Gaming Value Propositions: What makes for a good game? *spawn*

I know people are having fun, but I think FIFA is pulling a fast one and shame on them. I've put in 120+ hours in MHW. I didn't buy it hoping they finished the content later, it's all there now and extra is coming out already.

Brit said:
Many users strongly disagree. The game may not be for them, but they have a tight game loop that many are having plenty of fun with.

I think the lack on content, progression and amount of repetition is objectively true. Fun is subjective. Imagine Johnny paid $60 that he saved and watched it solo? Running around, kicking a ball over and over isn't much of a loop IMO.

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Value is subjective. Objective analysis of all sport and most games makes them pretty crap sounding. Even super engaging games like Diablo 3, just run around mashing buttons. Human beings are mostly kept entertained with simple things. Simple things you can share with other people tend to be highly positive. And things where you improve and gain a sense of improvement and achievement are also rewarding. Fortnite's game loop is completely exhausted in two matches, but that doesn't stop it being fun.

In short, your posit is bonkers. ;) There's no minimum amount of 'content' that constitutes a fun experience. Quite a lot of (mobile) games probably hide the lack of a fun game loop with the psychology of unlocking content.
 
Come on, if you buy a game for 100 USD or the exact same game for 2 USD, the price will not make any difference if its a good game or not.
This about your own perceived appreciation of what you get. For example everybody raves about each GoW that is released (in general), but to me its not fun at all. It does not matter if the games are free, I do not play them anyway. But a lot of people do think they are great, so to them it is a good game, to me, not so much.

Same with Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken etc I do not find those fun at all. But Exploding Fist on the C64 and International Karate+ / IK+ (I actually spent an evening playing IK+ again a few months back), I spent tons of hours with on the C64 and the Amiga. Basically the same game loop and a difference in the amount of content. I find Exploding Fist and IK+ great games, the others boring :)
 
Sea of Thieves is basically Microsoft's No Man's sky. But many people liked and had fun with NMS even at launch when it had much less content than now.

But what about that neutered down thread title ? There is more precise context here. The discussion is really about unfinished games sold at full price (like Sea of Thieves and NMS).
 
SoT is not unfinished. NMS made promises (or suggestions) for content that wasn't in the initial release. SoT has delivered what it said it would, save for marketing speak. 'Limitless adventures' means doing the same thing over and over in every game. And real life - real life pirating wasn't all that entertaining.

The discussion is thus about whether one feels a game is satisfying or not. SoT seems to be a necessary coop experience. There are plenty of people loving this game. Ergo it's not broke. It's also not broken because it didn't promise to include character progression or build-your-own-base or 10 on 10 epic sea battles or anything beyond what's delivered.
 
Sea of Thieves is basically Microsoft's No Man's sky. But many people liked and had fun with NMS even at launch when it had much less content than now.

But what about that neutered down thread title ? There is more precise context here. The discussion is really about unfinished games sold at full price (like Sea of Thieves and NMS).
SoT is more in line of the separation of expectation and reality. For many, people would have seen this game as perfectly fit for progression trees and missions and all that stuff you find in games like Destiny or pseudo MMOs.

But instead they didn't do that. They really borrowed the model directly from EvE online. Do you want to do, there are 3 quest givers if you care for it or just sail around and do your own thing, find stuff, steal stuff, share stuff, regardless once you hand it in, you still get the XP/rewards anyway. Some people need a ton of direction, need cutscenes, need everything done for them. This game does not of that, not even a single tutorial or hint. The stories are user generated, and playing the game is really all about experiences you build in the game. The more you play, the more experiences, the more you want to come back and play.

There are a great deal of a number of stories in this game, I have a couple stories that I'll always have in my mind. Like the first time we cleared the fort with Azbat, and I wanted to call it a night, but we kept going. The first time I sailed through a hurricane and the boat was getting railed by lightning. The time we made friends with another boat, only to have my crew mate accidentally fire his gun in their direction, and immediately they can around rammed us and fighting for half and hour ensued, treasure lost at sea and I was diving at depths to pick it up and bring it to the surface so that it wouldn't sink to the bottom. The first time i joined a bunch of randoms who were roleplaying and we got a jump on a skiff, and the other player was saying that we could take X and Y treasures but we had to leave some other ones, and those players staying in character. Then eventually calling for a steal everything and down his ship.

Lots of stories that are complicated events that unfold on their own, none of it planned, none of it scripted. Just things that happen. The game is not persistent like an MMO is. Like EvE is. So the game's persistent world is largely accomplished through streaming or if the developers decide to immortalize certain players in their world.

There are a lot of things SoT could do to add more content. Like fighting PVE boats like skeleton ships and other things that make sense in the world. Sure, I've got some ideas of my own. But when I read most of the comments about complaints of content, it really boils down to, I'm used to playing and being rewarded for playing. And this game doesn't give me loot boxes, and this game doesn't give me anything for playing it.

And people will need to mature out of that instant gratification/entitlement phase. Gaming should never have been about getting people rewarded for playing the game more. You play the game because you enjoy the game and that falls in line with just about every sport, board game etc. We shouldn't have to reward people to enjoy the gameplay, because now you're only feeding their addiction, you're not getting them to understand the gameplay.

How many item/progression based games get dry at the end? You end up collecting all these things, only to toss them out at the very end of the game because you have everything. Once you have everything, people stop playing, so they continually make it harder and harder to get more stuff. And either people quit playing, or they keep playing, but how many were actually sticking around because they enjoyed the game itself.

And so to that end, I always give higher marks to games that aren't loot games, sure I like loot based games, there's nothing wrong with that, but every single game does not need to be a collect-a-thon game either.
 
Yes, it's not the game, it's the people. The current 66% on Opencritic is the failure of the reviewers, not Rare.
Considering the debacle with BattleFront II and the loot crates and then the loot crates are the root of all evil. Bungie's issue with Destiny, and now Anthem. There would appear to be a failure upon the gaming community of a deeper understanding of their own issues. They don't want to be monetized, so they don't want loot crates. As soon as everything is purchasable they get everything they want and they don't want to play anymore. They don't want to be carroted on a stick, but then when you take away a carrot on a stick people start whining continuously.

People want digital systems and character progression where it's easy to control a ship and be able to wreck other crews as a result of playing longer. This game is not. It's one of the most analog AAA titles out there, and frankly, people cannot admit that despite how easy it is, very few people understand that mastery of each station as a crew is what progress is. It's not very different from rocket league in that respect, Sea of Thieves is just inherently much slower paced of a game.

Most reviewers fail to review a game for what it aimed to be, and ultimately review the game for what they think it should have been.
A lot of people don't get minecraft either but it continues to sell gang busters.

Perhaps it is a 66%. i have no reason to debate that. How would these same reviewers review Go or Chess? Games that have lasted centuries? Are any of your 95+ games going to last that long? Which one of your favourite PS4 games have outlived Counterstrike? DoTA? World of Warcraft? Minecraft? League of Legends? EvE Online? Hearthstone? Starcraft? Warcraft? R6 Siege?

The list goes on. The only exclusive game on PS4 I've seen that is even consistently in the top 30 in viewership might be, at best Bloodborne.
All these games took years of development but had a superior foundation in which despite reviewers opinions, continue to be the most played and popular games today. Many games have come and gone, few games are trying to stick around forever.

When I look at MS' lineup, SoT continues to be the only MS game that has managed to sit in the top 10 viewership on Twitch. I don't think Halo 5 or Gears ever managed what SoT is doing right now. If you really want to properly determine if SoT is a success or not, imo, track where it stays in Twitch and Mixer. That's definitely more important to them than any review score.
 
By "analog" title are you referring to the mechanics being completely reliant on the skill of the person playing as opposed to any skills or stats of the game affecting the outcome?
 
By "analog" title are you referring to the mechanics being completely reliant on the skill of the person playing as opposed to any skills or stats of the game affecting the outcome?

Yep
a) There are no stats or gear that increase your ability to perform a function better than another player (I call this fake progression, an absolute lie of getting better at the game)
b) Also In combination with the following:

Analog - You steer the wheel all the way to the left or right. But it stays at exactly that setting, it never returns to the middle on it's own, you must straighten out steering yourself.
Digital - you let go of the steering wheel, it returns to centre.

Analog - You are driving with a ball infront of you, to kick it up or pass it, you must hit the ball at a certain angle with a speed and cause it to move in that direction - high probability of failure
Digital - You are playing soccer, you aim at the player you want to pass it to, and press the 'pass' button

Analog - you must roll up and down the sails manually and turn the sails in the direction of the wind, 1 or more people can help move the sails up and down, or even resist your movement. The number of sails, how high and turned into the wind ultimately affect your speed.
Digital - you just tell the system what throttle you want the ship to be at, and it moves into that speed bracket (most starfighter titles, etc)

Analog - the boat never stops moving, it drifts in momentum and the rudder determines the direction. An anchor is required to bring it to full stop.
Digital - as soon as you let go of the 'forward motion' the boat stops moving. (see Witcher, Assassin's Creed etc)
 
Yes, it's not the game, it's the people. The current 66% on Opencritic is the failure of the reviewers, not Rare.
Looking at reviews, I would say it's reminiscent of LAIR. A game some people genuinely loved, some genuinely hated. Those who hated it were called closed minded and against new control schemes, those who liked it were called lying fanboys. Okay I'm exaggerating but it was similar for knack, nms, heavy rain, ryse, 1886, etc...

Reviews do help making an informed purchase decision, but it's mixed and all over the map because reviewers are people too.

For SoT, the bad reviews are dangerous because it's a forced coop online game. Without a large user base the game will quickly suffer the usual "mmo death spiral".
 
Which is part of why they made certain its part of Xbox Game Pass, to have a larger draw of players.

Though I see the game as being fine as long as you have a friend to play with. You can do it solo, but I feel it has a better experience with at least one other. However, I did spend couple hours sailing completely solo and exploring without completing any quests. I had fun. The water is amazing and the sailing feels solid.
 
Yes, it's not the game, it's the people. The current 66% on Opencritic is the failure of the reviewers, not Rare.
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Tommy McClain
 
*Only free if you haven't already used up the 14-day GamePass trial previously.

;)

(or if Beyond3D sponsors an AlNets gamepass)
I got a free 1-month Game Pass that will take over once that's up. Still grinding Bing Rewards for more. People will grind in a game hours & hours for no monetary gain but won't even do a few searches every day to get free money on Bing Rewards. :/

Tommy McClain
 
Review scores for some stuff just doesn't work. Like Marmite - it'd get a 5/10 from an average with people rating it 0 or 10. If you read something like the EG review and don't worry about the score, it's quite apparent it's something you need to try. Likewise if you read player comments, it's obvious you can either love it or become disinterested very quickly and the only way to know is to give it a go.

I guess for a $60 price, it's that gamble people aren't happy about. Perhaps that's the issue? No different to many other games (plenty of highly rated games go unloved by a proportion of gamers) but for some reason this one's generating a lot more noise. Maybe because it's one of MS's few recent big-ticket titles and people have weird expectations?
 
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