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Preys-World - Darkfall Online Review Comment

Friday 8th of May, 2009 - 13:02:56 GMT

As the second edition of the Preys-World Magazine was launching, which you can read here, the big spat regarding a bad review for the MMO Darkfall reached us and continued to burn throughout the week. Though entirely online, Eurogamer, offshoot of GamesIndustry.biz, prides itself on quick first reviews of new game launches.

The problem arises when, as quoted in one of the opinion pieces, it’s an MMO, so knowing how many hours you can play before you release your review will always be a measurement with a piece of string. Every other time we've commented on review methods by gaming journalists the subject has been scores that appear grossly inflated, or reasonable to below average like six out of ten. This is the first time there has been a backlash to a critical drubbing with such a low score.

We don’t have the pressure of having to be first with a review, even if there would be some cachet to having your review in the crowd. With the kind of games that get heavy attention from PW contributors such as TF2, Left 4 Dead, Empire Total War (the latter discussed in our recent podcast ), such games receive either incremental or game-changing content updates which either enhance, improve or worsen an opinion of a game. With MMOs, rapid constant changes go beyond simple patching; they’re the lifeblood necessary to keep players interested in the game world. The allegation is that whether it was a playing time of three hours as claimed by the developer, or nine hours over both accounts as claimed by the contributor through Eurogamer in its response, Darkfall wasn’t played for long enough to allow the slating and record low score of 2/10 bestowed upon it by Eurogamer.

In an attempt to resolve the dispute Keiron Gillen has been drafted in to write another review of the game thus giving two perspectives on one game in the style of PC Zone’s earlier days. Given his status in the games media, there’s certainly more trust of his opinion. In my view that's a good enough concession to the fans, as there are no winners from the current situation. Attempts to tough it out against the fans' flaming comments in the style of a print games magazine like PC Gamer would help no-one.

It would seem that the flaming fans have done their job – a bad review isn’t great for the business side, but if enough people like and buy your game, supporting it month by month, then the media will be proved wrong – as shown by PC classics Vietcong and Hitman Codename 47.

- Kenneth Henry

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