My answer is to Johan would be. Tom has an uncanny ability to identify flaws in a game, that most of us struggle to articulate in a concise fashion.
Or in the words of another game CEO Leyla Johnson
" I am taking everything said here and will do something with it. Tom is someone we listen to closely as well, we would be fools not to, and hopefully, as you know us by now, we will improve the experience for the players."
So while letting Tom review your games may have a small impact on your metacritic score. The benefits of getting his feedback early, would result in a better game, and ultimately higher Steam Reviews.
I guess that’s one way to put it. From my perspective, what they do is try (and mostly fail) to fix their broken games for a couple of years after they release it. I’ve been fooled into buying their games before but no more.
For me I think it really depends on the game in question. I thought EU4 was terrific at release. I really enjoyed HOI4 as well, and CK3 was quite solid. Stellaris they were clearly figuring out what to do as they went with mixed results and Imperator didn’t compare well to games like EU4 and CK2 which at that point had years and years of content added to them (I liked it well enough, though, and they really made substantial improvements by 2.0).
So mostly for me it’s Stellaris that had major issues and massive overhauls that keep it in a perpetual state of chaos. HOI4 definitely had its issues but it was massively better than the state HOI3 launched in and was still a good game for me.
Tom Chick is the Pauline Kael of videogames criticism. Kael was not alwas right (in my opinion), though. Some Kubrick movies became classics. She would give Deus Ex 1/5 stars, too.
It varies… sometimes they refine and fix, sometimes they add busywork and break. Sometimes they hear criticism, sometimes they ignore it. Which, as someone else pointed out, is mostly also their fault for letting the community be the mess it is. And, even being at the high of the Metacritic age, no excuse for the treatment of Tom.
As I Kevin says it really depends on the game. I guess my question is what publisher do you think does a good job?
When I look at my most played strategy games, published by folks other than Paradox, the vast majority do a worse job, IMO.
Dawn of Man
Endless Legends
Humankind
Jon Schafer’s at the Gate
Old World
Oxygen Not Included
Per Aspera
Railway Empire
RimWorld
Shadow Empire
Sid Meir’s beyond earth
Sid Meir Civ VI
Vietnam 65/Afghanistan 11
Warhammer 40K Gladius
Xcom II/
For every independent masterpiece like Rimworld, you have at least two overly ambitious failures like At the Gates, and Shadow Empire. Firaxis did well with Xcom, but Civ VI is crap. Klei did fine with Oxygen Not Included, but I wouldn’t call their support outstanding, Slitherine/Matrix occasionally puts a good game, like Warhammer Gladius,but most of their stuff is recycled wargames that haven’t evolved much for the 1980s. I’m underwhelmed with Amplitude games and their post sales support.
Yes, Mohawk games has made two excellent games with good support, but until cloning technology is perfected…
Oh, I’m still their target audience. I’ll be there day one for the next Crusader Kings and especially Victoria. Their CEO could shoot my dog and I’d still feel the same way.
Glad Tom doesn’t stop reviewing their games, their behavior is about par with just about any company that has a fiduciary responsibility to their stock owners, so capitalism still sucks :)
That said, the quality of their games are too high to ignore, and I won’t, however I hope they get a slap on the wrist.
