Fucking Kotaku

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Man, those Gut Check articles really grind my gears. They are aggressively meaningless. I mean, little mini-reviews are fine, but making them suggestions to buy games was probably not the best idea. I mean, it just make Kotaku look like shills and hucksters. They are linkbait, though, which works in Gawker's favor.

 

But should Kotaku really squander what editorial power and pull it has by giving tons of games its stamp of approval? The standard for a yes is really... amorphous, I suppose. Every half-decent game with an audience will pass it; only the very worst will get a 'No.'

 

 

Edit: Here's their latest for the new Spyro game. You can find the others yourselves. I believe in you.

 

Haven't read the Spyro one but I happen to like the gut check articles where it shows a paragraph about what someone approaching a game from various perspectives would think.

[Strangelove]

That guy getting unstarred cracked me up for some reason. I don't know why.

[excel_excel]

That guy getting unstarred cracked me up for some reason. I don't know why.

 

Me too. Maybe cause his comments are normally just one sentence long, CONSTANTLY. He doesn't say much more than just a sentence of nonsense. I don't hate the guy but c'mon nothing is lost here.

[Thorgi Duke of Frisbee]

King Kellogg finally got unstarred? OH HAPPY DAY.

[Strangelove]

Maybe I didnt notice because I was trolling myself at the time, but there are a ton of trolls with stars on there now. Shit, we got some here. I guess you just watch your mouth enough to troll, but not enough to get unstarred or banned. Well, thats how I rolled anyways.

[deanb]

http://gamejournos.com/post/11595707804/its-pre-alpha-code-im-reminded-by-the-attending

 

So it starts as a "fucking kotaku" with Crecente been told the Skyrim preview sites played other day is "pre-alpha" n just accepting that. But then when you hit up and notice you've got folks from Ars Technica, Wired, and a bunch of other sites apparently all fine with it being "pre-alpha". "This is what bethesda have told us". Ars even made a whole article out of it defending it and saying that readers need to be "educated".

 

For those kinda unsure on what I'm ranting on:

 

pre-alpha: Absolute shitty n raw. It's to flesh out idea. Wouldn't' be surprised if it's just a case of modding Oblivion to try stuff out.

 

Alpha: Getting the features put in, adding dragons, the levelling system, proper walking animations, duel-wielding spells.

 

Beta: Shit is in that needs to be in. Now it's a case of getting rid of bugs. This is most likely the version the press played.

 

Release candidate: This is where the game is hopefully at or beyond given it's like less than a month away. This version is as bug free as you're gonna get (as in casting a spell won't crash the console, this is a bethesda game after all)

 

Gold: Version 1.0. This is the final compiled version of the game sent to printing n distribution.

 

It's kinda disturbing the technical ineptitude of some writers.

[fuchikoma]

That does suck, but I don't see what alternative they have as "journalists." I mean, of course it's not pre-alpha at this point, but he could no more prove that than I could prove that Razer bought Joel (for instance...)

 

Call them on BS and you're wrong: You look like a tool.

Call them on BS and you're right: At best, they get flustered and deny it. Still no proof, so you'll probably look like a tool.

Parrot the PR line: "I'm just relaying what the guy told me. Take it up with the studio..."

[deanb]

You don't have to say it's bullshit, just question it. You look a tad worse when you just accept it as verbatim due to either just being a "journalists" accepting all you're told as true, or looking like you ain't got much tech know-how. It's jsut rather depressing when a large chunk of "journalists" join in with it. You don't need to prove their "lying", just don't accept what is said as fact if it sounds off to you.

 

What will make you look like a tool is the old "neiner neiner you're unemployed" line, but that's slightly unrelated (but it does seem game journalists like to throw out that ad hominem attack time to time)

[Baconrath]

Maybe cause his comments are normally just one sentence long, CONSTANTLY. He doesn't say much more than just a sentence of nonsense.

 

Just like my comments.

[Johnny]

While calling Skyrim pre-alpha is obviously bullshit, it's not like the definitions are as set in stone as you make them sound, Dean.

 

For reference, I've never played a Blizzard beta with all of the planned features implemented. For other examples, see Minecraft's beta.

[deanb]

It's pretty set in stone, the problem is devs mis-using them. Technical terms are becoming marketing terms. e.g Minecraft for example has only just hit beta as of yesterday, yet it became "beta" ages ago, same time as the price went up.

[RockyRan]

I just find it interesting how many journalists from far and wide come together to defend and rationalize why developers put out shitty old code for their previews.

 

It's common knowledge that when you preview ANYTHING it's expected to be of high quality and relatively polished. Otherwise, you got a "preview" that's not at all informative of what the game will be like. Let's say there's glitches in a game (and there's glitches in EVERY game) that have been there since the "preview code" was played by journalists. A journalist catches that but can't call out the devs because it's "pre-alpha"? Then what the hell is a journalist supposed to do? Report only on the shit's that's nice and rosy?

 

Goes to show, 95% of gaming journalism comprises of people spouting off regurgitated PR lines. Certainly seems that way when said journalists come out to defend developers giving out buggy code that's not representative of the final game. If you're handing out shit not representative of the final product, why even do a preview in the first place? Obviously to keep the hype and marketing machine going, and obviously NOT to actually report and keep people informed.

[MasterDex]

Goes to show, 95% of gaming journalism comprises of people spouting off regurgitated PR lines. Certainly seems that way when said journalists come out to defend developers giving out buggy code that's not representative of the final game. If you're handing out shit not representative of the final product, why even do a preview in the first place? Obviously to keep the hype and marketing machine going, and obviously NOT to actually report and keep people informed.

 

That's the problem with the majority of games journalism. The journalists are at the whims of the developers and publishers. It's fine to shit on a game after the reviews are in or if the developers have no great pull but don't you dare shit on a game in a preview or review from a big name dev or publisher because then you're hurting those lovely, lovely publishers and developers giving you the privilege of playing the preview.

 

The system is completely backwards. Developers and publishers should feel beholden to the journalists, not the other way around. Game journalists, despite the current situation, have more power than the developers and publishers. Sure, they may threaten to deny access to a preview build or review copy but journalists can also threaten to give them bad press. Look at Gerstmann-gate. Who thinks as much of Eidos now as they did before that debacle? - Or Gamespot for that matter. If the big name journalists grew some balls, they'd find the industry acquiesce to their need for previews and review copies. Unfortunately, that's unlikely to happen and we're just going to see the industry tighten its grip on the gaming press to the point that the best hope for honest opinions will only be found on blogs and in metacritic user reviews

[Thursday Next]

As industry terminology:

 

Pre-Alpha: Early code. Not all features implemented.

Alpha: Content lock. No new features should be added. Start looking for and fixing bugs.

Beta: All issues have been found. Fix the outstanding issues and any bugs that arise from those fixes.

Final: Game has no unknown / unaddressed issues.

 

It's pretty much set in stone, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, EA they all mean the same thing when they say the above. Of course sometimes games do get features added after being declared Alpha, but the terminology is standard industry wide.

[GunFlame]

Meh, Alpha and Beta lost any sense of consistency ages ago. It only used to have any meaning within the walls of a single company, across multiple companies, they mean shit. In this current day of open Beta and advertised Alpha's they mean next to nothing at all.

 

Generally, we move to terms like Prototype, Content Complete, Feature Complete etc...Alpha and Beta are too subjective to be useful.

 

There's no such thing as a pre-alpha, unless people want to see something unplayable and hardly resembling anything. You could call this a Prototype if you wanted.

 

An Alpha is usually something that has the core functions in place, and that's about it. It's likely still unplayable in reference to the final game, due to the amount of content that is still absent.

 

A Beta you could say is where the functions are all in, and so is most of the content. There are still plenty of bugs, and plenty of things to finish and fix up.

 

But all of these meanings are screwed due to MMO's and games like Minecraft just using them for sake of convenience.

 

Alpha and Beta are worthless terms.

[Thursday Next]

Across multiple companies, I'd go so far as to say across the industry, the terms mean pretty much the same thing.

 

As previously stated, MS, Sony, EA and SEGA all use the terms as I described above.

[GunFlame]

They may put it on paper, but the reality is much, much different.

 

I mean, for starters: "Beta: All issues have been found. Fix the outstanding issues and any bugs that arise from those fixes"

 

All issues are never found. Outstanding bug fixes continue and run past the Gold submission date.

 

"Alpha: Content lock. No new features should be added. Start looking for and fixing bugs."

 

The Content Complete can run way into the above "Beta" stage. Place holders for some assets and animations last for a long, long time.

 

Those terms are used for milestones and contract payments, but they are in no way locked to that description. I've worked on Microsoft games that are no where near close to sticking to those guidelines, and I know guys who have worked for Sega and EA who have seen similar things.

 

Alpha and Beta both have very little meaning, regardless of what they are supposed to mean.

[Thursday Next]

I think we're using "meaning" in different ways.

 

The definitions of Alpha, Beta and so forth are the same across the industry. I'm painfully aware that they are often not strictly adhered to. Regardless of what some studios do, if someone says that software is "in Alpha" then the assumption should be that it is not content locked or particularly stable. If it is Beta, then the assumption should be that it is feature complete, but buggy.

 

If Valve say content is releasing on 20th October, then we should assume that they mean the same 20th October as the rest of us, i.e. Tomorrow, even though we all know that Valve time means that it could be sometime next year. The meaning of 20th October doesn't change just because Valve don't stick to it.

 

Also, note that a placeholder means that the content is present, it's just not working properly, placeholders are perfectly acceptable when declaring Alpha complete.

[GunFlame]

No, a placeholder means that the content isn't ready, so something has been put there in it's place. For example, an NPC is missing, so all NPC's use the same model. The alternate models are counted as content. So it isn't content complete.

 

And like I said, the terms Content Complete and Feature Complete are much more readily used, than Alpha and Beta. I only ever see Beta now when working with 3rd Parties or viewing Press Releases.

Edited October 19, 2011 by GunFlame

[Johnny]

I'm with GunFlame on this. Whatever a word is supposed to mean, if it is actually used differently in practice, to me it's the "in practice" that counts.

 

Dictionaries are used to catalogue language, they do not decide how language is actually used in practice, or how it evolves.

 

For that matter, if Final means there are NO issues... well, then no game is Final. Hell, according to the list ThursdayNext posted, most games I've played are really Alpha, because bugs keep getting discovered years after the games are released.

[Thursday Next]

No, a placeholder means that the content isn't ready, so something has been put there in it's place. For example, an NPC is missing, so all NPC's use the same model. The alternate models are counted as content. So it isn't content complete.

 

And like I said, the terms Content Complete and Feature Complete are much more readily used, than Alpha and Beta. I only ever see Beta now when working with 3rd Parties or viewing Press Releases.

 

 

Lets take an example Alpha test:

 

"Credits" are present.

 

This test is passed if there is a button on the menu that says "Credits" that then goes to a placeholder "Lorem Ipsum" text document. The functionality is present, it is just not working correctly.

 

Alpha Pass, Beta Fail.

 

So, if the term "Alpha" does not mean Feature/Content Complete, and "Beta" does not mean "No unknown issues". What exactly do they mean? Because whenever I hear the terms used by QA that is exactly what they are referring to.

 

Like I said before Jonny, October 20th doesn't stop being October 20th just because one is always running late. The definition remains the same even if the interpretation changes.

 

And yes, I know, no game is ever bug free, the Alpha, Beta, Final milestones are idealised goals.

[GunFlame]

That's what I'm saying, that they don't really mean anything anymore.

 

Test Cases are built not for Alpha and Beta checks, but Milestone and Build Log content. They are much accurate and not at all subjective.

 

This is the same with Content and Feature complete. Heck, there's not even a definition for a Release Candidate, for that, it's what the time permits.

 

Alpha and Beta are terms that companies can employ if they wish, but they don't mean anything standard.

[Strangelove]

http://kotaku.com/5851303/should-reviewers-take-off-points-for-online-passes

 

This has to be one of the stupidest things ive ever read.

Thats like lowering a score on a movie because you didnt wait to watch it in the dollar theater.

[madbassman39]

Well, I just found today that on Gawker, there is now a minimum size comment to which you can reply. Lets say someone calls you an asshole, or just "stupid", and you want to ask them "what makes me an asshole?" or "what makes me stupid", you cannot reply to that person because the comment is too short.

[Strangelove]

Someone trolled the comics topic and its gotten over 50 comments. Why are people so dumb?