Saturday, January 9, 2010

Tantrum time

Well, apologies for the lack of recent posting, I'm busy moving my life around! Anyway, over on the forums the old "I don't like the score the review panel gave" debate is on again. This time, Hurg has deleted all 3 Cosmos Quest games from the AGS Games DB in reaction, although you can still get them from his site.

I had some people express to me similar anger to the lack of AGS awards for QFG2VGA, with the general thrust being that not enough or the wrong type of people voted in the awards. Well, the review panel isn't enough people for some either. Especially when their game or one they like is involved. Or maybe some people can't take criticism. People should realise that such protests don't make them look like freedom fighters but instead make them seem petty and vain.

Andail has said that an official announcement is coming soon. Let's see if it pours oil on the waters.

8 comments:

  1. hey man, no reason to drag me in this??? i can't recall doing something like this, but if i did, then it must have been years ago, since i can't really remember. please keep my name out of this,
    thanks,
    mordalles

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  2. Thank you for bringing these threads to our attention! Beyond the singular cases, the debate overall looks to be very reminiscent, in my mind, of how the IGF ratings board and evaluative processes have come similarly under the microscope recently.

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  3. Sorry Mordalles, I've taken your name off as I recall you removing you games, but not the reason. Apologies.

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  4. thanks, ssh.

    i did remove two of my 1st games simply because i thought they were embarrassingly bad. nothing to do with their ratings. in fact, they were rated a bit on the high side! :D
    ;)
    mordalles

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  5. Removing the games from database is childish action. I read the whole discution and must say that I support both sides.

    I support the AGS panel because their work is free, and the panel can not hire more people to make the review more objective.

    I support the developer because I think that is not fair AGS panel (which in the case is a single person) to comment the creative work. In this case I think it's better AGS panel to review only technical areas of the game.

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  6. I also read the whole discussion and was astonished by the following statement made by the author of the removed games: "No one wants better rating. I just don't want the games to be reviewed by a single person…" Well, it’s a BS. If it's not about the rating, why he didn't say anything during the last 4 years? Why he waited so many years before starting to criticize the panel? Why he felt comfortable with how the panel works and how the rest of his two games are reviewed till the day he got a bad rating? Would he have started complaining about how reviews are made if he had received a good rating for his 3rd game? It's so obvious...

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  7. @freeman

    Well, the AGS panel is a fairly new thing. I assume his previous games were on the database before the panel existed? I don't know for sure but that's my assumption. As for the issue itself, yeesh. There are a thousand ways to promote a game and throwing a fit over just one is just plain silly.

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  8. @freeman

    I don't think it's BS. I too lived under the assumption that games would be reviewed by more than one member of the panel, it's only several months after the panel was created that I learned it wasn't the case. Someone who doesn't visit the forum every days could very well not know that.

    On the subject of QFG2VGA, I'm the douche who threw a tantrum about the number of cups last year. Funny thing is the next day I had no recollection of ever posting the tantrum, so a week later I check this blog, read there's a douche who threw a tantrum over the number of cup, give a look since internet drama is always a good laugh only to discover that douche was me.

    If you wrote a list of Sierra games that were actually amazing and not overrated mediocre games, QFG2, with two of the other QFG games, would be on that list. I thought the remake of such game, which kept all the good parts, got rid of the crappy parts, and added shovelful of goodies, deserved 5 cups.

    But, hey, I got over it. The series is tough to master, it isn't your ordinary traditionnal point and click adventure game, you can die plenty of time, it got a friggin maze, 4 cups seems perfectly fitting and "4 cups" doesn't mean "super crappy game" either for eff sake.

    As for more panels member rating each games, as nice as it would be, it's just impossible, the database has just too many games for that to be feasible, and finding the time to review each games once is already difficult for the panel already, let alone review each games twice. And who am I to complain about that when I didn't and I still don't propose my help when the panel were looking for reviewers?

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