A Few Fundamental Truths About Game Reviews, So Stop Being So Mad

Always remember: If it makes lots of money, it is perfect and immune to criticism.

To catch you up: There's a game called Grand Theft Auto V. Maybe you've heard of it. Like all games in the series, you commit horrible, violent crimes. Arguably, in V, those crimes tend to be a bit more on the gruesome, appalling scale than in earlier games.

Reviews are coming out. Greg Tito of the Escapist gave the game the shocking, war-crime level rating of 3.5 stars out of 5, saying "only buy Grand Theft Auto V if you're prepared to play as characters with no justifiable motivation for doing awful things to people."

Predictably, their forums exploded into haterage, as a huge portion of gamers are nothing but giant, ambulatory, exposed nerves mainly good for the spraying of spite. 

So Greg Tito had to back up the largely obvious, expected, self-evident points he made earlier with a long follow-up article. It's worthy reading.

Man, I loves me some good internet drama. It's like fudge. I can eat it all day. Keeps me from working. But ...

oh god why am i trying so tired so tired

A Few Sanity Comments

1. Evaluating the worth of a work of art with a number, a clump of stars, or the positioning of one's thumb is completely arbitrary and useless. We know that, right? Ignore it. You can't judge a work of art with a number. It's not like there's some Art Scale you can put art on and weigh it and say, "This weighs 7.32 Arts, so it's good."

2. The point of a critic is to criticize. Anyone in our developing art form who actually tries to stand up and make real points is worth applauding, even if we don't agree.

3. If you, as a critic, don't ever make a bunch of people angry at you, you're wasting your time. If you're never challenging anyone, why are you bothering? 

4. Also, ProTip: When a carefully reasoned comment makes someone angry, that means you're on the right track. When you are being calm and thoughtful and people still rage at you, it means you hit a nerve that probably needed hitting.

5. As the art form matures, you have to expect that really egregious crap is going to get called out more and more. Sure, you're allowed to make a game that's morally repellent. But realize, as gamers grow up, have kids, and start to lose family members, they’re learning just how funny death isn't. The voices saying, "Why are the biggest, most glorious, most expensive worlds in the game industry being used for such a horrific end?" are only going to get louder.

6. This just makes me appreciate Saints Row IV so much more. Practically all of the comical violence in it is directed against evil, invading aliens or computer simulations. Makes it go down easier for us olds. And, yes, I am plausibly pointing out Saints Row as the sane, mature option, which is how we know that the world has gone mad.

7. A lot of the comments claim everything Greg Tito says is invalid forever because he gave Dragon Age II 5 stars out of 5. One, if you're wrong once, it doesn't mean you can't be right 500 times after that. And, two, read Sanity Comment #1 again. 

8. That Grand Theft Auto V depicts what it does and yet is as popular as it is is very interesting. I think it says something about us as people. And I'm not about to get all liberal and sensitive and say that it's something inherently bad. I think the game addresses less the desire to do wrong and more a deeper, fundamental frustration. Not sure. Just a hunch. Bears more thought.

9. Finally. If we are going to assign numerical values to represent the value of a work of art in a storytelling medium (which we shouldn't, because it's dumb and useless), it is necessary to take the quality of the story into account. I mean, right?

Yeah, I'll probably play GTA V one of these days. For as long as I can stand it, anyway. It sounds like a stunning technical accomplishment, the sort of thing a game designer has to play to keep one's skills current. I just dream of a day when the most technically spectacular games can be played with my kids in the room.

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Watch Me Talk About Something!

Casual Connect is an annual convention in Seattle dedicated to the discussion of casual computer games, the design and marketing of same, and how to write games that milk every last penny from your aunt by getting her to bug you on Facebook for cow clicks or Smurfberries or whatever.

Anyway, they were kind enough to ask me to speak about storytelling in computer games for their Indie track. I gave my talk, and they filmed it. My talk is online here. Please enjoy my sultry voice, questionable game design principles, and unique posture. 

Or not. The talk is 20 minutes long. You could probably more profitably spend your time doing, say, ANYTHING ELSE.

(Technical note: My slides are a .pdf. I know. I suck and am unclassy. But my main life goal is to reach death without ever learning how to use Powerpoint, and I'm sticking with it.)

The most interesting thing about Casual Connect? How weird anyone who sells software in the old school way is made to feel. Here's what I do: I write a game. I give it to you in return for a set number of dollars. Then we part ways, and you never have to look at my pale, beardy face again.

This model is so incredibly retro now! Pay money for a game? Nonsense! Everyone real makes their money with microtransactions and advertising and nickle and diming you for packs of 100 Dragon Bux you can use to make your zombie ninja pirate dragon grow faster. And if you make money any other way, people in suits will act very nervous and not make eye contact with you anymore.

If you end up at Casual Connect and talking to actual grown-up business people, I suggest you do what I did: Have a firm, manly handshake. Make eye contact. Say "monetize" and "ARPU" as much as possible. And then pee yourself.

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The iPad. Changing Fast and Faster.

I'll get the PR puffery out of the way early. We released our newest game, Avernum: Escape From the Pit HD, on the iPad last week. There are almost no old-school RPGs on the platform, and this is a good one.

OK. Done.

I wanted to talk a little about how much changed on the iPad (and the iPhone) in the mere eight months since we released our first game for it, Avadon: The Black Fortress HD, in June, 2011. It really fascinates me.

First, everything that was crazy before is more crazy. iPad sales have taken off even more than before, and competing tablets are being crushed by its awesomeness. (Yes, I think that the iPad is the superior tablet computer. Please feel free to pillory me in comments.) My previous game, Avadon HD, is selling far better than it did 4 or 5 months ago, just from increased popularity of the iPad.

Second, developers have noticed. The flood of new games for iPad and iPhone has not slowed at all. In fact, it feels like it's increased. I don't have figures to back this up, only my gut feeling. If you have a link to hard figures, please let me know in comments and I'll add it to the article. There are dozens of new games every day, and your blessed placement at the top of the New Releases list won't last long. At all.

Because of this, even though I think I've done a far better job marketing Avernum HD and creating its store page than Avadon HD, it is selling far worse. Avadon HD was the best-selling RPG for several days. Avernum HD got to #2 very briefly and then immediately plummeted to #18. It's not THAT worse a game, but the flood of competitors cannot be resisted by my cute, niche little product.

Do not feel sorry for me. It is still, by any reasonable human standard, makin' us good money. But it's really rough out there. I am strongly considering posting detailed sales figures in a week or three, just to let people see what the money end of iPad development is like.

Third, free-to-play is where the money is.

I just looked at the RPG section of iTunes. As of 3:56 PM, Pacific time, April 9, 2012, the #1, #2, and #3 games on the Paid Apps list are at #25, #27, and #6 on the Grossing list. (The #3 game is $6.99, which is why its grosses are so high.) The #18 sales rank for Avernum HD nets it #46 most grossing. Freemium games kick ass.

This is a relatively recent change. In June, when Avadon HD was #1 or #2 on Paid Apps, this resulted in #3-4 on Top Grossing. I never made #1 Grossing, but I came close. Now DragonVale rules the world.

This makes me feel obsolete. I should write a freemium RPG where you can pay real money to get a +5 Paladin Sword of Awesomeness or whatever. But I just can't bring myself to do it. It's ironic. When I started, I was one of the young turks challenging the old order with shareware by giving part of my game away for free. Now I am one of the old, cranky reptiles being pushed aside by an awesome marketing angle I'm just too old and inflexible to take advantage of.

I love developing for the iPad. I love the device. It is, to quote an imaginary guy in a story Mike Daisey made up, "a kind of magic." And, since I'm the only person writing my sort of game for the platform (which is weird), I foresee reasonable earnings from it for me for quite a while. Not everone with an iPad wants a game where you spend 99 cents to buy a hat for your dragon.

But it's the sexiest, moneyest, most cutthroat competitive market out there. I can scrape out some dollars because I have an established fanbase. If I was just starting out, I would be terrified of making my way in iTunes, and rightly so.

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