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#61 Binx

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Posted 21 June 2018 - 09:33 PM

AFAIK Steam only has "Recommend" or "Don't recommend", so the super enthusiastic simpletons' votes carry just as much/little weight as a carefully examined vote. This mostly gets around the "0/10" problem.

 

It kinda was though, so your argument is a bit moot. It may have been an incredibly shallow game, but it was fun and really popular... which makes it a good game!

 

Ratings and comments are both important metrics though. You just need to be smart about how you use them. A rating will tell you how well your game is being received, and by extension how much tweaking you need to do. If people already like your game, DON'T make major changes to it, even if people in the comments are asking for it. If you change things too much you can potentially upset the silent majority, so don't fix what ain't broke. Comments give you insight into what could be improved but you need to consider every comment with respect to the game you're making. Tons of people might be asking for a specific feature, but if you know that including it would weaken or break the game you shouldn't include it. For example, say you're making a Zelda-like and people want craftable weapons, you need to examine the impact craftable weapons will have on the game's balance before just chucking it in. People are stupid and don't know what they want.

A great example of this is Pokémon. People at Nintendo, GameFreak and The Pokémon Company have gone on record saying that they completely ignore what people say they "want" because people don't know what they want. They want all the regions, but then they only want the first 150 Pokémon to be available (because, "fuck Mew", apparently?), but they don't want ANY of the first 150 to be available because they're "tired of Nintendo catering to genwunners", and they don't want Mega Evolutions, but they want Mega Evolutions for Pokémon who don't have them and more regional forms, but not the Alolan forms because those sucked, and... Etc. etc. 


Edited by Binx, 21 June 2018 - 09:33 PM.

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#62 Koh

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Posted 21 June 2018 - 09:42 PM

 

 

It kinda was though, so your argument is a bit moot. It may have been an incredibly shallow game, but it was fun and really popular... which makes it a good game!

I agreed with everything in your post except this.  A highly downloaded game does not a good game make.  For example, remember when Goat Simulator or Train Simulator were the current Youtube fads, and got thousands of downloads for the memes?  I'm pretty sure no one would say these are "good" games.  Maybe "funny" or "silly," but GOOD is mostly used for quality titles, not trendy titles.  This is why Flappy Bird's got an average at best rating now, because it was just a time wasting, competitive fad.



#63 Deedee

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Posted 22 June 2018 - 12:18 AM

Goat simulator was good though. Don't bash what you don't play.



#64 Anthus

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Posted 22 June 2018 - 12:38 AM

When [Flappy Birds] came out, and it was the craze at my college for example, everyone was poking fun at it and how stupid it was and looked, and how it looked like it pirated the pipes from Super Mario All Stars.  The drive behind it was to beat each other's score.  I can't remember a single person who thought it was an amazing game, they simply used it as a means to be competitive and brag about their score.  If you go by the ratings now, it's simply an average at best game.  

 

Hey, that sounds like every arcade game ever. :P


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#65 Koh

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Posted 22 June 2018 - 04:33 AM

Goat simulator was good though. Don't bash what you don't play.

It wasn't, it was a broken mess.  It didn't even do what it was trying to simulate well.  The reason it was a fad at the time was BECAUSE it was a broken glitchy mess.  And also why no one cares about it now.  A good, quality title will still be good outside the fad.  Fads come and go, but quality doesn't.  This is why games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy Tactics are still praised in all aspects, from graphics to music to gameplay, to this very day.

 

Think on the concept of hidden gems also.  They're called hidden gems because their quality withstands the test of time, despite not having as much attention as other games at their time, like say Lufia II or Terranigma.  


Edited by Koh, 22 June 2018 - 04:38 AM.


#66 NoeL

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Posted 22 June 2018 - 07:23 PM

I agreed with everything in your post except this.  A highly downloaded game does not a good game make.

You alleged that Flappy Bird had a high rating, not a high number of downloads:

If we go by ratings, then a game like Flappy Bird ends up looking like the best game ever made.

I was simply taking what you said for granted and explaining that if a game has a high rating - regardless of how shallow its mechanics are or how stupid you personally find it - then it's a good game by definition. After all, someone is responsible for the high rating.

 

If what you said was false, and Flappy Bird doesn't have a high rating (as you now allege), then what I said still holds true, but not in the particular case of Flappy Bird.

 

 

It wasn't, it was a broken mess.  It didn't even do what it was trying to simulate well.  The reason it was a fad at the time was BECAUSE it was a broken glitchy mess.

But... that was the point of the game? Are you under the impression that they were going for an accurate simulation of life as a goat?  :confused:  It may not have been the developers' intent at the beginning of development, but surely by the end of it they realised how much fun could be had with a broken, glitchy mess of a game, so that's what the game became. Sure it was just a fad, but things don't become fads by not being fun.


Edited by NoeL, 22 June 2018 - 07:23 PM.

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#67 Koh

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Posted 23 June 2018 - 06:52 AM

You alleged that Flappy Bird had a high rating, not a high number of downloads:

I was simply taking what you said for granted and explaining that if a game has a high rating - regardless of how shallow its mechanics are or how stupid you personally find it - then it's a good game by definition. After all, someone is responsible for the high rating.

 

If what you said was false, and Flappy Bird doesn't have a high rating (as you now allege), then what I said still holds true, but not in the particular case of Flappy Bird.

 

 

But... that was the point of the game? Are you under the impression that they were going for an accurate simulation of life as a goat?  :confused:  It may not have been the developers' intent at the beginning of development, but surely by the end of it they realised how much fun could be had with a broken, glitchy mess of a game, so that's what the game became. Sure it was just a fad, but things don't become fads by not being fun.

It had high ratings at the time it was a fad, just because of the competitive meme it became.  But when the noise died down, the ratings dropped back down to average at best, it's hovering between 5/10 and 7/10 across the boards.

 

This is what I was saying that truly quality titles wouldn't have that happen.  They'd be consistently highly rated even after their spotlight dies, like all the great classics that are constantly in top 10/20 lists, like Chrono Trigger and Terranigma.

 

And then there's the hidden gems theirself, like Lufia II and Terranigma.  They didn't blow up anywhere near as much as Chrono Trigger, but here they are, decades later, still getting great reviews and ratings.

 

 


 Sure it was just a fad, but things don't become fads by not being fun.

They sure do.  Winnie the Pooh's Homerun Derby.  People got incredibly frustrated with that game, but they just wanted to prove that they could beat Christopher Robin.  Things become fads for other reasons besides fun.  The competitive people out there just need that competitive reason to jump in, and just say they did it.  There could also be a secret aspect to it.  Like, the game itself sucks, but there's some sort of hidden easter eggs that people are trying to mine out of it.  Or, the fun comes in the form of roasting the game itself, like Goat Simulator.  That's pretty much all that was happening during the fad.  Just people poking fun at how broken the thing was and how the physics were off.  We know how much people like roasting bad games, just look at how popular the Vinesauce Shovelware games series was.  That doesn't mean the game itself is good at all, it just means people found an unintended and alternative way to get fun out of it.  

 

You don't have to take my word for it though, if you think the concept of a broken glitchy game by itself will sell, then all you have to do is intentionally put out a game with fudged up code and such.  Maybe the gods will smile upon you and let it be the next fad.  Or, most likely, it'll just fade into obscurity with a bunch of bad reviews AND ratings.  


Edited by Koh, 23 June 2018 - 07:15 AM.


#68 Deedee

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Posted 23 June 2018 - 07:48 PM

I mean, having an extra 8 frames per animation won't make your game sell more, especially since you're more likely to use screenshots + a good description + word of mouth to impress people. Nobody's going to say "eh, everything is 4 frames per second, the game's shit".

Take Final Fantasy. Commonly seen as the quintessential RPG even by today's standard... and it went for the bare minimum because budget and time. People still love it though. Don't be a Screenshot-of-the-week-mockup-submitter; something playable and fun to play is infinitely more better than something that only looks """better""" (even though looks are subjective and I personally find most, if not all of your examples of "improvements" ugly af). 


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#69 NoeL

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Posted 25 June 2018 - 06:43 PM

It had high ratings at the time it was a fad, just because of the competitive meme it became.  But when the noise died down, the ratings dropped back down to average at best, it's hovering between 5/10 and 7/10 across the boards.

 
Yes, I can agree with you that review scores during the game's heyday aren't necessarily representative of the quality of the game (*cough* Skyward Sword) and that looking at scores after the dust has settled is more accurate. I was wrong to argue "high rating = good game" since it's not true in all scenarios.
 

They sure do. Winnie the Pooh's Homerun Derby.


Hmmmmm yes and no. On the one hand, yes I'm conflating the game (e.g. Winnie the Pooh's Homerun Derby) with the "game" (trying to beat Christopher Robin for bragging rights). The "game" is the fad, not the game, and the "game" (i.e. the fad) was fun. Without that social aspect Winnie the Pooh's Homerun Derby wouldn't have become a fad. But on the other hand, things need to be entertaining enough to spawn a fad in the first place, and Flappy Bird's addictive simplicity, Goat Simulator's ragdoll physics and Winnie the Pooh's out-of-place difficulty are all points in favour of the games themselves (whether or not they were intentionally designed). They may be "flaws", technically speaking, but that doesn't mean they can't be fun. Look how much fun you can have breaking Mario 64 or The Elder Scrolls games.

 

I guess the problem is that people can't review the fad and so review the game instead, giving an inaccurate rating of the game. And then you also have the backlash problem, where people get upset with seeing a bad game highly rated (or just want to shit on the game due to outside controversy) and review bomb it to hell.

 

So in short, if your game has been the subject of a fad or controversy your ratings are going to be compromised.


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