Bethsoft vs Community Sites

To take a bit of emotion out of this discussion ... Mo is actually right that it´s normal to post only links to good reviews. The reason is absolutely simple: it´s good business practice to show your chocolate side to potential customers because you need their money to make the next game. There´s nothing mean behind it. Unbiased infos can be found on unbiased sites.

Actually, the way to end this is just to say that company xyz owns site pqr, pays for the bandwidth, administration, etc. and therefore can feel free to do whatever they like with their site.

(I still find the practice of only posting links to 90+% reviews to be questionable, however, but in the end they can behave as they wish because of the above if nothing else.)

OK, I don't really want to go on much longer either but I'm curious about this one...

cutterjohn said:

...and then to censor anyone who points out any deficiencies. OK, gotcha.

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I think we've been through this several times in various threads (with or without your participation, I don't remember) very recently but could you please provide a link or an official statement that proves your accusation? What I am seeing is that Bethesda has blacklisted certain websites where their company, their employees and their products were a subject of extreme profanity and even outright threats... plus some other really childish stuff like the ESF banning "contests" etc.
No website (to my best knowledge) has been blacklisted just because of some critical comments or a review score that someone at Bethesda found offensive. Please. Get real. I hope you do not seriously believe that the Codex was blacklisted only because of VD's review...

Your collection of statements, are exactly what I would expect from a marketer with flexible ethical standards, hiding behind the excuse "well, everyone else does it, so its gotta be good..." while providing absolutely zero supporting evidence of your own.

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I'm not a marketer but if I was or if I had my own company that's trying to sell a product then you can bet your ass that I would do my very best to make the products of the company and the company itself look good. In a position like that you have a responsibility for real lives and real jobs that depend on the well-being of the company.

Whether I personally like the product or whether I agree that my company has a good product or not is secondary in such cases. Ethics might matter in life/death situations or in medicine, genetic or nuclear research etc... but when someone is trying to sell a video game to kids and adults you talk "ethics"? Please.

Well, and the consumer can still make an informed decision about the product. It's not like those negative reviews do not exist. They are just a tad bit harder to find if I wouldn't link to them from the company website but -honestly- any consumer who expects a company to tell them the unmasked truth must be quite the little retard. Anyone with half a brain should usually learn at age 4 when they first watch kiddie TV that not everything in commercials is true.

cutterjohn said:

(I still find the practice of only posting links to 90+% reviews to be questionable, however, but in the end they can behave as they wish because of the above if nothing else.)

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The thing to remember there is that company websites are *marketing*, NOT information. They are not there to provide 'fair and balanced' sources, but to sell you the game. To that extent they *do* want open dialogue, and as many of the people are gamers themselves they want to hear constructive criticism and not to squelch debate. However, ultimately they would be happy with nothing but 'roses and kittens' discussions ... Things that detract from the marketing aspects to a real extent tend to get killed. The official Dungeon Lords forums did this extensively, and linked to quotes and previews that made everything look hunky-dory with the game, as an example.

I know this sort of has nothing to with this, but bear in mind that's what is happening right now at the TES forums might be happening to the Fallout 3
modding sites, too:

Here's a link:

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=645446

Post # 11 is especially nice to read, imo....

My take on this is that this needs to be stopped right now,
before other companies do the same.

An interesting read, but way over my head. I think Beth is simply trying to cover their butts!! (Pun intended)

Yup, modders have gone from being 'respected and very much wanted members of the community' to 'hackers and creators of adult material'.

I for one am refusing to put any sort of disclaimer up on my site, if Bethesda wants to cover their corporate behinds they can implement a warning screen themselves that states that anything linked of their forum is not under their control or appoval.

Bethesda has behaved outrageously towards the modding community, this is just the tip of the iceberg. If I ever was in doubt if it was worth spending any coin on a Bethesda product again, then this made up my mind towards a most defenite 'no'.
Other sites put up similar disclaimers and warning screens when leaving their sites via links, I am simply not willing to do Bethesda's dirty work for them.

-a very angry modder.

*browses through the linked thread*

*shakes head*

These are things I have always been wondering about.

One sentence struck me :

By "Monica21" :

As for violence, well, this is America, so no disclaimer necessary.

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Is the U.S. really THAT violent ?

Pretty much, Alrik. Pretty much. Violence is just another item on the news menu.
We have a shotgun(licensed) in the back room in case somebody decides to kick our door down to fund their meth habit--and we live very far away from the really violent places.

Weird. Seems so much different to me here ... No-one is allowed to actually bear a weapon except those with a real license for it (and except illegal guns, of course), so no.one needs to have a gun in their house.

Of course, this makes people more defenseless towards robbers, but on the other way we don't have the feeling "something could happen any minute" either.

I once made a theory that so many games use violence as a means to solve problems, because it might be totally normal to use this way in the Number 1 computer/video game manufacturing countries - the USA.

This theory would also say that games produced here in Europe would rather rely on diplomacy (which might appear as "boring" to Americans, I just guess).

I'd like to discuss on this somewhere further on, but I also guess that no-one would accept my theory. So far I have heard only negative responses on it. Either it is totally normal to everyone or I'm totally false with it.

Well I think it's an interesting theory. Here everyone(including our presidential hopeful, MS Clinton) wants to say that violent video games and other media are a large contributing cause of the violence in our society. I like the way you've come at it better. Violence is all around us, so it becomes commonplace. Still, most people( other than criminals) don't solve their day to day problems with violence here either--but they do have that "anything could happen" feeling.

But this probably should be discussed in another place-we've hijacked this a long way from Bethesda....unless they get some terrorist activities from the Fallout fans and angry modders.

Okay.

I'm thinking about opening a new thread ... but I'm not quite sure ...

I find this whole thing sort of interesting. I'd only heard about the argument from the perspective of the fan sites who are complaining, so I had sided with them... but based on what I'm reading here, I think Bethesda may have been justified in their actions.

These community sites were not acting in a professional manner, so I can see why they'd be blacklisted. They can criticize the company and the games all they want, but there is still a level of professionalism that should be maintained. Of course, they can freely do and say what they want, but if they're going to do that they shouldn't expect support from Bethesda. They have the right to say what they want and Bethesda has the right to pick and choose what sites they support.

I don't believe for a second that this is Bethesda's attempt to silence criticism of their games. Realistically, pretty much EVERYONE that played that game gave it a poor review. Why would they single this site out? It's not because of the negative opinions on the game... it's because of the unprofessional behavior.

There's my two cents I guess.

Glacian said:

Realistically, pretty much EVERYONE that played that game gave it a poor review.

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Er, over 90% of the published reviews that I've seen gave Oblivion a score of around 90% or higher. The game got an average score of 94.1% according to Gamerankings.com.

KazikluBey said:

Er, over 90% of the published reviews that I've seen gave Oblivion a score of around 90% or higher. The game got an average score of 94.1% according to Gamerankings.com.

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I agree that Oblivion got very high scores from reviewers when it was released.
However, most of these reviews talked about how great Oblivion looked, and how great it was that you were able to immerse yourself in --- you guessed it -
the visual fantasy that is Oblivion. [I do think that Eurogamer it a 10/10? and another site gave it a 98 or 99??].

Apparently none of the reviewers played the game long enough to get tired of the annoying pop-ups telling you 'i have found cave x, i should go in' and stuff like that which made me feel like a 5 year being told what to do by my parents.
(and I mean that in the most parental & nicest way).

Apparently the reviewers of Oblivion were to young to remember Ultima IV,
Baldur's Gate 1, the old Might and Magic Games, where - you guessed it - people also walked around (sort of), some shops never closed, other shops were open at certain hours and such things. And they complety, imo, didn't see that the much hyped Radiant AI was just a fancy way of scripting these things in the game from the days of yesteryear.

And I wouldn't quite trust gameranking's list. They have some sites which count more than others when making (or calculating) the average score.

And to get a 94, a game has to be original as well as very near perfection. To me Oblivion hasn't gotten either: It is an interesting, fun and challenging game, and the sidequests in Oblivion are SO much better than any other sidequests in any game I have (yet) seen.

If I were to a score to Oblivion it would probably be around 85 or so.

And perhaps more on topic:

The third party sites wasn't blacklisted by Bethesda. They just couldn't link to
their sites without adding a disclaimer to their sites (which many sitesnow seem to have done).

Anyway, things are cooling down a bit now, and Bethesda is looking into if they can add an automated generic disclaimer.

In the end it got a bit out of hand...when people start calling other people
Nazis and stuff, I think it is time to stop...

KazikluBey said:

Er, over 90% of the published reviews that I've seen gave Oblivion a score of around 90% or higher. The game got an average score of 94.1% according to Gamerankings.com.

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Umm... no. I'm talking about that crappy Star Trek game. That was poorly received by EVERYONE, so I doubt this is an attempt to silence the critics. Reviewers, gamers, and fan sites have a right to their opinion (whether it be good or bad), but a level of professionalism should be kept.

Sorry for not specifying.