| Username | bonzoso21 |
| Real Name | Tim |
| Rank | Apprentice Member |
| Joined | October 13, 2004 |
| Gender | Male |
| Age | 26 |
| Location | Rochester Hills, MI, United States |
| Last Visit | September 6, 2008 |
| Post Count | 21 |
| Biography | |
| Quote |
Videogames are products like any other, and players are consumers like any other. You aren't being treated unfairly when a product is made that is not up to your expectations, because nobody is forcing you to purchase it. As individuals, we do our part to control the direction of an industry by supporting what we like with our money and hoping enough people make the same decision that those products are profitable enough to continue making. If people feel differently than you do and the industry moves in a direction you don't like, well, that's too bad--all any person or company can hope to do is please more people than they upset. Unfortunately for some, the largest amount of monetary support over the past five years has gone to action-heavy, quest-based MMOs with less focus on the "make your own adventure" style of the previous generation of titles.
I get momentarily disappointed when a game I was looking forward to is released and turns out to be less-than-stellar, too, but it's relatively easy to grumble a "meh, that sucks" and move on...I don't even have close to enough time to play all the games I want as it is.
There is absolutely nothing about Vanguard that is more difficult to grasp than any other MMO on the market, WoW included.
Actually, an AO rating would kill the game's retail sales...just ask Rockstar, which lost tens of millions in the fiscal quarter following the "hot coffee" scandal. 98% of North American retailers do not stock AO rated games per store policy, so an AO re-rating by the ESRB would cost Funcom millions. Between the retailers returning their unsold copies and refusing to stock the game until it had been re-manufactured to remove the AO content and then re-rated to M by the ESRB, Funcom would lose months of potential sales and have to eat the development costs associated with removing the content. Plus, as was the case with GTA: San Andreas, there are the millions of "Kyle's Moms" out there who would seek damages for the innocence stripped from their little angels by the developer and the game industry (Take-Two awarded close to $1 million in total).
Well, it seems like in the present era of the MMO industry, graphics, combat and quests are what determine a game's success, but that's another issue altogether.
Originally posted by markoraos
Another pointless mainstream media review of a MMORPG.
When will they ever realize that you cannot use the same yardstick when reviewing a MMO that is supposed to last for years and a disposable console game?
WoW didn't get that awesome reviews when it released because it was judged on single-player game's merits. When the reviewers finally realize that whatever makes single-players good doesn't necessarily mean that it's good for a MMO we will finally start getting accurate reviews.
A reviewer can do nothing more than give his/her opinion on the game as it stands during the time they were playing it, which is almost always during the first couple weeks after launch, when the game is usually in the least playable state of its entire lifespan. The blame can hardly be placed on the critic--its potential players that read their word as the gospel truth that do the most harm. Anybody that has subscribed to an MMO for more than a few months knows that they change drastically--sometimes for better, sometimes for worse--and a launch review won't remain credible for long. Anyway, reviewing an MMO based on its potential would be a far worse system.
What is your favorite feature on MMORPG.com?