Wii Are The Audience
June 19th, 2009I have a problem understanding how reviewers’ misunderstanding of the core Wii audience is relevant to games’ success, as Eurogamer reports that David Braben believes.
Reviews are either important to the large majority of Wii gamers or they’re not. If the latter, then reviews aren’t important by definition. If they are, then they read Metacritic or they don’t. If the latter, then again, the reviews don’t matter. If they do, then poor reviews are again, definitionally important to the main Wii audience.
I tend to agree with Peter Moore in that core gamers pay attention to reviews, but the majority of the Wii gaming audience does not, and therefore that reviews are fairly irrelevant because of that. But there’s no condition in which Metacritic scores will impact Wii game sales unless Metacritic-aggregated reviewers are also important to that audience.
Posted in Geoff, Journalism |
June 19th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
I read the article linked and I can’t even tell what Braben actually believes or what the point to the article is.
So, I’ll say this, metacritic scores are irrelevant to the success of the Wii in every way conceivable.
I say this, simply because the Wii is arguably the most successful home console ever, yet by looking at Metacritic, it would appear to be the worst.
I think this occurs because of what Moore, Braeben and whoever else was quoted is saying.
It’s a conflict of interest present in almost all Wii game reviews, i.e. “Should I write this review for the people like to purchase the game or the people likely to read this review?”. It’s an honest conundrum, one that doesn’t have an easy answer.
My personal opinion is that, while a site like IGN or Gamespot, with a wider demographic should review a game like Cooking Mama, a site like Destructoid, full of raging 17 year olds, absolutely shouldn’t bother.
A game mentioned ad nauseum is Carnival Games so why not mention it again? Everyone (on core gaming sites) blasts the game for being shit. Going further, they hold it up as a game that demostrates the ruination of gaming, that something so horrible could sell so well. I honestly don’t understand it. I’ve actually played the game, and it was a blast. Sure, it wasnt the next zelda or gears of war, but for what it is, it’s remarkably good. And as a game that wants to take advantage of the Wii, both hardware, and demographically, its godamn brilliant. Yet, it gets horrible scores again and again.
June 20th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I hate defending Game journalism, becuz they do not deserve defending. That said, cisco, u seem to talk like the average defensive Nintendo fanboy. Most Wii games are horrible, and not because they are `different.` I think most people will scorn on Wii Sports or Carnival Games not for being casual, but for being sloppy, awful casual games.
Of course, my opinion of Wii is even worse than for Apple products, so oh well ;p
June 21st, 2009 at 7:32 am
@Flowers,
I have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you defending games journalism? Who said anything about games being “different”? What does this have to do with Apple?
June 25th, 2009 at 12:23 am
Well, I thought you were referring to Wii being `misunderstood` by `traditional` reviewers, and I thought this `victimized complex` reminded me of Apple…ha nevermind, I am probably rambling nonsense now
June 25th, 2009 at 1:19 am
I don’t think the Wii is misunderstood, on the contrary, I think people understand it very well. And that’s part of the reason a lot of core gamers hate it. They realize it’s a console that’s not built exclusively for them. I personally, don’t have a problem with that, in fact, I enjoy it. Not simply because it outs the whiney babies in the gaming community, but because I have no need for 3 consoles that occupy similar demographic spaces. I tend to game in a lot of ways. I game with my wife, I game with friends at parties, I game alone. I let my daughter watch me with certain games. I game for relaxation and I often game for fun/laughs. I own all 3 consoles and each scratches a different itch (although the PS3 and 360 have a very large overlap). So I don’t think there are any victims in this generation. I think the point was that when you right a review, you have an audience in mind that informs the review. If your audience is the same audience that reads Destructoid, you’re going to right a very different review of a game like cooking mama than if you are writing for Redbook. I’m asserting that if you are writing for Destructoid, it’s probably a waste of time to even write a review for a game like Cooking Mama, simply because such a small fraction of your readership would be interested in that type of game. Same thing goes for Carnival games, or Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, 2 games that are commonly blasted by the traditional gaming press (rightly or wrongly doesn’t matter), but which have seen huge and deserved success.
June 30th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
That is one dense first sentence Geoff. But yes, reviews don’t impact much on Wii game success as readers are in the minority of the audience. Eurogamer done embarrassing fail and mistruth is still being preached on their site which we should all be disgusted at for such travesty. Well noted. I’m still annoyed at you for that first sentence.
Personally I’m not too sure about the “misunderstanding of the core Wii audience” bit either. They aren’t writing for the core Wii audience and their review score isn’t aimed at them either. There was no misunderstanding. If they did aim at the Core Wii audience does he think they could give everything an 8, because so many Wii owners are n00bs and oblivious to the quality of their purchase. -They are happy with anything because they can’t draw many comparisons for value- That is some dumb crap. The main thing reviewers can do is compare between multiple games (coz they are so up to speed with them all) and get you the best experience for your money.
There are a lot of Wii’s with Hardcore users too (me included) and sites like Gamespot or Eurogamer need to write for their demographics.
Maybe they could be more understanding sometimes, and maybe watch out for what appears to be an addiction to progress based games, and the discarding of ones that are more like toys. Wii Sports IS good value for a casual user, because it is simple and accessible but has enough depth to prove that games aren’t a waste of money. It sort of invites them to invest their time in learning more complex games, as they now have an understanding of the kind of fun they can be. The reviewers should state that this is probably more like an 8/10 if your new to games, just because you’ll be able to get your head around it. Or something like that, if they ever want to comfortably accommodate the new wave of gamers, instead of carving a big division in their audience.
That metacritic game scores no longer match all people everywhere, is a good sign. It shows that games are diversifying and different audiences enjoy some games more than others, so they have to find their own reviewers.
To summarise: When you try and cram it all into a Granny’s face, you see a game is the same game in everyone’s hands. And just because a game with a piss poor average review sells well (like EA sports Wii) doesn’t mean each of the casual users is overjoyed with what they’ve bought, or that it’s fine for them to remain oblivious of better experiences… They are just too n00by to realise how important skimming through a few game reviews before buying is: It must feel for lot of them like £30 may as well have been stolen out of their pockets instead of being spent on this cruddy game. And the ones that are happy with their terrible purchase and feel cutting-edge trendy, deserve the truth. I’m guessing so far that casual gamers will sometimes read reviews on the back of Newspapers etc, but maybe don’t want to spend £5 on magazines/ don’t know about the uber websites. Also all the techy terms mentioned in reviews might scare them off; Draw distance mother? Pop up mother? Clipping mother?… A seperate box in each review for discussing tech might help. But it’s a coupling of that, our fanboy hell of a community, and the possibility that many casual gamers buy the crap for their kids and don’t think games have any culural integrity anyway, that keeps them at bay from game reviews.
Side note: Casuals are surely less inclined to comment or feedback or join the underground nerdmunity that game reviews swirl around, so when they do read reviews how the **** do we know?
Super Final Point makes all happy:
PC gamer reviews of Spore and Sims and Bejeweled and Plants VS Zombies break down all cultural barriers and can be read by all. The Casuals nod thoughtfully just as we! I have seen it! The big divide in game consumers is smaller than we think. No where near as bad as Left4Dead’s.
June 30th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
“Eurogamer done embarrassing fail and mistruth is still being preached on their site which we should all be disgusted at for such travesty.”
I’m sorry, what were you saying about Geoffs first sentence?
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:04 am
holy wall of angry text