Gosh, where would I get those crazy ideas? Gee, let’s see:
Implication: I’ll give a positive preview to any big game, regardless of quality. In other words, I’m a liar.
Implication: my previews aren’t credible, aka lies.
Implication: same as above.
thamer
2722
No one ever implied they were being paid off. There you are putting words in people’s mouth again. It was implied that after a five hour special preview it’s a bit hard to write something negative.
Charles
2723
Man, I’d like to see you write something positive after someone made you play a bad game for five hours. Or even a mediocre game.
I let NowhereDan stare into my eyes for 5 hours last weekend, and I agree that he seemed incapable of saying anything bad about them. More time spent with something almost certainly equates to more positive reactions.
Just on the topic of focus testing, why is it so prevalent in the games industry? Not only is it the most expensive widely used form form of market research, but the nature of the format (group dynamics, size limitations, topic wandering) makes it incredibly inefficient, not representative of the population as a whole, and largely useless for nailing down any sort of hard data. Even then, consumers are just saying either what they want you to hear or what they say they think (not what they actually do think). I can understand the format being used in early concept exploration, but not in any kind of mid-to-late stage testing.
To give a couple of examples, New Coke was given a huge thumbs up by focus groups, and the minivan was given a huge thumbs down. Guess how that turned out.
Why not just use group interviews, which are cheaper per person/minute, give more and more useful data and can be used in mid/late-stage research?
This is all info I’ve gleaned from my market research classes at university, so I have little practical experience (I’ve run a couple), but everything I’ve heard and seen show them to be crap. Anyone care to explain?
thamer
2726
It happens ALL the time with previews. Dan’s response has been that he would have kept the preview short but would not have written something overally negative.
Look Charles you want to argue or fight? Go join some MMA club or something. Get out a little. Stop posting on forums acting like a tough guy because Ubisoft gave you a cube at their Montreal office and have you writing some 3d rendering routines.
Charles
2727
Good focus tests don’t listen to what people say, but watch what they do and how they react.
They are used because when you are trying to sell your game to as many people as possible, any part of your game that frustrates people or is overly difficult to people who aren’t your known market is something worth fixing in order to sell to more people.
Focus tests are about usability, not market research.
I don’t think anyone wants to argue or fight in this thread. We are basically just toying with you now, and will continue to do so until you realize that your only exit strategy from the mess you’ve mired yourself in over the course of this thread is to put the keyboard down and walk away.
Charles
2729
I don’t really see how I’m acting like a tough guy. I’m sorry, am I hurting your feelings? Do you view me as a bully? Would you prefer I stopped? Just say so, and I will. Honest.
Sarkus
2730
Don’t pretend you haven’t jumped on that wagon:
Besides, I’m trying to turn this thread back towards a discussion of real Fallout 3 issues rather then the endless flaming. I don’t get the impression you have the same goal since you are viewing every post as a shot at you personally.
Sarkus
2732
So, you admit it happens all the time and now you want to make a big deal about in on this particular game because you disagree with their conclusions? Did fight the same “good fight” on games that you were really looking forward to, like MGS4?
I hope you’re not being a hypocrite here.
It was time for a bit of mercy.
I’ve actually heard that Miyamoto videotapes people’s faces when they’re playing his games, and when they aren’t smiling he changes the game so they start to smile again. Always seemed like a good way to make some kinds of games, even if it isn’t true.
I’ve always been told that focus group sample size is too small for a representative sample and group dynamics tend to give the data very low validity, but I understand that it could spark some cool ideas to improve a game when performed.
Well, after watching some of the focus tests, I went back and make some small tweaks to AC near the end of development that had a pretty noticeable net positive effect.
I don’t think focus tests are really about hard data, so much as judging people’s subjective reaction to mechanics and situations.
With a few tweaks, this would be a great scene for the Joker.
They were dreamy.
Um, no. What I said was that we weren’t influenced by games giving us exclusive previews because we don’t do them about games we’re not excited about.
And no, you don’t write things that are overly negative about unfinished games. Why? Because they aren’t freaking finished. It’s not fair to the developer to criticize them for showing their unfinished game (which, by the way, is an excellent way to discourage them from giving out any information about their games ahead of release in the future) and it’s not helping the consumers to tell them the game sucks when the problems could easily be fixed by release. And if we don’t like what we see, we simply present the game without praising it (and in PC Gamer, as I mentioned earlier, we note our concerns in the Hopes/Fears box).
thamer
2738
I never bothered reading anymore than one single preview of MGS4 because of what Konami did by suppressing some of them. Also I was pretty much sold on it based on the series history. It wasn’t a perfect game by any stretch but it was fun and I still play through it.
From experience, Thamer and Datter, you should just walk away. It’s hard earned advice (and sometimes I still don’t follow it), but it’s for the best.
No, this is putting words in people’s mouths.
What they are doing is called arguing. It’s where you quote what someone says, and then type “lol retard” under it.
