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Phelan

By Phelan
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Davros sock drawer

Davros sock drawer

Posted
Posted

I'll admit to being pig-sick off all these Driv3r threads (and yes, I have mostly been ignoring them, before someone points out the obvious). I had absolutely no interest in the game before, so the fact that it is a turkey is irrelevant.

I think the point has been made enough times now. Corrupt reviewing, shit game, end of. None of it can be proved, so lets just ignore the fucker and move on.

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tiedtiger

tiedtiger

Posted
Posted
The hard fucking truth is you should stick this in the existing thread!

edit: doh - beaten to it!

The hard fucking truth is that I didn't.

I didn't because it's a separate point.

There is nothing to be gained in whining and bitching. Games are fucking doomed to this cycle of bullshit forever and ever and there aint nothing to be done about it. Thirty years of whinging about how bad pop music is has done diddly squad.

Hard.

Fucking.

Truth.

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scottcr

scottcr

Posted
Posted

"The hard £"$£$%$ truth of all this is that this is an industry whose main media coverage is sponsored heavily by its producers, to the point that the mags themselves have the tag 'official' blazed all over them."

another truth is that this applies to almost ALL indsutries... particularly the entertainment industry. Movies/Games/Music... they're all at it.

Tis the way of the world. Welcome to capitalism.

Thing is, gamers DEMAND realistic graphics and state of the art imagery and gameplay. To do this now takes millions of pounds and more and more publishers are betting their entire business on one big hitter game to pull them back into profit. With investors threating to pull out and hawkish rivals attempting hostile buy outs, the companies MUST succeed... at all costs.

If the game they've gambled their entire existance on is a turd, or isn't going to be ready before the end of the financial quarter they said it would... then they'll just have to release it and do as much damage limitation as possible. Buy some rent-a-quotes, pour your marketing budget into TV spots and fancy adverts... get some big name actors... hell, show kids playing it in popular TV programs.

All the entertainment industries are like this.... New Line cinema would have gone bust if LotR had been a flop. Thankfully it wasn't... but if they knew they had a turkey on their hands you could've guaranteed that they would have done everything it would have taken to make sure it made as much money as possible.

It's the way of the world... it's capitalism.... just accept it, and make sure you buy what you know to be good...

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routeburn

routeburn

Posted
Posted
The hard fucking truth is that I didn't.

I didn't because it's a separate point.

There is nothing to be gained in whining and bitching. Games are fucking doomed to this cycle of bullshit forever and ever and there aint nothing to be done about it. Thirty years of whinging about how bad pop music is has done diddly squad.

Hard.

Fucking.

Truth.

Absoluetly agree, which is why I said (in two separate threads) that people should gather what "evidence" they can and actually do something about it, or just STOP the whining and shut up because it's a waste of everyone's time.

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magic_knight

magic_knight

Posted
Posted

I think more people are reading this than you think. And it is not just limited to UK based forums. I read it on Slashdot, which is mainly a US based news source.

However, it still hasn't been reviewed, to my knowledge, in the US, so it will be interesting to see what the scores are. It might be harder to bribe larger magazines with more to lose, like EGM in the US. But, who knows? The scores will speak for themselves.

And Ellis gets one thing right - 8/10 is wayyyy too high for Shadow Ops, which is more of a 5 or 6 type game.

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jonnyalpha

jonnyalpha

Posted
Posted

When Game gets hundreds of copies returned within their 10 day scheme. What are they going to do? I would imagine they have a sale or return policy of some sort with Atari.

So if Atari get lots of games sent back to them then they will get the message pretty quick, look out for the price of Driver tumbling quick and Atari shares to fall as they issue profit warnings due to software "not performing as well as expected at retail".

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MK-1601

MK-1601

Posted
Posted
When Game gets hundreds of copies returned within their 10 day scheme. What are they going to do? I would imagine they have a sale or return policy of some sort with Atari.

So if Atari get lots of games sent back to them then they will get the message pretty quick, look out for the price of Driver tumbling quick and Atari shares to fall as they issue profit warnings due to software "not performing as well as expected at retail".

They shipped out 2.5 million copies. A fair proportion of regular games buyers in the US and UK are now aware that it's shit. They're going to see a lot of returned / written off stock, there's no doubt of this.

If they take a financial hit from Driver3 it probably won't affect them too badly (look at the stupid crap they - and Eidos as close runners up - have released in the past to scathing press and sub-par sales).

What would hurt them (and - Neuromancer, you old grump - we can actually contribute to) would be bad publicity. Send an open letter to Bruno Bonnell asking why his company are trying to deceive consumers, and explaining what exactly Atari's relationship with Future Publishing is.

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Weinberg

Weinberg

Posted
Posted

You can't do anything. Most people who stroll into a store and buy it, will not bother to take it back. I think and it's pretty true, that only real games enthusiasts will bother to take a game back if it's so bad.

I'm sure many people have bought a DVD (and I mean the general public too) and not liked the film-do they take it back? No, 99% of them will just put it on the shelf after they've watched it. So firstly no millions of copies won't go back to Atari.

Atari are advertising the game as being really great-I work in Smith's part time and was responsible for doing all the Driver 3 displays-yes they've paid for us to put up a special unit for the game, posters, and cardboard things to place over all pictures of PS2 games in the store (I mean a picture of a PS2 game above where the PS2 games are...not stick a Driver 3 sticker on every PS2 game). They've stuck the stickers on with quotes from the reviews they paid magazines to do, 9/10 etc. Their TV ad is all setup footage with nice explosions and even in game stuff, not at all showing how shite the game is-in fact from the TV ad it looks pretty darn tasty. Therefore people will buy it as it's like GTA, and looks good on the ads.

If you write to anyone they won't care, especially the magazines apparently paid to write these 'special' reviews of the game being promised the bugs will be fixed.

And the worse thing is this game is selling fantastically well, in fact the 11th best selling PS2 game ever already, and it's all due to the lies about the game to make out it's great. Atari will make a fortune from it, and will do everything to stop anyone more than insignificant people on web forums, telling consumers it's a crap game.

So no GAME won't get 100's of copies per store of the game back, as people will just put it down if they don't like it. Hey I even have a copy of Turok Evolution the shittest game to have ever been released and I haven't sold it, despite playing it once-people are lazy. And with a game I think that if they don't like it, as I said they will just put it aside and treat it like a movie they just didn't like-perhaps it had high production costs and good actors involved, but they just don't like it and it's their own opinion. They'll think the same about a crap videogame, and will just keep it.

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MK-1601

MK-1601

Posted
Posted
So no GAME won't get 100's of copies per store of the game back, as people will just put it down if they don't like it.

Um, yes they will. Most games end up with remaindered stock, and most games don't ship 2.5 million units to retail.

As I said, you, as a consumer, can't hope to hurt a publisher financially. Publicity is a different matter. See: Rise of the Robots, for one.

Edit: Atari, rather than GAME. The point being they've vastly oversold to retail.

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Unofficial Who

Unofficial Who

Posted
Posted

I'm more outraged by the magazines behaviour and I'm thinking of writing a letter off to Future.

Will they laugh at me?

You bet.

However Paragon seem to be catching up to them, Future used to be seen as the champion of the consumer. They even have an oath at the start of most of their magazines promising to let you know if a game is a dud.

I buy magazines to be entertained by the writing and to get some guidance on what's worth buying.

If I'm shelling out money for entertaining and accurate consumer reviews and end up with an advertorial then they are stealing from me. Pure and simple.

And I'll go elsewhere.

It's one thing if the reviewer concerned has eccentric tastes but these 'you scratch my back I'll scratch yours' is another thing entirely.

It's all very well saying it always happens, just live with it. But there was a time where (most of the time) you could trust magazine reviews.

And that spells trouble for Future. Because if they've abdicated that role then a competitor could move in.

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Weinberg

Weinberg

Posted
Posted
So no GAME won't get 100's of copies per store of the game back, as people will just put it down if they don't like it.
Um, yes they will. Most games end up with remaindered stock, and most games don't ship 2.5 million units to retail.

I did say they won't get them back as in returns, rather than not sell them. I am aware there will doubtless be copies left unsold in every store as happens with every game, DVD and CD.

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Boomer

Boomer

Posted
Posted
Is it just people like us, those 'in the know' who will see the flaws (sorry, curious) in the game?

Was there ever a comment that so brilliantly showed how far up their own arse most of the people on this forum really are?

I only ever pop in now and again to see if there are any interesting titbits of info here that I missed on my regular site but after reading some of the ridiculous and unfounded garbage that some of you lot have written about Driver 3 I just had to throw a comment in here.

Hey guys, hurry up. I think the bandwagon has arrived to give you all a lift home.

Jump on!

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