, adventure, etc you'll find certain genres are being reviewed by people that hate/are unfamiliar with the genre. Generally speaking if you love jrpgs the only thing you should look at are your own taste, user reviews and small KZreadrs. It's how I discovered the Trails in the sky/trails of cold steel series. Gaming has gone through many changes over the years and I do hope people stop paying attention to the "objective standard" of critics.

Seeing Devil May Cry among all those game gave me tear in the eyes. The first one remains a masterpiece.

@TheMuslimMan1337

4 жыл бұрын

No DMC 2 is da best game

"Nintendo and Konami collaborate to create a modern, action adventure shooter." So basically Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes?🤔

@juststatedtheobvious9633

3 жыл бұрын

If it wasn't for Metacritic's modern action adventure shooter bias, Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix would be the greatest game ever made.

To reduce film to "90 minutes of audio and visuals coming from a square on the wall" is to reduce video games to "10 or so hours of audio and visuals coming from a square on your desk".

@heavysystemsinc.

4 жыл бұрын

The point he was getting at is the mechanics, experience level of the player, maybe even their income all affect the overall impact of a game on a person. Whereas film, unlike games, does not change so drastically between people. You will not find someone who 'wasn't skilled enough to make it to the end of a movie'. You will not find someone who can't watch a movie because 'their computer isn't beefy enough to run it'. etc. etc. The tech and a person's success with the game as intended by the author (strange how we used to call them authors but now they're developers, like...they make buildings or something) very much change how a game is perceived. I'm sure you remember the reviewer playing Cuphead 'badly' recently meme'd....Again, movies are pretty easy to consume as intended.

13:53 "Chances are you played a helluva lot more than 8 great games over the past 5 years." Unfortunately I doubt I did :( The adulting life is real....

@EggBastion

4 жыл бұрын

I'll share that sigh with you for sure

This video game "canon" list is my favorite to ogle--since it's all based on critics's feelings on a game in retrospect, I think it ends up being a little bit more diverse and more likely to show what games had a lasting impact. www.videogamecanon.com/top-1000/

The PS2 era was definitely my favorite by far.

I didn’t expect such a great statistical investigation of game critique, bravo dude, this was a treat to watch.

"50% of the best selling games are sequels for either GTA, CoD, Mario or Pokemon." Ah, the world of gaming is no exception from the laws of hierarchy that exist in all walks of life.

@aturchomicz821

Жыл бұрын

Undr Capitalism*

@protonjones54

Жыл бұрын

@@aturchomicz821 🤦‍♂

You did well George. That list must have been hell to make.

"How many game the unit sold" is a line that will never get out of my head now.

If I made a top ten games of all times list today, it would contain more games after 2010 than before. And this year might have some contenders too, with Doom Eternal, Half-Life: Alyx, Cyberpunk and Last of Us 2.

I appreciate all the love you gave Outer Wilds with the shown gameplay

“The legend of super metal auto theft IV” sounds awesome. Can’t wait to try it!

god that helena in the background at 9:14 hit me in the muscles i never knew i had

Maybe it should be switched to a top 50 or 20 list per decade, it would also make sense since an average Joe can just look at the list to see a recent game with a score of 92 he can play on his New Super Playstation Series X. Also considering how older highly ranked titles like Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye have greatly aged and probably don't need to still be compared numerically to Breath of the Wild and Sekiro outside of a random Watchmojo video, it would make more sense to have it per decade which also allows a retro gamer to see highly rated games for their gamecube.

Basically, if it's popular and people remember playing it and having at least a moderate amount of enjoyment out of it - its at minimum like 90/100.

Oh shit now I wanna play The Legend of Super Metal Auto Theft IV.

The insight you’ve provided here is fantastic. Thanks so much for taking the time to pour through all this data. Super interesting

There's also the time factor for games. How lasting was the game? Do people still play it today? Something like Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time are still speedran and talked about, but that SNES Godzilla game...not so much.

@heavysystemsinc.

4 жыл бұрын

Very yes to this sentiment. I often ask people what makes them play a game again and none of them say graphics, sound or story. It's the gameplay itself. It's not that those things can't enhance the gameplay, but rarely does someone say "I played Doom for 20 years because I can't get enough of that engrossing story". I say rarely because I figure someone's going to comment after me saying that's exactly why they play through the original missions over and over.

"[Recently] reviewers have typically come to regard polish, spectacle and technological advancement as a safer guideline to score by than the wishy-washy subjective factors." You know why that is? This overly-sensitive narrative that all reviews must be 100% objective (unless it's about politics). In a not-surprising way these narratives, mainly because it's so difficult to fight back against them in an objective way (it's subjective, so...), began to shape the industry in dangerous ways. Because you're not allowed to have feelings about something a lot of valid and good criticism and observation gets left aside. Only time we're allowed to have those discussions is if a game first passes some arbitrary technical tests (mechanics, technical details, etc.). When you only favor the technical details things become more expensive, quality experiences get left behind in favor of washed out tech demos and the whole landscape sort of becomes homogeneous. What's more telling though is the way the general gaming public views indie games. Indies are allowed to create those feeling productions and are allowed to get away with a whole lot more, even in reviews simply because of the perception that money has everything to do with production quality. The less money the developer has the more mistakes they're allowed to make. The more money they have the more perfect and tightly fitted into a checklist of features and predefined boxes that developer's games have to conform to. And to be fair, pricing hasn't helped this either. But then, regardless of game length, fitting every bell and whistle into a game is going to raise costs so there's that. It's just unfortunate and I think a lot of it has to do with the very secret and hidden nature of business, too. If information about projects was more freely available (at least the statistics of it) and the system was more open I feel people might be more understanding of individual struggles and perhaps allow reviewers more leeway as well. But with everything so closed off, people get paranoid and people get tense and then they get defensive. And then no amount of logic matters and everything becomes a matter of extremes and everyone is running off of the misinformation of everyone else. Today's critical reception sphere is just insanely chaotic.

@heavysystemsinc.

4 жыл бұрын

In general, I think the entire game industry and it's culture has growing up to do. I think even the act of identifying yourself as a 'gamer' is silly. It'd be like someone who likes listening to music labeling themselves as a 'listener'. Games are just a part of pop culture now. This sectioning off because 'its different than the other things' makes no sense. You can't simultaneously have an industry that collectively rakes billions of dollars annually AND be niche. The fact is more games are played today than ever thanks to them being in everyone's pockets via cell phones, which 'gamers' will say aren't 'real games' as if there's some hidden deficiency that is allowable to label all mobile games as crap because there exists crap games, but it's NOT okay to say that about a console like Wii where the vast majority of games were stupid shovelware cashgrabs as well. Either way, the culture itself is going to have growing pains, and I feel like the Industry with a capital 'I', your UBI's, your EA's, your Nintendo's and the like are actively keeping it's general audience in a 'feel good' state of blissful ignorance of all of these things and the cynic in me says they think it's probably better for business. The unfortunate truth is that the more games mature, the larger your audience is and that means, really, more money.

and these videos are the reasons why this is one of the very few channels i keep the bell on.

A good review score is really only good for games that lack a big marketing budget. Or for telling me to avoid a game that’s had a big marketing campaign. That’s why I watch people like you and Yahtzee. You convinced me to buy several games I would’ve completely missed by not knowing about them or thinking they weren’t for me. Super hot, what remains of Edith finch and the Re Remake were games I like played because YOU were the one to recommend them. Other than that 95 percent of the time I watch reviews for entertainment and also to confirm/stop a purchase. I don’t trust an opinion of a person I do not know, therefore metacritic means nothing to me.

@duffman18

4 жыл бұрын

That's the point of great reviewers, everyone from Roger Ebert to Totalbiscuit said it. If a reviewer is good, you can get to know them really well, and then when you see new reviews by them you can tell by their in depth analysis whether it's the game for you, even if you disagree with their own opinions on it. They may love a game but explain it so well that you understand that you _wouldn't_ like it, or vice versa. That's the value of a great critic.

You forgot to mention the number of reviewers have rapidly increased since the late 00s when gaming became more mainstream. Where there is only a dozen or so for Soul Calibur, there's 100 for more modern games. Undertale and Celeste in particular benefit from few reviews. The increase in reviewers meant there is a shift in average score towards one that more accurately reflects the gaming populace.

OMG Super Bunnyhop is still alive! Great video and finally some more video bout video game ''philosophy'' and game critics and more in depth talks. Hope to see more videos from you in 2020 and more in depth reviews and interesting and original subject on that matter.

I find that either metacritic has a much larger impact on people that they are willing to admit, or as a whole, metacritic is somewhat useful in understanding how flawed or unflawed a game is, and it tends to stack up with consensus neatly, if not imperfectly. Most people use critic reviews for video games as buying guides. So a games flaws will naturally outweigh its strengths. Making a good game with minor flaws review better than a masterpiece with major flaws.

Good video. Plus, it's hard to inspect objectively, unbiased, and night impossible with backed data, but it also has a lot to do with the rapidly changing relationship between the people and the press, especially in gaming press. We went from faith and love and monthly periodicals, to minute-to-minute bombarding of niches, wide range of choice of voices to listen to, and a decade marked by increasingly hostile and paranoid view of a media that often went out of its way to place itself separate or above it's audience. I feel like changing standards, trust, advertising, and methods really contribute to this as well, and is at least touched on by what you noted with some outlets dropping scores. Least of all that the audience, in some cases, doesn't like MetaCritic itself, due to stuff like the New Vegas scandal. It really does feel like the reviews are becoming a a curio of the past, and frankly, in some way it feels like the current audience isn't going to miss them.

here's a statement of opinion: reviewers are looking for 3 things: to guess and validate the consumer's opinion in products they don't care about (are not being paid to promote). To influence consumer's opinion, or at least pretend to; to imprint the marketing team's pitch disguised as "popular" opinion on the consumer, and finally, to constantly reinforce their own credentials as hip, true gamers in touch with the community with phrases like "from start to finish", "sunk countless hours", "if you call yourself a gamer", "we all know", etc. which are all lies that start to appear in the narrative when people are insecure and feel compelled to patch their own perceived lack of credibility with veiled preemptive assurances to the public of the status and competence which they know themselves to lack.

the reduction of +90% games on the lists clearly reflects how 'critics' slowly and finally learned to actually understand and use a 100% scale and yet don't fully grasp it today. In many magazines a 50% score means a bug ridden and absolute catastrophe of a video game what in reality only describes an "ok" game.

@heavysystemsinc.

4 жыл бұрын

In Europe, there was famously a magazine that treated a 5/10 as literally average and it pissed off a lot of publishers when other magazines would give an average game a 7. Several publishers stopped giving them review copies over it. It's kind of funny, actually. They gave out a lot of 4's to below average games for being below average in multiple areas of design and execution, but the 'other magazines' would give these same games 5's and 6's, an 'average game' indication. Funnily enough, the write ups would be largely identical and would point out the same issues they had with the games. A number score in general is a self hinderance because a 'perfect' game isn't exactly ever going to be perfect and so a rating like that dismisses any possibility of growth. Hilariously enough, in wrestling, there's the joke of the 'five star match' because of the fact the reviewer used a four star system and saw a match better than his previous matches he awarded 4 stars, so he gave it five stars and incidentally realized the star rating system was pretty much useless..Later he'd play around with the star rating system even more, giving matches negative stars and even six stars at one point. Some people just learn things faster than others, but there's not always a force that's open to giving credence to such things. If a site's editor insists on a numeric rating, what's a critic supposed to do at that point? They might get fired if they mock it by giving a game '8 pounds of tar out of 10 feathers' ratings or what have you. So there's also that aspect that has to be contended with. Ultimately, I think it can have use, but only if you take into account the individual's overall preference for the style/execution of the medium they're looking at and their history of reviews. As you pointed out, one person's average might be another person's best game of the year and there's likely a reason for that one can determine simply by looking at the body of work for each critic.

A lot of those games specifically the ones in the Top 10 get very high scores because of the smaller range of people reviewing them, The top games on that list have around 25 to 40 reviews, But more recent games that have a similar score have several times the amount of reviewers upwards of 200 that kind of gives the older games in unfair advantage in terms of reviews because they are subject to a smaller range of opinions.

@jonaskristiansen781

4 жыл бұрын

It goes both ways really. If one guy makes a review with a low rating it's gonna have a bigger impact on the average if the pool of reviews is smaller.

@heavysystemsinc.

4 жыл бұрын

It was stated that the metacritic scores were all from the same places and very few at that. I don't think it changes the weights all that much.

Critics as a whole seem more swept up by marketing campaigns than anyone else. That's why critic scores for big publishers are consistently higher by a wide margin, even when something is actual garbage. Player reviews offer a larger sample size. This means that trends can be observed and those that distort results, accounted for, especially as the data just keeps coming. The wisdom of crowds can come into play. Critic reviews largely occur in one wave, one period of reaction. That's why quality of large titles is so heavily frontloaded to make the first 10 hours feel great. It's the bare minimum they can get away with, while still being favorably or even ecstatically reviewed. The rest of the game can be garbage and people will defend it to the death, citing critic scores and sales figures. Establishment voices are especially misleading, but without a consistent rule for exclusion, it ends up being cherrypicking. Not all of them are incompetent/corrupt, let alone all the time. Nor is every independent/3rd party critic pure and true.

Dammit Johnson we need MORE millions put into the game, or else they'll never buy it "haha silly bone man and flower game slam dunks" Dammit Johnson, why did you lie to me.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun have been doing reviews without scores since 2007. Although I got fed up with their other nonsense around 2013, I always thought their approach to reviews was smart. Too many reviewers are trying to please publishers and their audience with scores, rather than say anything meaningful about the game. When you couple that with the fact that some journalists can't or won't play the games they're "reviewing" and it becomes a farce. Around 2013 I switched to KZread reviews and let's plays for my buying advice. That later included Twitch livestream and Steam user reviews.

God Hand sends its regards

This is basically a journalistic rendition of Dunkey's "Video Game Critics" video, and I love it

I have been gaming before I could speak. Metacritic isn't something I have ever stumbled upon....ever. It is only mentioned by games journalists. I legitimately have never met another human to speak about its existence.

Super insightful and innovative video. This is the first meta-analysis of the history of video game reviews I've seen. It's an interesting topic and one I think many video game fans will have wondered about.

"The fact that so many reviewers still name The Last of Us as "the greatest or most significant or most influential" videogame ever only tells you how far video games still are from becoming a serious art."

@mourad3795

4 жыл бұрын

Hah, what a shitty game.

@iftachsolomon

4 жыл бұрын

uselesstheevan am I misinterpreting this or is this a shariffi reference

@pippop5828

4 жыл бұрын

@@iftachsolomon who/what is shariffi?

@markdurane3682

4 жыл бұрын

@@pippop5828 scaruffi

Please make more reviews based on data, this is a really unique take on videogames, and as more people learn data science, they will be delighted to see their favorite games analysed

0:56 Thank you.

I enjoyed this video a lot, you should do another data analysis type video. I'd recommend you use some data visualisations next time though, and fewer shots of moving around Excel. Would become a lot easier to understand the data you're explaining.

I took a break from your videos after MGS 5. I felt like having a PS4 and Konami changing so much meant I'd never play them. And given how Konami dealt with kojima, MGS was over for me as an interest. That and your Comcast woes made me think your content release schedule was slower ,I could be wrong. But I'm glad I subscribed again.

Outstanding video George, much love!

Play persona George, you would have a blast with the min maxing daily activities and the calendar aspect of the game. And then persona party min maxing. Its glorious

I started gaming in 1990. I soon found out my reflexes are crap and I found much enjoyment in classical party based roleplaying games, turn based strategy games and simulators. Things like SimCity, Black Gold. Best game I ever played is Civilization II. These days I just look at game reviewers and gamers with still growing bewilderment about how "gaming" seems to be about playing that one game that launches dozens of times a year with a new title on. That (open world) action looter shooter with RPG elements (like skills and weapon crafting) and some platforming, a story and whatnot. To me Call of Duty, Wolfenstein Youngblood, Fallout 4, GTAV, Jedi fallen Order, Laras Croft's latest exploits and god knows how many others look all like exactly the same game just just with a different set dressing. That same game that I always knew I can't play since Gina sisters, Wolfenstein and Elder Scrolls Arena, because I am just too shit at it. For 20 years those looked like different genres at least but not they have been amalgamated into that one same game. Uncharted is more of a platformer and has fewer RPG elements, and Fallout is the opposite but they still fall into the same spectrum. They're rpgish action shooters. I am not mad about this, I have been an outsider to this kind of game (or formerly these kinds of games) from the start but I cannot help feeling some grudges about the media attention that focused so hard on these games. Once a year there is a Pillars of Eternity or a Anno 1800 which is quickly glossed over, somewhat praised, maybe and then it's immediately back to shoving a new magazine into the gun of "Illegal Governement Death Squad II" aka "The Division II" or Warframe. Of course there is the indie scene, that ocasionally produces a fig leaf of an artsy, cute, pseudophilosophical pearl that everyone marvels about like gris, Stardew valley of the binding of isaac. And which just sells you their lack of resources (aka looking absolutely shit) as a quirky, artful approach to games while I have seen better stuff on my Amiga 500. But just like that occasional management game taht still makes it to the market with not much attention at all these just are a poor counterweight of the behemoth that is THE game, that is sold in 100's of flavours while always being the same (Hell you can play several Ubisoft titles these days and forgetting which title you are in because they feel exactly the same). So with every new release and every new review I just chuckle to myself: "Oh they made another version of the game again." DFor the gamers and the game journalists who only know that game. And therefore like nothing else.

I don't remember ever having cared about Metacritic's scores. In the past PS1/PS2 era, friend recommendations would drive my choices. Recently, I find reviewers who have a similar taste in games to me, Super Bunnyhop, Erik Kain, Colin Moriarty and Total Biscuit (God rest him) are examples of some of these. I know what they like and what they don't, from their reviews I can determine if something that bugs them will bug me or visa versa. Having spent time reading their reviews/watching their videos and getting to know them has made it easier to know what game I should check out next.

Super interesting video mate! The data surprised me. Going into it, I thought that you’d see some inflation in review scores over time, but the top 100 list doesn’t seem to agree with that.

Last place Divinity Original Sin 2 gets no mention (yes it's a port from PC but no bad things were said about it either)

I genuinely think part of it is critics becoming more mature and less prone to hype. People still criticise the likes of IGN for this, but there was a time when pretty much all outlets just existed to promote and gush about whatever the biggest games the developers had sent them that month. When I was a teenager and still read gaming magazines, around 50% of the content was just hyping stuff that hadn't even come out yet, and practically every issue had to have a AAA game scoring 90+%.

Dude only discovered your channel now - thanks for the quality content and insights

We now have sorta-kinda-close-enough objective proof that the sixth generation was the best generation. Long live the Gamecube and its peers.

@debaronAZK

4 жыл бұрын

kinda missing the point of the video...

Sorry George, but I'm too drunk to taste this chicken

Action RPG isn't that vague really. We have expectations that evolve as we use genre names. Rock is a genre, we know what it means but does that have anything to do with the word rock? No, and RPG has little to do with roll playing, any more than any game that gives you control of a character. We know what it means because it means what we know it to mean.

Thanks for including the spreadsheet!

I know from my experience, research is getting serious when you bust out the spreadsheets

I like how gameranx does it. It’s not really a review they just show gameplay and say what they thought of it. No score or anything, it’s like if one of your friends bought a game you didn’t buy yet and you asked them what they thought of it

You should get into Persona 4. You won't regret it 😁 It was one of my best 86 (+deaths) hours ever 😁

I really liked how the review language shifted. It has to be over the top to get people to keep reading and be excited so I assume it will always have the catch phrase of the day

What a fascinating essay! Never thought about this

What the video is over? No wait don’t stop it was really good

While game review scores dont hold the role they once did, they were key in developing the industry. Whilw the internet has been a deathstroke to review scores, they played an important role in game analysis and consumer advocacy