Fallout: New Vegas - Missed Metacritic Bonus by One Point?

Heh, ok, I kind of started all this so I'll weigh back in.

To those who hate conspiracy theories, I'll just add my mind went there for a reason. I wouldn't bat an eye if someone at my company (if I worked for Zenimax, which I do not) suggested it'd be in our financial best interest for F:NV to get an 84 or less. We don't know how much the bonus was, that could have been a lot of money you're talking about there. These financial business types are not the least bit altruistic, they don't care about making good games, they don't care about quality, they don't care about happy customers, all they care about is the bottom line. If the money for a (<=84 score + sales) > (85+ score + sales - bonus), they'll make sure they get an 84 or less every time.

Just to add fuel to the fire, wasn't a lot of the complaints about F:NV bugs were that they were old bugs that were already fixed from F3 patches but not in the release of F:NV? Think about that for a second, why wouldn't those patches be rolled in? Ran out of time? Possibly, or….? And I apologize for not finding references to those bug reports, I can't seem to find a reference from a reputable source right now, so you'll have to treat that as entirely anecdotal evidence.

After reading all these ungrateful "conspiracy theories" (or more like nutcase studies but whatever...) I'm seriously hoping that Bethesda doesn't let Obsidian near FO ever again and that Obsidian is doomed to create one Southpark RPG after another...

What we have here is Psychology, too.

Obsidian - David
Bethesda - Goliath

See a pattern ?

LuckyCarbon said:

Heh, ok, I kind of started all this so I'll weigh back in.

To those who hate conspiracy theories, I'll just add my mind went there for a reason. I wouldn't bat an eye if someone at my company (if I worked for Zenimax, which I do not) suggested it'd be in our financial best interest for F:NV to get an 84 or less. We don't know how much the bonus was, that could have been a lot of money you're talking about there. These financial business types are not the least bit altruistic, they don't care about making good games, they don't care about quality, they don't care about happy customers, all they care about is the bottom line. If the money for a (<=84 score + sales) > (85+ score + sales - bonus), they'll make sure they get an 84 or less every time.

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You honestly think Obsidian's bonus was so ENORMOUS that it was more important to avoid it than getting good press reviews for the game?

The bottom line is how many copies of FNV can you sell. This is significantly influenced by the number of positive reviews from the 100 or so magazines and websites included in the Metacritic score.

Can you imagine Pete Hines calling up Game Informer and saying "Hey, listen guys, we are almost going to have to pay Obsidian this bonus, so I don't care if you liked it, we need you to write that our game is shit."

CountChocula said:

You honestly think Obsidian's bonus was so ENORMOUS that it was more important to avoid it than getting good press reviews for the game?

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I imagine the bonus was substantial, probably a million dollars or more. If it wasn't substantial money, it wouldn't have been worth Avellone's time to mention it. What's the sales difference between a score of 84 and 88? If the revenue of the sales difference is less than the bonus money, 84 is a better score than 88.

CountChocula said:

The bottom line is how many copies of FNV can you sell. This is significantly influenced by the number of positive reviews from the 100 or so magazines and websites included in the Metacritic score.

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Actually, that's not the bottom line, the bottom line is the NET revenue. Again, how many more sales are you going to get between an 84 and any number larger than that? If F:NV got a 70, yeah, big sales difference. But from 84 to an 85? My estimate is a marginal sales difference at best.

CountChocula said:

Can you imagine Pete Hines calling up Game Informer and saying "Hey, listen guys, we are almost going to have to pay Obsidian this bonus, so I don't care if you liked it, we need you to write that our game is shit."

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Yes, yes I can. I've had to make calls similar to that. But honestly, that's not really how the call goes, you never tip your hand like that. Even if you know the other side knows what's really going on (and I highly doubt any non-affiliated journalists did in this case) you never know if you're being recorded and you damn well better not say anything on record that'd lose your plausible deniability in a court case.

Besides, if you are one to believe that advertising money gets scores inflated ( and I certainly do, that's just the cost of doing business in today's America) and any non-funded score automatically has a lower bar (when's the last time you've seen a non-blockbuster get >90 score on the flashy sites?), it's easier to just not spend the advertisement money to not "help" the score get inflated.

I have no idea what the hell is going on in this thread.

There is absolutely *zero* reason and zero proof for anyone to believe that Bethesda somehow manipulated scores like that. I mean, *come on* people. The metacritic thing in the contracts is dumb as hell but is sadly somewhat par for the course, it's been talked about in the past as well. The gaming industry as a whole is crappy like that.

It's unfortunate that Obsidian didn't break the 85 on metacritic but that's it… It's unlucky. But you are really kidding yourself if you think this is some sort of bum deal on OEI's part, it's quite easily the most prolific release for the company, and while its reputation isn't spotless, it made a big splash and furthermore, it allowed some of the real Fallout enthusiasts in the company to once again work on the franchise. Both Bethesda and Obsidian were real winners in this deal.

Furthermore, it seems that it's an issue that have blown up even further because some people believe this bonus would've actually magically "saved" the company now that it's facing trouble with the cancelled project. This would not be the case.

Don't get me wrong, it's wonderful proof how messed up the gaming industry is and how everyone should gladly embrace things like kickstarter projects. Having clauses in contracts about goddamn *Metacritic* is mindboggling. But let's not pretend this is some special case in which Obsidian were bullied into a sucker deal or something.

LuckyCarbon said:

Yes, yes I can. I've had to make calls similar to that.

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Your entire job is to promote the games that your company makes in the hopes that it will result in increased sales and you've made calls asking someone to trash your own game?

That would be absurd. There is not a single publisher that wants negative press reviews. They are all hoping and praying that they get as many positive press writeups as possible. Bethesda was most certainly incentivized to get as high a metacritic score as possible because this impacts sales of the game. And since it was a flat deal, they keep a larger share of the backend.

Certainly there is not a way for someone to manipulate all the magazine and website reviews so that you end up with precisely "84" metascore - this is simply not happening. If you could do that, why not manipulate them so you end up with precisely "100"?

I think that Obsidian worked the metacritic scores in order to get it closer to 85%. It's totally OBVIOUS people! FO:NV totally deserves an 82.734% rating but no way an 84%!

And I have as much proof as those of you claiming the other way.

Face it, when you put a hard number on something sometimes there will be those who just miss it. It sucks but too bad for them. Case in point, my company canceled the retirement plan for everyone younger than 40 a couple of months before my 40th birthday. I figure I am out over $500,000 when I retire because of this. BTW, it was a couple of days before my manager's manager's birthday. Yeah, it totally sucks to be us.

This whole conspiracy theory stuff is stupid. No one thinks it's a conspiracy that Bethesda tried to keep the score down. What people think is they didn't support Obsidian enough. There is a reason why the same bugs that were fixed in FO3 made it into New Vegas. There is a reason why FO3 got a pass for a lot of the same bugs. There is a reason why DA2 got a pass for being a crappy game. There's a reason why the PS3 version of Skyrim got a pass. It's because of publishers buying reviews. Bethesda didn't put the same effort forward for New Vegas. New Vegas didn't get as many reviews as FO3 did.

New Vegas was also developed in a year and a half. How long was FO3 developed?

I'm in doubt about the conspricay theories. However, I do know that if you call someone and let a note or two slip out about a certain game -ahem- and maybe something also about not getting as many review copies etc. etc. people tend to understand what this means; behind the lines they can read...

However, it seems that Bethesda and Obsidian really have a great relationsship from the comments I've seen in this thread. When it comes to the finacial arrangement, try to remember that Bethesda is owned by Zenimax Studios. And is a privately owned company, so is Obsidian. Being privately owned means that Zenimaz can afford to look at the larger picture, develop for - what economists - the long tail e.g. Zenimax can afford to see a return of their investment come back over a long time period.

And definetely for a timer longer than EA - and now Bioware - since Bioware and EA are now public traded companies in the stock market. Also, a comment on the 72% rating from Gamestar. It is no secret that German - and maybe European? - game magazines and websites review games bu a much stricter - and harder? - standard than their US counterparts. I've seen German magazines give a 75% rating to a game that have gotten an 85% in the US magazines. This is the one point I'm making - the other is that why on earth? do they use Metacritic?

CountChocula said:

Your entire job is to promote the games that your company makes in the hopes that it will result in increased sales and you've made calls asking someone to trash your own game?

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I wish!! ( kidding of course )

No, my day job is not in the gaming industry. But I have had to make calls that affected a partners revenue negatively but increased the revenue of my company.

Long reply deleted.

I'm going to leave my piece at this:
It's not about sales, it's about profit after costs and I think a lot of people on this thread are a lot more optimistic about the integrity and honesty of companies in modern American business than I am.

fallout 3 had an iconic imagery of the whitehouse in ruins, not to mention the rest of the dc area in ruins. it doesn't get any more simple in the effect that has on many of people playing the game and there subconcious or conscious feelings about the area. new vegas is a much more beautiful game though except probably those who have never been to a real desert and/or apprieciated its natural desolation. and i wouldn't count having gone to las vegas as having been to a desert either...