PixlBit

I've seen plenty of people accuse various websites of allowing publsihers to buy higher than deserved review scores, but is this a thing that actually happens?

It's just that on any given day, just about every videogame website on the internet will be accused of being biased either towards or against Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all at the same time by readers who happen to be fans of their respective consoles. Since that's not possible, the far more logical conclusion to draw from those accusations is that the only bias' they're reflective of are the accuser's own.

That's kind of how I take the accusation that publishers pay reviewers to inflate their review scores. I'm not denying that we've caught publishers doing some shady stuff over the years, and the almost incestuous relationship between the industry and the videogames press with respect to the latter's reliance on the former for advertising revenue is cause for concern. However, unless we have proof that this has happened, and that it still is happening, I'm a great deal more inclined to write this particular accusation off as coming from folks who don't know how to deal with it when a game that they were predisposed to like didn't get the score they expected it to get, or who otherwise possess a tenuous understanding of the concept of opinion.

Considering that I've witnessed plenty of incidences of gamers going ape-spit over low-scoring reviews for games that went live well in advance of their street-dates, and also considering that I've seen people justify accusing critics of being bought and paid for by publishers for no other reason than because the critics in question liked a given game more than the accuser did, I'm pretty confident that's what it is rather than any grand, far-reaching conspiracy by the industry to artificially inflate review scores. 

As far as what Nintendo did goes, I'm not sure how you could possibly draw a comparison between it and buying inflated review scores. It's not remotely comparable. Granted, how the company went about it was stupid, but they were merely doing what they thought was necessary in order to protect the integrity of their intellectual-property, as is their prerogative. While they'd be smart to go about it more carefully in the future, there's nothing illegal or even particularly shady about it. You don't have to like what they did, of course,  but I feel like suggesting that they not be allowed to protect their IP is a little silly if I'm being honest.

The problem that I personally have with the Vita is that it's completely and totally uncomfortable to hold for any lengthy period of time, a problem that is made all the worse when playing games that use the back touchpad. You have to adjust the way that you hold the system when playing a game that uses it, but it's not exactly the most ergonomical device so it just ends up making playing such games feel like a chore.

For example, I'm a huge fan of Jak and Daxter, but even setting aside that the PS VIta version of the collection is ridden with bugs and the games play at a jarringly low framerate, it's just no fun to play because I have to keep my attention on how I hold the device lest I accidentally activate the L2 and R2 button functionality that the game's developers relegated to the back touchpad by accident. That's no problem in Jak 1, but in the other two games, accidentally pressing those virtual buttons in the mist of gameplay can screw you up quite a bit. So I play with my hands cramped at the corners of the handheld, and it's just not fun.

I like games that don't use it a great deal more, but again, the system isn't particularly comfortable to hold even then, so I don't play them for long, and it takes a whole lot of willpower to work up to wanting to play it at all because of that. It's not as if I have huge hands either. I'm a smaller-than-average dude with normal sized hands, but I just can't get comfortable with the thing.

Folks have suggested that a grip solves that problem, but I haven't got one yet. I'm still not sure enitrely whether or not I'm going to keep it. I've had no problem finding plenty of great games for it, but the device itself has had a way of sucking the fun right out of even the best of them.

I don't mean to offend, but If I'm being honest, I have to say that the concept of being a fan of any of these companies is one that's completely foreign to me. It just doesn't compute. Oh, I certainly understand having a preference for their consoles and games, and I even understand brand-loyalty to an extent. However, to be a fan of them just because they've put stuff on the market that I happened to enjoy is one that I can't wrap my head around. It's not as if they're doing it for me. They're not even aware that I exist.

That having been said, it's not my intention to come across as dismissive. I understand that this is an issue apart from whether or not Nintendo listens to its...fans, and I feel like even had they made it clear up front why they were doing it, it still wouldn't have been a very smart move to have made. Microsoft's recent blunders have put us on-edge and have made us unwilling to take any more crap, and given that Nintendo isn't exactly moving tons of WIi U consoles at the moment, they should be actively avoiding doing anything to generate itself ill-will.

I'm kind of like both Marty and his Dad in "Back to the Future", inasmuch as I too worry too much about rejection to even think about trying. It's one of my more glaring faults, and while I'm working on it, it still has its hooks in too deeply for me to have felt comfortable with submitting anything.

"But what if they tell me that my writing is no good? I don't think I can handle that sort of rejection..."

Maybe next time.

Congrats to all the new staffers! Here's to Pixlbit's continued growth and prosperity!

How much wood would a woodchuck pay a well-trained team of martial-artist gerbil fetishists to break into perfectly unifrom toothpicks using the power of clone-Hitler's brain that's been floating in a jar full of rancid prune juice and stale chocolate-chips that they hooked up to a car battery?

Please show your work.

Dude, Blake! It's always good to see you, dude. You doing well?

Good to see you too, Ben! I'm digging the vibe here quite a bit. Everyone seems to be pretty groovy and down-to-Earth for the most part, and I like that. :)

Sony has managed to earn itself a fair bit of good will by not following in Microsoft's lead with the PS4, and I think that after the missteps that it made going into this generation the company is well aware of the fact that it would be in its best interest to continue to build on that good will rather than squander it. Time will tell, but I get the strong impression that Sony has learned its lessons.

As for Nintendo, for all its faults, be they real or merely perceived, it has always struck me as being a humble company, and one that in spite of the ire it draws from the so-called "hardcore" crowd for not catering solely to it, is the most inclined to do what it feels like it needs to in order to satisfy its fans. It may not always succeed, but I feel like they do try. They've never really done anything overtly evil though, at least not to us anyway, and I don't see that changing.    

Microsoft, however, even now continues to demonstrate its contempt for consumers. It should be laying low, allowing its reversal on the XBox One's DRM policies some time to generate some good will. Instead, the company is doing its best to squander what little that it did manage to win itself by trying to manipulate its fans by dangling the loss of poorly-explained features in their faces, is trying to turn public perception against Sony by making the PS4 look regressive by comparison to what they intended the XBox One to be, and is trying to shame those of us who value our rights as consumers by making it look like those features were dropped as a cost of giving us what we demanded, in spite of the fact that they never really explained exactly what those features were supposed to be in a way that would adequately justify to us the PS3's always-online requirement in the first place. When added to the list of shit they've said and done/tried in recent weeks, it won't surprise me even a little bit if they decide somewhere down the line to either slowly introduce the DRM back into the system, or just totally lose the plot altogether and try to do something equally as ridiculous.

And y'know, while it's a matter of fact that everything that a business does is in the service of making money, everything that Microsoft has said and done in recent weeks makes it blantantly obvious that it sees its XBox brand as nothing more than a means to that end. I don't feel like it got into the industry because it had any real interest in it, but because it wanted a piece of that sweet, sweet pie, and I think that how out of touch with gamers it has demonstrated itself as being over the last couple of months makes that abundantly clear. Maybe that's cynical of me to say, but can you blame me?

It's that we stuck to our guns that makes it so disheartening to see how successful Microsoft has been at spinning its 180 on the XBox One's DRM measures as something it did because it truly listened to us gamers. They're playing us like cheap violins, and sadly, it appears to be working.