Telltale Games employees found feeding perfect 10 reviews to Metacritic

[Woodsyblue]

Feeding fake reviews to boost a games user rating is sadly par for the course in this industry. The problem here is that Telltale got caught. Does the fact that most companies are doing this excuse Telltale's behaviour? Absolutely not! But it's all about perspective. Telltale have gotten their punishment, and then some, in the form of this cloud of negativity surrounding their product and their company. In less than a week Telltale have seemly transformed from a cool indy company that resurrected fan-loved franchises to an evil powerhouse that no longer cares about the fans. Now, I don't think the they are either of these things but the tides of internet opinion are fickle. Telltale must be very careful about it's conduct in the near future if it wants any hope of retaining a good image.

On another note, Faceslasher, man, please stop double posting. The edit button is your friend, treat him well.

[Faceslasher]

Originally Posted by Woodsyblue

Feeding fake reviews to boost a games user rating is sadly par for the course in this industry. The problem here is that Telltale got caught. Does the fact that most companies are doing this excuse Telltale's behaviour? Absolutely not! But it's all about perspective. Telltale have gotten their punishment, and then some, in the form of this cloud of negativity surrounding their product and their company. In less than a week Telltale have seemly transformed from a cool indy company that resurrected fan-loved franchises to an evil powerhouse that no longer cares about the fans. Now, I don't think the Telltale is either of these things but the tides of internet opinion are fickle. Telltale must be very careful about it's conduct in the near future if it wants any hope of retaining a good image.

On another note, Faceslasher, man, please stop double posting. The edit button is your friend, treat him well.

This forum needs automerge, I keep thinking my posts automatically merge, but they don't.

[Woodsyblue]

Originally Posted by Faceslasher

This forum needs automerge, I keep thinking my posts automatically merge, but they don't.

True, it could use an update that incorporated those kinds of features.

[RAnthonyMahan]

Originally Posted by Faceslasher

Well I don't. I'd rather play Jurassic Park then an overhyped pile of shit FPS game like Call of Duty and Battlefield.

When did I say anything about FPSes? (It's honestly a little upsetting that you think the concept of "gameplay" is exclusive to FPSes. There's a wide world of genres out there.) I don't want this game to be an FPS. But I do want it to have good gameplay.

If you look at the games in Telltale's past (Sam and Max, Tales of Monkey Island, Strong Bad, Wallace and Gromit...), they actually engage the player. You have a world to walk around and explore. There are characters you can have surprisingly lengthy conversations with. There's all sorts of crap you can click and get a funny response out of, even if it has no impact on the plot. You have an inventory of items you can use with other items to solve puzzles with (or just further goof off). Those games have actual gameplay. This isn't even a complaint about linearity, since all those games were following a set plot too. But they allowed the player to have some fun along the way. Hell, even Back to the Future did this, albeit to a lesser extent than the other games I mentioned.

Jurassic Park did not do this. You can't walk. You have no inventory. You can count the number of clickable objects in most areas on one hand, and they'll almost always only be clickable in the first place because they're part of a (pathetically straightforward) puzzle. The only time they let you hold a long conversation is during a scenario that's nothing but a long conversation. There isn't even a concrete player character. Not only does the player have little to no freedom, the game doesn't seem to even want the player around.

And as much as I hate Call of Duty, at least you can play it for more than a day. I beat Jurassic Park, and I have no reason at all to touch it again. I could go back and try perfecting the QTE sequences so I could pad my Steam account with more achievements, but I don't want to. Even Telltale's previous games carried some limited replay value. I'm sure there's some well-hidden dialogue in the Sam and Max games I still haven't heard.

[SHODANFreeman]

Originally Posted by Faceslasher

WHO GIVES FIVE FUCKS ABOUT THE GAMEPLAY?

Telltale might as well make this their company motto, at this point.

Originally Posted by Faceslasher

If you think JP was "bad". Then you might aswell leave, Telltale is going to this direction.

I pretty much already have left. If you check my posting history, you'll notice I almost never post anymore, the only reason I am here in the first place is because of this utterly hilarious scandal. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to mock TTG's pathetic failure.

[corruptbiggins]

Originally Posted by SHODANFreeman

I pretty much already have left. If you check my posting history, you'll notice I almost never post anymore, the only reason I am here in the first place is because of this utterly hilarious scandal. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to mock TTG's pathetic failure.

If that's all you're here for then it's a pretty meaningless life that you must lead.

[Woodsyblue]

Schadenfreude: enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others.

It's more common than you'd think. Pretty much everyone has experienced it at some point or other in their life, though SHODANFreeman's active revelling in the misfortune of Telltale paints an interesting character portrait.

[SHODANFreeman]

Originally Posted by Woodsyblue

Schadenfreude: enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others.

It's more common than you'd think. Pretty much everyone has experienced it at some point or other in their life, though SHODANFreeman's active revelling in the misfortune of Telltale paints an interesting character portrait.

They've brought it on themselves. They deserve everything they get.

[Hero1]

I find this pretty disappointing. Often movie studios will release a movie with no critic reviews if they think its really bad and and gonna get canned. The fact Jurassic Park had no critic reviews before its release and IGN gave it a 55 and 1UP a D+ speaks for itself..and critics dont buy the games, fans do..so you can leave it up to the fans to write user reviews..but if you worked on the game and are giving reviews of a 10 and high praise..well now you are trying to fool the general public and I just think that is stupid.

[CKSqua]

Originally Posted by Talahar

It's not hard to find out names of people who work in games companies.
It's not hard to get a user account under someone else's name.
That's why I'm not convinced.
A couple of fake good *USER* reviews on metacritic? Not really that beneficial.
Constructing a scandal involving a company? Far bigger result.
Follow the money.

If impersonation were an issue, Telltale would probably have said something to that effect instead of defending the reviewers.

As for benefit, good reviews written by the author (or friends and colleagues of the author) aren't uncommon. Even within the game industry, we've seen similar controversies following the releases of Dragon Age II and the Elemental: War of Magic novelization.

My feeling is that when the success or failure of a product directly affects your livelihood (especially if there's some uncertainty or difficulty within your company), you're probably going to act more on impulse and self-preservation than anything. I doubt any malice was intended.

JP:TG is literally just a badly animated movie that has absolutely no meaningful interaction. It's like if you were watching the movie on DVD, and every time it changed scenes it made you press a button at random on your DVD remote, otherwise it would replay the last scene. It's not even close to being a game.

Sam & Max contained actual puzzles, and required thought and logic. You could move around. You had an inventory filled with items to use to solve puzzles. There were in depth dialogue trees.

Yeah, different target audiences. Telltale tailored Sam & Max and Monkey Island (continuations of existing game franchises, after all) toward dedicated adventure gamers.

However, with a movie property as big as Jurassic Park, the intent must have been to attract a broader, less game-savvy fanbase. Whether they were successful remains up in the air.

Having an investigation based on well-worded reviews is laughable and quite ignorant. It pains me to see that we now reside in a world where good grammar and spelling is treated with suspicion. So disappointing.

TBH, I think correct grammar is a red herring. The real cause for suspicion is that the reviews read like PR blurbs (lots of adjectives and modifiers, bold praise for Telltale itself and not just the game, overemphasis on how true the game is to the movies) as opposed to actual critique. The tone isn't too different from the text you might find at the back of a game box or in a catalog.

Even worse that they didn't even bother sending out review copies.

Yeah, it seems that there wasn't much confidence in this release. No demo or early review copies. Little fanfare. Metacritic reviews written by staff.

You could argue that Telltale possibly expected an unfair reaction from hardcore gamers and reviewers. However, given the previous delay announcement and the fact that all four episodes were released at once and are unavailable individually (with an episodic release structure, on-going sales potential sharply declines if players don't like the first installment), I can't help but suspect that development was problematic.

That's unfortunate, hopefully the TTG reviews can be removed

For what it's worth, one of the reviewers has changed the content and score of his critique, while admitting that he works for Telltale. It isn't a perfect fix, but what's done is done.

At any rate, I'm not convinced that Metacritic backlash will have a large impact on sales.

[Faceslasher]

Originally Posted by SHODANFreeman

Telltale might as well make this their company motto, at this point.



I pretty much already have left. If you check my posting history, you'll notice I almost never post anymore, the only reason I am here in the first place is because of this utterly hilarious scandal. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to mock TTG's pathetic failure.

hurr durr let me come back and say telltale sucks im sooooo smart derp.

Originally Posted by SHODANFreeman

They've brought it on themselves. They deserve everything they get.

You do know that Telltale only made 2 bad games.

Pixar made 2 bad films yet they still have a strong and steady fanbase. Please go say PIXAR SUX CUS DEY MADE CARS since you think Telltale is "bad"

I loved Jurassic Park, films and games. And I loved Telltales game.

Originally Posted by corruptbiggins

If that's all you're here for then it's a pretty meaningless life that you must lead.

Don't worry, he won't have a future if he's gonna insult a company on their FORUM. Sometimes I wish Telltale would unleash the banhammer on some of these morons.

[RAnthonyMahan]

Now you're coming off as harsh, Shodan. I was disappointed with Jurassic Park too, but I'm not happy with the idea of Telltale failing. I want to see them get better, not crash and burn.

That being said, I do hope Telltale's learned a lesson from all the negative reception they're getting. It is distressing seeing how much they've changed in such a short span of time. Just a year ago I was playing The Devil's Playhouse and loving every minute of it. Hopefully they can return to their previous level of quality (and maybe even better) soon.

[Faceslasher]

Originally Posted by RAnthonyMahan

Now you're coming off as harsh, Shodan. I was disappointed with Jurassic Park too, but I'm not happy with the idea of Telltale failing. I want to see them get better, not crash and burn.

That being said, I do hope Telltale's learned a lesson from all the negative reception they're getting. It is distressing seeing how much they've changed in such a short span of time. Just a year ago I was playing The Devil's Playhouse and loving every minute of it. Hopefully they can return to their previous level of quality (and maybe even better) soon.

They need to stop making games for movies and TV shows and go back to Sam and Max.

Jurassic Park: The Game was semi disappointing, gameplay was bland. Story was epic, characters were amazing. Character development was amazing. It was just ruined by the poor choice that was copying Heavy Rain.

[coolsome]

I like Heavy Rain a lot so would I enjoy this game. Admittedly I'm not much of a JP fan which is why I didn't get the game.

[RAnthonyMahan]

Originally Posted by Faceslasher

They need to stop making games for movies and TV shows and go back to Sam and Max.

Jurassic Park: The Game was semi disappointing, gameplay was bland. Story was epic, characters were amazing. Character development was amazing. It was just ruined by the poor choice that was copying Heavy Rain.

Sam and Max is a license too, you know.

But yeah, I get why Telltale only does licensed games (pre-existing names sell), but I think they could benefit from an original IP. It's good that Telltale manages to treat their licenses with respect, but I think sticking with licensed games is starting to hurt them. Back to the Future was a big license that would bring a lot of new consumers, so they toned the game down accordingly. Jurassic Park is arguably an even bigger license, and in their goal to respect their licenses Telltale tried to make the game seem like a Jurassic Park movie, thus limiting the gameplay even further.

And that's not even getting into the potential issues that can come when you lose a license (Bone's never getting finished, for starters). Plus, since they wouldn't have to constrain themselves with "Does this fit the spirit of the franchise?", Telltale could do...pretty much whatever they want. I loved Puzzle Agent (technically licensed, but the plot, setting, and characters are all original). Even if it's a pretty shameless Professor Layton rip-off in terms of gameplay, the whole David Lynch-style angle of it all was amazing, and I know Telltale is capable of something even better than that.

Besides, making a new IP means you can have an old IP to sell games with later on.

[Lambonius]

Originally Posted by Faceslasher

They need to stop making games for movies and TV shows and go back to Sam and Max.

Jurassic Park: The Game was semi disappointing, gameplay was bland. Story was epic, characters were amazing. Character development was amazing. It was just ruined by the poor choice that was copying Heavy Rain.

That's the thing--if they ACTUALLY copied Heavy Rain correctly, this game would have been MUCH better. If there were actual branching storylines or multiple paths through the story--if everything wasn't pass/fail "press-x-to-not-die" garbage, this game might have had a chance. As it is, this was one facepalm that everyone saw coming long ago.

I, too, enjoy watching Telltale fall on its face with this ridiculous casualization bullshit.

A poster on another forum I frequent said it best:

"Telltale no longer needs to actually try to innovate or make good games. All they need to do is buy up licenses from franchises that have been dead for a while and watch the franchise fans' money roll in."

[SHODANFreeman]

Originally Posted by RAnthonyMahan

Now you're coming off as harsh, Shodan. I was disappointed with Jurassic Park too, but I'm not happy with the idea of Telltale failing. I want to see them get better, not crash and burn.

That being said, I do hope Telltale's learned a lesson from all the negative reception they're getting. It is distressing seeing how much they've changed in such a short span of time. Just a year ago I was playing The Devil's Playhouse and loving every minute of it. Hopefully they can return to their previous level of quality (and maybe even better) soon.

I don't think it's being harsh to enjoy that their new direction is failing on an epic scale. They forgot who they were, what (and who) got them to where they are now, and how they started out, and now they're paying for it. It's karma.

I would very much enjoy it if they made adventure games that were actually worth playing again, but with the way their last 3 games have gone (sorry, but Puzzle Agent 2 was awful), I can't see that happening any time soon. They've got a turnover rate about as high as your average McDonald's at this point.

[beavermatic]

Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?

"NO!' says the man on Metacritic, 'It belongs to the trolls.'
'NO!' says the man in the Gamespot, 'It belongs to paid schills.'
'NO!' says the man on IGN, 'It belongs to the noobs.'

-andrew ryan, from 'bioshock'

[Faceslasher]

Originally Posted by SHODANFreeman

I don't think it's being harsh to enjoy that their new direction is failing on an epic scale. They forgot who they were, what (and who) got them to where they are now, and how they started out, and now they're paying for it. It's karma.

I would very much enjoy it if they made adventure games that were actually worth playing again, but with the way their last 3 games have gone (sorry, but Puzzle Agent 2 was awful), I can't see that happening any time soon. They've got a turnover rate about as high as your average McDonald's at this point.

Oh well, continue being a pest on here. We all know your life is a complete waist.

You talk too much, are we gonna fight or not?

[SHODANFreeman]

I am really excited for Telltale to make a Star Wars "interactive movie", so that they can come full circle and become everything they once despised.