Double Agent
A marketing department of your peers - June 18, 2001 - Chris Jones

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. In an alternate reality, I'm a truck driver named Bubba. Big surprise. Don't say we didn't warn you.

We could see a Dragon Quest Online game on the same network as FFXI.

The situation's just glistening with irony, isn't it?

Onward.

If then else
Chris,

I think the only reviews on a website which influence me are ones from sites I trust. Or even reviewers I trust assuming the site signs their reviews.

I'm somewhat of a maverick among my friends in game choice - I don't do EverQuest and whatnot, I do FreeSpace2, FPS/RTS/RPG/"any other three letter acronym game category" (ok, maybe not that last one) ... so word of mouth really doesn't work for me.

Basically, I always do two things.
1) Go to the sites I trust.
2) Go to sites I don't.

Now, before you laugh at the inherant stupidity of that, it makes sense, I promise.

If the sites I like are all raving over a game but every single other site is canning it, I'm going to wonder "What's going on here?" and do a lot more research. Demos, and whatnot. (I admit, the majority of my gaming nowadays is PC gaming, and demos are a great luxury PC gamers have that not every console gamer can get...makes game buying SO nice.)

But if the sites I like and trust are raving a game and the other sites are just a little more reserved about it, or I get the impression they don't know what the hell they're talking about (Happens far too often :rolleyes:) then I'm going to buy it, 9 times out of 10.

Now, if the sites I like and the sites I hate are raving over a game, I probably already have it pre-ordered. :)

=====
Peter

My problem is that between time and money constraints, even game-of-the-year titles that everyone, friend and foe, says are brilliant, don't get played. Still, there's a certain amount of wisdom to your approach - in many European countries where news media comes in a wide variety of political flavors, it's not uncommon for someone to buy the paper that most nearly matches their views, and the paper that completely disagrees with their views. You're simply doing something similar, to get a degree of perspective on the situation.

X-Factor
Hey Chris,

What makes me buy games, you ask? Well, the list could go on...but it biols down to a couple factors.

First of all, a couple of yesterdays letters hit it square on the head. Word of Mouth makes a big difference. If I've heard good things about a game, I tend to want to buy it.

Advertisement. Some bad, some good. The simple fact is though, advertisement can make OR break a game. I've wanted to play games before, seen the commercial (with footage of the NEW AMAZING GAMEPLAY!) and been so sickened knowing I wanted to BUY that pos that I would have jumped off a bridge.

Nich also made a wonderful point: Box Art makes a BIG difference. I walk into Software Etc. and I walk around for 30-45 minutes checking whats out. If it has an incredibly ugly box, I can't help but skip it. It must be subconcious or something...

And, this is a good point if I say so myself, the biggest reason I buy games? I've played them before, be that at a friends or rent it from work (Heh, free rentals. I love my job), and loved the game. Then I just HAVE to buy it.

Hm, and out of curiousity, what game do you think had the best ads of all time?

Garion1122 (damn my lack of creativity when it comes to names),

P.S. - I FINALLY figured you guys out! If a P.S is included, you put it on the page! Hah, you slick bastards you...

Sounds about right - box art doesn't make that big a difference with me (because strangely enough, if I think I'll like a game then any box art becomes beautiful) but word of mouth from people I trust goes a fairly long way. As far as rentals go, tho, it's often the case that once I've rented a game, I don't feel the need to buy it because I've already tried it out.

And best ads? Hmm... might be a good topic for tomorrow, but for now I'll have to go with Final Fantasy 8 - it's amazing what a simple date and logo can do when you're already rabid with interest for a title.

Brand name goodness
What makes me buy a game? Normally I pick up a game based on my understanding of what to expect gleaned from the internet gaming sites and magazines. But I also disregard 80% of the games that I'm aware of before I even research them based loosely on the following criterion:

- Publisher
(I'll at least look at almost any game by Square, Sega, Atlus, Enix... and a few others)

- Reviews
(I may disagree with them as often as I agree with them, but reviews put a little meat on what I should expect out of a game. Sometimes a bad review will make me buy a game because the reviewer will complain about features I like-- most commonly this happens with RPGs)

- Genre
(I'll spend much more time researching an RPG than a sports title)

- Word of Mouth
(Do people I know and trust like the game? Usually at this point I'm only looking for justification, not an actual opinion. But sometimes a friend will point out a game that I hadn't even considered as being good).

-n0sh (who would read video game consumer reports if there were such a thing)

Yep, that's it: brand names mean significantly more to me than nearly anything else. Of course, brand names for games are somewhat different from brand names in, say, clothing - plenty of people make jeans just as good as Levis, and it's easy to figure that out since a pair of jeans is a pair of jeans is a pair of jeans. Each game is pretty much unique to itself, so a proven developer doesn't guarantee anything... but it is a reasonably good guide to what a title might be like. It's always good to try new stuff, but for the most part, sticking with a proven winner's not a bad idea.

A real man needs a real toilet
I just wanted to let everybody know that I do love them, and simply forgot about the fact that I was leaving the country for a few months when I hosted my last column of the summer. I didn't even start packing until the night before I left, to show you how well I plan for things.

At any rate, to make up for my absent-mindedness, I will let you in on a little secret I've learned in the past few days: Japanese-style toilets SUCK.

-Drew

I have no response to that. Still, good to know Drew's safely in Japan, causing havoc to their plumbing system, I guess.

I'm proud to say, I have no ida what Freddie Prinze Jr. sounds like
I have been trying to get an answer from different sources on the US voice actors for FFX for a little while and I was hoping you could help me out. A month or so ago I had read that famous Hollywood actors and actresses had been trying to get their voices into FFX due to the hype over the movie. Please tell me this is not true. This would totally contradict Square Japan's reasons for putting unknown voices into the game. I do not want to see Tidus, and hear Freddie Prinze Jr's voice. I am sure I am not the only fan that doesn't want to instantly equate a character's voice from the latest crappy teen comedy. I am hoping that the characters have voices that I have never heard before, it will help to make the characters more unique. I really hope that this isn't true, can you please fill me in if you have any info? Thanks for your help.

MattS

We get letters like this one a fair amount at the GIA, people hyped up about some rumor they heard and demanding to be told that it's true or false. Now, obviously we don't have time to lay to rest everything that gets made up by some bored 7th grader on a message board somewhere, but in general your chances improve if you

A)Use correct spelling, punctuation, and capitalization, and
B)Have a paragraph break or two every once in a while.

Yep, sad to say, the stuff your English teachers make you do in essays does have some bearing on the real world.

As for "famous Hollywood actors and actresses", I wouldn't sweat it too much. Some of the hype for the FF movie is not great, and even assuming some teenybopper star wanted to be in the game, I doubt Square would be willing to shell out the necessary funds. It's taken them nearly 10 years to hire a decent translator, you think they're going to pay 10 times more just to have Jennifer Love Hewitt as Yuna?

Women in refrigerators *FF7 spoiler*
What makes me buy a game?

I'd have to say favorable words from people I tend to agree with.. First that's people as in plural.. I wont buy at one good review, but if after cruising the web for a while I begin to notice people have been saying things like "buy Skies of Arcadia now!" or "SoA beats anything Squaresoft has churned out recently" (having played it I agree) Ill most likely buy it.

Also, I put more value on comments from people who have the same taste in games as I do. Example: A review of Final Fantasy X from this site would mean a lot more to me than a review of Deer Hunter 5 from bubba'shuntingshack.com

This is a bit late but..

On Saturday Nick questioned why we care when harm comes to the female characters in a game but are indifferent when its one of the male characters

There are a couple rather simple explanations.. first at the risk of sounding sexist... Among animals that live in family groups males are usually wired to be the protectors.. Humans are the same way.. So when we see women or children coming to harm the natural reaction is "Oh no! gotta do something" If its an adult male that's in trouble its.. "he can take care of himself.."

The second could be that after fighting our way through 30 hours of the game, watching the male and female characters interact, we really want to see them hook up and have everything turn out great at the end of the game.. That isn't likely to happen when the main female protagonist gets a very large sword shoved through her heart. (curse you Seph)

Trent

I don't buy the hardwired argument all that much - it's true that in real life, everyone tends to be more concerned with protecting women and children (and rightfully so) but in games, a certain type of egalitarianism sets in. Many female characters in games don't seem to fit the dainty damsel stereotype, so when things happen to them, it's no worse than when something happens to a guy. (For example, as fond as I was of Agrias, when things happened to her I pretty much assumed she could take care of herself.)

However, many women in games are portrayed as being weaker, more vulnerable, and more sensitive (sometimes to an unholy degree), so when something happens to these characters, it makes a bigger impact. I'll try not to name names, but in FF7-9, it's often the most feminine, idealized characters that have things happen to them. It's likely something of a catch 22 - when the writers want something important to happen, they make sure it happens to someone who the audience will feel for the most, but at the same time, that character may be made more vulnerable, so whatever action will have an even greater impact.

Or something.

Fun Factor 2
It's really hard ot pick an actual thing that makes me buy games. Probably word of mouth, mostly. Or if I tried it in store and thought it ruled.Very rarely will I see an advertisment and say "Damn...I gots ta own that..."

I'd guess I'm a storyline guy. Lunar SSSC was my favorite game of all time, and that had cheesy graphics, but that just made the game that much more fun. Yeah, that's it...fun. Fun Factor. Old Nintendo Power used to have a rating for it. A game can have the worst graphics, the worst sound, and be technicly a bad game. But if it's fun, none of the above matters.

Fun Factor and an good story, That is what causes me to shell out money for games.

Peace,

Stryker

Ideally, the fun factor would be a great way to rate games, but it's often tied in with the rest of the ratings, and it shouldn't be.

Think about it: how many times have you seen a big name title get across the board marks for graphics, sound, gameplay and fun factor, even though the game itself was superbly produced but didn't set your mind on fire? (For me, Chrono Cross and FF9 fit the bill, even though both of those games are quite excellent.) There shouldn't be any stigma attached to getting high marks in everything but fun factor, but if everything else is high, the reviewer seems to feel that FF must be up there too.

Alternatively, there are plenty of games that are a blast to play, even though they don't set any records for production values. If graphics, sound, gameplay and fun factor were the categories, Vib Ribbon would probably deserve a 4, 2, 6, 10, but I guarantee that no professional reviewer would give the title that, just because it'd mean he enjoyed a singing crack rabbit more than the latest Capcom Vs. game. And that just can't be, can it?

Closing Comments:

Let's go with Garion's topic for tomorrow: best ads for a game. See you then.

-Chris Jones, driving a truck with his high heels on

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