A Gamer Collection

In my house standard a display cabinet, not out of the ordinary in most homes. The shelves on this cabinet hold many of my favourite items behind a glass screen so no-ones dirt fingerprints can affect their quality. The items themselves range from Aphrodite statues and Greek pots, since my girlfriend is a massive classic civilisation’s fan, to Pac Man stress relievers SNES Classics and Lego AT-AT’s.

Most hardcore gamers, and I am definitely generalising here, tend to have their own personal memories, stories and personal preferences. They each suitably collect their favourite franchises and not just in the form of games but also T-shirts, posters, sticker, collector editions and more. We all spend our hard earned cash on items of minimal use and justify keeping these until the end of time because we hold them in high regard.

As you can tell I’m no different – I love my special edition BioShock for example that has remained boxed and unused ever since I first purchased it - alongside the standard version so I could still play the game itself. I love my Big Daddy model suitably called Pops who hasn’t now seen the light of day for almost 2 years.

I’ve kept my Red Dead Redemption Hat, my Afterlife Mass Effect 2 T-shirt and my OnLive game system in pristine condition. In fact I have a host of what most people call crap scattered around my house.

I love my collectables more than almost anything else I own. In fact a few weeks ago my friends little girl wanted to see what my ‘Clyde’ was and when she realised it was soft put it straight in her mouth; chewing bite marks into one of his ‘legs’. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry; especially as the little blighter still doesn’t comprehend how much these things mean to me. It would be a bit harsh to wail on a 2 year old with punches and kicks to the face – right?

The things listed above are a fraction of the promotional objects I have collected over my years attending expo’s and comic-con style events. Sometimes these have been for promotional purposes a’la my Assassins Creed hood hat while others I have spent my hard earned cash on like my special shiny Jet Force Gemini Box (w/Game).

My collection pretty much sums up my gaming life to date and are all very important to me in some way or other. Each item taken on its own can't tell an observer very much, but to me it’s a wide collection of where I’ve been and the things I’ve seen.

While collecting can be taken very seriously, my personal collection has never been a serious business. I collect things on an individual basis, to be novelties for my favourite games and franchises. It keep the items I love because of the memories they hold and not because I want every SNES game ever created.

My crowing achievement is still my unopened Commodore 64 console which holds a higher place in my heart than almost everything I’ve used/played or cherished for other reasons. I wonder whether is should have put more effort into my collections and there are still a few collector pieces I would pick up now if I could find an unspoilt copy – the GB Micro for example.

To real collectors there must be a wonder on how much further these hobbies can be pushed. In a time of digital sales most retro games can be collected on current formats in the style of download editions. It has become incredibly difficult to pick up any half decent used games and retro stocks seem to be at an all time low.

I forget I own most of my downloaded games until I surge through my catalogues online looking for certain gems and uncovering many more. What is going to happen to these collections in the future? Will my shelved items gradually disburse as the software of the past becomes the digital downloads of the future?

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Metacritic-al Industry Issues

Let’s run through a little story…. A new Video Game blockbuster has been released a few weeks ago with well crafted design choices, substantial upgrades to all its previous franchise outings, large well-designed maps, and incredible graphics which has recently helped it become the most sold game of all time. You have decided to see whether this new action epic is the game for you and run of searching the web to hear what everyone has to say. IGN give it 9.5 out of 10, Eurogamer slightly lower that score to 8/10 as they found a few bugs along the way and Gamespot pull an 8/10 too for the same reasons.

The problem is that even though this great new game has been a suitable success in terms of sales - it’s Metacritic score fell below the 85% banding that the developer’s contractual agreement held to prompt the publisher to pay out any additional bonus to them. Such is the world!

Imagine for me how completely absurd this would be – it’s the biggest selling game ever – and then reflect that this is exactly the situation that some game developers have been experiencing first hand.  Metacritic, for all it’s usefulness, is the new platform for games to be graded against; however the review aggregator has in some cases become a detriments to the developers of the games that are directly influencing their traffic.

The site accumulates the scores from most of the major sites, newspapers and magazines then swirls them together with blogs and smaller outlets to create an average score result (giving you an instance glance at the markets total opinion).

None of the problems are necessarily the fault of either Metacritic itself, or the people who created it, but nonetheless it can be the fall of some royalties and bonus payments just based on the score it spits out. The idea of the site itself is great and can really help the consumers see what the overall views are of the community. What is wrong is the way that the Metacritic averages are being used by the games industry to determine how games are made and sold, and the negative effect that they are having on criticism.

Metacritic rate moves, TV shows and music as well as video games but none of these industries hold their arbitrary average in such high regard. It’s difficult to understand how much the large publishers actually care about their Metacritic averages. Those publishers that do care though will be suffering an impact on every area of their games campaign including marketing and PR as much as their development process itself.

Basing success on a Metacritic score is difficult and many games have fallen into this pattern. The yearly released like Fifa/Tiger Woods sometime hit a divot (get-it) in their Metacritic score if their new title doesn’t improve enough upon the foundations of a previous release. It’s a slippery slope to measure against even if a game gets a lower score it doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t sale millions of copies. On the other side of the coin games that get brilliant aggregates scores can still flop in sales – it really is a doubled edged problem.

It’s also common for some sites to hold their own aggregated scores for the member reviews. One example is Gamestop that holds an average of all their subscriber reviews to give an aggregated total overall. This gives a perspective of the games but then gets abused by those disappointed by a gameplay section, a part of the story or in some cases just a control problem. Mass Effect 3’s ending was a prime example of these and saw many people lowering their scores by a point or two just due to the impact of the finale as opposed to how great the rest of the game stood up.

For good reason it is very difficult for people to go on record about Metacritic scores but there are various pieces of information scattered around the net from ex-staff (and some current developer staff) outlining these issues.

One famous example came earlier this year in the form of Obsidian’s Chriss Avellone when he tweeted – but since deleted – that they missed out on a bonus from Bethesda as their well received Fallout: New Vegas failed to his a Metacritic score of 85 but one point.

Of course these issues don’t apply to all publishers and developers but it shouldn’t really apply to any of them. These scores are taken from various sites with different reporting ethics. Some users give high scores knowing that the top end listings will mean their sites produce more traffic while others base their scores on marketing investment given to them by the publishers themselves. Both of these don’t therefore provide a true perspective of the game itself and can become the difference between bonuses being paid and also whether a sequel will be approved.

Each Metacritic score can undoubtedly undermine exactly the principle of a review itself as these should be honest about the games themselves and can even be affected by a person’s individual views too. It has become too much of a common place in the games industry and is more of a detriment than ever. We all want to know what the overall consensus in on a product but why should these sometime biased views count towards a games success?

We all know a good/bad review can be the difference between improved sales or not but the roll onto the developers is where the issue really occurs. Ultimately it’s bad for the industry, bad for the consumer and even worse for the developers that put such hard work into their games.

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The Deterioration of Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3 has been one of my most played games in the part 12 months and always seems to be in the headlines with new DLC and tweaks to the gameplay.

It’s not just me that loves the game either as 15 million players are still sticking around for the war, but as is so often the case, many have cut their ties with Battlefield 3 and hitched onto the back of the next hype train.

Those players unlike me probably haven’t seen the horror that I am being faced with on a daily basis. There has become a dirty and distressing underworld to this gritty, popular videogame.

A few months ago DICE and EA introduced a new ‘rent-a-server’ option to Battlefield 3’s console experience which was intended to revolutionise the way we play. Unfortunately I have found that this once complete game has been filled with restrictions and bad balancing issues that DICE had resolved perfectly post launch.

Going into the typical standard option of a ‘Quick Match’ can now drop you into thousands of fan-run servers; many of which have very specific or aggressive rules established. These are fired at you on the loading screens but are sometimes unclear and generally create very specific advantages to the administrator’s style of play. A common example is a ban on shotguns which tends to be in place on most games where the administrators cannot compete with other players big shell approach.

The problem isn’t just in the rules of a single game as these can easily be changed on the fly without warning and cause even more issues to a player. Several times I have played through a game to find that I’ve been kick out as one of the rules has been changed to accommodate the administrators. This isn’t to say that all games are broken as some of the new enforcements are small changes that myself and others perceive as a positive; things like ‘no spawn camping’.

The bigger changes like ‘no shotguns’ and ‘no anti-air’ are just as common though and these rules specifically alter the balance of the game itself. Most of the changes are detrimental to the well created original rules. Many of the servers run on tickets (the Battlefield 3 respawn counter) that have been pushed up to and over 300% of the standard listing a map was designed for. In rush matches  for example the defending team are up against almost impossible odds and only a few defensive wins are ever achieved.  This gives you the impression that you are playing as a campaign grunt instead of a soldier as the hopeless odds make success almost impossible.

These new ‘Rent-a-server’ administrators are often (but not always) run by mini-satan’s that will almost always kick and ban players that don’t conform to their very specific rule sets. Usually this is to stop anyone half decent playing in their games and decreases their challenge with a lack of worthy competitors.

I almost always get kicked at least once when running through the different servers and I’m not even very good at the game itself. I try to revive everyone and overall play a very hapless medic. When I can - I run around like a headless chicken with my shotgun under one arm and my medi-kits under the other.

I have even seen servers quoting that only admin can use shotguns or play around with air-vehicles. I understand that people want to play a very specific type of dogfight in some cases but set up a friends only game; don’t let us join a game if we can’t even play it properly.

A recent game I played with a friend saw him getting kicked for running too many multi-kills on the administrators. He has a distinct hatred for reducing the use of shotguns but is pretty proficient playing any style in game. As such he took it upon himself to constantly track the administrators in game and attempted to kill them in a host of embarrassing ways. Following a remarkable streak of 50+ kills to around 9 deaths the administrators saw his potential before kicking and banning him before he could make them look any worse. It’s exasperating to put in 40 minutes of hard work only to be kicked from a game and end up with nothing.

The Battlelog forums have therefore been inundated with people complaining about these poorly created matches and in some cases player even consider it a badge of honour to be kicked for playing well.

Of course you can avoid the ‘Quick Match’ option completely but running through the server log gives barely any indication of whether you’ll fair better. Many of these look innocent until you get kicked and banned all over again. It’s almost next to impossible to find an original DICE server too as many of the rented options have included their tags in the title in order to boost their join levels.

The positive side of the coin is the band of brother’s effect that has started to run with those of us suppressive a distinct hatred for these poorly designed matches. The players with god-like skills have taken to showing up the admin in their own way but exploiting the match types themselves.

So whether you play a ‘Quick Match’ or search the servers the case is the same. You always run the 50/50 gauntlet of finding a tyrant or a great administrator. The problem is that the more times you get kicked the more you feel like buying your own server and creating your own game – and then the cycle continues.

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