Depressingly, sexual harassment in a development studio is once again the lead news item this week, and from a studio most gamers would never think it could happen. That, and major seismic shifting in the power structure of the digital storefront landscape.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
Every now and again we mention casual games on our Gaming Podcast and we’ve taken the opportunity to open a little store to sell some casual game titles. Our store is located at BuyCasualGames.com and carries titles publishes and distributed by Big Fish Games.
Lot’s of folks have found the games Big Fish publishers are great quality titles for a low cost (as casual games should be). We’ve been working with Big Fish Games for a few years on CasualGamerChick so we’re extending that to its own little website. If you’re looking to pickup a few casual games, this is a great way to get familiar with some titles.
A new game arrives each day and we have free downloadable trials that gamers can test drive before they commit on a purchase. If you’re into the casual gaming scene and want to help support us, use buycasualgames.com for all your casual gaming needs!
Although we’ve found Metacritic a userful resource for game reviews, many folks have gone on a user submission rampage to discredit games that haven’t even launched yet. Their first attack was on LittleBigPlanet followed by Resistance 2, now their hitting Gears of War 2.
While Gears of War 2 has a Metacritic score of 94/100 the user’s have reviewed it to be a 3.5 out of 10, with a bright red box around the user review due to its low nature we’re sure. Although users are free to give their own honest representation of the game from their perspective, Gears of War 2, as of the review dates, hasn’t been released yet – these reviews are bogus.
This style of attack was popularized in Spore, when Amazon got nailed with poor reviews of the game because Spore’s “Draconic” DRM made people angry. However, it’s more reasonable for people to voice their opinion on a known issue with a game; Gears of War 2 review spamming is just mean.
We use Metacritic as guidance when we do our gaming podcast to understand what games are rated in the industry, but we don’t use user reviews as our main guide. There are plenty of folks out there that may utilize these reviews in more seriousness because they may feel journalists reviews are tainted by advertisers or “the man” and want the common gamers opinion.
The common gamer cannot possibility be reviewing Gears of War 2 before the title has arrived. This is bogus. Metacritic has this to say:
“My advice for our faithful users is to focus your attention on the Metascore for this game and not the thousands of user votes, most of which have been submitted before said users have played the game. This is a gaming community, and if people want to stuff the ballot box, there’s not much I can do at this point. When we upgrade the registration requirements for participation on the site in the near future, this type of thing won’t happen. We’ll post the full legitimate user reviews upon the game’s release. As always, thanks for using the site.” (1up)
So, to those looking for holiday gaming gifts, keep this in mind while you start hunting down games you’ll want to buy.
The publication of this episode is a little late thanks to uncontrollable circumstances, but while Paul discusses the ending of Slicing Fractions, this week’s episode includes both a Gaming Flashback, Scramble, and a Gaming History which focuses on the Zelda series.
This week’s news includes:
This week’s Gaming History discusses rumors that raged about Zelda games – Paul is not amused.
