How much did it cost Bethesda to buy critic reviews before release?

[Gul Bjorn]

I'm actually curious. What were the reviewers given? was it just 3 hours of game play?
was it just videos of specific game play?
was it a part of the game skipping the first 5 hours of poorly written nonsense before you could do your own thing? and then just 2 hours of going to POIS so that they wouldn't realize they were copy paste?

I couldn't believe that the game was as bad and boring as it was. so I pushed through. I thought there HAD to be something there. after 120 hours, i realized that beating the game, and starting over, then new game plusing twice in a new file, I realized i couldn't find anything interesting. I couldn't find anything other than the watered down writing of the 4 story lines, and then the same 5 POIS over. and over. and over.

there was the new game plus vendor, but it was like. "oh ok, things that could have been useful another run ago" but is that the game? I was expecting something even better than skyrim, something better than fallout 4. With interesting combat, interesting dialogue, interesting choices. Only to find that the weapons were bland, and the choices never mattered.

[Sistermatic™]

I'm not giving you a clown award. I'm not.

[Falaris]

It is very obvious from what you write that the main problem is your expectations. Fallout 4 and Skyrim are some of the best games of the previous 2 decades, and Fallout 4 had several expansions. You want something better than that, in a new IP, with tons of new features - and still doing the 'old' things better, too. For cheaper. That's not a reasonable expectation. It's expectations so high there is no NG+ where they would be met.

What you did was called 'buying into the hype' and it's never a good idea. I went into Starfield blind and had - and has - a blast of a time, because I got something better than I expected.

It may also have helped that I really like 'The Expanse', which obviously is a pretty big inspiration for the game, and also find the world they built and the metaphilosophy of the starborn of the game fascinating.

[Gul Bjorn]

Originally posted by Sistermatic™:

I'm not giving you a clown award. I'm not.

I'm not asking for any. It's not bait, it's a legitimate question. How can the reviews in the ad video be perfect across the board, but the games user review has steadily decreased down to 59% ?

[AuddieD]

Originally posted by Falaris:

What you did was called 'buying into the hype' and it's never a good idea. I went into Starfield blind and had - and has - a blast of a time, because I got something better than I expected.

I think this was a big part of it for me. I avoided everything but the premise of the game before playing it myself.

[Sistermatic™]

Originally posted by Gul Bjorn:

Originally posted by Sistermatic™:

I'm not giving you a clown award. I'm not.

I'm not asking for any. It's not bait, it's a legitimate question. How can the reviews in the ad video be perfect across the board, but the games user review has steadily decreased down to 59% ?

It's not a 'legitimate question'. It's a rant.

[Don_Salvatore]

Pretty much the top 30 reviews are paid for as you can easily read by just giving them a cursory look.

https://www.metacritic.com/game/starfield/critic-reviews/?platform=pc

The real critics review is much more in line with user reviews on Steam once you filter out the clearly fake reviews.

[Gul Bjorn]

Originally posted by Falaris:

It is very obvious from what you write that the main problem is your expectations. Fallout 4 and Skyrim are some of the best games of the previous 2 decades, and Fallout 4 had several expansions. You want something better than that, in a new IP, with tons of new features - and still doing the 'old' things better, too. For cheaper. That's not a reasonable expectation. It's expectations so high there is no NG+ where they would be met.

What you did was called 'buying into the hype' and it's never a good idea. I went into Starfield blind and had - and has - a blast of a time, because I got something better than I expected.

It may also have helped that I really like 'The Expanse', which obviously is a pretty big inspiration for the game, and also find the world they built and the metaphilosophy of the starborn of the game fascinating.

I would argue that what I bought into, was a combination of advertising, and expectation from history. While morrrowind, oblivion, skyrim, and fallout 4, aren't technically amazing games, they are ones that have a good amount of enjoyable gameplay. This is what I was lead to expect from the company. the idea of saying "oh it's a new IP you shouldn't have expectations" is completely contradictory to their advertising. it was advertised to be greater in all aspects of anything the company had ever made. They gave huge speeches on it. as far as I'm concerned, starfield is the new no mans sky.

[Gul Bjorn]

Originally posted by Sistermatic™:

Originally posted by Gul Bjorn:

I'm not asking for any. It's not bait, it's a legitimate question. How can the reviews in the ad video be perfect across the board, but the games user review has steadily decreased down to 59% ?

It's not a 'legitimate question'. It's a rant.

i'm asking. if you thought it wasn't a legitimate question, then why would you bother take note of it.

[Falaris]

Originally posted by Gul Bjorn:

I would argue that what I bought into, was a combination of advertising, and expectation from history. While morrrowind, oblivion, skyrim, and fallout 4, aren't technically amazing games, they are ones that have a good amount of enjoyable gameplay. This is what I was lead to expect from the company. the idea of saying "oh it's a new IP you shouldn't have expectations" is completely contradictory to their advertising. it was advertised to be greater in all aspects of anything the company had ever made. They gave huge speeches on it. as far as I'm concerned, starfield is the new no mans sky.

It's a bit of a problem, that - the purpose of advertising and hype is to get people interested enough in a game to buy it, but inevitably also lays the foundations for disappointment. In a way it's a good thing, to get the game out to people who'll enjoy playing it, but it's not so good if it ruins their enjoyment. Often, it's worded carefully so that there is a large difference between what they say they promise, and what you hear. (AKA 'spin'). HG Wells said, "Advertising is legitimized lying" and the sooner you divest yourself of this notion that advertising is something to be taken at face value, the better. That's good advice for gaming, and even better for the real world.

[katzenkrimis]

Originally posted by Gul Bjorn:

I was expecting something even better than Skyrim, something better than Fallout 4.

With interesting combat, interesting dialogue, interesting choices.

Only to find that the weapons were bland, and the choices never mattered.

I hated Skyrim and Fallout IV when they were released.

This game is much better than both of them. If you don't see that, then you can go back and play those decades-old games forever. I wouldn't wish them on anybody in 2024.

Even though I hate the majority of writing in video games, Starfield did have better writing than Fallout IV. I don't remember Skyrim's writing because it was so long ago, but I know that it wasn't memorable. People were spamming one-liners from that game every day, mocking it.

Choices in Starfield were only critical in a couple of scenarios. The fun that I had with this game was from the side quests, which were surprisingly long. The longest quests that I've ever done in my life. Took me two or three days to complete some of them.

The rest of my time was spent immersed in fist combat, exploring, surveying, and building ships.

The main quest was the very last thing that I did, after surveying the entire galaxy. At that point I was so powerful that it went by very quickly and there was nothing left to do.

Five hundred hours later.

[momopovich]

Originally posted by Gul Bjorn:

While morrrowind, oblivion, skyrim, and fallout 4, aren't technically amazing games, they are ones that have a good amount of enjoyable gameplay.

Morrowind, oblivion and skyrim have horrifyingly bad combat, no end game whatosever (loot system replaced by crafted weapons), no base building and extremely limited housing

Fallout 4 has much more interesting gameplay, and it's inferior to SF by many accounts (combat, character movement, housing, technical aspects) and SF obviously has completely new features (ship building)

[kdodds]

Reviewers had a week, same as all of us who preordered premium. The initial views, untainted by memes and loudmouth opinion guiding clicks, are exactly the purest opinions. There were no other opinions to influence them. Way to disprove your own post OP.

[I Denizen I]

Originally posted by Sistermatic™:

I'm not giving you a clown award. I'm not.

He's got a point, its the worst received BGS title by a significant margin by the customers and fans of BGS, so just how did it get so many 10 out of 10 reviews from the usual suspects?

I'm struggling to think of another game where there is such a disconnect between the paid reviewers and the customers.

Calling your own game a masterpiece 10 seconds into a video doesn't help either.

[Don_Salvatore]

Originally posted by kdodds:

Reviewers had a week, same as all of us who preordered premium. The initial views, untainted by memes and loudmouth opinion guiding clicks, are exactly the purest opinions. There were no other opinions to influence them. Way to disprove your own post OP.

Indeed... There is no difference between us ordinary gamers and the "review sites" that gave the game 100/100

None whatsoever.

These include stalwart game critics known to all gamers such as:

Areajugones

Player 2

VGC

Gameblog.fr

Destructoid

Starfield is a true system seller. More than a game, it's an epic poem. An extremely rich and generous adventure that surprises you every time and when you least expect it. It is by far the most ambitious Bethesda’s game and one of the boldest games of the last few years. For sure, Starfield will go down in the history of video games.


We are all equal and the same

[I Denizen I]

Originally posted by kdodds:

Reviewers had a week, same as all of us who preordered premium. The initial views, untainted by memes and loudmouth opinion guiding clicks, are exactly the purest opinions. There were no other opinions to influence them. Way to disprove your own post OP.

No, all the premium purchasers who refunded because they did not like the game, were prevented from leaving a review.

So their choice was leave no review, or eat a $100 bill to leave a review for a game they had no desire to play, just how many people do you imagine would eat that $100 cost to post a negative review here?

And that massively skewed the day one review score, all the unhappy customers from the 5 day EA had no means to say a thing, other than the forums, and we know how much you defenders love to hear from people unhappy with the game.