Competition Creates Better Games is Baloney

[tlc12576]

Well MMChris,I think you need to edit the title of your original post if possible.What you say in this post versus what you said in your original post title are very different.Most of the people that are disagreeing with you are disagreeing with your original post title,which you have admitted is flawed.

After reading more of you post on this subject,it seems,IMO that you started this debate just for the sake a having a debate and not out of the courage of your convictions.If thats true,it still can make for a good debate but with a disingenuous opening position.

[RaychelSnr]

NavigatorD83,

I challenge you to come up with a better system for showing game quality that proves that direct-sport competition is a huge factor in game quality. The problem is there isn't such a system that would.

Is the system of using aggregate game review scores a perfect way to quantify game quality? No. Is it the best way we have available? I believe so.

Again, if there is a better way which proves otherwise, I'm open to hear it.

[RaychelSnr]

MeanMrMustard,

It definitely was, I worded the article to be a bit confrontational to spark some good discussion (I'm not ashamed in admitting that).

I think you misunderstand how the scores I quoted work though. They are based off of aggregate ratings which take 20-40 reviews into account much like RottenTomatoes does for movies.

Anyways, the brand name argument is simply an excuse. The conditions I set at the beginning of the article would have shown both games improving in quality against each other and overall if direct-sport competition indeed created better quality games would it not?

Unless you believe that there is a giant conspiracy that companies are paying off dozens or even hundreds of video game reviewers in order to get higher review scores. Which IMO, makes no sense since those very companies use Metacritic scores internally as one way to judge how successful they were on creating a quality title -- with the other being sales.

[speels]

Re: Competition Creates Better Games is Baloney

Very shaky argument by the author. I don't think that review scores tell the whole story. Scores are extremely subjective. And who's to say that a particular reviewer truly understands all the nuances of a sport?

Why not go to sites such as Operation Sports to get a general idea of people's attitudes towards these games? Or check user reviews on the websites, which are far more honest and in-depth IMHO.

I agree with this, but the only problem is not everyone says anything. There are how many members at OS that have Madden10 and I would hazard a guess that only a small percentage of them write on these boards. Also, just look at the amount of threads there are about the "bad" things with Madden as opposed to the "good" thing threads.
Generally if people are satisfied with a product they will not say anything, but the people that have problems are the ones that raise awareness of these problems. I mean, when you buy a new item, let's say and XBOX 360, if nothing went wrong with it, would you phone Microsoft and say"I just wanted to let you know that your system us perfect and I am extremely satisfied with my purchase." I doubt it, however, if there was something wrong with it, the first thing you would do is get on the phone and tell someone at microsoft, and probably OS that you have problems.

All I'm saying is that looking at OS or any forums for that matter is going to give as biased an opinion as averaging reviews.

[matt8204]

Re: Competition Creates Better Games is Baloney

I just think it comes down to motivation and human nature. If no on is threatening or challenging you, people tend to become complacent and don't focus on giving 110 percent. Think about it. If you didn't have to go balls to the wall, why would you? Where's the incentive if no one is breathing down your neck looking to take away business? EA knows that nobody can compete with them when it comes to making an NFL game. They also know that millions of people love the NFL and enjoy video games about the sport. Where else are they going to go? Madden, sad to say, truly is a "take it or leave it" proposition if there ever was one. For NFL video games, they're the only game in town. A lot of people will put up with the known flaws and glitches just so they have a new football title to play each year.

[RaychelSnr]

Matt,

You assume that OSers are the be all end all opinion on what makes a game great. We have a tendency to value realism and gameplay over the other aspects. When you take into account we are a niche market (10% of sports gamers or so), you can't assume we are going to speak for what makes a game great for everyone. But your points are solid nonetheless about reviews being subjective.

But sounding like a broken record now, what other methods would you use to test the theory that is necessarily better?

[matt8204]

Re: Competition Creates Better Games is Baloney

Matt,

You assume that OSers are the be all end all opinion on what makes a game great. We have a tendency to value realism and gameplay over the other aspects. When you take into account we are a niche market (10% of sports gamers or so), you can't assume we are going to speak for what makes a game great for everyone. But your points are solid nonetheless about reviews being subjective.

But sounding like a broken record now, what other methods would you use to test the theory that is necessarily better?

You're right; at the end of the day, there really is no other way to gague quality. I just tend to question the validity of those scores. For example, on another site, I remember that they gave Madden '07 a pretty good review score (mid-upper 80's) when the game first came out. Then when they previewed Madden '08, they pretty much stated that '07 wasn't all that good.

And you make a good point about our desire for realism and its relatively small impact on the overall market. For every one of us who nitpick about routes not being run properly or shoe/helmet/jersey color being wrong, there are ten who just want to get together with friends, throw bombs all over the field, run up the score Arena-League style and have a good time.

[RaychelSnr]

Logic Doctor,

Great way to make a point, but there are a few flaws with how you went about it.

First, who is to say the race car isn't being pushed internally to get even better? You assume the only type of competition for the race car to get better is competition by an outside entity, when you can have just as much of an internal pressure to perform as an external. Not to mention in the gaming business, you aren't operating in a vacuum, reviewers know what makes a good sports game and what doesn't.

If your thoughts on review scores being higher for sports with no competition just because there is nothing to gauge them on is valid, that'd mean there was no point of reference to gauge Madden off of. You can simply look at what other games in the genre and other games in other genres are able to do and judge the games progress there as well. So in this instance, the audience could watch your race car and think it was fast, until they went to another track and saw another racecar going twice as fast.

Games don't operate in a vacuum. That is part of a review argument people have, as some do believe in judging a game in a vacuum even though it's pretty much impossible.

[Artman22]

The logic in this article is horrible.

[bigjake62505]

Re: Competition Creates Better Games is Baloney

MMChrisS I have to say that I have read your article multiple times and I agree you make valid points based off of your study material and findings. But I will say, I will never accept the notion that competition makes no difference. I cannot accept the arguement that Madden 06, 07, 08, and 09 (on next gen) would have had the same issues that it did if 2k, acclaim, ect would have been making football games no matter the quality. Maybe I am just slow or dumb but I would much rather have a choice of what NFL game I bought.

[dhlord64]

EXACTLY MeanMrMustard!!! Thats what I was going to say. Madden scores are overrated and the game is absolute garbage. They run like robots...scores mean nothing. If 2k was back they would get off their asses. Monopolies are a bad thing all the time...the evils of Capitalism

[authentic24]

well at the end of the day forget the competition thing, because it should look like the real life sport. all the extra features mean nothing if at the end of the day it doesn't represent the sport. competition really means nothing if its something based on the real life sport they are tryin to portray.

[Sleazell]

I think he is right to a degree. Using the ratings systems to back up his theory is wrong however I do agree that time, money and resources (talent) are the main factors in making a great game. The problem is in business there really is no true competition. True competition is when you would go all out to beat the other guy. Businesses for the most part determine their market share and decide how much time, money and resources they should allocate to reach their targeted market share. So lets say NFL 2K did make a comeback. Why would EA pump more into development when now there is a chance they will sell less? From a true competition sense of course you would want to stomp the competitor but from the business side you wouldn't want to take the risk of spending more money and not gain a significant amount of the market share. In a genre where they have to come out with a game year after I doubt any business would dump the extra money necessary to try to truly out do their competitor (apparently game development is just damn expensive). Thus EA did the next best thing with our beloved football and bought the licensing agreements. Either way I think the consumer is hosed but at least with competition you have a choice to possibly satisfy your need to have a feature that one of the competitor didn't have.

Good article by the way. It's always good people to discussing things no matter what side of the fence they are on.

[jsquigg]

This is operation sports, not operation politics, and if you think this article has anything to do with capitalism or communism, then you are the one who needs to study more. Capitalism in theory ignores issues that communism addresses and vice versa. That has nothing to do with this article, and all the flamers are arguing with no data or data that is more subjective than review data. Unfortunately, the whole premise of this argument is opinion based, but if Chris were to include sales data into his argument it might speak louder than the consensus of the "experts" reviews. You can argue opinions into infinity, but money trumps opinion, which is the reason for exclusive deals in the first place.

[kGinGreen]

Re: Competition Creates Better Games is Baloney

There is no competition. The OS awards are going to start looking pretty funny every year when there is only 1 game released in each genre. Do you guys really need to do awards every year any more since we all know who is going to win anyways? BAsketball is the only one up for debate because EA hasn't eaten away at 2k there yet.