Negativity on metacritic

[Pepisolo]

I just popped over to metacritic to see how the game is doing and there seems to have been a spate of negative user reviews.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/bionic-dues

Might this be to do with those Avast errors? Or that panning while a joypad is plugged in bug? Or any other particular criticism that might have surfaced? I'm just interested as I was pretty confident that this game would be an 8 plus in user and critic ratings.

[Misery]

Feh, it's bloody Metacritic.  People there will rate games a 0 if Windows itself crashes during the game because Windows.   Really, I wish that site would go away.

[Pepisolo]

Feh, it's bloody Metacritic.  People there will rate games a 0 if Windows itself crashes during the game because Windows.   Really, I wish that site would go away.

I guess there was a slight worry that the negative reviews might indicate some kind of flaw (maybe technical) in the game that could be addressed. Some games do get bombed for technical reasons (sometimes rarely even rightly so) and I'd rather than not happen with Bionic Dues. Although, if it is the Avast thing then that's completely out of Arcen's hands, so there's not much that can be done, I guess.

[Mick]

Well, since no one there bothered to actually write a review, it's hard to tell anything at all from that score.

[Pepisolo]

Well, since no one there bothered to actually write a review, it's hard to tell anything at all from that score.

Yep, you can't really tell. I'm just putting feelers out in case there might be a chance of nipping any potential negativity in the bud. I'll have a look at the steam forums, see if there's any general problem that people are complaining about.

[Misery]

So far, I've not seen any common complaint on there;  the Steam forums have been pretty much positive the entire time.  Plenty of questions asked, but that was about it.

So that's good at least.

[chemical_art]

To this day, only AI war has fared well on metacritic.

I wish I could say don't worry about it, but in practice for any game if I see it below 70, I pass. Simply don't have enough time to begin with, so don't investigate games that are a mixed bag when so many are universally appealing. That said, I only view actual reviews, and the one review is a good one.

[Pepisolo]

So far, I've not seen any common complaint on there;  the Steam forums have been pretty much positive the entire time.  Plenty of questions asked, but that was about it.

So that's good at least.

Maybe the spate of negatives is not indicative of anything then. Hopefully the user score will recover over time -- I know it's not that important, but it's nice to have a decent rating.

I wish I could say don't worry about it, but in practice for any game if I see it below 70, I pass. Simply don't have enough time to begin with, so don't investigate games that are a mixed bag when so many are universally appealing.

Yeah, it's not nice that sales can be driven by such a fickle rating system, but they are. I use it myself sometimes to hone in on potential purchases. It is what it is, I guess.

[Misery]

To this day, only AI war has fared well on metacritic.

I wish I could say don't worry about it, but in practice for any game if I see it below 70, I pass. Simply don't have enough time to begin with, so don't investigate games that are a mixed bag when so many are universally appealing. That said, I only view actual reviews, and the one review is a good one.

Kinda the opposite for me:  If I see a low-scoring game, I'll immediately look into it more.   Quite often, doing this has led me to good results (as in, a game I end up liking alot).   To be fair though, I'm pretty much interested in indie titles mostly, and almost always I'm playing the genres or types of games that more "mainstream" gamers literally dont understand very well in many cases (and thus instantly give bad reviews to, even if their complaints make less than no sense), so that's at least a small part of it.  It can happen for any game in any genre though.

This though is if I bother to look at the number.  Usually I dont, simply knowing that people can rate it badly if their damn machine has a seizure for a seperate reason, or simply because they're being a troll.... It reminds me of reviews on GameFAQs from random forumites, where the reasoning can range from "Okay, that makes sense" to "What in the world did I even just read?".

Though I will admit, the whole thing DOES have comedy value to it, some of the reviews being what they are.

[Mick]

Sadly, if I had not been a fan of Arcen, I would have passed on Bionic Dues. It wouldn't have been because of the Metacritic scores though, it would be because I had never even heard of the game.

Most releases I learn about on Steam, and the timing of this release + the lack of being featured pretty much meant that if you blinked you would miss that this new game from Arcen came out at all.

I knew it was because released, and I still almost missed it on Steam!

This game simply needs more attention over all. Even stinker reviews would be good at this point, because then at least people would be hearing that it exists.

[Mánagarmr]

The day Metacritic dies in a fiery inferno will be a happy day.

[tigersfan]

The day Metacritic dies in a fiery inferno will be a happy day.

For me too. Unfortunately, for now, working where I work means I HAVE to pay attention to it.

As for those saying they've never heard of it outside of here... That's really frustrating. Erik worked his ASS off promoting this one, and I'm at a loss for what he could have done differently.

[chemical_art]

The day Metacritic dies in a fiery inferno will be a happy day.

At that point, it would still be at the whim of google searches, and as infuriating as metacritic is, that is even more fickle.

[Mick]

As for those saying they've never heard of it outside of here... That's really frustrating. Erik worked his ASS off promoting this one, and I'm at a loss for what he could have done differently.

I'm sorry. I don't mean to frustrate you. I don't doubt that your team did everything possible to promote it. It baffles me that this game seems to have super stealth ninja powers, for no discernible reason, when it comes to press attention.

[Misery]

The day Metacritic dies in a fiery inferno will be a happy day.

For me too. Unfortunately, for now, working where I work means I HAVE to pay attention to it.

As for those saying they've never heard of it outside of here... That's really frustrating. Erik worked his ASS off promoting this one, and I'm at a loss for what he could have done differently.

Yeah, there really was just no coverage at all pretty much anywhere at any point during the beta.

I was real surprised at this, particularly after Skyward had pretty good coverage (which was also generally positive).

And this is on sites that usually are very good about knowing what's coming up and what's in development, even when dealing with developers that dont exactly try too hard to advertise.  Wheras I know that you guys DO put the effort and time into it.

I thought it was pretty frustrating overall myself.