Obisidian failed to earn bonus payments due to Fallout: New Vegas Metacritic score

It's worse because New Vegas is a blatantly better game than Fallout 3 was, which got 91. When scoring starts directly and majorly affecting people's livelihoods, it's not hard to see it causes more problems than it solves, and bigger ones.

That's lame. Why would they agree to something like that.

quote chautemoc

It's worse because New Vegas is a blatantly better game than Fallout 3 was, which got 91.

What? I completely disagree! When I started playing Fallout 3, it was a complete, true RPG gaming experience, for me at least. It had very little bugs (I didn't run into any until Mother Zeta) and it had a great feeling/atmosphere to it. It is still the best game I've played today. When NV came out, I pre-ordered and bought a huge guide just because I was so excited from Fallout 3. But I was so disappointed. All because of the bugs that ruined the gameplay completely. For me to get into a game, I need the game not to remind me that it's made up by somebody who are writing codes etc. And when bugs appear that's exactly what happens. Even after 80% of the patches had been applied I still couldn't play the game without going way back to old saves and using noclip shit.

How was that blatantly better than Fallout 3?

I was under the impression that the story was better?
I may be confusing the titles.
It really is a shame that a score could affect these people, even more so because it was a point away. Another reason to fuel the "take away the scoring system" belief. It would be for the better.

Gangsta692 That's odd. Everyone I've talked to said it was buggy as hell, and just as buggy as NV. NV was buggy for me but not so much it ruined the experience.

Wakaman Pretty much everything was better.

chautemoc I've seen people who liked Fallout 3 over New Vegas myself.

This is a damn shame, to think we'd get so far as to have scores determine people's pay. I can't get over this, I know a score has broken studios before but damn.

Wakaman Those folks I think don't appreciate the finer qualities of games like NV. Though if it's a case of preferring the dreadful atmosphere, I suppose I can understand.

Yeah it was more a preference of atmosphere. chautemoc

It's a bit sad that Metacritic has power over the bonuses/royalties developers get. It's hardly a perfect system, and more of a 'general idea of quality' indicator. Especially since review scores only reflect the review copy of the game, rather than how good it is after extensive patches (assuming they happen).

Not to excuse games that need patches to increase their ratings of course, just saying.

Not sure why, but I LOVED FO3, and barley played FO:NV. Maybe I just tired of the universe, so I should pick it up again. But I never got into it.

quote chautemoc

It's worse because New Vegas is a blatantly better game than Fallout 3 was, which got 91. When scoring starts directly and majorly affecting people's livelihoods, it's not hard to see it causes more problems than it solves, and bigger ones.

I'm afraid I have to disagree, taking away the "which was buggier" argument, I preferred Fallout 3 to New Vegas the fact I have only played a couple of hours of NV compared to my usual 100+ hours in Fallout 3 should somewhat state something on that matter.

The main issue with NV is the same that most people have regarding L4D 1, L4D 2, CoD MW 2 and CoD MW 3...they see them more like "expansion packs" to their predecessors rather than a standalone game

On that part, I think it was simply jumping from Fallout 3 straight into NV that I just couldn't be bothered to carry on...not to mention the constant CTDs I had (Which was ruled out every which way under the sun that it wasn't my PC or anything interfering with it)

Adding in the "which was buggier" both games have bugs and issues but I suffered more in NV than I did in Fallout 3...not a surprise either considering NV uses the exact same engine...which I would like to remind people that Obsidian created Alpha Protocol, which I have seen a friend play and experienced nothing but bugs and issues...in other words I can't remember the last time I rated an Obsidian game highly come to think of it.

Most disappointingly with NV is the fact that some remains of the Black Isle team work at Obsidian, which I would of thought that they would have shown the "new guys" (Beth Soft) how to really create and polish a Fallout game...sadly I was wrong.

All in all, I bat for Fallout 3 over New Vegas

Regarding the news item, it is a shame they missed out by 1 point but that's life...no matter where you are or what you do in life...if you do not meet expectations or you under perform (No matter how many people state how good your products are) then you miss out on the bonus

Shadow_of_Death "Metacritic" doesn't have the power and they shouldn't be blamed for this...Metacritic itself is simply a hub of reviews done by many people and compiled into one single score. If you look at NV's metacritic page the reviewers gave not 1 negative review and an overwhelming number of positive reviews.

While I personally prefer Fallout 3 to NV, I still commend the developers on getting decent scores but the point is, if your product is not up to scratch for the day numerous people review it then it will get a lower rating than expected regardless of how many patches are thrown out after the release

That is why developers are pushed to aim for nothing lower than 85 on Metacritic, it's not an official gaming industry tool but many developers use it as a guideline and something to aim for.

In other words, if I was in charge and set a goal, I wouldn't expect anything lower than 85 either...if it happens then either something within the game is terribly wrong (thus check out what people are saying) or there's a possibility of the reviewer's intentions being something deeper

Overall, Metacritic averages out all of the scores from various reviewers. Lowest positive NV got was 75 with majority stating "if it wasn't for the technical issues, this would get a better score"...so when the majority of reviewers are having tech issues, there's no surprise they just missed out on their bonus

ShadowJ - I didn't mean to say that they themselves had the power directly, but rather it was others (Bethesda Execs.) basing the distribution of bonuses on the Metacritic aggregate. I can just imagine people at Obsidian checking Metacritic every day hoping it would go up just a little bit more.

quote Shadow of Death

ShadowJ - I didn't mean to say that they themselves had the power directly, but rather it was others (Bethesda Execs.) basing the distribution of bonuses on the Metacritic aggregate. I can just imagine people at Obsidian checking Metacritic every day hoping it would go up just a little bit more.

Believe me, after being behind the scenes myself most people that work in the gaming industry check it, not for that notion but generally just for curiosity.

Trust me, it is disheartening but when someone offers you a collection of most reviews around the Internet with an average score across them all on a silver platter...there's not much that can be done (To my knowledge there is not another site like Metacritic to challenge it)

Going back to curiosity, I'm sure there's employees that will forward on articles such as this through the mailing lists etc.

Can Neo please do a review of NV to increase the score a tiny bit?